Posted on 09/07/2004 9:35:10 AM PDT by xsysmgr
The world began to change on September 1, 2004, the day the Russia-held-captive ordeal began in a little school in a little southern town called Beslan. When it ended on September 4 after an agonizing three-day orgy of Islamofascist torture and slaughter, it changed Russia, much as September 11, 2001, changed America, and in the end, that will change the world.
The Beslan victims were not as numerous as ours — hundreds died, not thousands — but the national shock is comparable, because their suffering was so great and so prolonged, and because Russia's children were not collateral damage in this attack. They were the chosen victims of the global Islamic terror network, and all Russia watched in horror, day after day, as they were shot, stabbed, raped, and blown-up, along with their helpless parents and teachers, while other little ones perished in slow agony from thirst, dehydration, and heat stroke, inside a Russian school where the water fountains ran but dying captives were not allowed to drink anything but their own urine. Something like 1,200 Russians were subjected to this ordeal; more than a third — possibly as many as half — are dead, and most of the dead are children, crammed in on top of each other in an explosive-rigged basketball court in a stifling, sealed-up gymnasium in a school where the toilets worked too, but the victims were not allowed to use them. And while it is not yet clear exactly who all the 20-30 Islamist terrorists who tortured and killed these children were, it is as clear here as it was, early on, in Spain that local, homegrown terrorists are not the only ones involved in this carefully planned and viciously executed assault on all that civilized people hold dear. International Islamofascist barbarians with imperial designs masterminded the attack on the children of Beslan, and that has changed everything.
Before Beslan, it was easy for the civilized world's Isamofascist enemies to play and win the old divide, conquer, and sell-out game, easy for Russians to believe that only local, Chechen terrorists were attacking them, easy to believe that America's war on the global Islamic terror network was a separate, unrelated thing, a war that Russia might exploit but had no reason to join, a war that had no connection to the one that Israel is fighting or the one that Spanish voters, like French, German, Belgian, and Canadian voters declined to fight. Before Beslan, it was easy for Russia to join France, old Europe, and the U.N. in a policy of temporarily profitable appeasement, propping up the Iraqi terror master, Saddam Hussein, by exploiting the oil-for-food scam, easy for Russia to make a quick bundle by helping Iranian terror masters develop the nuclear weapons they crave, easy for Russia to join the French-led Euro-Arab axis and its corrupt international court in embracing Palestinian terror masters and condemning their victims.
After Beslan, some Russians will argue that continued appeasement of the global Islamist terror network is the best policy still. After all, some Americans still think so too, but there, as here, it won't be easy to sell that policy anymore. There, as here, some Russians will swallow their grief and vent all their rage against their own government, insisting that official incompetence caused all these deaths. There, as here, some will cling to all the other self-defeating old lies, insisting that local Islamofascist groups have no connection to the international terror network, that anyway, "there is no military solution," and/or that the growing terrorist mayhem is all the fault of greedy Russian capitalists, crude, reckless American "cowboys" or scheming, manipulative Jewish war mongers, and that deals with the Islamist devil are still possible and desirable.
But in the end, these voices of blind bigotry and defeatism won't prevail, because millions of Russians have learned the same hard lessons most of us learned on September 11: That we are at war with a vicious global enemy, an Islamist enemy that hates Christians, Hindus, and progressive Muslims as much as it hates Jews, an enemy that cannot be appeased, bought off, or safely sicced on others; an enemy we must unite to cut down wherever it rears its ugly head, or have our own heads and those of our children cut off by it. This Russian transformation won't happen quickly or all at once, but in the end, it will happen, and it will make Russia a powerful ally again, as it was in World War II, after the Hitler-Stalin Peace pact, like the Munich Peace Pact, proved that pursuing paper-peace agreements and short term advantages by appeasing evil is a roadmap to death and defeat. In the end, Russia will fight with us again, and with our most steadfast allies, England and Australia, as it did in the 1940s. This time, a free Poland, a democratic Italy, and a host of smaller, recently liberated states in Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia will not only join with us but will retain their God-given liberties, after our victory.
Already, Putin is getting the message. In an unprecedented burst of candor, he told the Russian people, "We were weak, and weak people are beaten." Already, he is reaching out a tentative hand, looking for help from us and from the Israelis. Israel will respond, generously, as long as the much-maligned Israeli Right retains its shaky hold on power, and we will too, as long as George W. Bush continues to lead us. And if you think Russia is too weak, corrupt, and divided to repay our generosity, think again. She looked that way in the early Forties too, but in the end, she fought fiercely, and made an essential contribution to our victory in World War II. World War III, the Cold War, is over. We won, and with Russia on our side, we will win what Norman Podhoretz rightly calls World War IV much more quickly than we would without her.
