Russian School Siege

Reuters correspondent Richard Ayton saw dozens of civilian cars converging on the school. Ambulances and private cars evacuated wounded while medics tended to the wounded. "I've seen drivers being stopped and their cars commandeered," he reported.

Man alive.

A security official said: "Those children who remained in the school, in general, did not suffer. The ones who suffered were the children in the group which ran from the school and on whom the fighters opened fire."

I'm guessing "giving yourself up" to the Russian Army is akin to suicide anyway

also, i used that word cos i couldnt think of anything else. in fact the russians are just using "fighters".

apparently all the hostages have now been rescued/released but predictably it's all rather sketchy

More victories in the war on terror then. Hurrah for democracy!

Memo to Americans - please (x1000000000) do not re-elect the cunt. I have always maintained that my ire was directed towards US Foreign policy and companies, not the american people. Do me the favour of justifying my seperation of government and people. plz k thx bye.

Yes, OK, tick that demand off, we'll get that done, take a couple of hours but we'll get back to you

Regardless of their origin and motive some people went into a school with guns and explosives and took hostages, demanding something from the Government in exchange for not hurting anyone. This makes them terrorists in my book. Whether you want to brand Putin, Bush or whoever the same is irrelevant in this respect.

Look I don't know all the intricacies of what Russians are doing in Chechnya but there's obviously no justification for what these people did at this school.

Justification is from a personal perpective. That quite a lot more people know that Chechnya exists and is and that there are issues there is more than enough.

I thought people had learnt their lessons from any form of propoganda and reporting.

It was a hostage situation. UK-Russia-US government's are pretty close. I am not saying it didn't happen, I just think it is a brave conclusion to jump to.

I think roughly 800 people were taken hostage, up to 5 were shot by terrorists and around 120 died due to the gas which the Russian government refused to identify, making it very difficult for doctors to treat them. I was in Moscow on holiday when it happened, watching it all on CNN from my hotel room. It was surreal and terrifying.

Memo to Americans - please (x1000000000) do not re-elect the cunt. I have always maintained that my ire was directed towards US Foreign policy and companies, not the american people. Do me the favour of justifying my seperation of government and people. plz k thx bye.

What will you do if Kerry were to win a majority of the popular vote, and yet Bush were to carry the electoral college? Ask your government to pressure the USA into adopting a democratic form of government?

Anyway, this isn't a good thread for a discussion of American politics and government - there are plenty of others available for that purpose.

Poor kids.

Some children are still being held hostage. It's not over, folks.

Anyone else wondering if it might rise to 300 some time between now and tomorrow morning?

After the fall of the USSR, sending Russian troops into Chechnya has been perceived by many Russian "patriots" (somewhat equivalent to the American redneck in intellect and character) as an action representative of a firm and decisive leader so it's no wonder Putin's been milking it for all it's worth.

I'm not trying to shift blame from the terrorists, but if it weren't for decades of continued butting-in by Imperial, then Communist, and then Putin's Russia, these motherfuckers would never even have a reason to do something as horrible as they've done. Russia does not belong in Chechnya, period. If they withdrew now or at any time it wouldn't be "giving in to the terrorists," it would be righting a historical wrong.

and when did russia take control in that area? before the USSR came into being (i.e. under the tzars)?

The surprise, if you can call it that, is how little ethnic unrest there was at the fall of the Soviet Union. Considering how many nationalities its leaders had utterly screwed over, there was very little conflict in former Soviet republics between the Russian populations and the native peoples. Wikipedia has some good stuff on Chechnya:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechnya

OT fuckin' M.

