A brief history of Chechnya

[Plekhanov]

For anyone interested in trying to understand why Chechen separatists have sunk to acts of savagery like the murder of innocent school children and their families at a slightly deeper level than “fucking muslims” the following article is enlightening, it’s quite long but worth it.

Chechnya
What drives the separatists to commit such terrible outrages?
By Masha Gessen
Posted Saturday, Sept. 4, 2004, at 3:06 PM PT

As many as 600 people, many of them children, are dead, and hundreds more are injured. The two-day hostage crisis that ended in an 11-hour gunfight is the most horrific in a harrowing chain of terrorist attacks in Russia. Russian officials are saying al-Qaida did it. But the truth is far more complicated.

The current conflict in Chechnya goes back to the fall of 1991, when the tiny republic in the Russian Caucasus declared independence. It wasn't a crazy thing to do. The Soviet Union, which once seemed indestructible, was falling apart (and collapsed completely by the end of the year). Russia itself had a convoluted structure, with 89 federation members, each belonging to one of five categories (region, autonomous region, ethnic republic, province, and two special-status cities) with different structures and rights within the federation. The Russian Constitution recognizes the right of federation members to secede—and Chechnya tried to claim this right.

The Chechens' desire was perfectly understandable. As an ethnic group, Chechens had been mistreated by the Soviet regime, and the Russian empire before it, perhaps worse than anyone else. In 1944, the Chechens, along with several other ethnic groups, were accused of having collaborated with the Nazis and deported to Siberia. Their collective guilt established by the order of Stalin, on Feb. 23, 1944, more than half a million Chechens were forcibly herded onto cattle cars and sent to Western Siberia. As many as half died en route, and uncounted others perished in the harsh Siberian winter; the exiles were literally dumped in the open snowy fields and left to fend for themselves.

Continue Article

The Chechens were not allowed to return home until 1976. So by the time of perestroika, virtually all Chechen adults were people born in Siberian exile. No wonder they didn't want to live side by side with the Russians, who had mangled their lives. The last straw came in August 1991, when, during the failed hard-line communist coup, rumors spread that another deportation was in the works. Chechens overthrew their local, Soviet-appointed leader, and elected a new president on a nationalist platform.

Russia had no intention of recognizing Chechen independence. The Kremlin's fears were understandable: With the Soviet Union crumbling, there was no reason the shaky Russian federation couldn't follow. Granting independence to one region could set off a chain reaction. What's more, an oil pipeline went through Chechnya, and a small amount of oil was produced in the republic itself, so losing Chechnya could have meant significant financial loss for Russia. President Boris Yeltsin declined even to negotiate with the Chechen separatists—a traditional Russian disdain for this Muslim people no doubt played a role in his decision—and simply let the problem fester for three years.

By the fall of 1994, Chechnya, which had been left to its own devices, had all the trappings of de facto sovereignty. It had its own armed forces, small but well-trained, called the Presidential Guard. It operated its own international airport, which Russia seemed not to notice, and it had effectively taken control of its oil production and exports. In October 1994, Moscow decided finally to put things right by staging an armed uprising in Chechnya. It was meant to look like a spontaneous rebellion of pro-Moscow Chechens, but it was so poorly planned that it failed, and several dozen participants were detained by the Chechens. All the supposed rebels turned out to be ethnic Russians employed by the secret services.

When the covert operation failed, Moscow decided to use overt tactics. The Russian defense minister at the time boasted he could take Grozny, the Chechen capital, in two hours. The war, which began on Dec. 11, 1994, lasted nearly two years, cost at least 80,000 Chechens and about 4,000 Russian soldiers their lives, and ended in military defeat for Russia. In 1996, Russia pulled its troops out of a virtually demolished Chechnya, leaving it to fester—again. For the next three years, Chechnya, whose infrastructure had been bombed out of existence, turned into a state run by and for criminals. In the absence of any clear legal status for the place or its residents, everything that happened there—from oil exports to kidnappings—was by definition illegal.

A shocking and important event preceded the Russian pullout from Chechnya. In June 1995, a group of rebels emerged from what seemed at the time to be a nearly defeated Chechnya and tried to take over the small Russian town of Budyonnovsk. Dozens of armed men ended up barricading themselves in the local hospital, where the patients, including women with their newborns, became their hostages. Russian troops tried to storm the building but aborted the attack quickly. In the end, Moscow negotiated a cease-fire in Chechnya and let the terrorists get away in exchange for the hostages' release. Immediately after Budyonnovsk, Russia started peace negotiations with the Chechen rebels, making the hospital siege probably the most successful act of terrorism in history. It is also the only large-scale hostage-taking that didn't end in a storm.

