Posted on 10/10/2004 1:37:13 PM PDT by Destro
Friday, Jan. 14, 2000
Russia’s right about Chechnya
United States shouldn’t support rebellious terrorists
Imagine if a self-proclaimed Comanche Republic arose in south Texas, began kidnapping people and holding them for ransom, televised the beheadings of its captives and sent terrorists into our biggest cities to blow up apartment buildings.
How should we respond?
Negotiate, says Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican seeking the GOP’s 2000 presidential nomination. At least, that’s his demand upon the new acting president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, as Putin tries to suppress an uprising in Chechnya.
If the newly installed Putin does not ease up on the Chechens, McCain says, the U.S. should withhold the aid that might help Russia, at long last, embark on real democratic and economic reform.
Talk about a counterproductive policy! America has a far greater stake in a friendly, stable though democratically imperfect Russia than it does in a quasi-independent, inevitably hostile, gunrunning, drug-smuggling, historically terrorist Chechnya.
And now, my apologies to the Comanches. Russia’s Chechen terrorists are far crueler, and were far more dangerous to the world’s safety, than the Comanches ever were. In their murderous depredations against their neighbors in Russia’s northern Caucasus, they make Slobodan Milosevic’s Serb goons of Kosovo look like a Red Cross team.
Yes, the Chechens have suffered over the centuries at the hands of the Russians. They were conquered in the 18th and 19th centuries, subjugated, communized and then deported, en masse, with the invading Nazi army. And, yes, innocent Chechen civilians are suffering now as the Russan Army tries to crush the insurrection. They should not be blamed, as a people, for crimes committed by terrorist bands.
But neither can Russia negotiate a political solution with the Chechen terrorists. The Chechens are not about to surrender their dream of independence. Even if defeated, they promise to wage guerrilla war from the hills until they drive the Russians out.
In the past three years of relative autonomy, no one in Chechnya has been able to restrain the murderers among them. Chechens have twice invaded Dagestan. They engaged in ethnic cleansing of Christian Georgians. They have kidnapped and beheaded journalists, communications workers and aid workers. They have been blamed for blowing up apartment buildings in Moscow and Volograd, killing 300 people.
An independent or semiautonomous Chechnya would quickly join the ranks of the rogue states that McCain and other Republicans are so quick to condemn. On the basis of Chechen conduct so far, independent Chechnya would be a militant Islamic republic that has no compunction about attacking its neighbors, running guns, carrying out kidnappings and profiting from crime.
Russia’s brutal war against the Chechens has brought out an ugly side of Russian society: a near-racist cheerleading, even among the most democratic Russians, for the cruelest actions by the Russian Army.
But Chechnya also is bringing about a disconcerting side of American politics: the instinct that anybody who fights against the Russians somehow deserves our sympathy.
For years, we told the Russian people we had no quarrel with them; we only opposed their repressive Communist system. Now it looks as if we cannot give up the Russians as our eternal enemy.
Lars-Erik Nelson is a syndicated columnist
When people talk about Chechnya, I just don't understand why people ignore the fact that Russia left Chechnya alone for 3 years, 1996-99. No Russian troops in Chechnya at all, Chechnya left to govern itself. During those 3 years, Chechens committed multiple terrorist acts around Russia, and invaded Daegestan, which alone killed over 1000 Russians. The government Chechnya chose for itself began implementing strict Sharia, and placed an embassy in Taliban Afghanistan. Chechnya's main industry seemed to be kidnapping Russians for ransom.
Russia tried leaving Chechnya alone, it just didn't work. Chechens just used the conceeded terroritory to launch deeper incursions into Russia, seeking ever more territory. Chechen terrorist Basayev openly sought an Islamic Republic carved out of Russia, from the Baltic to the Black sea.
Basayev ran on his war record. "Candidate Basayev," reported the Philadelphia Inquirer, "has compiled what amounts to a greatest-hits video of his audacious war exploits and turned it into a campaign advertisement. At any hour of the day or night, people in this ruined land can tune to a pro-Basayev television station and watch graphic reruns of the most savage moments in Chechnya's 21-month-long war with Moscow, all starring the controversial rebel. There's Basayev, the daring commander, laying siege to the Russian town of Budennovsk, where civilian hostages were doused with gasoline."
One Basayev supporter told Moscow Times correspondent Gall: "I voted for Basayev because I want to show Russia that they may see him as a terrorist, but we do not."
Then Maskhadov named Basayev deputy prime minister. A year later, he made Basayev prime minister and asked him to form a government.
"For years, we told the Russian people we had no quarrel with them; we only opposed their repressive Communist system. Now it looks as if we cannot give up the Russians as our eternal enemy."
I think you misread - the author states that there are some Americans "that cannot give up the Russians as our eternal enemy." I would not place you in that category.
So, does Chechnya harbor terrorists or not? And what was it our President said about that?
What Bush said before 9/11 in regards to Chechenya? You don't want to know.
PS: It was not as bad as McCain's position but it was upsetting (but understandable - Bush could not appear "weaker" on Russia to the media during the primary). In the end McCain was exposed as a nut job hot head and praise be to God, lost the GOP nomination to Bush.
Since 9/11 everybody now knows TERRORIST ARE TERRORISTS..
I have several cousins active in the IRA. Since 9/11 almost NO money from the US...
No wonder they want to make peace..
Simple: we'd exterminate them.
bump
"So who are these powerful Americans who are running interference for the Chechens and why? "
My personal answer would include NPR (National Public Radio).
Probably in about the early 1990s, I remember hearing an NPR report about the
region of Chechnya. It discussed just about every aspect about their history, culture
and language, including a nice set-up to make them look like nice guys compared to the guys in Moscow.
What was left out?
Islam/Muslim terrorist aspect of the conflict.
Why?
NPR. Need I say any more?
I am familiar with US policy pre 9/11 re Chechenya. You are probably even moreso. What I was referring to was after 9/11 when Pres Bush stated "those who harbor terrorists" and my question was "are we going to stand by that statement or not?"
Bush would -but there are powerful elements in our govt who will not allow such a promise to be enacted in full.
Point worth the repeating again and again.
And then the same Western crowd which helped KLA in Kosovo proclaims Maskhadov to be the second Gandhi.
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