Et tu, brute.
Posted on 09/03/2004 5:35:31 PM PDT by saquin
[Pupils were lured by chocolate then starved and threatened by terrorists]
WHEN their chance of freedom came with a massive explosion that shook School No 1, many of the children found that they could not escape.
Forced to strip to their underwear and sit shoulder-to-shoulder for three days with their knees tucked under their chins, their legs were numb and would not respond to the instinct to flee.
Hungry and dehydrated after being denied food and water by their captors, they stumbled aimlessly and weakly, their way further hampered by the debris and dust from the blast falling all around them.
The stronger ones reached the windows and began to break the glass with their fists, cutting and scratching their hands, arms and faces in their frantic efforts to get out.
And as they ran, crying and fearful, gunmen in the upper floors of the school began shooting at them.
Fatima, 15, dazed and clearly in shock, seemed to know little of her escape. “I don’t know what caused the blast, I just remember a huge bang,” she said.
“I tried to get up but I couldn’t walk or see anything. Somebody grabbed me and then I cannot remember anything until I got to hospital.”
Vitaly Makiyev, 11, was shaking as he told how policemen carried him from the building. When the gunmen arrived on Wednesday morning, Vitaly had run back into the school building, thinking he would be safe there.
“They held us for three days and they didn’t give us any food or water,” he cried.
Rosa Dudiyea told the Kommersant newspaper that the hostage-takers had at first pretended to be Russian and lured some children into the building with sweets.
“A military lorry appeared in front of the school building. People wearing camouflage and masks jumped out — I could see only their eyes and beards,” she said.
“They opened fire, everyone started running about. Some people, including myself, managed to hide behind a fence.
“Several gunmen stayed outside, near the entrance. They started screaming in very good Russian, ‘Russians, Russians, come here, don’t be afraid!’ One of the terrorists tried to lure children with chocolate.”
A woman teacher who was freed with her three-year-old daughter on the second day of the seige, but forced to leave her older children behind, said that as many as 1,500 people had been in the school when the siege began.
“It happened within two or three minutes,” she told Izvestiya newspaper. “We had begun to form a line in the school yard to listen to the headmistress’s September 1 speeches when suddenly we heard shots.
“We were herded into the sports hall. The doors into the hall were locked. People in masks broke the windows and leapt through them and then they broke the doors down. In the hall they ordered us to sit on the floor and began quickly to mine the room.
“Two large explosive devices were put in the basketball nets and then through the hall they led wires that they attached to smaller explosive devices. The whole place was mined within ten minutes.”
Atsamas Ketsoyev, 14, told The Times: “There were bombs laid out all around the gymnasium — some were hanging from the ceiling and there was one big bomb in the middle of the room. There were two women wearing explosive belts. There was also a man standing with his foot on something like a pedal or a button.”
Around this, said Atsamas, the half-naked children were forced to sit, crammed together “with our knees under our chins”.
It was hot and many had difficulty breathing even after the hostage-takers — who never removed their masks — ordered male hostages to smash windows.
The teacher who was freed said that the terrorists had frequently fired shots to stop children crying and prevent people talking. “The younger classes were terrified. They often asked to go to the toilet. They took them to the toilet in groups. If the younger ones cried the fighters shot in the air and shouted at them to be quiet. Then the young ones were silent.
“There were six or seven fighters in the hall. Two at one end, two at the other. Two or three walked around the hall. I can’t say how many there were, although when we went to the toilet I saw in the corridor there were many of them — some lying down, some walking around.
“On the first day they brought a few buckets of water from the loo. People in masks gave the babies powdered milk in cold, unboiled water.”
The teacher said that women with very young children were later moved upstairs because the crying of the babies irritated the gunmen.
She said: “A frightened child in the hall made a noise and one of the fighters seized a child and threatened to kill it if the noise didn’t stop.