— Barbara Lerner is a frequent NRO contributor.
I was hesitant about Slobo's tactics, but now after this -- we can't let these moon god cultists live next to us, they will destroy us.
President Vladimir Putin accused the United States of undermining Russia's struggle against terror by meeting with Chechen separatists and rejected calls for a public inquiry into whether authorities mishandled the hostage-taking in Beslan.
Putin told a group of Western policy analysts Monday night that his administration has repeatedly complained about meetings between U.S. officials and representatives of Chechen separatists, but to no avail.
Washington has invariably responded with "we will get back to you" or "we reserve the right to talk with anyone we want," Putin told the group during a wide-ranging policy discussion at his residence outside Moscow, according to CNN's account of the meeting.
"Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace? Why don't you do that?" Putin said, according to The Guardian.
"You find it possible to set some limitations in your dealings with these bastards, so why should we talk to people who are child-killers?" he said, Reuters reported.
Putin's comments shed further light on who he had in mind Saturday when he lashed out at those who assist terrorist efforts to "tear off a big chunk of our country" because they "think that Russia, as one of the greatest nuclear powers of the world, is still a threat, and this threat has to be eliminated." Putin was speaking in a televised address to the nation.
Moscow has criticized a decision by a U.S. court to grant asylum to Ilyas Akhmadov, foreign minister in the rebel government.
Putin reportedly bears a personal grudge against British Prime Minister Tony Blair for a British court's refusal to hand over Akhmad Zakayev, envoy to Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov. Denmark earlier refused to extradite Zakayev as well.
"There's a Yugoslavia variant here," Putin warned, according to notes taken by participant Eileen O'Connor, The Washington Post reported. "It would be difficult to imagine the consequences for the rest of the world. Bear in mind Russia is a nuclear power."
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/09/08/002.html
First time I'd seen that quote.
He's basically saying he'll use nukes against .. whom? The Chechens? The EU?
He might first want to consider pulling the reactors from Iran.
"There's a Yugoslavia variant here, Putin warned..."
Serbia suffered, just as Russia is suffering, from the actions of their islamic population. The US waged war against Serbia, whose leader is now charged with war crimes.
Why wouldn't Putin see himself in the same position?
Let's imagine Kerry won the election. How safe would that make you feel, if you were Putin?
He has an odd way of making a point, but the point is made.
Let's change the wording a little and see how it works.
A Nazi enemy that hates Christians, Hindus, and progressive Nazis as much as it hates Jews
Gee, that sounds silly, doesn't it?
The article is almost right. But the problem is not "fundamentalist islam" or "extreme islam". Rather, the problem is is-slime as a whole.
Calling the Cold War WWIII is silly: the main adversaries never met on the field of battle.
The Cold War was 'The Cold War' and our current struggles are WWIII.
"Now that Putin is going to the UN and proving to the world that this is an international attack upon his country, he can pull out the big stick."-------------------------------------I don't know. If the useless UN decides that it is an international terror conspiracy that could get Chechnya off the hook in their eyes. Me, I'd like to see Russian Armor Divisions flatten that cesspool.
To be honest, I don't want Grozny or Chechnya flattened, but I do want all of the foreign fighters and radical Chechen Islamists killed. The rest can live in peace. Many of these people just want the fighting to end, they don't care who is in charge.
Well said, Cronos, well said indeed!
yep and worth repeating...Islamaslime is the enemy!
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Reasonable.
How do this change the world? The muslims do this regularly to children in the Sudan, and are still doing it and it has not changed the world one bit. Expect this tragedy to fade into a distant memory soon enough.
Sure, but that doesn't make my statement false, does it?
As you know full well, Russia has not been what one could call friendly to the causes of the US since... let's say... the Berlin Airlift.
We attempted to come to their aid when their nuclear sub went down a few years back, but they refused even that help.
Re, our State Department, hopefully 901 will have opened their eyes to the fact that it is the Christan West (including Russia), not just USA and allies that are under attack. The cold war is over, both the USA and Russia need to get over their old cold war fear of one another. This new war is global and like it or not, the USA and Russia are allies in this fight. Unfortunately Bill Clinton war in Kosovo was a big mistake, Clinton did not recognize that Kosovo was in just just a battle in the war of civilizations. Now it is up to Bush to right that wrong and put together a real alliance of Western powers to fig th the war. If I were Putin, righting the Kosovo wrong would be my price for joining the alliance. Look for Serbia to play a larger role in Kosovo, if you see movement in that direction then we will now a deal has been struck.
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