Thread: Chechen bastard Basayev Killed in Southern Russia

ussian Empire Russian Empire Russian Empire.

You better comment my words than try to change the subject.

There has been large scale resistance to Russian rule in Chechnya since your 18th century

Of course, the details are seen much better from Germany than from Russia.

Beg pardon. Where do I use that phrase?

Aren't you talking about resistance against the "cruel Russian authority"?

I'd be scared of Kadyrov's goons too.

No comments.

Keep an keen eye on the double negatives, friend!

I did it for emphasis.

You better comment my words than try to change the subject.

Strange. I did comment on your words. Indeed. That's exactly what I did. Attempting to refute my remark about imperialism by writing about 'the Russian Empire' = hilarious.

Of course, the details are seen much better from Germany than from Russia.

A lot depends on the beholder.

Aren't you talking about resistance against the "cruel Russian authority"?

Beg pardon. Where did I use that phrase?

I did it for emphasis.

Really? I thought you did it 'cause your English ain't that great.

You seem to have nothing else to say about the North Caucasus.

Strange. I did comment on your words.

You didn't. I said: "Chechnya is the legitimate part of Russia". It joined by treaty, not conquest. And that was the Caucasian leaders who initiated the negotiations.

A lot depends on the beholder.

Please, point out your sources of information.

Beg pardon. Where did I use that phrase?

You used that idea.

Really? I thought you did it 'cause your English ain't that great.

Ok, you've run out of arguments. Let's become personal then?

You didn't. I said: "Chechnya is the legitimate part of Russia". It joined by treaty, not conquest. And that was the Caucasian leaders who initiated the negotiations.

Yes, like British rule in Somaliland was enacted in agreement with local tribal leaders. Sophisticated geopolitical discussions, a plebiscite, perhaps. Give me a break. And I repeat: there has been large scale resistance to Russian rule in Chechnya since your 18th century. Sufficiently large scale to, say, leave the Russians with a very bloody nose in the 1994-6 war.

Please, point out your sources of information.

You want a bibliography or what? Let's start with Gall and De Waal's 'Chechnya', the Roberts (Service and Conquest), Anna Politkovskaia's dispatches, countless articles in the Guardian, Le Monde, New York Times and Novaia Gazeta. Oh, and a wonderful book called 'Le serment tch

And I repeat: there has been large scale resistance to Russian rule in Chechnya since your 18th century. Sufficiently large scale to, say, leave the Russians with a very bloody nose in the 1994-6 war.

Did you find out that from the newspapers listed below? I recommend you to visit Kavkazcenter.org

Let's start with Gall and De Waal's 'Chechnya', the Roberts (Service and Conquest), Anna Politkovskaia's dispatches, countless articles in the Guardian, Le Monde, New York Times and Novaia Gazeta.

Have you fallen from the Moon? If you consider mass media a reliable source... And if you think the western authors are telling truth and not propaganda... Well. You can say our books and mass media are lying as well, I won't deny that. I just tell you:

We live here, we know. You don't.\
Dixi.

Did you find out that from the newspapers listed below? I recommend you to visit Kavkazcenter.org

I've visited this site several times. Why is it alone authoritative?

Have you fallen from the Moon? If you consider mass media a reliable source

Are the historians I mention 'mass media sources'? I'm well aware that to be well informed on any subject, one must sort wheat from chaff. I'd like to think I'm capable of such agricultural efforts. My grandfather had a farm.

We live here, we know. You don't

.

Where do you live? Grozny? If you mean Russia, I've lived there too - and may very well live there again. Not that residence confers any particular insight.

Originally Posted by joysof

Originally Posted by Vincent Tailors

What do you know about all that? I can tell you, you know nothing.

Well, your two cents have certainly illuminated the issue for everyone. Ta.

Pointless neo-imperialistic wars which have taken the lives of more young Russians than Basayev could ever have hoped for; abductions in the middle of the night; slammers where the Geneva Convention don't hold no sway; and the rank Bush-administration-style hypocrisy of claiming that it's all about international terrorism and not, as it appears to everybody else, personal vendettas.

This, as far as I can make out, is the story of the last ten years in Chechnya.

Остапа несло...

Originally Posted by joysof

Originally Posted by Ramil

What do YOU know about it?

Some information I posess came to me from the hands of my former classmates who actually fought in Chechnya.

I think you're confusing experience with knowledge. I've never been blown up at a checkpoint or kidnapped at gunpoint, but I've lived in Russia, twice met veterans of the Chechen wars (whose courage I'd never in a million years seek to undermine) and, hey, I've read a couple of books.

It would be nice if you'd respond to the things I actually say, rather than dismissing me as unentitled to an opinion.

All right, tell me what do you mean by
"Pointless neo-imperialistic wars"
and whose particular vendettas are you referring to?