“One of the terrorists grabbed a child who was crying and said ‘If this noise doesn’t stop I’ll shoot you’.”
She continued: “The terrorists said that they only demanded one thing — that troops should be taken out of Chechnya. In general they spoke little and mostly in whispers, but we heard that.
“Mostly they explained things with gestures. By their speech it was possible to make out there were Chechens and Ingush among them.”
The teacher said that during the night some of the children became more frightened and would wake crying from fitful dozes. She added: “The young ones began to cry every now and then, and the fighters shot into the air and enforced silence.
“In the morning they told us they wouldn’t give us any more water because the authorities were refusing to negotiate. When the children were taken to the loo some tried to drink from the tap. The fighters stopped this.”
Some children among those who escaped said they had become so thirsty they drank their own urine. Others had ripped leaves off pot plants in the school and eaten them.
Male hostages were held apart from the women and children and some were forced to “work” — boarding up windows and throwing out the corpses of those killed when the school was seized.
One teenager escaped when he jumped from a window out of which he had just thrown a body. He broke his leg but managed to hide until nightfall when he crawled to safety.
Hostages said they believed that the terrorists had murdered some of the wounded.
Zalina Dzandzarova, freed on the second day of the siege, said she believed that two suicide bombers had killed themselves on Wednesday, detonating their explosive belts in the corridor, where male hostages were being kept. Mrs Dzandarova said: “They took some of the injured out of the gym and finished them off right there.”
Absolutely must get that Sarcasto-meter checked.
That's the second time it hasn't worked.
An interesting addition posted by mastercylinder on a similar thread:
"a little history lesson http//:www.strategypage.com
When Chechnya first declared independence from Russia in 1993, the Russians promptly invaded. The Russians quickly tired of getting a lot of their troops killed for what appeared to be little gain. In the wake of their 1994 withdrawal from Chechnya, Russia simultaneously declared Chechnya still a part of Russia (and paid pensions and government salaries there) and left the Chechens to their own devices. But the Chechens could not govern themselves. It was as simple as that. The central government in the province controlled little beyond the capital Grozny. At least six major warlords held sway, and then quite loosely, over the rest of the province. Criminal activity rapidly increased. Between 1997 and 2000, some 1300 Russian civilians from southern Russia were kidnapped for ransom. When the money did not appear to be forthcoming, the victims were murdered. Hundreds of these captives were rescued as Russian troops again advanced into Chechnya in late 1999. But kidnapping wasn't the only racket. There was also auto theft, rustling, drug running and diverting oil from pipelines running through the province. This last scam was abetted by gangsters taking over local oil refineries and going into the fuel business. Add to this the usual gambling, extortion and prostitution rackets and you have a pretty grim place. For while a lot of the victims were fellow Chechens (who didn't belong to a particular gangs clan), most were in neighboring areas.
But what really mobilized public support for another invasion of Chechnya was one gang that specialized in religious fanaticism (in addition to some more secular crimes, everyone found kidnapping and smuggling too lucrative to give up for religious reasons.) Not content with just turning Chechnya into crime central, the Besayev gang decided to turn all the southern Caucasus into an Islamic republic. Most Chechens practiced the more laid back Sufi form of Islam, but Besayev and his followers managed to convert a few thousand Chechens to the more hard nosed Wahhabi form of Islam. It aid in this, non-Chechen fundamentalists came in to join the jihad. A few hundred converts were made in neighboring Dagestan. In the Summer of 1999, Besayev and company decided it was time to stop preaching and start fighting. Several thousand holy warriors invaded Dagestan. The Chechen criminals were bad enough, but this was too much for the Dagestanis, and they fought back. Some 32,000 Dagestani civilians who fled the invasion, and the 1,500 locals were killed in the fighting, sometimes massacred by the holy warriors for resisting. Twice the Russian police and troops drove Besayev's warriors back into Chechnya. But after the third invasion, the new prime minister of Russia decided to reestablish control of Chechenya.
