[extropy-chat] Putin, Beslan spin, and the Chechya spiral

Amara Graps amara.graps at gmail.com
Sun Sep 19 10:01:15 UTC 2004


Hello,

I wonder if you have been following the events in Russia since
the Beslan tradgedy. We know what happened. The terrorists
targeted a school, many died. Involving children in a war breaks
an unspoken rule, so the terrorists actions  look to the world as
more than barbaric.

In this tragedy, it seems that the Russian govenment/military
tried to do more things right this time than in the Moscow
Theatre, but still they did many things wrong, including blocking
international media from reporting the events accurately:

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3173186

As big as this tragedy was, the next actions by Putin look even
bigger. He was quick to encapsulate this event into "Russia's
September 11", he was quick to make an (unjustified, IMO) link
from Chechen terrorists to Al Quaida, which was supposed to then
justify his sweeping changes in the Russian government. He is
successfully turning today's Russia into a dictatorship.

http://www.economist.co.uk/agenda/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=3195142

"Under his new measures, the governors of Russia's 89 regions will
be chosen by the president (and then confirmed by local
assemblies), instead of being directly elected. Mr Putin also
plans to abolish the first-past-the-post contests that currently
fill half the seats in the parliament (Duma). In future, the
entire Duma will be made up from party lists, which will squeeze
out independent legislators."

He has also said that he is justified to pre-emptively strike
terrorists anywhere in the world.

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040915-120941-6017r.htm

Is anyone here not bothered by this? We have now two very large
governments claiming that they can preemptively strike anywhere
in the world. Goverment USA's reason is "Weapons of Mass
Destruction". Government Russia's reason is "Terrorist".

Putin claims that he is justfied because the actions in Beslan
was involving international terrorists. I would like to point out
that the man claiming responsibility for the events in Beslan
says that no link exists:

http://www.iht.com/articles/539483.html
"His claim seemed intended to counter allegations by the Kremlin
and Russian security services that he has been doing the bidding
of Al Qaeda."

Are there not reasons enough to think that the Russian
government/military actions in Chechnya during the last decades
were more than enough reasons to breed homegrown terrorists?

Let's assume that the tactics used in Chechnya during the last
couple of decades resemble some of the tactics used by the Russian
government and military in their invasion/occupation in
Afghanistan 1979-1990. They invaded and occupied an independent
country under the pretext to 'stabilize' the local government,
and then proceeded to slaughter. Some ten million Afghans by 1986
no longer existed (one million murdered, many more millions as
refugees). Even though the Afghans are smart, fierce and they
succeeded remarkably  to drive away what was supposed to be the
best-equipped army in the world, the result was a generation of
Afghans mostly gone. That would be reason enough to the Afghans
to despise the Russian government. But there's more reasons. 

The Soviet military operated under no rules of war. Included in
their tactics were tortures, taking family members as hostages to
manipulate officials, hangings were normal, with no age limits as
children were fair play to the Soviet military. Assault
helicoptors routinely targeted small villages, farmers, ordinary
people, bombing, wiping them out, then the copters returned
dropping "explosive candies": brightly colored packages wrapping
explosives, imitation playthings, watches, womens' combs. When
people returned later to try to rebuild their homes, the
"candies" blew off a hand or foot, or blinded, or maimed.
Children were irresistively drawn to the explosive candies no
matter what the adults told them, so the maimed children
outnumberd the adult victims by ten-to-one. 

Therefore, don't assume that the Russian government are the poor
innocents in this story. The real innocents are the civilians
caught in the middle, used as fodder. While there is no human
excuse for what the terrorists did in Beslan, my guess about the
motivations for the terrorists' actions in Beslan is an eye-for-an-eye
response to increasingly brutal Russian military actions. And
the brutal spiral continues.

Amara



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