Posted on 09/06/2004 2:38:56 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
BESLAN: On the charred planks of the gymnasium of School Number One, amid soot-covered children's sneakers and shell casings, Beslan's aggrieved citizens debated fighting back.
At first, parents, relatives and friends of those who perished in Friday's bloody climax to the three-day siege gathered at the gutted redbrick building to see the destruction with their own eyes.
But the afternoon soon turned into an impromptu town meeting, held in the blackened gym where many of the hostages died.
A few voices in the crowd called for calm, but many insisted that the deaths of so many children be avenged.
"Let's gather up all of the men in the villages and fight," shouted one man.
"If we don't act now, when we calm down we'll end up not doing anything at all," yelled a middle-aged woman, shaking her fist in the air.
Nikolai Betiyev, 52, urged restraint. "Let's bury the bodies first before we think of doing anything. We need to calm down."
"We won't ever forget this," shouted back Taimuraz Metsiyev, a broad-chested, 33-year-old Ossetian who lost several friends and relatives in the siege. "So don't say that in time we'll learn to accept this, and that we have to concentrate on burying our children.
"The people who don't want to fight say 'So many innocent lives will suffer if we take up arms'," Mr Metsiyev continued. "Well, we've already suffered enough. It's time to fight."
Even as the first funeral processions began wending their way through the streets of Beslan, many residents began openly talking of revenge.
They directed their anger at the organisers and abetters of terrorism in the volatile Caucasus region, and said they could no longer rely on local or Russian law-enforcement for protection.
President Vladimir Putin's image as an iron-willed, no-nonsense leader, relying heavily on his KGB past, now counts for little in many people's eyes.
They are furious with what they see as his inability to shield the nation from terrorism and from the fallout of the decade-long conflict in the northern Caucasus. Now, Mr Putin's calls for restraint appear to carry little weight with so many touched by the crisis.
In Beslan, Fatima Ganukova scoffed at the President's surprise visit to the town early on Saturday to meet survivors, saying he should have instead visited the morgue to view the scope of the tragedy.
"Of course, after the funerals our men will try to take matters into our hands," Ms Ganukova said. "And of course, this is the right thing to do."
Makes a nice target doesn't it ! ! !
That picture was so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes!
I believe, the Bear has been awakened, and Putin is a smart enough politician, to know, that he has to use overwhelming force, ar at least be percieved as doing so, to quiet the unrest this has generated in Russia. Putin's only chance for political survival, depends on ruthless revenge.
Just as a side note,: If these people were polled on how they would vote in the US election ( like the Canadians and Euros are polled) who do you think they'd vote for?
So much for sensitivity and nuance.
That is the real question, when do people start fighting the war on terror?
No, I don't have the answers, only the questions.
Nice. Are you ready for this? Get a load of this headline:
Tuesday, September 7, 2004. Page 1.
"Basketball Bomb Sparked Beslan Battle"
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/09/07/001.html
A bomb falling off a basketball hoop sparked the fierce battle at the Beslan school.........
Slimy media would never take that poll....
They're still working on how to make this all BUSH"S FAULT!
Let's see how November elections go.
Send that picture to every Muslim site you can find. Might make them think.
No dice. They'd just run to the press (the same one that legitimizes Islam as a "culture" we must "appreciate") and would paint me as a "purveyor of anti-Arab hate speech" blah blah blahblah blah...
I love the totally independent Russian Media's new take you've posted there: if only those idiotic armed civilians had stopped firing into the school, the police would have had the whole situation in hand- why, the islamofascists were ON THE PHONE, saying they'd stop firing, because a falling bomb started the whole thing, you see, and that was a mistake, and also the authorities have now ascertained that the idiotic civilians are the ones who caused the terrorists to shoot the negotiators dead (at the exact same moment as the "accident", you see).
So the subsequent suicide bombings were NOT the authorities' fault, by any means.
Now, I have no inclination to fault the Russian police for this- it is the fault of the MUSLIMS. Period. But I also have no inclination to accept at face value the detail-free ass-covering spin coming out of the Putin-controlled media.
I'm usually not one who advocates such methods, but given the fact that most Chechens support the terrorists, either directly or indirectly, and that it is now impossible to tell who is and is not a terrorist, the Russians might have to adopt methods that have not been seen on this earth for hundreds of years. And by that I mean go in and kill every living thing in the region and wipe radical Islam totally out of the Carcasses.
I was looking around for a book of condolences, such as we had for us after Sept. 11. If there are any Christians around, and you know of something we on the Internet could send to Beslan, please email me @ nanhwmd@aol.com.
Sure, but the armed civilians should have been kept back, perhaps to enforce a perimeter. The civilians had no fire discipline, according to the Moscow Times article, and seem to have worsened the situation.
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