 |
| |
|
|
Serb
|
|
Siberia, Communist party of Apolyton
Nov 2001
time: 11:23
|
|
Enjoy you reading.
quote:
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?
· John Laughland is a trustee of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group www.oscewatch.org |
And it's from the guardian, of course.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/ar...1299408,00.html
What really kills me is that your "free", "advanced", "ubiased" media, NEVER calls persons who took and kill hostages- terrorists, if those persons act in Russia.
American and European media calls them- rebels, guman, militants, guerrillas, even fighters sometimes, it calls them anyhow but NEVER calls them TERRORISTS.
Not that I'm really surprised, considering that CNN invites one of those f*ckers (who personally cut throats in Dagestan in 1999, but now wears an expensive suit and lives in UK) into their studio and broadcast his sh!t on whole world.
**** your so-called "freedom of speech".
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Kidicious
|
 |
Diety of Kidiverse
Mar 2003
time: 21:23
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Serb
Enjoy you reading.
And it's from the guardian, of course.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/ar...1299408,00.html
What really kills me is that your "free", "advanced", "ubiased" media, NEVER calls persons who took and kill hostages- terrorists, if those persons act in Russia.
American and European media calls them- rebels, guman, militants, guerrillas, even fighters sometimes, it calls them anyhow but NEVER calls them TERRORISTS.
Not that I'm really surprised, considering that CNN invites one of those f*ckers (who personally cut throats in Dagestan in 1999, but now wears an expensive suit and lives in UK) into their studio and broadcast his sh!t on whole world.
**** your so-called "freedom of speech".
|
You're right serb. The American media is very choosy about the words they use. They don't think it means you are biased just becuase you choose your words like this.
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Serb
|
|
Siberia, Communist party of Apolyton
Nov 2001
time: 11:23
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
quote:
American and European media calls them- rebels, guman, militants, guerrillas, even fighters sometimes, it calls them anyhow but NEVER calls them TERRORISTS. |
Um, you do realize that American media calls the terrorists in Iraq as 'militants'. I don't think I've ever heard them refered to as 'terrorists' in a news report. It is usually said a terrorist attack was carried out by Iraqi militants (or insurgents).
So yet another uninformed Serb rant... why am I not surprised? |
There is a big difference between people who shot soldiers on streets of Baghdad and people who capture hostages in schools. They are not exactly the same, their targets are different.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Serb
|
|
Siberia, Communist party of Apolyton
Nov 2001
time: 11:23
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
An example:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast...main/index.html
quote:
Insurgents staged more assassination attempts Wednesday against Iraqi officials in Baghdad and in the northern city of Mosul -- killing one, wounding one, and missing another. |
quote:
Masked insurgents gunned down the son of Nineveh provincial governor, Mosul police said. Laith Duraid Kashmoula was an employee in the Iraqi government's anti-corruption office in Mosul.
Insurgents also assassinated the deputy director of Baghdad's Al-Karama Hospital, Abbas al-Husseiny, Iraqi and hospital officials said.
Insurgents tried but failed to kill Baghdad's governor, Ali Al-Haidary. His convoy was attacked in a western district of the capital. |
Terrorist isn't even used once in the article. Why use them for Chechen insurgents when we don't even use it for ones kiling our troops? |
Don't you see the difference? Did those masked insurgents captured their victims, made a demands and threatened to kill their victims? Were their victims hostages? You've said you don't use the word 'terrorist' for ones who killing your troops. And you think that persons who take children hostages and killing them, deserve the same definition as persons who killing your troops?
Last edited by Serb on 10-09-2004 at 09:58
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Serb
|
|
Siberia, Communist party of Apolyton
Nov 2001
time: 11:23
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Once again, Serb is seeing a slight were none exists. |
Oh really? A group of f*ckers who capture hostages and threaten to kill them is a group of terrorists by definition. Anyone who calls them differently are dumbasses or their sympothyzers.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Serb
|
|
Siberia, Communist party of Apolyton
Nov 2001
time: 11:23
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by DinoDoc
I say this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. A pox on both your houses if you want to wallow in the cloak of human rights. I don't really know why the same deal cut with Tatarstan couldn't have been cut with Chechnya. |
You mean in 1994? They refused. If you mean the current status, I believe after they approved their new constitution, they have more autonomy than Tatarstan.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Serb
|
|
Siberia, Communist party of Apolyton
Nov 2001
time: 11:23
|
|
It's pretty stupid, becuase when something smells like sh!t and looks like sh!t it definetly deserves to be called sh!t.
|
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:23.
Apolyton Time is 00:23. |
top of page
|
| archivepost |
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
10-09-2004 09:30
.
|