[Luis Gonzalez]

PING

[blastdad51]

Do you think they precieve the wrath of the Russian population comeing down on them ? The Russians aren't bound by the same political correctness as we are. Putin would probably tell the ACLU and CAIR to get stuffed, then call in an air strike on the mosques....

[Lorianne]

I would like to believe these sentiments are sincere and that all people are guinuinely repulsed by the senseless slaughter of innocents at Beslan.

I hope and pray they are sincere and not just saying these things to save their own hides from reprisals.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

It appears that their might be a split in interests between the Chechen people and the Terrorists.

[struwwelpeter]

Imperial Japan calls on US armed forces to stop attacking the home islands and to punish only the guilty Kamikaze pilots.

[Valin]

Bookmark

[silversky]

Only when they turn in their terrorist comrades, they will be believed. Until them it's all posturing. Whoever thinks that the attacks are wrong but "unavoidable" is guilty of supporting the terrorists.

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?

[Barlowmaker]

It's pathetic and alarming to watch the usual suspects adopt Vladdy Putin as their new hero to bolster their "Kill Them All" crap.

[Indie]

Chechnya. The local population, which had largely backed the actions by Chechen terrorists, seems to have turned against them...in a cowardly and desperate move to save their own skins.

There that's better.

[musicman]

So is Basayev going to kill his relatives that disagree with him, like he did to one of the terrorists who disagreed
with his attacking the school and the children, right before the attack????

[dennisw]

These family members (clan, relatives) are PRECISELY the ones who should be liquidated to pay for the murder of 150 Russian children and 200 adults by Chechnyan Jihadists. Offing the Jihadist's family is the only language Mohammedans understand.

[MarMema]

It is possible to work and receive a salary,” the two brothers said. “Consequently, the reasons for terror are neither present nor justified.

Wow I feel better.

Though one could infer that jobs lost = kill more children.

I do love the chechen logic and brilliance. Not sure if complexity eludes them naturally or they just have lousy schools.

[MarMema]

And we are ready to help the people hurt by the terrorists

Oh that'll be the day. Be sure to take your camera.

[Nov3]

That makes everything alright. Let's just look past what happened.

[spodefly]

Thirty relatives of (chechen) Maskhadov taken away in unknown direction
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1207700/posts

Thirty relatives of leader of Chechen separatists Aslan Maskhadov have been taken away on Thursday in the uknown direction by masked men who came on APSc - said On Saturday Akhmed Zakayev to Ekho Moskvy radio station.

-

Russia warns of strikes on terror camps, posts bounty for Chechen leaders
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1210155/posts

Russia warned it could launch preemptive strikes on terror bases anywhere in the world and put a bounty on two top Chechen rebels after the broadcast of a chilling video of the school hostage siege.

-

Russia held Chechen families: Rebels' relatives seized as they slept
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1209129/posts

It was 6 a.m. when Russian soldiers hoisted themselves over the wall, crashed through the window, and broke down the front door......Altogether, an estimated 40 family members of senior Chechen rebel leaders were assembled at Khankala from Thursday, a day after the hostage seizure in Beslan, until Saturday, the day after it ended.

----

Oh, but I am sure the rationale for the families of Chechen leaders speaking out against the shooting of schoolchildren is totally because of the wonderful love and compassion inherent in the Muslim faith, as evidenced every single day around the world, and not becaue someone is finally putting a knife to their throats.

The Muslim shills on this site make me sick.

[Destro]

Again when the Chechen rebels start arresting the terrorists in their camps and the Chechen leaders of these terrorists then their protestations of ignorance and outrage are a ploy - bad cop good cop. Maskhadov playing Sinn Fein to their Basayev's IRA.

Detained Beslan Gunman Says Maskhadov, Basayev Planned School Takeover

And why was he not arrested in the past? Warlord Shamil Basayev said in a Web site statement that his group was behind the theater raid and promised that future attacks would be even more destructive. (Beslan was the fulfillment of that evil promise)

"The next time, those who come won't make any demands, won't take hostages," Basayev said on a Chechen Web site. Their "main goal will be destroying the enemy and exacting maximum damage."

Basayev claimed the attack was planned without the knowledge of the breakaway republic's elected leader, Aslan Maskhadov. He asked Maskhadov's forgiveness for preparing the raid in secret and said he would resign from all posts in the rebel hierarchy.

--- So why is Maskhdov not under arrest for violating Basayev's orders? In addition Basayev was a known al-Qaeda terrorists (hospital seizure) before the Moscow theater attack so Basayev having him in his organization makes him an accomplice to terror.

---

Don't be fooled by the Jihad's useful idiots.

[VOA]

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