I watched the news on it last night and two points struck me.
Firstly why are there reports trying to link this with Al Qaeda? There may have been arabs in the group of terrorists but this was a Chechen attack and they have been doing it for years, why are they trying to use the situation to turn it into an Al Qaeda thing?
Secondly the critcism which the special services and Russian authorities are getting for the way they dealt with the situation seems totally unfair, this was an unprecedented situation and who knows which way it would have gone if it had happened here or in America. Russia is a different culture which deals with things differently, I am sure they did the best that they could in such a difficult situation.
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Originally posted by elf Firstly why are there reports trying to link this with Al Qaeda? There may have been arabs in the group of terrorists but this was a Chechen attack and they have been doing it for years, why are they trying to use the situation to turn it into an Al Qaeda thing?
I have to agree with you here - unless Al Queda have started issuing membership cards I don't see how they can possibly know that there is any involvment with them. It seems to have all the hallmarks of a witch hunt in the same vein as the 'satanic child abuse' or 'internet perverts' ones we have had. Once an idea permeates the media they don't seem to be able to put it down.
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Secondly the critcism which the special services and Russian authorities are getting for the way they dealt with the situation seems totally unfair, this was an unprecedented situation and who knows which way it would have gone if it had happened here or in America. Russia is a different culture which deals with things differently, I am sure they did the best that they could in such a difficult situation.
The Russian special services did seem badly organised and seemed to be taking a direct military action (lots of people running round with GPMGs and RPG launchers - not really the sort of things you want flying in a hostage situation). However bitching about how well or badly they handled the situation helps no-one. What would be rather more helpfull is to share knowledge and tactics. We have possibly the best anti-terrorist group in the world here in the UK - perhaps we should be looning a few of them out to help train up some specialist anti terrorist services either in specific countries or as a mobile UN/EU service?
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Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. - Oscar Wilde
Originally posted by elf the critcism which the special services and Russian authorities are getting for the way they dealt with the situation seems totally unfair, this was an unprecedented situation and who knows which way it would have gone if it had happened here or in America.
Waco.
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Death of one's own free choice, death at the proper time, with a clear head and with joyfulness, consummated in the midst of children and witnesses: so that an actual leave-taking is possible while he who is leaving is still there.
'The right to self determination' - one of Woodrow Wilson's 14 points after WW1 - shouldn't be extended with the words 'by any means necessary'.
The Chechen separatists have proven again that they're a bunch of barbarians - something that they've proved in the past by beheading a group of engineers, amongst other atrocities.
At the risk of getting a bucket full of approbation on my head about how I shouldn't judge the actions of these people in Western terms, you might argue that people who fight for independence like this are quite possibly incapable of building a civilised nation if they ever get independence.
Perhaps one thing that we should do is send a bunch of SAS folks to Russia to teach the Russian Special Forces how to handle these things - they're clearly not up to the job, which is to be expected in some ways - we built our anti-terrorism forces up over years of terrorist activity whereas the Russians traditionally dealt with problems by sending in tanks, troops and helicopter gunships.
It's been a ****ty two or three days. I need a Dandelion Break.... (one for all you Bloom County fans out there)
Joe
__________________ "I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud." - CG Jung
My homepage : http://www.joep.communityhost.org.uk
Originally posted by JoePritchard 'The right to self determination' - one of Woodrow Wilson's 14 points after WW1 - shouldn't be extended with the words 'by any means necessary'.
The Chechen separatists have proven again that they're a bunch of barbarians - something that they've proved in the past by beheading a group of engineers, amongst other atrocities.
At the risk of getting a bucket full of approbation on my head about how I shouldn't judge the actions of these people in Western terms, you might argue that people who fight for independence like this are quite possibly incapable of building a civilised nation if they ever get independence.
Perhaps one thing that we should do is send a bunch of SAS folks to Russia to teach the Russian Special Forces how to handle these things - they're clearly not up to the job, which is to be expected in some ways - we built our anti-terrorism forces up over years of terrorist activity whereas the Russians traditionally dealt with problems by sending in tanks, troops and helicopter gunships.
It's been a ****ty two or three days. I need a Dandelion Break.... (one for all you Bloom County fans out there)
Joe
It is, as Max has pointed out, not about the Chechens fighting for freedom so much as the Russians trying not to lose a major oil producing region.
To condemn the Chechen terrorists is appropriate. In the same breath I would equally condemn the successive Russian regimes for their treatment of the region since the twenties.
There are no innocent parties here other than the blameless lives lost both at the school, at the theatre, in the air, and by the tens of thousands in Grozny.
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Fair enough, but no doubt the Chechens won't bitch too much about getting the oil either, if they get independence.
Yes, the Russian government has behaved badly in the two Chechen Wars. But we're talking about this particular incident - and to be frank starving kids of food and water, mining the place and then using them as bargaining counters isn't on. This isn't collateral damage, this is deliberately planned barbarism.
The Russian case is not strong for hanging on to the region, but to be frank the way forward is not for the Chechens to act like animals.
