Posted on 05/01/2004 3:37:24 PM PDT by zinochka
Chechnya: Blood, Corruption, Intrigue, And Extremist Islam
By Paul M. Weyrich March 19, 2004
Name the Eurasian country where over 2,000 people have been killed or wounded at the hands of terrorists over the last sixteen months.
If you named Russia, you picked right. I wonder how many people would have picked wrong. Russia's conflict with Chechnya is "foreign news" to many people in our country. It is viewed as having no real consequence since we haven't sent troops there.
Chechnya is a small area. Many Americans hardly know its name, much less could locate it on a map. Many who do know it naively sympathized with its struggle for independence against Russia in the mid-1990s, failing to realize the exact nature of some of the forces that played an instrumental role in the struggle. In the second conflict, it is all too apparent that many of the "freedom fighters" are not in any way George Washingtons but Osama bin Ladens.
Russia is not a country that normally engenders sympathy among Americans even in this post-Cold War era. As I recently wrote, many Americans criticize Russia because it is not yet democratic enough to satisfy them. Others hold a grudge against Russia for the war in Chechnya, failing to realize that many of those leading the Chechen side were fighting for more than just independence but to bring about a radical Islamic state.
An examination of the conflict between Chechnya and Russia is long overdue, but fortunately one is coming.
Former U.S. Government senior counterterrorism official Paul Murphy has a book coming out this spring called "Wolves of Islam: Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror" (Brassey's), which examines the conflict. He is no armchair analyst, but someone who truly knows the people and countries about which he writes, having lived, worked and traveled extensively in Russia and Central Asia from 1994 to 2001.
Chechnya has never buckled to Russian domination, and there is a long history of bloodletting between the two sides. Indeed, understandably, Stalin's mass deportation of Chechens in 1944 is looked back upon with extreme bitterness and anger.
Chechnya's first war with post-Soviet Russia erupted in 1994. It is important to understand that Chechnya was not a country struggling to regain its sovereignty, a misperception fueled by the American news media, but a territory of Russia that in 1991 illegally seceded.
The second conflict started in August 1999 when a budding Taliban-like leader, Shamil Basayev, and his top military commander, Khattab, stormed into neighboring Dagestan, which is Russian territory, in an attempt to establish a radical Islamic state. Khattab vowed to "create a pure Islamic land" made up of at least Dagestan and Chechnya, which would have no room for Russians, Christians or Jews.
The result of this jihad is not very pretty, and Murphy's analysis is “no holds barred” in describing the brutality of the Islamic warriors. Kidnappings, torture and mass slaughter are all part of their method of operation. The conflict in Chechnya led to apartment building bombings in Russia and the siege of a Moscow theater on October 23, 2002.
Murphy is careful to differentiate between ordinary Chechens and "Allah's warriors" who are intent on wreaking havoc on the innocent. Most Chechens are peaceful-loving people.
Excuse-makers for the Islamic terrorists assert that all the trouble could have been avoided had Russia recognized Chechnya's independence after the first war ended. Murphy is emphatic in his disagreement, arguing that the extremist Islamic faction in the country was dead-set on staging a violent takeover of Dagestan to create a new Islamic state in the North Caucasus.
Russia does not get a complete pass from him either. Murphy admits that corruption and Russia's brutal military conduct in Chechnya has exacerbated the war while corruption has facilitated terror.
Murphy is analyzing a conflict that has the ingredients - blood and gore, corruption, lots of intrigue, and extremist Islam vs. Judaism and Christianity - to catch the attention of the news media and talk show hosts. His book further demonstrates a point that this country needs to grasp: radical Islam is at war with the rest of the world.
Neither Russia on October 23, 2002, the date of the attack on the theater, nor our own country on September 11, 2001, were simply assailed by "terrorists."
The Islamic fundamentalists are driven by an extremist viewpoint that looks with contempt upon the West, our Judeo-Christian heritage, and our people.
Murphy is an analyst who has some interesting things to say. I only hope the American people will be afforded the opportunity to listen to him.
Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.
What did Chechens expect? They sided with the Nazis in WW2.
This is a contention, not a fact. Chechnya was conquered by the Russians in the 19th century, as the Baltic Republics were in the 18th century. The nationalism of the Baltics was submerged for centuries, breaking out for a brief period between the World Wars.
Today the Baltics are independent nations joining NATO and the EU.
What exactly is it about Chechnya that makes its desire for independence any less legitimate than that of Latvia?
Agreed, although the raiding goes back much farther than that.
However, you do not mention why the aspirations for independence of "nations" such as Latvia and Estonia, which were never really independent prior to their conquest by Russia, but were instead ruled by Poland, Sweden, etc., are legitimate while "nations" such as Chechnya which were conquered much more recently are not.
I agree completely. I just don't recall anywhere it is stated that only sane people have a right to independence. If so, there are a large number of countries that do not qualify, including perhaps a majority of Muslim-majority nations.
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