Monday, September 06, 2004
On the off-chance that you have ever had any sympathy for the Chechan separatists...
Read this.
Got that? More than 300 identified dead, 434 hurt, with more than 200 people still missing. This is slaughter.
The Chechan separatists are Islamists, and have extensive ties with Al-Qaeda. Russia is fighting our war, whether Vladimir Putin realizes it or not.
Via Fausta.
UPDATE: Stratfor (subscription only) argues that the Russians mishandled the Beslan school crisis because they did not appreciate that the terrorists were intent on slaughter from the start. Here's the relevant excerpt:
The Beslan school massacre is in some respects an escalation by Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. As horrendous as the attacks of September 11, Bali, and March 11 were, they were to some degree "impersonal," insofar as the killers were removed from personal consideration of their victims. They either killed themselves in the attack, saving themselves from the memory of their brutality and of their victims' agony, or detonated explosions from a distance. The Beslan attacks are much more akin to the beheadings in Iraq, but even there one can see how the murderers could talk themselves into believing their victims culpable. In Beslan, Islamists stabbed babies, and lived long enough to relish it. Brutality of this sort is precisely reminiscent of the most horrendous stories from the Nazi death camps. Just as Hitler considered Jews substantially less than human, the Islamists clearly consider Russians, at least, equally beneath moral consideration.
There are many assymetries in this war. One of them that the Islamists are willing to use tactics that we would not consider. More tellingly, they are willing to use tactics that shock even the Russians. Indeed, since the United States and Russia could exterminate virtually every Muslim on the planet in a matter of minutes if they determined to measure culpability and value morality according to the standard of the Islamists, it is fair to say that Al-Qaeda's war depends upon the persistence of Western notions of right and wrong.
The full horror of the Russian school atrocity began to emerge yesterday as traumatised children told horrific tales of stabbed babies and brutal rapes.
It has also emerged that scores of the 323 who died - including many children - had been shot in the back.
While despairing soldiers and rescue workers moved among the growing pile of body bags, it was revealed that an 18-month-old baby had been repeatedly stabbed by a black-clad terrorist who had run out of ammunition.
Other survivors told how screaming teenage girls were dragged into rooms adjoining the gymnasium where they were being held and raped by their Chechen captors who chillingly made a video film of their appalling exploits.
Got that? More than 300 identified dead, 434 hurt, with more than 200 people still missing. This is slaughter.
The Chechan separatists are Islamists, and have extensive ties with Al-Qaeda. Russia is fighting our war, whether Vladimir Putin realizes it or not.
Via Fausta.
UPDATE: Stratfor (subscription only) argues that the Russians mishandled the Beslan school crisis because they did not appreciate that the terrorists were intent on slaughter from the start. Here's the relevant excerpt:
Essentially, the Russian government misread the militants. Until the last moment, the government believed the militant plan was to mimic the situation in Budyonnovsk in 1995, when militants seized a hospital and took its occupants hostage. In that case, the government negotiated the attackers' safe passage into mountainous Chechen hideouts, accompanied by some of the hostages for protection.
Because of its view of the militants' motives in Beslan, the government plan was to save hostages by gaining time through negotiation -- perhaps even securing the release of some militants imprisoned by the Russian government -- and persuading the militants to follow the pattern set in 1995. Security sources said the government plan in Beslan was to follow the terrorists until the departure of the last hostages, then to destroy them by air strikes or otherwise.
It is becoming clear that the militants in Beslan had different plans from the militants in Budyonnovsk. The initial interrogation of a captured militant -- and the result of the attack -- shows the attackers never planned to hold any serious negotiations. They planned to capture hostages, mine the entire school building, then begin killing the hostages and escape in the ensuing panic. The goal behind the attacks was to plant fear in the Russians and kill as many people as possible, score a victory with a high death toll and escape to continue their attacks. Overall, the militants' strategic goal -- and the goal of the whole current campaign of attacks -- is to increase the scale and magnitude of the attacks, attempting to exhaust the Russian people to the point of moral and physical defeat.
The Beslan school massacre is in some respects an escalation by Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. As horrendous as the attacks of September 11, Bali, and March 11 were, they were to some degree "impersonal," insofar as the killers were removed from personal consideration of their victims. They either killed themselves in the attack, saving themselves from the memory of their brutality and of their victims' agony, or detonated explosions from a distance. The Beslan attacks are much more akin to the beheadings in Iraq, but even there one can see how the murderers could talk themselves into believing their victims culpable. In Beslan, Islamists stabbed babies, and lived long enough to relish it. Brutality of this sort is precisely reminiscent of the most horrendous stories from the Nazi death camps. Just as Hitler considered Jews substantially less than human, the Islamists clearly consider Russians, at least, equally beneath moral consideration.
There are many assymetries in this war. One of them that the Islamists are willing to use tactics that we would not consider. More tellingly, they are willing to use tactics that shock even the Russians. Indeed, since the United States and Russia could exterminate virtually every Muslim on the planet in a matter of minutes if they determined to measure culpability and value morality according to the standard of the Islamists, it is fair to say that Al-Qaeda's war depends upon the persistence of Western notions of right and wrong.
2 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Sep 06, 10:00:00 PM:
Right on, Jack. I posted over at DOUBLE TOOTHPICKS that this is Russia's 9/11. Even if they didn't have Al Qaeda ties (which they do), this Islamofascist evil must be fought at the source (Chechnya), just like America pounded Afghanistan and Iraq, state sponsors of terror directed at us (including 9/11). It's time for Putin to get together with Bush, Blair, Sharon, and the others, and get a strategy going. There'll be more Beslans if he doesn't.
Steve Bragg
DOUBLE TOOTHPICKS
By 
Bill Faith, at
Wed Sep 08, 04:49:00 PM:
Well said. I just posted a link at http://inbillsworld.blogspot.com/2004/09/on-off-chance-that-you-have-ever-had.html.