Joe
__________________ "I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud." - CG Jung
My homepage : http://www.joep.communityhost.org.uk
Originally posted by Phanerothyme What can one discuss about this, other than to acknowledge sympathy and maybe even an iota of empathy for the hostages and their relatives.
I have stopped watching the tv news altogether. In fact I seem to have stopped watching the tv altogether for some reason.
So I would love to comment, but I can't.
I have to agree with Phan.
I heard of this news in the middle of a lecture about protecting the spirit of children. It upset me greatly and moved me to tears. I have not and actively do not keep up with the news. Some will say that we should seek to be aware of things like this. I myself do not wish to be aware of tradgedies like this.
It leaves me saddened, frustrated, and shocked. Short of me getting on a plane and standing in the path of the terrorists there is no way for me to vent the frustrations I felt at this news.
Of course there are small things that we can all do to try and prevent or help these disasters, but nothing we can do directly to help at the time. Only in the aftermath.
Originally posted by bonny Some will say that we should seek to be aware of things like this. I myself do not wish to be aware of tradgedies like this.
Yeah...what you don't know can't hurt you, ey?
I'll say that again, in case you missed the emphasis. What you don't know can't hurt you.
Dear me. Would you rather we had just turned a blind eye to, for example, the holocaust? I mean, if it's a bit upsetting for you, that's got to be 100 times worse than the suffering of the Jews, ey?
Originally posted by noseyrosie Yeah...what you don't know can't hurt you, ey?
I'll say that again, in case you missed the emphasis. What you don't know can't hurt you.
Dear me. Would you rather we had just turned a blind eye to, for example, the holocaust? I mean, if it's a bit upsetting for you, that's got to be 100 times worse than the suffering of the Jews, ey?
You've missed bonny's point entirely and there is no need to suddenly impute that she somehow wants to deny the holocaust. That's a pretty big leap even by your standards. The holocaust has absolutely naff all to do with discussion (hint: emphasise something if you are going to emphasise it )
The thing is there is a difference between knowing of an event, as one might listen to a radio news broadcast, and immersing oneself in a pornography of newsjunkiedom and detailed accounts of violent death.
On the one hand we are to be informed. On the other hand we do so easily become obsessed with a single incident, with as you point out, a relatively small number of fatalaties.
I am avoiding the endless post mortem by television that follows an event like this, and the orgiastic zeal with which some television (and it is nearly always television) networks pursue purely the most televisual angle (bombs, excitement, blood, death, usual hollywood fare that we are so inured to).
Also, to try and actively comment on something that seems to have been so chaotic before the smoke even clears seems to me to be speaking from a deliberately misinformed veiwpoint.
It's a fine balance that the press and radio seems to be able to judge but that TV just misses altogether.
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Originally posted by JoePritchard Fair enough, but no doubt the Chechens won't bitch too much about getting the oil either, if they get independence.
Yes, the Russian government has behaved badly in the two Chechen Wars. But we're talking about this particular incident - and to be frank starving kids of food and water, mining the place and then using them as bargaining counters isn't on. This isn't collateral damage, this is deliberately planned barbarism.
The Russian case is not strong for hanging on to the region, but to be frank the way forward is not for the Chechens to act like animals.
Joe
It is utterly insane in my opinion. What differentiates the two parties here is that the Chechen guerrillas and their willing new comrades are personally insane as evidenced by their methods. Their psychotic lack of empathy and misanthropic zeal are hard to combat without recourse to overpowering violence.
Similiary the incumbent Russian regimes since 1992 have behaved in an institutionally insane fashion, bombarding a city of civilians and killing tens of thousands of Russians, let alone Chechens, let alone Chechen rebels. The dehumanization of the sides has lead to a war characterised by atrocity upon atrocity. People are waking up and paying more attention now that the atrocities are moving out of Chechnya however.
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Man the Lifeboats ! Tell the band to play on! Women and Children First!
Originally posted by JoePritchard
The Chechen separatists have proven again that they're a bunch of barbarians -
That's not surprising really. It is of course no excuse, but the Chechens have had decades of instruction in the art of barbarism by some of the world's best practitioners.
Not "a bucket full of approbation " Joe, but I'm not sure what you mean by "Western terms"....perhaps the difference between carpet bombing and suicide bombing. People wage war with the means at their disposal.
__________________ The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs, is to be ruled by evil men. Plato - (429 to 347 BC)
Similiary the incumbent Russian regimes since 1992 have behaved in an institutionally insane fashion, bombarding a city of civilians and killing tens of thousands of Russians, let alone Chechens, let alone Chechen rebels. The dehumanization of the sides has lead to a war characterised by atrocity upon atrocity. People are waking up and paying more attention now that the atrocities are moving out of Chechnya however.
But it seems to go much deeper than that. Who knows why Stalin wanted the Chechens out ? His story about their collaboration with the Germans was just a lie, yet whilst the war was still raging on the western front he could spare thousands of troops to mercilessly slaughter thousands of Chechen women, children and old people, and oversee the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Chechens to remoter parts of the USSR.
