Click for the entire CouNTeRPuNcH Collection
Political Parodies and more
www.counterpunch.us
Posted on 09/24/2004 9:27:51 PM PDT by josh24601
The Chechens' American friends
The Washington neocons' commitment to the war on terror evaporates in Chechnya, whose cause they have made their own
John Laughland Wednesday September 8, 2004 The Guardian
An enormous head of steam has built up behind the view that President Putin is somehow the main culprit in the grisly events in North Ossetia. Soundbites and headlines such as "Grief turns to anger", "Harsh words for government", and "Criticism mounting against Putin" have abounded, while TV and radio correspondents in Beslan have been pressed on air to say that the people there blame Moscow as much as the terrorists. There have been numerous editorials encouraging us to understand - to quote the Sunday Times - the "underlying causes" of Chechen terrorism (usually Russian authoritarianism), while the widespread use of the word "rebels" to describe people who shoot children shows a surprising indulgence in the face of extreme brutality. On closer inspection, it turns out that this so-called "mounting criticism" is in fact being driven by a specific group in the Russian political spectrum - and by its American supporters. The leading Russian critics of Putin's handling of the Beslan crisis are the pro-US politicians Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Ryzhkov - men associated with the extreme neoliberal market reforms which so devastated the Russian economy under the west's beloved Boris Yeltsin - and the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow Centre. Funded by its New York head office, this influential thinktank - which operates in tandem with the military-political Rand Corporation, for instance in producing policy papers on Russia's role in helping the US restructure the "Greater Middle East" - has been quoted repeatedly in recent days blaming Putin for the Chechen atrocities. The centre has also been assiduous over recent months in arguing against Moscow's claims that there is a link between the Chechens and al-Qaida.
These people peddle essentially the same line as that expressed by Chechen leaders themselves, such as Ahmed Zakaev, the London exile who wrote in these pages yesterday. Other prominent figures who use the Chechen rebellion as a stick with which to beat Putin include Boris Berezovsky, the Russian oligarch who, like Zakaev, was granted political asylum in this country, although the Russian authorities want him on numerous charges. Moscow has often accused Berezovsky of funding Chechen rebels in the past.
By the same token, the BBC and other media sources are putting it about that Russian TV played down the Beslan crisis, while only western channels reported live, the implication being that Putin's Russia remains a highly controlled police state. But this view of the Russian media is precisely the opposite of the impression I gained while watching both CNN and Russian TV over the past week: the Russian channels had far better information and images from Beslan than their western competitors. This harshness towards Putin is perhaps explained by the fact that, in the US, the leading group which pleads the Chechen cause is the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC). The list of the self-styled "distinguished Americans" who are its members is a rollcall of the most prominent neoconservatives who so enthusastically support the "war on terror".
They include Richard Perle, the notorious Pentagon adviser; Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra fame; Kenneth Adelman, the former US ambassador to the UN who egged on the invasion of Iraq by predicting it would be "a cakewalk"; Midge Decter, biographer of Donald Rumsfeld and a director of the rightwing Heritage Foundation; Frank Gaffney of the militarist Centre for Security Policy; Bruce Jackson, former US military intelligence officer and one-time vice-president of Lockheed Martin, now president of the US Committee on Nato; Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, a former admirer of Italian fascism and now a leading proponent of regime change in Iran; and R James Woolsey, the former CIA director who is one of the leading cheerleaders behind George Bush's plans to re-model the Muslim world along pro-US lines.
The ACPC heavily promotes the idea that the Chechen rebellion shows the undemocratic nature of Putin's Russia, and cultivates support for the Chechen cause by emphasising the seriousness of human rights violations in the tiny Caucasian republic. It compares the Chechen crisis to those other fashionable "Muslim" causes, Bosnia and Kosovo - implying that only international intervention in the Caucasus can stabilise the situation there. In August, the ACPC welcomed the award of political asylum in the US, and a US-government funded grant, to Ilyas Akhmadov, foreign minister in the opposition Chechen government, and a man Moscow describes as a terrorist. Coming from both political parties, the ACPC members represent the backbone of the US foreign policy establishment, and their views are indeed those of the US administration.
Although the White House issued a condemnation of the Beslan hostage-takers, its official view remains that the Chechen conflict must be solved politically. According to ACPC member Charles Fairbanks of Johns Hopkins University, US pressure will now increase on Moscow to achieve a political, rather than military, solution - in other words to negotiate with terrorists, a policy the US resolutely rejects elsewhere.