The second war in Chechnya began in September 1999, following a bizarre and brutal series of terrorist acts. Two apartment buildings in Moscow and one in the south of Russia exploded, killing more than 300 people. Another building, in the town of Ryazan, was de-mined in time. At the same time, a group of Chechen rebels staged an incursion into the neighboring republic of Dagestan, taking over several villages there for a few weeks. In the last five years, several critics of the Putin regime, including a former senior secret services officer, have produced a fair amount of evidence indicating that the Russian secret services may have instigated or even carried out some or all of these attacks. If this were the case, it wouldn't be the first time a country fighting a separatist movement tried to defeat it by funding a more radical terrorist wing in the hopes of undermining the more moderate separatists locally and discrediting them internationally. It also wouldn't be the first time such tactics had failed. Usually, the terrorist movements quickly take on a life of their own, and their federal masters and funders lose control.

The current Russian regime based its popularity on its harsh response to the terrorist attacks of 1999. Vladimir Putin, a virtual unknown who was appointed prime minister just before the first explosions, rose to political fame and power by taking a harsh stand and promising to bomb Chechnya into submission. The bombing has been going on for five years, but submission still seems unattainable. Chechen fighters have not only continued to battle the federal powers at home but have staged a series of increasingly shocking terrorist attacks in other parts of Russia (although the Chechen connection is, in most cases, presumed rather than proved). There have been explosions in Moscow and elsewhere, including a bomb in the Moscow subway; there have been two shocking hostage crises—over 800 people held for three days in a Moscow theater two years ago and 1,000 or more held in the school building this week. Russians, for their part, always seem to botch the rescue operations. In the Moscow theater, the military part worked fine, but 129 people died needlessly because no one had bothered to organize the medical end of the rescue. The details of this week's bloodbath are not yet clear, but it is obvious that it involved a military and humanistic failure on the part of the Russians.

So, what does al-Qaida and international Islamic terrorism have to do with any of this? Probably very little. Chechens have plenty of reason to do what they do without outside inspiration. In addition, their tactics are very different from al-Qaida's. Osama Bin Laden's group generally aims for maximum casualties; the Chechens, at least when they have staged hostage-takings, have not seemed to have that goal. Al-Qaida explicitly targets Westerners; the Chechens, on the other hand, explicitly exclude Westerners from their list of targets; they target Russians and Russia-sympathizers. Finally, the Chechens' demands, when they have made them, have always focused on the war in Chechnya to the exclusion of any religious or international agenda. They have consistently demanded a the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya—an unattainable goal in the current Russian political climate, but one that may look plausible to the Chechens because it worked after Budyonnovsk.

Russian intelligence has produced little or no evidence that al-Qaida is present in Chechnya. Russian officials claimed that there were Arabs among the hostage-takers, but this information has yet to be confirmed, and even if it is, it may mean only that foreign men have come to fight on the side of Chechens—something that has happened before and something that happens in every conflict, whether or not a major international organization is involved. On the other hand, it would be surprising if al Qaida had no presence in Chechnya at all. Chechens are Muslims, and they are at war; representatives of virtually every Islamic organization have at one point or another sent missionaries and recruiters to the region. They have also sent money. Researchers of al-Qaida say that, in addition to its own organization, the terrorist network has a number of loose affiliates, essentially freelancers, who get occasional financial support. Most likely, some Chechen groups or individuals fall into that category.

But Russia's terrorism problem is not international Islam. It's a war that Russia started and has continued. Because of terrorism, this war has spread to engulf the entire enormous country.

Masha Gessen is deputy editor in chief of Bolshoy Gorod, a Moscow weekly.

I put it to those on this board currently calling for further acts of barbarism to be committed against the Chechen population isn’t that exactly what has driven them to lash out at in anyway they can?

Also please ask yourself just how would you be acting if you were Chechen, many people on this board seem to want to spill much more blood after seeing unpleasant pictures on the TV, just how blood thirsty would you be right now if you were Chechen having lived through what they have?

[MKSheppard]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe/c ... ove_2.html

In February 1999, Maskhadov imposed Islamic sharia law in Chechnya, stripping parliament of its legislative authority and removing the vice president's powers, saying it was necessary to ensure the leadership structure fit Islamic requirements.

Vympel can probably clue you more in; suffice to say, Chechyna is an
Islamic shithole.