In February 2000, the senior Islamic cleric of Chechnya, Mufti Akhmed Khadzhi Kadyrov, proclaimed that the Russian occupation of Chechnya was the only way the people were ever going to be free from all the criminal activity. During the late 1990s, the Russian government had basically ignored the pleas of Chechnya's neighbors for relief from the increasing criminal activity. Reassuring press releases and more border guards were all that was sent to paper over the situation. But the local resentments built up, not just in the Caucasus, but throughout Russia. What was going in Chechnya was symbolic of the lesser degree of lawlessness throughout the country. Russians were waiting for someone to do something. But no one wanted a lot of Russian troops to get killed in the process. The 1993 battles in Chechnya had been humiliating for the Russian military, and people as a whole. In 1999, the Russians were more careful, numerous and decisive. This time the Chechens were also divided. The Russians soon occupied the entire country and began negotiating with many of the clan based groups for some kind of deal. The Russians wanted to get a majority of Chechens to agree to keep the crime rate,"
1 posted on 09/04/2004 8:40:28 PM CDT by mastercylinder
I agree with you and have read up on Islam's violent and merciless history.
I think "intelligent spending" is a combination of intelligence, weaponry and troops. I feel we did a great job of going aftert the terrorists in Afghanistan for example.
Not being able to go after these networks in other countries is not true. The point I was making is that getting intelligence agents rooted in 12-20 Middle Eastern countries where the terrorists are takes time, often several years or longer.
Truman did the right thing and that was because the Japanese populace all had the fight to the death attitude. The terrorists now are recruited for the most part, in mosques worldwide. Right terrorism is a "liquid" organization. Our goverment and intelligence agencies are behind in detecting and intreprating attack signals. In WWII breaking the enemies code and intercepting intelligence was given the highest priority.
What we succeeded in was driving the Taliban into the remote Hindu Kush mountain range. Surely you will recognize that failing to capture Mulla Omar, or Osama Bin Ladin. Everyone in the "intelligence" business will readily admit that we are unable to pierce the inner circle of Al Qaeda. Therefore concentrating on intelligence, while sterile, does not seem like a wise long term solution.
The point I was making is that getting intelligence agents rooted in 12-20 Middle Eastern countries where the terrorists are takes time, often several years or longer.
That sounds like the unproveable beaurocratic funding arguement. "We need more time and money because we have nothing to show for ourselves" The truth is we will never be able to take root because the jihad has such broad support, and the leaders are very good at smelling out fakes. It would be nice to be able to do it this clean way, but I don't see any evidence that we can do it in a law enforcement style of flipping agents and assisinating criminals.
WWII breaking the enemies code and intercepting intelligence was given the highest priority.
Then why did Truman nuke 30,000 people? Twice? You are contradicting yourself, our superior code breaking was invaluable in our naval war, but we were dealing with an equally partisan, mass hysterical and violently "religious" culture in the Imperial Japanese. We weren't going to invade the island with CIA opperatives to root out the evil doers, we were fully prepared to kill every man or woman who opposed us, we were steeled in our resolve. It wasn't until the Japanese heard their god on the radio, unmasked, disproven, and weak for all to see that the nation transitioned to peace, and that was only accomplished by 2 cities turned to dust. We could have used intelligence for years sniping Imperial Army and Navy leaders, it wouldn't have made much of a difference. They were flying planes into our ships like Jihadist reducing their number, but we weren't going to win that way. This is why I believe someone in the civilized world is eventually going to have to strike at Mecca itself, destroy the "sacred" city center, and unmask for all the Muslim world the weakened and false moon god that supposedly dwells there. Its the only way to pacify this increasingly violent and barbaric movement worldwide. I know it sounds harsh disproving someone's religion, but war is, and I don't want to have to be worrying for the rest of my life about these idiots. Wars are won not by spies, they're won by troops using weapons. Eventually all Americans and all the world is going to wake up to this cold reality that this can't be a sterile war, I just hope we do before what happened in Baslan starts occuring in Boston or Baltimore.