Allegations are even being made in Russia that the west itself is somehow behind the Chechen rebellion, and that the purpose of such support is to weaken Russia, and to drive her out of the Caucasus. The fact that the Chechens are believed to use as a base the Pankisi gorge in neighbouring Georgia - a country which aspires to join Nato, has an extremely pro-American government, and where the US already has a significant military presence - only encourages such speculation. Putin himself even seemed to lend credence to the idea in his interview with foreign journalists on Monday.
Proof of any such western involvement would be difficult to obtain, but is it any wonder Russians are asking themselves such questions when the same people in Washington who demand the deployment of overwhelming military force against the US's so-called terrorist enemies also insist that Russia capitulate to hers?
I checked, and the story is totally legit. Look at their webpage: http://www.peaceinchechnya.org
Look at their mission: http://www.peaceinchechnya.org/about.htm
"Diplomacy: Convening private "Track II" talks between representatives of the Russian government and Chechen resistance aimed at developing a framework for ending the war and resolving Chechnya's long-term legal and political status."
And look at the members of the organization: http://www.peaceinchechnya.org/about_members.htm
Names included: Elliot Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, William Kristol, Michael A. Ledeen, Richard Perle, Norman Podhoretz, R. James Woolsey, etc.
Negotiate with the people who took over the school????? What in the #$@$??? Some Global War.
Why are all of these Jews pimping for Muslim terrorists in Chechnya? Ledeen, of all people, is the most disappointing of all. He's a FReeper, and contributes often.
Putin is certainly no angel, and has used this crisis to crack down on democratic reforms in Russia. But, my God, his nation is crying out for revenge against these Chechen criminals, and their al-Qaeda associates.
Step aside and let Putin handle his 9/11. And that includes George W. Bush, too.
Holdovers from the left, previously having misunderstood the nature of the chechen terrorists. In due time, all are coming to see the evil that both Russia and Serbia, as well as Israel, have been battling.
Could you please elaborate on your point in posting this article?
Me, myself, i was hoping that Putin would get so angry and his people so angry, that they'd go after the real terrorists, who are behind the massacre. Even the terrorists that are based in France.
Get my drift?
josh, not wise to sign up and post crap from the Guardian, a liberal piece of trash that isn't worthy of wiping my ass with.
Sharon knows.
A stopped clock is right twice a day; the Guardian got this one right.
Oh, Always right - The Guardian is a pro Chechen paper editoraly - but their guest journalists and opinion writers are usually from all over the political spectrum.
Did you read the article? Why are these people siding with Muslim terrorists?
This article was already posted by a long time freeper if vouching needs to be established.
That's what I had thought too. Thanks for confirming.
I agree, though. The article talks about a bunch of mongers looking for some one else to blame. It was the terrorists that killed those kids. Putin didn't put the guns in their hands.
The mongers sound like American liberals. "The hurricanes in Florida are Bush's fault!"
I think we are all scratching out heads. This makes no sense whatsoever, except perhaps some folks thought they could earn a bit of inside the beltway money to supplement their incomes by signing up for a cause that most people would not normally have carred about.
Well, if it helps you to understand this, I had some sympathy for the Chechens till about a month ago, just as I had a lot of sympathy for the Palestinians till they started the second intifada.
Certain behavior loses you sympathy and earns you dedicated enemies.
COEXERJ145 member Since Dec 2, 2003.
Seems to me you are the newbie in regards to that original poster, COEXERJ145.
Why did you change the headline? It is not the headline of the original article. It is something you wrote yourself. You even put the word 'morally' in single quotes. That (usually) indicates that you are quoting someone. Yet who? The word morally appears nowhere in the text of the article in the first place. Heck the word Kremlin doesn't even appear. Nor do they appear in the quotes you've excerpted from their websites (I find this thing too boring to check the websites myself).
Can you state, exactly, who holds the position that the Kremlin is morally to blame for the school massacre? If not, isn't the headline just BS?
I have my problems with the article itself, but your misrepresentation of what the article is about, and what the position of the so-called "US neocons" is, is the more glaring problem here.
Till a month ago???? What was wrong with you? What - the first Chechen prodiced beheading videos from 5 years ago were not enough?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.