All right, tell me what do you mean by
"Pointless neo-imperialistic wars"

I think I've dealt with this. Do you want me to parse the sentence? 'Wars' - because there've been two of them and the second never really ended now, did it? 'Neo-imperialistic' because Russia's aims in the region constitute a combination of the mercenary (you said it yourself) and the strategic (it's like it's the nineteenth century and everyone's fixated on access to a warm water port - have you heard of the Great Game?). The territory is by no means integral; there is no moral justification for the time and resources Yeltsin and Putin have wasted on the region - and these days, unlike in empire-building days of yore, I think people require a little more of their governments than 'it's ours, so there!'.

Oh, and 'pointless' because the history of the region demonstrates that no decisive victory is possible for either side.

whose particular vendettas

'Это заслуженное возмездие за наших детей в Беслане'

Dreadful though Beslan was, this sounds like the language of vendetta to me. It's Putin, if you don't know, quoted by the BBC.

joysof, do you have children? I don't but I can not imagine how death can be an unjustified punishment for organising a mass torture and murder of children. Anyway they killed him not as a punishment, but as a part of war against terrorism. He always have had an option to surrender and save his life.
And if you think that past events can justify this kind of "fight for freedom", then there should be nothing wrong in killing Germans (including children) for the terrible things Germany did in WW2.

Originally Posted by pisces

joysof, do you have children?

I have nieces. Will that do?

I can not imagine how death can be an unjustified punishment for organising a mass torture and murder of children

I don't hold with the truism that murdering children is necessarily worse than murdering anybody else. Has a tabloid ring, all this 'slaughter of the innocents' stuff. Although I suppose its origins are in the Old Testament.

He always have had an option to surrender and save his life.

On the evidence of Beslan and Dubrovka, do you think Russian special forces would have accepted Basayev's surrender? This is not a rhetorical question - I'd really like to know what people think.

war against terrorism

Isn't this just everybody's least favourite superpower (or ex-superpower) soundbite? If only the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan could have been explained away so neatly...

And if you think that past events can justify this kind of "fight for freedom", then there should be nothing wrong in killing Germans (including children) for the terrible things Germany did in WW2.

I must say, I've had a lot of mud flung at me on this forum and I'm not sure it's all justified. At no point did I express sympathy with Basayev or call his breed 'freedom fighters'. I think killing kids is wrong, too - honest.
It does, however, irk me somewhat that so many Russians (and I've met a few) seem to be so ready to believe every horror story ever told about separatists and fundamentalists, but simultaneously turn a blind eye to the godawful mess successive administrations have made of Chechnya.

Warmongers on both sides deserve due censure. I'm just trying to redress the balance here.

Originally Posted by joysof

All right, tell me what do you mean by
"Pointless neo-imperialistic wars"

I think I've dealt with this. Do you want me to parse the sentence? 'Wars' - because there've been two of them and the second never really ended now, did it?

It has finished. Point.
The question is - what would you want to call war?
Did decades of IRA bombings in Belfast was war? IRA thinks it did. The British think it was a terroristic activity? Definitions depend on the side you're on.
Rebels liberated the village
Bandits attacked the village
- this can be said today about the same event.

By using definitions of either side of the conflict you begin to pick sides. Wars not always involve tanks and bombs. But if tanks and bombs are involved that doesn't always mean that it is war.

Originally Posted by joysof

... there is no moral justification for the time and resources Yeltsin and Putin have wasted on the region - and these days, unlike in empire-building days of yore, I think people require a little more of their governments than 'it's ours, so there!'.

Life is hard. Government has some power. What do you think power is? Why people obey power? Because of implied physical threat.
It is the nature of power to assert itself. Fear and obey, fight back and die. Did any power in the whole word behaves otherwise? Did any power in the world thinks about the needs of its lowest subjects?
Any power asserts itself via physical force. Force is the keystone for any power. Without force there would be no power.

So any power in the world by its very existance IS a crime. I see no distinctions through policies of all governments in the worlds. Power is driven by the following needs:
- self-preservation
- enrichment
- expansion
There is no place for the needs of the subjects in this list.

To history:
It is very popular to blame Yeltsin for the Chechen war. But many forget that when there had begun separatistic movements in the North Caucasus, Yeltsin (being the president of Russia then) has ordered a state of emergency in Chechnya which means that army take control over the area to maintain order and to prevent any disturbance. But he didn't contol the army which took orders only from the president of the USSR Gorbachev. They were struggling for power those days so delivering the army under Yeltsin's command was not on Gorbachev's mind. So he just refused to teach Yeltsin humility. But that turned loose the situation in Chechnya and that's why in 1996 the army had to be brought there in order to prevent the total disintegration of Russia (Many nationalities vere very excited about the idea of independence - I wonder why? And who might be interested in this scenario?)

Originally Posted by joysof

Oh, and 'pointless' because the history of the region demonstrates that no decisive victory is possible for either side.

Nobody talks about victory. Victory can be at war. There is no war in chechnya so there can't be any victory.