All of our previous comments to each other are below. I wasn't trying to suggest going the John Kerry route of law enforcement for suicidal jihadis, like the imperial japs.
Osama and Omar are in Pakistan, protected by the Pakistani intelligence. Musharref appears to be slowly dismantling this apparatus and has had 3 assasination attempts on his life so the gains are painfully slow. I feel the operation was a success, the rabbits are hiding in holes as opposed to being on national Al Jazeera tv daily preaching their stupid ass hate message across the globe. Whether we get Bin Laden will depend on how long Musharref stays alive and who his succesor will be.
About your comment about smelling our fakes, I disagree. If jihadis can recruit eastern europeans and americans to join their holy war we can certainly infaltrate. What takes time is that new recruits posed as spies are not given immediate higher level responsibilities. Therefore, it takes years as in any organization to gain rank and subsequent real intelligence. Our intelligence agencies have a massive problem with not having enough language translators for the millions of bits of middle eastern information we receive every day. Our intelligence agencies are disorganized, confused and inept. In three years since 9/11 you still do not have one central database being shared by CIA/FBI/Homeland Security. We are WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY behind with the first step of any war: REAL INTELLIGENCE.
I think Truman made a great decision, but not for the exact reasons your citing. However, that was then and this is now. Then you had a central power base in a specific geographic location. This enemy is what I would call "liquid". It reminds me of hackers on the Internet. So damn hard to find and shut down. Coincidentally Al Queda relies heavily on encrypted messages, blogs and sites to convey their doings. They are also behind billions of dollars in computer identity theft and fraud. Want to know what that nasty virus did when you downloaded some free porn, hosted by a Muslim "charity" contributor? The information was stolen, then used to siphon dollars into the "charities" which made it to Al Queda. Most people don't notice because it appears as $10 or $15 charges on their CC bills. When your doing it to 10 million people a month, it adds up fast.
AMERICA WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!LOOK AT THESE INNOCENT BABIES THEY DID NOTHING
I have heard they are in the Hindu Kush mountain range ungoverned by either nation. In any case, it doesn't appear Musharef or Karzi have the intel to bring them in. You want more $, fine, I'm not against throwing more money at the CIA, but I am against trusting that this war is going to be won by the CIA.
I think Truman made a great decision, but not for the exact reasons your citing. However, that was then and this is now.
What was then vs now? He "murdered" 10s of thousands of civilians. There wasn't any real strategic importance of either city, and the sole purpose was to demoralize the enemy.
You don't win wars by killing all the "important" leaders, you win by demoralizing your opponent. Stealing their will to fight. We have failed to do this so far, as all these new fronts in the war appear to be expanding in southern Russia, yesterday in Jakarta, a UK chopper went down in the Balkans today, not to mention continued bombings in Afganistan, Iraq and Israel....don't you worry that the enemy is undeterred? We should, this is poised to go on for the rest of our lives, and no amount of decapitating leadership is going to make much of a long term impact on the moon god worshipers.
This enemy is what I would call "liquid". It reminds me of hackers on the Internet. So damn hard to find and shut down.
Precisely my point, even when we finally do get Bin Ladin, we won't have a "VT" day to celebrate.
I'm sorry to say that given the expanse rather than the shrinking of this war that America is winning battles, but losing the war. Its because we aren't addressing the "root cause" which is not poverty, its Islam. No one can deny that the common denominator in all of this is Islam, but Bush et al want a sterile war where we talk about "evil doers" and "hijacking of a great religion" and my favorite "the religion of peace". I believe Bush is sincere, as well as strategic in not wanting 1 billion people against us, but I also believe Bush is wrong. 1 billion are already tacitly supporting our downfall. The "moderate muslim" who hates sharia and loves freedom exists in the same mythological place as the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the man-friendly lesbian.
