Asherman wrote:Sure sounds like a lot of folks are more harshly critical of Bush and Putin for responding to terrorist violence than the terrorists. It is the terrorists who are responsible for every death that results from their acts, not the victims and not the governments who must respond to protect the welfare and security of all their citizens. Some of the hostages may of died as a result of the attempt to save them
You are usually a man I disagree with, but who's got a complete overview of the situation. But this time you have either not read what we wrote with much attention, or you have simply taken the situation upside down.
Of course only the terrorists are responsible for what they did last week. Its been duly noted (in my posts too) that the Chechen insurgents have radicalised into ruthless, gangster-like types. And again, only they carry responsibility for what happened last week.
What the Russian government is blamed for in this thread thus far is not - though it could be - for totally mishandling the hostage-taking situation, for its hapless, chaotic handling it. It was a mess, but everything in Russia always seems to be, and at least they tried. Russian men, both civilian and special ops, risked their lives to save the victims.
What I blame the Russian government for is not for the people the terrorists this week killed. But for the people
it killed, over ten years of a bloody campaign of warfare-cum-state terror in Chechnya. Just because the extremists who did this last week are bad guys, doesnt immediately make the Russian government into the good guys.
I am astounded by the short-sightedness of how some have looked at this situation purely from a reflex of projection. On a conservative forum, the entire discussion re: Chechnya focused on whether it proved that the Spanish example of 'capitulation' before terrorists had emboldened them. Hello - these military attacks and terrorist counterattacks - or terrorist attacks and military counterattacks - around Chechnya have been taking place for much further back into time than the Spanish elections or 9/11. It has its own, autonomous history, but I guess thats simply too much complication. No, its just another example of Islamic True Believers, and thats all we need to know about it. We know the cookie-cutter solution to that.
I think the authorities effed up last week - but it's the terrorists who are to blame for those who died. Last week. The hundreds of people who died last week. And the hundreds who died in prior terrorist attacks. For the many thousands who have died in Chechnya since the Russian troops started pouring in now some ten years ago, however, the Russian government is largely to blame. For the flattening of Grozny and the mass rape of Chechen women, the Russian soldiers and government are to blame. I dont see how - just because last week, the Chechens in turn committed unspeakable acts, we should now consider those acts of horror erased, that we should not talk about it anymore, because if we do, someone like Asherman will come in to deride us for 'defending the terrorists'.
Asherman, you know full well that if you scroll up just a little bit, you can see several of us expressing disgust at what the terrorists did. It's you who is expressing selective disgust and condemnation - the Chechens now did something horrible, so thus we shouldnt mention what the Russians did anymore when we discuss Chechnya.
And to be honest, the fact that your judgement on this matter seems largely motivated by 'domestic' sentiments (see, it proves the US right, it'll teach the Russians not to disagree with us anymore next time) makes it, IMNSHO, rather distasteful.