The population of Chechnya needs to be demilitarized. Border with Georgia needs to be well sealed, put some major criminals to jail (the ones you can lay your hands on), find and kill the most outrageous ones (in some 5 years you'll round nearly all of them), create jobs and in some 10-20 years everything will be allright.
Theoretically.
Thar require one major element - there must not be any foreign financial support of the opposite side. And that's why Mr. Berezovsky sits in London and is very afraid to reunite with his longing for him homland.

whose particular vendettas

'Это заслуженное возмездие за наших детей в Беслане'

Dreadful though Beslan was, this sounds like the language of vendetta to me. It's Putin, if you don't know, quoted by the BBC.[/quote]

Allright I see. So you reproach such vindictive feelings? (Which I respect. Eye for an eye after all).

Ramil, I think the semantic points you make about the difference between 'war' and, say, 'armed conflict' are very valid. This is a massive improvement on 'What do YOU know about it?'

Whether or not a state of war exists isn't really the point here, though, is it? We were talking about neo-imperialism. Did a state of war exist between Castille and Hispaniola when Cristobal de Colon gave smallpox to the Indians? And despite your rather glum assessment of the nature of global government, I'm not quite ready to retreat into moral equivocality - and nor should a good fellow like you.

Nobody talks about victory

Putin talks about victory in the same way Bush does. Remember that 'international terrorists' is a euphemistic phrase for 'the Chechen separatists we haven't killed yet'.

On the whole, I think your post was one of the best I've ever seen here. Just the right mix of cynicism and optimism.

I see joysof's point.

Too many people on this forum are too quick to dismiss our opinions because we are Western. Everything negative in our media written about Russia is not true because it is Westen propoganda, and because we don't live in Russia (despite the fact that many of us have), we don't know anything. Have you not ever thought that there is stuff your government doesn't tell you, or is trying to put a positive spin on.

Originally Posted by joysof

I don't hold with the truism that murdering children is necessarily worse than murdering anybody else. Has a tabloid ring, all this 'slaughter of the innocents' stuff. Although I suppose its origins are in the Old Testament.

Now there's a thought. How can you say that? Children are the most senseless victims of any sort.

Is this some kind of new type of fight for equal rights? "If I am a target for terrorism, my children should be too"?

Child murder is the most terrible crime you can commit.

Personally, I think joysof is just making a moderately well-reasoned tit of himself. He spat the dummy at someone for making a snippy comment about Basayev, because he assumes that anyone expressing dislike for Basayev must automatically support the Russian state's actions in Chechnya wholeheartedly. Now, not only does one categorically not automatically follow the other, but no-one had even expressed a single opinion on the Russian state one way or t'other until his outburst.

I have a feeling it may have had more to do with the person saying it than what was said.

Too many people on this forum are too quick to dismiss our opinions because we are Western. Everything negative in our media written about Russia is not true because it is Westen propoganda, and because we don't live in Russia (despite the fact that many of us have), we don't know anything. Have you not ever thought that there is stuff your government doesn't tell you, or is trying to put a positive spin on.

So when that Bin Laden blasts buildings and captures planes directing them then to skyscrapers, kills several thousands innocents will it be ok for us to rejoice? Will you be pleased to hear "He's not pleasant, but what he does pales next to sending your troops to Iraq, so you're to blame for all and you pay the right price"?

Are 300 butchered children from Beslan to be blamed in something someone in Chechnya ever did?

As opposed to a fact-based analysis, opinions of the kind joysof has proudly presented are a dime a dozen on many Russian forums popular among impressionable 15-year old boys and girls taking the unique opportunity to change the modern world to a better place. These social commentaries coming from teenagers, suddenly concerned about the rest of the humankind, are hardly interesting, because, you know, everybody has one, and Russians, contrary to what one may have been led to believe in high-school, are not a homogeneous crowd. All these pages and gigabytes of "well thought out arguments" can be readily reduced to the inviolable "war is bad, mkay?"

Originally Posted by adoc

All these pages and gigabytes of "well thought out arguments" can be readily reduced to the inviolable "war is bad, mkay?"

Did Aquinas get this kind of stick? Frankly, if the opinions I hold tie me to the coat tails of Russian adolescents, I've more hope for their generation than for mine. You call it impressionability, I call it freedom from the appalling cynicism which motivates Russian domestic and foreign policy.

Don't spit on our dreams, adoc.

Originally Posted by scotcher

Personally, I think joysof is just making a moderately well-reasoned tit of himself

I think someone here used to say 'Hee'.

He spat the dummy at someone for making a snippy comment about Basayev, because he assumes that anyone expressing dislike for Basayev must automatically support the Russian state's actions in Chechnya wholeheartedly

It's simpler than that; I just don't like triumphalism. Especially the ignorant kind. And didn't Vincent Tailors' response to my 'dummy-spitting' rather prove my subsequent points about your average Russian's lack of perspective on the issue? It's perfectly understandable; try asking my North London Jewish relatives for a reasoned analysis of the Palestinian elections. They know no more about the issue that the average Guardian reader, but you can't for a minute convince them that Arafat wasn't a cartoon villain.

Before anyone starts, I'm not likening Arafat to Basayev.

I have a feeling it may have had more to do with the person saying it than what was said.

Scotcher's clever.