Posted on 04/19/2013 9:44:05 AM PDT by tired&retired
Once it was Chechnya, today it is the republic of Dagestan on the Caspian Sea that is the most explosive place in Russia - and in Europe. There are bomb attacks almost daily, shootouts between police and militants, tales of torture and of people going missing.
Two armed men in camouflage holding Kalashnikov rifles enter the shop and tell the customers to leave. The terrified cashier stumbles past as one of the men puts a bomb on the counter and sets the timer.
He does not bother emptying the till, he just walks out of the door.
Seconds later, the shop is filled with smoke.
Attacks like this one caught on supermarket security cameras - in which Islamic fighters punish shops that sell alcohol - have become routine events in Dagestan's capital, Makhachkala.
Puritanism In the centre of Makhachkala, there are armed police on almost every corner.
Bashir drives me past a place where two car bombs recently killed a policeman and a young girl and wounded 60 police and passers-by.
"When our guys rushed to the scene of the first explosion, a blast about 12 times more powerful went off," he adds.
"It was a trap. They wanted to get as many of us as possible."
He asks me not to use his real name, or to photograph his face. Government officials and policemen are the main targets of the increasingly ruthless Islamic insurgents.
Many officers are too scared to go on to the street in their uniform. Police who have to stop and search cars often wear masks.
He tells them a cautionary tale about a young medical student who made some so-called friends online, and who later forced him to plant a car bomb.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Send the rest of the family back there and put barbed wire around it.
I’ve known and worked with Chechens, unlike most here on FR. They’re pretty much the same as people anywhere.
There are A LOT OF religious kooks there, of all sorts. The area seems to attractthem. I’ve been told you seriously DO NOT want to be Jewish there, especially.
/My friends were two Jewish doctors and two Catholic engineers. Nice people. Odd accents.
Pshaw. It is nothing but some average Muslims trying to murder their way into heaven.
I worked with Chechens too and also worked with people suffered from them. I think just opposite.
I think it all depends on who you meet and the prejudicial baggage you drag along with you every day.
I’ve traveled the world, and found everyone is pretty much the same. There are jerks and nice people everywhere, that includes us.
Except the Japs, They can be really weird.
At some point, before it’s too late, the civilized world might have to consider isolating these savages and keep them from reproducing.
I’m trying to point out that people here on FR wouldn,t know a “Muslim radical Islamic” from a hole in the ground. Their impressions of the world are formed by television, not personal experience.
Television is a very poor teacher, particularly religious kook teevee.
Getting out of the house—particularly travel to the Middle East and Asia—is a real eye-opener. Has been for me.
Cultural baggage means a lot too. If people are taught to be a savage supremacists since childhood and slave markets are part of their daily life you simply can’t coexist with them. Muslims are liars and Chechens aren’t exception. They can easily look kind and fluffy as soon as they aren’t in a position of power over you.
My friend’s husband escaped from there in mid-1990s. He was 13 yo at the time. His father was killed by his Chechen neighbor who wanted their new car. It was a really good neighbor just year before he did it. His mom disappeared as she went to find some food for them a few months later. Soon he was evicted from his home by some nice Chechen family who needed their home more badly than him. He was hanging around Grozny homeless with his 4 yo sister who soon died weakened by malnutrition and he has buried her in bushes by himself.
Their crime was being non-Chechens in Chechnya and it was before the first war started. There are thousands stories like that but so few survivors to tell these stories.
Like I said, generalizing is a sign of cognitive laziness. I’ve met more than two or three Chechens, of different religions and social backgrounds, and some have been good people and others I would never turn my back on. That goes for people EVERYWHERE.
And, again—I’ve been told over and over—you DO NOT want to be JEWISH there. The normal rules don’t apply for them.
You don’t have to be Christian, atheist or Shia as well. It is not safe to be fellow Chechen too.
That seems to have been the MO of the marathon bombings.......
If it’s any comfort to you, the same is said of Palestinians.
I’ve been to Lebanon and the West Bank. Other than weird food, they are the same as anyone else: they worry about their kid’s education, paying the rent, and sports.
Add in a war caused mostly by criminal gangs (NOT religious groups), and you’ve got Georgia.
Oh, did I mention I’ve been there, too? Also Turkey, Jordan, and Syria (before the fighting). People are the same.
Yeah, and to he** with the fact most terrorist are muslims and that most muslims don't condemn the muslim terrorist, and forget the fact that Chechnya is considered to be one of the, if not the, most dangerous place to live if you happen to not agree with Sharia law and make it known.
For quite a while, “most terrorists” were Catholics from Ireland. I’ve been to Ireland, too. Just like people in Palestine and Georgia, the common sort of person there just wants to be left alone.
Anyone who imagines the inhabitants of the Middle East to be a seething mass of howling religious crazies needs to slip off the tin foil hat and get away from the television (and the computer screen).
Travel liberates the mind. And empties the wallet, too, by the way.
Well, good for you but I would imagine that most of us would not care to travel to those hellholes.
Only old people are satisfied seeing the world the way television desires them to.
Travel opens the mind. But you have to get over the fear of meeting people who are different. And you have to be willing to drink weird beer. (The weirdest I ever drank was this red stuff in Turkey. It was potent...and I don’t like beer, anyway.)
The world is full of beautiful places and interesting people. If you weren’t old and unemployed you could explore them, too.
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