This is why I believe it's time to leave Chechnya. Regardless of the terrorist acts - which are barbaric beyond belief - we simply do not belong there. If it weren't for the oil and the foolish national pride (seemingly an eternal Russian tradition) we'd have been long gone already. The stupidity and stubborness involved in this war is just staggering, it makes Bush look like Mother Theresa. And the brilliant Russian rescue attempts that inevitably result in more deaths than the murders committed by the terrorists themselves? This is why I'm glad that so little of the news over there makes headlines on CNN. Force might be the only solution sometimes, but the casualty counts caused by "rescues" are unbelievable compared to similar statistics for SWAT teams in the US.

And doesn't the war in Chechnya play pretty well in Russian politics. Like, a strong leader needs a war.

Yes, exactly. And there's something very wrong with that.

i think, with the last election, any real competion putin had was strong armed into pulling out of the election. if memory serves i think some were even imprisoned.

i dont pretend to understand the full complexities of the situation there, but i advise anyone and everyone who is interested to read the followig book...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385486669/qid=1094339558/sr=ka-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-0663725-5193646

its about an american foreign aid worker, but since he vanished in chechnya, there is a lot of background information about that country written in a clear, journalistic style. this is easily one of the best recent non-fiction books out there.

one of the points made in the book is that chechnya is unlike any conflict/humanitarian crisis out there because there are literally no "good guys". russian responses to chechnyan terrorism have been just as violent as the terrorism itself, and perhaps more indiscriminate in that russia, unlike israel, doesnt even make the effort to kill only the people who are responsible (i generatlly dont agree with israel's retaliations either).

i hate the political convenience of fitting this into the larger war on terror. i doubt chechen rebels care much about the plight of the palestinians or the decadence of the west. political opportunism is to be expected from politicians, but over the graves of hundreds of dead children?

The death toll's just gone up from ~300-ish to over 600. This is just too weird. It's like those over-the-top estimates of people killed at the WTC, except in reverse.

http://slate.com/id/2106287/

It's absurd that people go on about the international al-Qaeda network and global terrorism, and then blanch or frown at Putin saying the bloody obvious.

Whether the Chechan terrorists care about Plaestine or not is beside the point. The point is: Chechnya, and the fight for Chechan indepedance, was colonised and hijacked by Islamists. Saudi Arabia sponsered the spread of Wahhabism from the first Chechan war on. Bin Laden sent fighters there. The fucking Pakistan ISI disemmbled to encourage Islamist insurgency. A meeting was held in Mogadishu in 1996 to coordinate the Chechan jihad, attended by the ISI, bin Laden, a host of splinter jihadi groups, and Iranian intelligence officers.

It's simpy ignorant to distance last week's huge and coordinated Chechan offensive from the war on terror.

i still dont like the political convenience of it, and i use that phrase on purpose. yes they are terrorists, and i dont think much of them or their actions, but the use of that word is a convenient way of denying any responsiblity. again, over the larger history of that region, there are no good guys.

dont really see how you can say "ooh now im not on the chechens' side" or whatever. there arent any sides, just two groups exacting retribution on each other, with the victims mostly innocent people. it has got to the point where no one can really remember (or no one wants to remember) why it started, and the 'aims 'of the conflict are lost on everyone (like separatism is not the real issue). Islam blah blah blah. yeah they are funding it maybe, there is some involvement but chechens have always been battling everyone.

Whatever the reasons, Chechens hate the russians, and many many russians hate the chechens, albeit often in a lazy uncommitted way. Therefore war is a votewinner. thats old news right? the last time russia went to war to gain popular appeal it was a frickin disaster (Japan 1905). And so it is again.

But why isn't that quite funny?

like gee, isn't it ironic that someone said, 'if Stalin was here, 330 Russians wouldn't have died...' when Stalin killed something like 20 MILLION Russians.

But you seem to want to go off, so go ahead.

Pot. Kettle...

I'm sick of feeling like a sweat rag for the press.

did you notice the average age in chechnya is 22.5

thats because nearly all chechen men have been killed in fighting.

chechnya is also a very important piece of land. it is rich in oil (i believe) and it has a valuable border to the black sea.

i am by no means pro chechnya or russia, i just think its a sad situation overall.

