Getting Ugly in Russia

[Radar]

It makes sense to me that Dana would support such terrorist actions. After all, she supports them on the part of the Palestinian people against the Jews, so why not on the part of the Chechans against the Russians?

[OnyxCougar]

"Giving in" to terrorists tells other filth that "Hey, it worked for them, it will work for us."

I've thought about what would happen if the US for example just laid waste to entire cities (like Najaf) in order to send the message of not to fuck with us, but then I realize that actions like that make us just as bad as the shitpiles we're fighting.

I think sm is completely right with his view on moral hindrance.

[Happy Monkey]

It all depends on whether you're willing to see the enemy as human. All too often, a war goes on long enough that one or both sides lose that perspective. Nothing dehumanizes one's enemies more than a thirst for vengeance.

This isn't a justification of the behavior of the people who commit atrocities, but it is a predictable outcome. Whoever creates the situation is culpable in addition to - not instead of - the perpetrator.

[jaguar]

Well since we're all feeling uppity about 'human filth' and the like, maybe take a gander at what has been going on in Chechnya for getting on to a decade, the murders, torture, brutal pack rapes, the actions of the Russian army make Abu Ghraib look like a funpark, when you brutalize a people like that you shouldn't be too shocked when it comes back to bite you in the arse, hard.

If you're wondering why those pictures don't make the media, the last reporter I know of who tried got shot in the face by russian soldiers for his trouble, all his equipment strangely went missing too.

Media control is a funny thing and the illusions you can spin are powerful, in this, mighty Russia somehow, despite the facts of the matter is the 'victim'. Same applies with Israel.

[lookout123]

I didn't say Russia was some innocent victim. I said that individuals who think walking into areas crowded with civilians with designs on blowing them up are filth. it doesn't matter if they are russian, chechen, or australian they would still be filth in my eyes.

[Slothboy]

The trouble is that I'm sitting here at my computer, several timezones away from all of this. I'm sure Russians are capable of atrocities and the Chechnyan's certainly deserve justice. But I don't know the full story from either side. What I do know is that holding children hostage is wrong.

This little girl had nothing to do with what is happening in Chechnya. It is never ok to involve her in events like this. Her parents probably didn't have anything to do with it either. Thanks to the terrorists, I am on the side of the Russians. That is the thing I don't get. If you kill innocents like that it makes me want to stop you at all costs, not sympathise with you.

You know what else? I didn't bomb Hiroshima. As far as I know nobody that made that decision is in power in the United States today. Maybe we could stop having that flung in our faces sometime soon? That'd be swell.

[DanaC]

"what is to stop him from discarding the accepted rules of war, like his opponents did, and commence firebombing the city centers of chechnya one at a time. "

Too late they already did something very similar.

Radar I do not support the actions of palestinian suicide bombers. I am a pacifist I believe in non violent approach wherever possible. I also however am able to seperate my abhorrence for the actions and take a look at both sides. Since so much of the media portrays these issues with scant regard for one side and airbrushing the other that leads me all to oftenhaving to put ( *smiles* having, of course merely referring to my own self imposed compulsion :P) the point of view of the unreported side in a conflict. The side whose suffering didnt make the world blink let alone act. When their suffering is so categorically ignored and their towns unfamiliar to us until they produce a suicide bomber, I feel in some ways there has been a crime of complicity perpetrated by the world community; a crime which has helped to create the envrionment these atrocities occur in. If I heard nothing in the media about the suffering of the Israeli bomb victims, if most of what I saw was arab propoganda which ignored the very real fears of the Israeli man on the street, glossing over every suicide bomb and reporting in detail every last assassinated Hamas leader's death;if i then came onto the cellar and found that many people seemed unwilling to accept a parity of culpability between the two sides, worse they were insisting on reducing the Israelis to less than human because of their methods, then I would likely find myself arguing their fears.

I do think there is a danger when we refuse to understand people. I dont condone what is happening in Russia, but we have to see this event in the context of a tapestry of other events. To do otherwise is to reduce our understanding of the gestalt and that can only lead to a society less capable of responding in the most effective way possible.

As to the school siege....This is clearly a step too far. It's many steps too far. Some things are of course morally repugnant to most civilised people and naturally I have a very low opinion of the people who are holding childer hostage. That however doesnt prevent me from trying to seek an understanding of what they are trying to achieve and why they have chosen such methodology. It's lazy to just dismiss them as lunatics or psycopaths or simply evil. It's laziness which leads ( imo) to a complacency of thought which is a weakening of actual defenses in society in favour of percieved defences.

It occurs to me I may not have made myself entirely clear in my first post. When I was talking about the Black Widows and disagreeing with Lookout, I was not referring to the school siege. We dont kow who is responsible for that. My own feeling is that it is not the Black Widow. It seems unlikely that women who have lost sons and husbands would focus their attention on babes in arms and mothers like themselves. It would be a real move away from their usual modus operandi. Might be them, but I doubt it. I have a real sympathy for these women. I have sympathy and empathy for what they have suffered. I am inclined to think this siege is being perpetrated by a much more extreme group within the Chechen fight back.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The hard thing to do is to get a grip on the human psychology which leads people in extremis to do appalling things in order to achieve their aims, or simply to assuage their grief filled need for vengeance. To dismiss the people who do this as inhuman is to deny the human condition, to deny the way we as humans are when we've been stripped back to our barest.

