Posted on 02/21/2007 12:00:08 AM PST by roughman
Page 1 of 2 Russia's hudna with the Muslim world By Spengler
Janus-like, Russian President Vladimir Putin showed two faces toward Islam last week. In a historic and widely reported visit to Riyadh on February 11, Putin announced that "Russia is determined to enhance cooperation with the Islamic world". As a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country, he added, Russia has long experience in fostering cooperation between faiths and ethnicities, adding, "Russia is bent on pursuing this approach in all regions, including the Middle East and the Gulf."
In an equally historic but little-reported action, on Thursday Putin
installed as acting president of Chechnya the strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, whose private army allegedly murders and abducts enemies of the regime with impunity. The son of a Muslim rebel, the bete noire of human-rights advocates, Kadyrov embodies internal policy toward its Muslim population. It is the same policy that Russia pursued these three centuries past.
Russia does not propose to ally with the Muslim world against the United States. Putin's initiative should be thought of as a hudna, a brief truce in a long war. With justification, Putin cites Russia's experience with the Islamic world. It has been enmeshed in imperial ventures on its southern border for 300 years and now stands at the frontier between Islam and the Western world. The new Chechnya offers a likelier model for the new Middle East than the Bush administration's delusional pursuit of democracy. Russian troops killed between 35,000 and 100,000 civilians in the first Chechen war of 1994-96, and half a million were driven from their homes. Dead and displaced Chechens, that is, comprised roughly half the population. Another 5,000 or so died in the second Chechen war of 1999-2000, when Russian forces leveled the capital city, Grozny.
(Excerpt) Read more at atimes.com ...
ping..for later
True, a good read. Our PC approach to the problem will certainly lead to disaster. With the present congress, there can't be any good outcome.
barbra ann
. However, I do question whether Putin is taking a long range view and has embarked on a monstrous enterprise as the writer says.
Could be Nick Land, Reza Negarestani, or David P. Goldman.
Just guesses.
I agree with the part about Europe especially after Britain’s announcement yesterday about its plan to withdraw its troupes from Iraq.
Europe and to a large extent the US has lost the will to survive. Soft living for too long has sapped our strength.
How can freedom survive when the free are no longer willing to die to remain free?
Our Democrat congress seems to believe that Islam is no threat yet all over the world anywhere Islam achieves substantial numbers terrorism and social strife follows.
The author makes the argument that the Russian leadership fought the Chechnyian wars to prevent Islamization of Russia. The publicly stated reason was to combat terrorism and organized crime. Which is true? Russian foreign policy history is usually marked by misdirection and obfuscations. Putin being part of the old Soviet hierarchy I would tend to agree with the author.
The problem is our present political environment and US history in the last century precludes our following the Russian model and crushing our enemies. And in realistic terms this strategy would be problematic for the US due to geography. Chechnya is on the Russian border. None of the Muslim countries are in proximity to the US making invasion and occupation not an easy mater for us. The US can project power anywhere in the world quickly and decisively but prolonged involvement becomes costly rather quickly for us because all of the worlds hot spots are nowhere near the US (thankfully).
One problem with the Russian model with dealing with the Islamic problem is that certainly they will pacifiy the Chechnyians in the short term but what of the long term? Russia has created a whole new generation of Chechnyians that hate Russians. Will Russia pursue a Carthaginian peace? Should we?
Very interesting observations.
I disagree with you somewhat. I dont think it is soft living that has caused us to grow so weak. We still produce the best damn fighting men this planet has ever seen and ever will see.
Where we've grown weak is in our capitulation to the enemy propagandists over the last few decades. Hell, you can watch folk slowly fold over time now when confronted with a concerted disinformation campaign, even when they know they are being lied to and manipulated. I watch it happen on this and other forums constantly.
People get tired of fighting back against the same ol' same ol' in propagandized rhetorical idiocy and then just stop fighting. Next thing you know, they begin to chirp right along with the propagandists. The left knows this, it's based on Marxist SOP and they use it well and have won and continue to win again and again and again.
This is because, most of y'all are decent folk that just wont give in to the rage and deep down belly burning hatred that you need as a defense against such assaults and too many feel it too important to continue in a "business as usual" "be polite" kinda format with the mistaken belief that there is any place for debate or reason with dishonorable and irrational liars.
Any time you are confronted by a liar from the left and leave that person standing, they win. Until we get back to basics and start calling traitors what they are and treating them according to traditionally accepted methods, we have no right to survival.
All through recorded history, there is nothing more hated, more despised, more deserving of obliteration and absolute destruction as are betrayers during a time of war.
Anyhoo, that's my personal take on that bit. Otherwise, I tend to agree with the rest of what you said.
Also, a bit of historical perspective...there's a long familiarity with the old USSR and islamic radicals. The sovs made it official strategy to support, train, sponsor and supply arab/muslim terror organizations in '67. If you think back to russian involvement in Iraq during our run into Bagdad, it's pretty obvious that the support is still part and parcel of russian foriegn policy.
A good companion article:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1788509/posts
I wonder why the other Muslem Republics which were part of the USSR werent mentioned. They of course have all the WMD of the
old USSR. The bio-war anistanwas in Uzbeckistan. this was supposedly decontaminated after the US afganistan war. I saw the bid documents and I remember there was 2000 liters of weaponized anthrax. I dont know if the work was ever done.
barbra ann
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.