Too many thousands in there, but the enormity of the Russian atrocities against the Chechens (and many other ethnic groups) is difficult to express, and largely overlooked in the West.
__________________ The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs, is to be ruled by evil men. Plato - (429 to 347 BC)
Well it seems that even in Tsarist times the Chechen people, with a strong sense if identity, culture and language, were being mercilessly persecuted. And that was way before oil was important. There is a cultural aspect here of which we are simply not aware, but an ancient anitpathy certainly exists withe both sides intent on dehumanising the enemy.
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Man the Lifeboats ! Tell the band to play on! Women and Children First!
This is a classic dillema for President Putin. if he fights the killers from Chechnia, there will be more outrages, if he doesn't there will still be more and I don't see how he can negotiate either, because then he will be seen to be weak.
These killers, are learning from each other worldwide, each atrocity leads to another one somewhere else, it is a modern phenomenon, which will carry on for centuries and will never be eradicated in our lifetime.
Originally posted by halevan These killers, are learning from each other worldwide, each atrocity leads to another one somewhere else, it is a modern phenomenon, which will carry on for centuries and will never be eradicated in our lifetime.
The use of terror as a weapon of war is I'm afraid not a modern invention - its been used by armies in a military situation (see Genghis Khan and his barbarian buddies or Vlad The Impaler) or as a tool in and of itself (e.g. the Hashishim). What is a new is the impact terror atrocities can have due to the pervesive media who will disect and redisect events, presenting them in an almost voyeuristic way in an attempt to grab ratings or newspaper sales. To the mind of the desperate people who carry out these acts who may well feel not only agrieved but ignored by the world at large isn't this oxygen of publicity is something thay may feel vindicates their actions?
P.S. no this isn't a position I agree with - but its one to a certain extent that I can understand.
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Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. - Oscar Wilde
Originally posted by noseyrosie Yeah...what you don't know can't hurt you, ey?
I'll say that again, in case you missed the emphasis. What you don't know can't hurt you.
Dear me. Would you rather we had just turned a blind eye to, for example, the holocaust? I mean, if it's a bit upsetting for you, that's got to be 100 times worse than the suffering of the Jews, ey?
Originally posted by bonny So, what did YOU do when you heard the news?
What could YOU have done?
What are YOU now going to do?
There's not a lot I can DO, but one thing I won't be doing is pretending that it didn't happen! Or wishing I'd never heard about it. I just feel like it's disrespectful to those who've died. In terms of what can I do about it physically, nothing, but I do engage in a lot of political discussion in certain youth groups and things to try and understand the situation better.
I really think we shouldn't get into this argument, even if I started it, or whatever. It's trivial compared to what the thread was originally about.
Originally posted by noseyrosie There's not a lot I can DO, but one thing I won't be doing is pretending that it didn't happen! Or wishing I'd never heard about it. I just feel like it's disrespectful to those who've died. In terms of what can I do about it physically, nothing, but I do engage in a lot of political discussion in certain youth groups and things to try and understand the situation better.
I really think we shouldn't get into this argument, even if I started it, or whatever. It's trivial compared to what the thread was originally about.
I think that you totally missed the point of my post. No one is pretending that it did not happen. I just don't care to see things like this sensationalised !!
It isn't a trivial argument at all. I think you brought up a good point.
You can sit and debate or engage in political discussions as much as you care to. You can sit and cry endlessly about tradgedies such as this too.
How do those things help??? They don't !
It may further YOU intellectually. Do you think that the families of the victims are going to give you a round of applause for that?
There is no point in pointing out the misery of these situations as it is blatantly obvious.
So now what do WE do?
I don't care to be a voyeur as that is all I am unless I can do something.
So now that you have discussed and tried to understand it what will you do?
If your answer is nothing, then how have you helped. It doesn't take much discussion to understand that what happened was a tradgedy.
what happened was a horror beyond horror. You could even argue that it is worse than 9/11.
But we, at our peril, call these people inhuman or evil> Just as it would never help seeing the people that ushered millions of jews to their death at Belsen evil.
If we call then evil we will never understand what humans are able to do to their fellow men. We see then as other or different to us. Unfortunately it is in that difference that we find the spark for such disgusting acts. It is only when humans see thenselves or believe themselves to be other or different from the rest of us that such events are possible. Notice how our generally tollerant society tends not to breed fanaticism even amoungst groups we associte with this. The same cannot be said for the treatment of chetchens or muslims in some asian countries.
I know we can never condone such acts but it dosent mean we can never understand these actions. Russia is partly to blame for its treatment and its separatist stance towards a vast country of people. What I'm trying to say is , I think, is that we cant treat people no better than animals and then wonder, when they behave like animals.
Many people seem to ignor the recent reports that it was not only Chechen Seperatists but 'foreign Fighters' as well. In other words fundamentalist Muslims from outside who wanted to kill as many as possible. The Russian massacre should be partly seen in this light and as part of the ongoing activaties of such people. As bad as the death toll is it is still less than a tenth of their worst attack on the World trade Centre in 2001.
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