Tuesday, September 11, 2007

[beslan] remember the innocent

Remember September 1st to 6th

Concerning 911, this blog remembered the 115 nationalities who died in the World Trade Centre atrocity. Today, eleven days too late, it remembers the Beslan atrocity and hopes that its western readership will also pay heed to that terrible event.

The only surviving attacker, Nur-Pashi Kulayev, claimed that attacking a school and targeting mothers and young children was not merely coincidental, but was deliberately designed for maximum outrage with the purpose of igniting a wider war in the Caucasus.

According to this theory, the attackers hoped that the mostly Orthodox Christian Ossetians would attack their mostly Muslim Ingush and Chechen neighbours to seek revenge, encouraging ethnic and religious hatred and strife throughout the North Caucasus[72]. North Ossetia and Ingushetia had previously been involved in a brief, but bloody conflict in 1992 over disputed land in the North Ossetian Prigorodny District, leaving an estimated 600 dead and 50,000 displaced.

I didn't show the later photo of this boy

Here's what Basayev claimed it was about:

We can also guarantee a renunciation of armed struggle against RF by all Muslims of Russia for at least 10 to 15 years under condition of freedom of faith. We are not related to the apartment bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk, but we can take responsibility for this in an acceptable way.

If you substituted the word Congress for State Duma, a western name for the Russian one and set this in the American heartland, the sentiments would ring true in many hearts. Why do they cease to ring true when written as they are?

The head of the State Duma’s security committee Vladimir Vasilyev says Shamil Basayev belonged to the very special breed of terrorists who are hell-bent on creating an Islamic Caliphate in Russia using for this purpose money donated by radical groups abroad.

Politkovskaya's connection with Basayev was unfortunate and her mediation role in the Moscow theatre siege, by definition, shows she at least had the ear of the terrorist warlords. Of course the prosecutors claim far closer involvement. Putin claimed her murder was designed to stir up waves of anti-Russian feeling, which of course it has done. It's far easier to believe in the Russian monster than to look elsewhere for the culprits.

Leaving aside rhetoric, why would a hitman leave behind his calling card anyway:

The gun found near her apartment block in central Moscow was a 9mm Makarov, known as the weapon of choice for Russian hitmen

… except to pin suspicion on the FSB? If Putin's men had ordered this, the last thing they would have done is deliberately leave behind incriminating evidence causing international condemnation at a time when Russia was trying for admission to the WTO and had paid off its Club of Paris debt. It simply does not ring true.

Novaya Gazeta, which is offering a reward of almost a million dollars for information about the shooting, has written that it believes her murder was either revenge by Kadyrov, or an attempt to discredit him.

Conditions inside the gym

A correspondent named Odessafile, writing for Lebanese Forces, put it this way:

The Chechens have been killing Russians, blowing up apartment buildings, opera houses, killing school children by the 1000's, kidnapping Russians and they along with the Georgians and one other group (the oligarchs) are the keepers of the so called Russian Mafia.

Thus, when this lady defended the Chechnians who are Salafi Islamists funded by the Wahabis she had as much credibility with the Russian people as a US journalist would in defending the Taliban and Bin Laden. So to say she had any impact on Putin, or on Russian policy in Chechnia is as far fetched as one could have imagined.

To say Putin gave a crap about what she said or even paid much mind to it boggles the imagination. No one else cared in Russia. And the only damage Putin could have gotten because of her is if some one killed her and then blamed it on him. So alas,you see the irony here.

The Berezovsky/Litvinenko/Politskaya/Basayev/Kadyrov connection is not all that popular in Russia and to judge solely from Politkovskaya's alleged lack of objectivity is sheer bad journalism.


Basayev and one of his child killers

So the questions still remain: Who wanted Ossetia in turmoil with its citizens killing one another? How could these monsters have acted so inhumanely at Beslan? Who stood to gain by Russia being refused admission to the WTO and other western bodies? Who stands to gain by Russia being an international pariah?

Answering these questions would surely move us closer to the real truth.

3 comments:

  1. A very heinous and thoroughly sad act :(

    My heart goes out to the community and families that have lived through this.

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  2. A terrible tragedy indeed. All the more so because of the innocent children.
    Thanks for the background information.

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  3. Thanks for this insight - I didn't know all that. It was one of the most horrific things I have ever seen.

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