The Chechen Dilemma

[Agathon]

This is from the only non-partisan news site in Venezuela. It provides some perspective.

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=22654

[LDiCesare]

What happens in Chechnya is akin to genocide indeed. As for Putin being in his right mind, a former high level KGB executive is certainly not above arranging things to get the opinion on his side.
Russia has attacked Chechnya into becoming desperate. They deserve what they get. It's better to have a Taliban-like state than a lot of ruins and corpses lying around. Comparing the handling of Chechnya and Iraq is certainly not in favor of Russia. Even if Chechns didn't give much liberty to their people, at least they kept them alive, and I'm not sure they were more corrupt than the Russians.
That's about all I can say from what info I've got. So if we don't know, please explain us and enlighten us.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Uncle Sparky


Similar to what the Arabs militias, backed by the US supported Sudanese government have been doing since the 1970's ? Similar, yes. In Sudan, there is limited viable land and there has always been a black/Arab conflict, especially in times of drought. Putin is trying to reestablish an imperial Russia, and squashing descent is important to control. In 1991, about the same time as Bylorus, Latvia etc. were breaking away from the solviet empire, Chechnya peacefully declared independence.

So, are some of you advocating a Simon de Montfort solution - "Kill them all - God will know His own?" If there is such a thing as an innocent Chechen, maybe they should be killed just in case ?

Peacefully, my ass.
There were real blood bath.
Whatever, why should I enlighten you about genocide of non-Chechens there. You are blind. Anyone who thinks that "Some elements within the population, probably well under 1%, have now resorted to terrorism" knows nothing about situation in Chechnya.
You say- Putin control the media, I say- you are absolutely brainwashed by your "free" media. What the **** else should happen before you'll yunderstand that those people are terrorists, that they have their own sepcific morale which allows them to kill children (surelly you don't know, but it's in their traditions to be brutal and show no mercy, even to children and woman). Surelly you never heard about non-Chechens and non-Muslims burned alive on streets of Grozny when they "peacefully declared independence" and when they had thier Taliban state in 1996-1999.
You- the west are hopeless, you governments, (for their own reason, which is- we don't need strong Russia) show you what them want you to see and you beieve you are free and knew everything, but in fact you know NOTHING.
And don't bother to reply, I already knew what you'll say-nj, no, no, it's Russian propaganda. They are nice people who'll never do any harm to a child.

[Serb]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
What happens in Chechnya is akin to genocide indeed. As for Putin being in his right mind, a former high level KGB executive is certainly not above arranging things to get the opinion on his side.
Russia has attacked Chechnya into becoming desperate. They deserve what they get. I It's better to have a Taliban-like state than a lot of ruins and corpses lying around. Comparing the handling of Chechnya and Iraq is certainly not in favor of Russia. Even if Chechns didn't give much liberty to their people, at least they kept them alive, and I'm not sure they were more corrupt than the Russians.
That's about all I can say from what info I've got. So if we don't know, please explain us and enlighten us.

and your source is? www.somenewsh!tforbrainwashedmorons.com?

You are hopless ****ers.
Burn in hell for what you've said.

[Uncle Sparky]

First - I do not support anyone killing innocent civilians. I have never said I did.

Second - You are correct - by the end of the first millennia of the Christian era, the Muscovite Principalities (specifically Kiev) had defeated the Khazarian Khanate, which included the Chechen region. By the early 13th century CE the "Golden Horde" was indeed the common foe in the region. Grozny was in deed built by the Solviet Russians as were many other cities across the USSR to foster Russification. With the fall of totalitarian communism, death & dislocation took place in Chechnia, as it did in many areas where historical ethnic animosities remained.

Third - You (serb) have clearly illustrated what I said - either both sides have to stop the "they are all evil - kill them all" mentality or this will continue.
Would you feel better if the pictures were of Chechen children being carried out of a burning school ? I hope not or genocide might be the only solution.

[Agathon]

it's Russian propaganda. They are nice people who'll never do any harm to a child.

[Kropotkin]

Originally posted by Agathon
Maybe if Putin hadn't rigged the Chechen elections, things wouldn't be so bad.

Damn it Aghaton, get your act together! You justed to have something to add to the debate, but nowadays it's just childish remarks.

The terrorists seems to have been planning this for a year, it hardly a spotanious reaction to the recent election.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Uncle Sparky
First - I do not support anyone killing innocent civilians. I have never said I did.

Second - You are correct - by the end of the first millennia of the Christian era, the Muscovite Principalities (specifically Kiev) had defeated the Khazarian Khanate, which included the Chechen region. By the early 13th century CE the "Golden Horde" was indeed the common foe in the region. Grozny was in deed built by the Solviet Russians as were many other cities across the USSR to foster Russification. With the fall of totalitarian communism, death & dislocation took place in Chechnia, as it did in many areas where historical ethnic animosities remained.

