Typical M1A (or similar M14) before, and picture/story of one after a catestrophic misfire.
Posted on 09/05/2004 6:48:58 PM PDT by neverdem
BESLAN, Russia, Sept. 5 — Inside the charred, bullet-pocked wreckage of Middle School No. 1 lies evidence of the terror Russia faces: two parts of the library's wooden floor had been pried up, evidently by the heavily armed attackers who seized the school and held 1,000 hostages for 52 hours.
Beneath the schools first-floor library, investigators now suspect, the attackers had secreted a cache of weapons or other equipment weeks, perhaps months before their brutal attack, possibly during a seemingly innocuous summer renovation, officials said.
While investigators have only begun to piece together the details of the worst act of terror to strike Russia, the holes in the library's floor, which might easily be overlooked in the gruesome carnage of the school, underscored the sophistication and coordination that has accompanied the radicalization of the attacks that have convulsed the country.
The attackers — said to include Chechens, Ingush, ethnic Russians and some still-unidentified foreigners — followed a plan after the school's seizure with precision and alacrity, forcing their hostages to help place explosives and build barricades. They wore NATO-issued camouflage. They carried gas masks, compasses and first-aid kits, communicated with hand-held radios and brought along two sentry dogs, apparently as expertly trained as the attackers themselves.
"They knew the geography of the school grounds like their own backyard," the chief spokesman for Russia's Federal Security Service, Sergei N. Ignatchenko, said in a telephone interview on Saturday. "This allowed them to choose sniper positions and place booby-traps on all possible access routes."
The depth of planning evident in the horrifying siege, which by today's official count left 338 hostages dead, mirrored that of a series of attacks that have roiled Russia, beginning with a similar siege of a Moscow theater during a performance of a musical called "Nord-Ost" in October 2002 and continuing through a grim litany of suicide bombings and other strikes that culminated with shocking brutality here last week.
Like Al Qaeda's militants, which President Vladimir V. Putin and others argue provide succor to Chechnya's separatists, the extremists believed to be behind all attacks have managed to dispatch cells of ideologues who spend extended periods organizing and carrying out spectacular, unnerving attacks, often suicidal ones.
The attackers — believed to be members of a contingent led by Shamil Basayev, Chechnya's most notorious and lethal rebel commander — have moved seamlessly between the North Caucasus and Moscow, while evading Russia's extensive, if at times ineffective, security apparatus. They have so despite particular scrutiny that falls on anyone appearing to be Chechen.
In February, a female suicide bomber, possibly with an accomplice, destroyed a Moscow subway car, killing at least 41 early-morning commuters. In May, a bomb planted beneath a stadium grandstand killed Chechnya's president, Akhmad Kadyrov, as he watched a Victory Day parade in Grozny. In June, hundreds of insurgents used stolen uniforms of the local police to seize much of Ingushetia's capital for hours, stopping and executing the real police officers who raced to reinforce their colleagues, killing nearly 100.
On Aug. 21, fighters carried out a similar raid in Grozny, with similar tactics, killing at least 22. Three days later, bombs believed to be carried by two Chechen women destroyed separate passenger airliners simultaneously, killing 90 people. A week later, a female suicide blew herself up outside the Rizhskaya subway station in Moscow, killing 10. Hours after that the siege in Beslan began.
"They have shown they are able to do everything they want in each corner of Russia," said Aleksei Malashenko, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
I do what I can. I try to be understated about it. Like Trav says, people won't get serious about it until something worse happens. I'm not even convinced that it will happen then. Some Californians are such guileless sheep.
You all know my position on our resident "silent" moderates. We've invited them here and they are our guests and fellow citizens. They'll deserve our defense from any potential lynch mobs, and I'll feel obligated to help them if I can.
I think that America's sense of restraint demonstrated now for three years is something of a miracle. I don't think it's all just PC nonsense. Americans do have a real moral compass. They really do have a conscience.
Maybe Russia will help Serbia take care of those problems after this.
BTT
Typical M1A (or similar M14) before, and picture/story of one after a catestrophic misfire.
When the SHTF, think of their homes as supply depots...
Semper Fi
Very good. I think we need Operation Global Phoenix, as I think Travis has been advocating. The left takes every opportunity to mention that Operation Phoenix in Vietnam as a horrific and genocidal program that was "out of control." What they forget is that it was intended to protect innocent Vietnamese. The truly indiscriminate horror was the agrarian Maoist technique of mass murder for the sole purpose of intimidation. Phoenix had a much more precise intent: destroy the operational enemy and anyone who protected him. That doesn't meet standards for genocide. Ignoring the genocidal killing of the agrarian Maoist VC would have complicant in their plans, though. The destruction of more than a million lives in Cambodia after the American left forced us to abandon SE asia is evidence of that.
As was the case during Vietnam, we are up against an enemy that believes it can use the horror in our own minds to neutralize our willingness to fight. It neutralized John F. Kerry. It neutralized then entire Democratic party. We have to be ready for this, innoculate ourselves against it. We have to be willing to bring horror to the enemy that exceeds what he can even imagine. I think when the people of these lands understand that we have taken off the kid gloves, and anyone who even associates with our enemies becomes a casual target for our forces, they will soon come to realize how inconvenient it is to be aligned with the terrorists. Terrorism will go out of style in a few months if we let loose the real dogs of war. All of this must go on in their lands, and not ours.
It's all about the horror, the horror.
Of course after ranting about the merits of quality and knowledge I'll have a Eaker Incident next time at the range ....knock on wood !
Stay safe !
I like what I'm hearing about these weapons. Are they more accurate than the M1 Garand? I see rifles like this one with stainless/plastic options: 
I suppose I lose the flash suppressor in Kaliforniastan.
Stay safe !
Hey, I can discuss it! A WWII vet once told me that citizens should be able to own any firearms they see fit. The federal AWB has to fall first. Then we can start working on the local AWBs in MA and CA. CCW's too. And finally, we can think about a repeal of the 1934 firearms act, the one that began this whole march to disarming America.
That jumped out at me like a neon sign! The question is...how did they get these? And how many of our various uniforms do these scum-sucking terrorists have already?
The Patriot Act has been disparaged by dopies here on FR. They're frightened it might make their dope highs less safe or more expensive. Or both. Their depravity is only rivaled by their selfishness.
Maybe one of their goals is to stir up east/west rivalry again?
I don't think so...they want total destruction/submission of the west/east. They want to either convert us all to islam or kill us all.
Semper Fi
bttt - one way or another, it's going to happen
You trying to piss me off again?
I've got family out of state.....it will just take longer for me to get "set up"..
Semper Fi
Nahhhh just messin with risk trying to bait me into a gun thread !
Hope yer well RR !
Stay safe !
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