No, Russia is not a democracy, and yes, its people often choose the "wrong" leaders who then go on to make the "wrong" decisions.

But I'd say the 20 year old's comment is hilarious, if for no other reason than pure historical ignorance or a quite stereotypical masochism that Russian people have always been said to have. So long as they're all suffering equally, or (more importantly) they have another people they can make suffer more, the national climate remains healthy. That this is something to "understand" instead of deride offends me far more than Ilx-ers making fun of some idiot who wants to bring back Stalin. Just because Russia isn't "traditionally" democratic doesn't mean they're destined to be ruled by despots and populated by idiots who think eliminating an ethnic group is "strong leadership."

"It was a wrong thing to do. We don't approve of this at all," said Islam Islamov, a 27-year-old resident of the Chechen town of Turbino. "The hostage-takers were talking about withdrawing Russian troops from Chechnya, but I don't think it would be a good idea at all to withdraw the troops. If that happens, this [republic's] really going to be a mess."

Aimless the Unlogged has some interesting things to say on negotiation on the Hexbollah thread. It sounds like the hostage-takers were divided on whether or not they should let the children go. It also sounds like Russian authorities are using their alleged indecision to support their account that the storming started with an accidental explosion: Militants Were at Odds, Kidnap Suspect Says. David Holley. Los Angeles Times: Sep 7, 2004. pg. A.6.

"Any sympathy I may have had for the Chechnyn separatists has been completely destroyed by this horrific act."

I kinda had the opposite reaction. This whole thing has just made me feel even more sorry for everyone caught in the middle of this mess.

A quote I read today from one of the survivors describes the answer given by one of the hostage takers when she asked him how he could place children under such danger.

"He answered that when his own children were killed nobody had asked him about anything."

This in no way justifies their actions or minimizes the horror of what went on, but I think it does show quite clearly that people on both sides are suffering.

Sadly, the situation is only going to degenerate from here. At least now the rest of the world is paying attention, so Putin may have to moderate his retaliation.

i dont want to 'understand' it in the sense of just saying "thats how it is, so forgetabout it", but i think you need to 'understand' it in the sense of "this is actually the attitude that is far more widespread than you imagine and this needs to be taken on board to understand why russia is in this mess (or indeed to understand why russia has been fucked up from its inception)". believe me, after a year spent with russians and being surrounded by this sort of logic (albeit notas extreme), i found it fucking frustrating and yes, sometimes offensive. but i dont think the comment is 'hilarious' for that exact reason: it is dangerous to imagine that the guy who made is some nutcase but he is voicing an opinion that is the logical conclusion of a lot of rhetoric i have heard before in russia, and it is deadly serious! i am not defending him at all, but i think its necessary to confront the fact that although "Russia isn't.....destined to be ruled by despots" it has been fornigh on 1000 yrs (give or take a few blips of moderate leadership) and for this reason the idea of strong leadership is at present a big vote winner (or rather a means of garnering public opinion), which is being manifested by....er "strong counter terrorism operations in Chechyna" (ie fuck the chechens up).

I saw the ITN report on this last night and it was simultaneously gut-wrenching cynical, repulsive and manipulative and at the same so close to "The Day Today"/"Brass Eye" that you almost felt like laughing - you stop yourself from laughing and just hated the reporter for making these crass comments in the first place. Bill McNeely you are an asshole.

Ambrose, I agree with everything you said, I didn't find the 20 year old's comments or the Russian predilection for "strong leadership" any more shocking than you did. Nevertheless, despite the prevalence of chauvinistic nationalism in Russia, such attitudes should still be considered abnormal in a moral sense. That's all I'm saying. I just think it's incredibly pitiful that they are in fact widespread among Russians.

Also like Russia, the Chinese government has stoked nationalism as a way to increase it's own legitimacy and reduce discontent among its citizens.

At some point it will backfire. These things tend to get out of control.