This sickens me

[maderr]

Seriously, I wish all these fuckers were still alive so that the parents of these children could do hideous and terrible things to them.

I realize from a terrorist POV, killing children is the way to go. Because, let's face it, if you want people to listen you hit them where it hurts the most. However, you go too far and all you do is sign your own death warrant.

Children for crying out loud. At school. 350+ people dead, at least half of those children. If I were Russian? The Chechens would already be dead.

The U.S. said he should meet with the terrorists. I liked Putin's response, which was basically that if the U.S. can refuse to meet with Osama, why the hell should he have to talk with people who kill children?

Comments

[nepenth.livejournal.com]

its an interesting point to think and talk about. i was actually discussing it with a few of my co-workers from russia today.

it seems that 50+ years ago the former USSR moved a number of Chechens to what is now modern day Kazakhstan. Think of it like the USA during world war 2 and moving the japanese-americans to intanment camps is how they put it. so Kazakhstan breaks from the USSR and forms its own country when the soviet union fell. 13 years now chechens and current russia have been fighting. so two wars that have devestated chechen area to ruins and a lack of oil, chechens want an independent country. russia doesn't want to give them land for "territorial integrety" according to Putin. this was the short history lesson i was given. more here.

now terrorism is that. a group of people who take a fundimentalist approach, will not be reasoned with and attack innocent civilians for some far distant radical goal. i deplore the people who attacked a school and slaughtered innocent children, parents, and adults. it is an act of evil intent. but one can not simply blame the chechens like it was mentioned above. you can blame the group of extremist terrorists who did this (who seem to be a collection of ethnicities ranging from russian to arab and caucasian and a few chechens).

as someone mentioned above to blame a group of people for a selective act of a few seems wrong to me. the world is not black and white to me. just as i do not blame the arab culture or muslims for 9/11, i will not blame the chechens for this monstrousity. i will blame the groups of 32 men and women who decided to partake in acts of unspeakable terror on innocent lives.

[maderr.livejournal.com]

A solid rebuttal. I shouldn't be blaming all of them, and I don't really meant to. But my own impression is the country in general has been causing this level of trouble for some time. Nor, does it seem, is anyone in the country making any sort of commiseration about the incident. I've not heard once about any authority in Chechenya (Sp?) apologizing to Russia. *That's* what really bothers me - they want to be seperate, and maybe they *have* spoken with Russia at some point. But it seems to me the country either participates in terrorism or does nothing.

But I am duly reprimanded, I'll admit I was at fault and in poor form. My temper gets away with me, but that's no excuse. Quite the contrary...

[nepenth.livejournal.com]

it's understandable. anger is the first reaction to usually come from people. i think any new yorker understands total blame anger.

actually, there is no Chechen leader, since the one who was running for office was assassinated in May this year, the rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov did express the point that the Chechen sepertists did not set up the attack and that it is a deplorable thing to kill children. i don't think he could come out and say anything more since Putin has a price on his head.

and i will concede that Maskhadov did not sound totally sympathetic, after he declared the attack on the school as horrible, he did mention that it lead to the point that russia is still denying Chechen independence. (which was totally *not* the thing to mention right now.)

but the more i read about chechen rebels and russia, the deeper the questioning goes. while the slaughtering of innocent lives, especially children, is always wrong in my mind, i think we still have to question why and what would drive a varied group of people to gang together to slaughter children. though it will take a long time to be able to do so. afterall, how long did it take for people to start to come to terms with other horrendous acts like the nazis for example.

i'm not saying that we can rationalize away their crimes, but if we maybe look at the reasons that drew someone to this act of sheer evil violence, maybe we can prevent attacks in the future or at least know our "enemies" and their goals no matter how irrational or extremely fundamentally whack they are.

[maderr.livejournal.com]

My sister is my resident consultant on this stuff, I harassed her for a good two hours about this last night.

The situation is pretty convoluted, but Chechnya is one of several smaller muslim areas that Russia controls - and the only rebellious one. Granted Russia's treatment of them isn't great...but Chechnya hasn't exactly been stellar either. It has to do with territory, and oil (lord isn't that the word of the day in that area) and there's also a long, sordid history of muslim...insurgents? Vigilantes would be a better word, I think. There are other issues as well.

In the long run, I think Chechnya is better off part of Russia. Russia could consider being nicer, but so too could Chechnya. I mean how well off would the country actually be on its own? I don't think it would fair well at all.

Eh, I probably shouldn't attempt to discuss this. I maintain that Chechnya as a whole needs a smack down, but I also concede that Russia could stand some improvement.