What a bunch of bullshit. It's revenge, pure and simple. "The human condition" is waxing poetic and serves no purpose, except at proper tea parties that have no connection to the real world. The obvious solution is to exterminate them, and end their silly games. Don't think for a moment the Russians can't do that. History has proven they are both capable and willing to exterminate millions, if they only perceive them to be a problem.

[Happy Monkey]

And that's the attitude (that of the Russians) which breeds this sort of thing.

[DanaC]

"The obvious solution is to exterminate them, and end their silly games. Don't think for a moment the Russians can't do that. History has proven they are both capable and willing to exterminate millions, if they only perceive them to be a problem"

I think that pretty much says it all. Why strive for understanding which could lead to resolution when you can just exterminate the enemy ? An interesting moral highground

[xoxoxoBruce]

Moral high grounds get you killed. You can have the moral high ground, I'll take the AK74 and put flowers on your grave. Do you think you can tell these suicide bombers "There, there Dear, I feel your pain."? Be my guest and you will be feeling their pain. :p

[DanaC]

No Bruce they arent looking for palliatives and they arent seeking words of comfort. What they want is a simple and achievable thing. They want their statehood, they want their population not to be terrorised year after year. If all we see is the terrorist and his bombbelts then we are not looking at the picture as a whole. We have to see what the struggle is and whether, at it's core it is a reasonable demand ( the unreasonable tactics employed in achieving that notwithstanding)

The Chechens have made reasonable demands of Russia and Russia has responded unreasonably. In response to this the Chechens again made reasonable demands. Russia again responded unreasonably. Now a small number of Chechen rebels have begun to act unreasonably.

Obviously if I was in any way involved with that situation, if I was for instance a Russian mother whose child was facing a second night of the siege I very much doubt I would be able to see the Chechen's point of view. Here many miles away i have the luxury of being able to take an objective look at the situation.

Interestingly, whilst there hasnt been a massive outcry ( that I know of) from the Russian people over their government's treatment of the Chechens, the Chechens themselves are staging protests to object to their rebels' treatment of Russian children.

[Trilby]

i don't belong here in this thread because I am first and foremost a whimp who wants the approval of ALL the Cellar Dwellars--so, it is with great trepidation that I say this:

I have no idea what is going on in Chechenya (if I even spelled it right)--BUT! I know that it is wrong to threaten children. It is wrong to strike non-military targets. It wins you no sympathy for your cause; indeed, makes you look insane in the eyes of the world. It makes you look like a lunatic fringe. Nobody can relate to that.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The "Black Widows" (see Lookout, names eliminate a lot of descriptions) are seeking revenge, to kill civilians, kill women and children. They are no better than rabid animals and should be exterminated.
As for letting the rest of the Chechens break away, I think the Russians have made their position quite clear. And if Arizona tried it, they would get the same from Washington.

[DanaC]

It may make you look like a lunatic fringe and it is arguably wrong, though right and wrong seem to take something of a backseat whenever wars become entrenched but it has already had an effect. The spotlight is again on Putin and the Chechens. This is the issue which is most dangerous to Putin ( at the moment) The families of soldiers who have been conscripted to deal with the Chechens have already begun to voice their dismay at both the conditions their sons and daughters serve under and against the futility of the fight they are sent to. Every time a Chechen terrorist dies for their cause with a bombbelt around their waste and a prayer on their lips it hits the headlines, it increases the sense of fear and uncertainty and the people look to their strong man Putin to resolve the problem of Chechnya. So far his attempts have not been successful, but the expertly stagemanaged fearsome response which sends their young ones to die fighting people they dont really care about in a land they dont feel attached to anymore quietens the grumbling.

When the Black Widows staged a siege in the theatre Putin's response was to order a rescue mission which led to half the hostages dying, not at the hands of the Widows but at the hands of the rescuers. This is expected. A strongman is respected in Russia a negotiator much less so. What has made this siege interesting ( just to be entirely callous and look at the strategic situation rather than with the emotional response to an emotionally charged issue) is that Putin has been forced not to follow the Strongman response formula. His nation has all it's eyes turned to the school and the safety of those children is paramount. Unlike most sieges the hostage takers have resfused medical aid and food supplies. This is contrary to the usual pattern in which the hostage takers demand supplies and the negotiators make comparitive demands for a goodwill gesture, such as freeing the injured or the women or children. Right from the start this puts them on a much stronger footing than many hostage takers in other sieges.

Instead they have retained all the cards and have given up 32 ( I think) of their hostages, mainly the youngest children without attempting to secure supplies or anything else of that nature. They have demonstrated their power over the hostages by freely choosing to let some of them go. This lends frightening credibility to the idea that they would ( as they have stated) kill 50 children for any one of their people who are killed ( for instance by sniper) and that any attempt to storm the building ( the usual Russian response to hostage situations, which is effective but does lead to many hostages dying in the process) would result in them detonating the explosives which they wear thereby killing everyone in the school.

The truth is we dont know if they really would go through with that threat, they may even be bluffing. Either way Putin cannot risk engaging in tactics which could lead to the wholesale slaughter of a school of children, therefore he is trapped into alllowing some kind of negotiation with the terrorists and as such the terrorists have already made progress ( in their goals) This time, Putin cannot play the strongman without being seen to place children at risk, that in itself reduces him slightly in the national consciousness.

On a more general level the increase in terrorist attacks on the Russian people is making people nervous. They are likely (given the growing mutterings) to come to the conclusion that Chechnya is not worth the price the Cechens are charging.

Therefore in the longrun such activity whilst marking them to the world as lacking credibility may indeed be the thing which frees them from the yolk.