War On Terrorism is too vague, this is a war on Islamicism, or Islamofacism. Since we agree that it is, it is time that address it...and I'm telling you, I'm pleading with you, the opportunity is there, the door is open, its just a huge challenge we aren't up to.
If something happened to center of Mecca, where the pagens still are forced to go for the Hajj as they were long before Muhammed, a place where Allah "lives" their whole worldview would come crumbling down. This is a faith based around Arabian nationalism and a single city, which has survived into the modern world, but like extinct species from different eras, it is destined to fall in the internet age. Why do you think they've become so agressive recently? They know that on some level.
Its up to us to expediate their placement on the ash heap of history before they consume us all and force us to bow to their 6th century ideals. Nazism, Communism and southern slavery were flawed systems but it took America to fight and die in order to dismiss these backwards tyrannies. So must it be with the Cult of Muhammed.
Your bloodlust - destroy Chechnya, kill all Muslims, etc. - is exactly wishing harm upon innocent children. Those wankers beatign their chests here about nuking Chechnya & Iraq & the palestinians & Mecca are asking us to fall to their evil level - attacking innocents without consideration.
This is a multi-faceted problem. And, at the risk of offending the chest-beaters, it requires nuance.
We need to apply many different kinds of resources against these terrorists & the societies within which they grow. We need to cut off their heads with intelligence and military operations; we need to cut off their roots with Public Relations and civil engineers.
Killing them all and letting God sort them out is not a civilized solution. We would be no better than the terrorists, to do that.
Don't you think that maybe, just maybe, there is a real, legitimate beef which was exploited by the terrorists?
Sorry, but you went waaaay over the heads of the chest-beaters.
Et tu, brute.
She lived.
And your point is? There are about 700 people who survived Beslan.
Come on, defend murdering innocent children who have the bad luck to live in Chechnya.
Perhaps if you want to call people names you can be man enough to do it to my face? You can at least spell beating correctly if you are going to be so condescending and pompous. I believe your definition of innocent differs from mine, that in no way makes me a chest beater or a wanker.
Holy cow, or Holy Moon, I mean this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. If we were to take your antiwar arguement to their logical ends then there never would have been a war in Iraq because children died in the bombing.
Children died in nuking of Hiroshima.
They died when the Contras fought against the Sandinistas.
Americans killed them inadvertantly because there "unlucky" enough to have Nazi parents.
The list goes on and on. What a hysterical bleeding heart like yourself fails to comprehend is there is a difference between torturing children for pleasure, and children dying within areas of strategic military purpose. If you want to equate the two because the poor kids are still dead in the end--you ignore that more misery will be brought if we don't suceed in American military goals.
That's assuming you want us to win at all, hippie.
They are moslem, they grow up to be evil people (read the Koran to see their behavior). The perfect alternate solution is to take the children younger than 6 (who have not been brainwashed) and put them into Christian homes.
Are you serious? Kidnapping?
Are you still running away?
Typical liberal, demagogue people, talk about them behind their backs, but when challenged to intellectually back up your claims, you piddle a slink away. I saw this amazing nugget in your spamming of the thread earlier and have to ask if you are serious
Don't you think that maybe, just maybe, there is a real, legitimate beef which was exploited by the terrorists?
Wow, the "seperatists" candard. I'm glad I challenged you hippie, you are seriously disturbed. The Japanese had a real beef with the US in that they were seperatists for Asian shipping and commerce, its just that they happened to want to control the whole pacific rim. They "hijacked" that great cause of Asian self determination, we should have sought to understand how our western ways had oppressed them rather than declaring war after Pearl Harbor. Do you realize how many children died in our bombings? Those chest thumping neanderthal GIs. After all those guys on the Arizona were victims, but so were the Imperial Japanese unable to control their own area...Everybody's a victim, except people who defend themselves...you really are a geek.
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