Third - You (serb) have clearly illustrated what I said - either both sides have to stop the "they are all evil - kill them all" mentality or this will continue.
Would you feel better if the pictures were of Chechen children being carried out of a burning school ? I hope not or genocide might be the only solution.

I'm 27 years old and last time I cried when I was a kid, but last days I feel absolutelly shoked and nearly cried when saw those kids. You seems to do not understad- most of those kids were Ossetins, some were Russian kids, some were Ingush kids and some were Chechen kids, since all those nationalities live in North Ossetia. For me they were just kids, regardles of their nationality. Had terrorists wanted to kill only Russian kids, they would go anywhere deeper into Russian territory. Those f*ckers just wanted to kill kids to start blood bath on the Caucasus.

[Combat Ingrid]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
They deserve what they get.

Yes, those kids certainly deserved what they got

[Az]

A comparison of this thread to regular ME threads is soo interesting...

[LDiCesare]

I was talking about war. Don't tell me that Russians didn't cause any child to die. Now I apologize as what I said is far too harsh. Terrorism is bad, but the fact is that the west doesn't understand the war waged by Russia against Chechens. Serb's refusal to explain doesn't help. You know and could explain, but don't. You say they are terrorists, sure they are. But why did they become such? It looks like their country is invaded and they are defending themselves in a desperate way. If their economy is wrecked and most of them are being killed, it's understandable that they retaliate.
I ment to say: If you do not explain why this war is waged, then it looks like that you are invading an independant nation for no good reason. As you point out, media are biased and don't give much info about the Russian point of view. Explain us instead of insulting. Otherwise you look like racists committing a genocide, if it's an all out war on both sides, and that includes killing children, and yes that's bad and horrible, and in such a case you'd deserve what you get (should have put the conditional in the first place):
.

Five months of indiscriminate bombing and shelling in 1999 and early 2000 resulted in thousands of civilian deaths.

(http://hrw.org/wr2k4/7.htm#_Toc58744956) No children there?
So please explain the situation so we can undesrtand what Russia is trying to accomplish in this place. I never heard of rebuilding for instance or helping the economy

[The Mad Monk]

Retaliate against whom? Russians? Then their aim is way off...

Putin was in Beslan yestarday and ordered to close all borders of North Ossetia and to start search of d!cks who helped terrorists in preparation of this act. Also he said that main goal of this act was "to explode the Caucasus" and everyone who will fall into this provocation will be considered as terrorist's sympotyzer.
I've to explain what he meant. The peoples of Cucasus maintain a very long traditions of blood revenge or vindetta. In such cases they act in accordance with "an eye for an eye" principle. In accordance with thier traditions, relatives of the dead children should take arms and did with murders or their families the same thing what they did with thier families- kill.
As for me, it's absolutely clear that terrorists didn't plan to achieve any political goal by act. They've planned to kill their victims from the beggining. In 2002, in Moscow's theater the situation was absolutely different. First of all they demanded access to TV air, and made a clear (but still impossible) demands. They've forced relatives of the hostages to make an anti-war demostration. They were negotiating, I don't remeber exact number, but I believe about 100 hostages were released after negotiations. They allowed food, water and medicine, which means they planned to stay with the hostages for a long time. And more probably they planned to escape the theather and Moscow via buses using hostages as alive shields (like it happened before), since all of them, except their leader were in masks to hide their faces, which means that they really did want to die there.
Non of that happened this time. This time they didn't make clear demands, no TV, no serious attempts of negotiations, only one person they demanded for talks, had entered the building. Former hostages said that they didn't hide their faces and told them that everyone including themselves will die there.
As for me, they planned to kill the children, becuase relatives of the children will came to Chechnya to kill Chechens, Chechens in their turn will came to Ossetia to kill Ossetins and so on. Their plan was to start the circle of violence.

http://www.apolyton.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=121574&pagenumber=4

They targeted Chechens.

[Serb]

Sure they did, but not only Chechen, but all peoples of Caucasus. Terrorists need "hot zones", they need constant war. War feeds them. They can't exist without war, ethnic tensions, they simply need violence to fulfill their goals. In Chechnya things were slowly, step by step but get back to normal. Local institutions were restored, Chechens themselves maintain order there, had their own police, elect their representatives to Russian pariliament and senate, elect their own leadership, apporoved new constitution of the republic. This is unacceptable for religious extremists worldwide. They need a constant war on Caucasus. That's why they did it.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
don't yall hate extremists? the Chechens were in the right this whole time. They were being oppressed by the Russians when they should have been given their independence with the collapse of the USSR. The russians were doing them very wrong.

unfortunately, the Chechen extremists just burned all their bridges with this one. The hostage situation in that theater a year ago was bad enough but this? what good for the Chechens could possibly come out of this? are they just being fatalistic?

I agree with this. A pity they did it, both for the children and for the Chechen cause. However if I was fighting, I'd still be fighting on the Chechen side. Give them independance and this all stops right here.

[Kidlicious]

Give them independence? Would we give someone who went into a school and killed as many children as they could freedom in our own countries? No. We kill them or put them in prison.