[Plekhanov]

So according to you Chechnya became "an Islamic shithole" in Feb 1999 and this somehow renders everything that caused them to become said "shithole" irrelevant?

February 1999 that would be after ½ a decade of the Russian government effectively doing everything in it’s power to turn a secular independence movement into a radical Islamist movement.

I refer you to this helpful thread in SLM about False Cause Fallacy

False cause sounds about right.

The simplified version of this is:

I do X because I am afraid of you doing Y, in response to me doing X, you do Y. Since you did Y, me doing X was perfectly justified all along!

I think that regardless of what ethical system you follow, that is fallacious logic, because you can't use an effect to justify a cause of that effect.

Yes, most people respond well to the "X vs Y" method of describing fallacies, even if you don't have a formal name to put on it. But your method of describing the fallacy is a bit long-winded. I would put it this way:

"According to you, X caused Y, therefore Y justifies X. By this logic, I am perfectly justified in punching you in the face right now because you'll punch me back".

[Vympel]

By the fall of 1994, Chechnya, which had been left to its own devices, had all the trappings of de facto sovereignty. It had its own armed forces, small but well-trained, called the Presidential Guard. It operated its own international airport, which Russia seemed not to notice, and it had effectively taken control of its oil production and exports. In October 1994, Moscow decided finally to put things right by staging an armed uprising in Chechnya.

The issue is not whether it had de facto sovereignty. The article glosses over the fact that Chechnya was not exactly a haven of stability during its period of de facto independence- both from 1991-1994 and 1996-1999. Various forms of smuggling, kidnappings, etc. made Chechnya a boil on the arse of the Caucasus, indeed, the Russians made it a condition of the 1996 pullout that the Chechens deal with it, as that was the reason they went in the first time. It was also the reason they went in the second, as the article correctly notes. It was a state "run by and for criminals" both times, not just once. Chechnya was not a normal place, even by Caucasian standards.

[Plekhanov]

By the fall of 1994, Chechnya, which had been left to its own devices, had all the trappings of de facto sovereignty. It had its own armed forces, small but well-trained, called the Presidential Guard. It operated its own international airport, which Russia seemed not to notice, and it had effectively taken control of its oil production and exports. In October 1994, Moscow decided finally to put things right by staging an armed uprising in Chechnya.

The issue is not whether it had de facto sovereignty. The article glosses over the fact that Chechnya was not exactly a haven of stability during its period of de facto independence- both from 1991-1994 and 1996-1999. Various forms of smuggling, kidnappings, etc. made Chechnya a boil on the arse of the Caucasus, indeed, the Russians made it a condition of the 1996 pullout that the Chechens deal with it, as that was the reason they went in the first time. It was also the reason they went in the second, as the article correctly notes. It was a state "run by and for criminals" both times, not just once. Chechnya was not a normal place, even by Caucasian standards.

A few questions for you Vympel:

Why isn’t de facto sovereignty the issue? Is the article incorrect when it states that Chechnya had a constitutional right to secede? Do you deny that the Chechens had every reason to rid them selves of Russia which only conquered them in the 1850s and has visited nothing but misery on them ever since.

Was the level of lawlessness and instability from 91-94 really so severe so as to make Russia’s invasion necessary if lawlessness was the real reason wouldn’t shoring up the newly independent regime have been a more sensible option? Wasn’t ‘lawlessness’ really just an excuse to invade because Russia was concerned that other imperial dominions might follow Chechnya’s example and declare their independence?

Did the invasion actually serve to make Chechnya more stable or it reduce the country to rumble, fatally weaken the central government and bring in the era of the warlords, did it not in fact make the situation far, far worse? Wasn’t Yeltsin’s initial poorly planned, unsuccessful but brutal war the key factor in turning a relatively secular nationalist movement into an Islamic Fundamentalist Jihadi movement?

Wasn’t the excuse for Putin to send the troops in the second time because of a series of explosions in Russian tower blocks that just happened to coincide with him becoming PM, which he immediately blamed with very little evidence on Chechens? Isn’t there a tremendous amount of doubt that these explosions were the work of Chechen’s at all? Wasn’t Putin’s astonishingly brutal second ongoing reconquering of Chechnya a key plank of his first presidential campaign without which he most likely wouldn’t have been elected?

Do you deny that the occupying Russian army and later the puppet regime have committed human rights abuses on an astonishing scale and that this brutal occupation has been a key factor in radicalising the sections of the Chechen population so that they have nothing left to lose and desire above all else to exact some revenge upon Russia?

Basically isn’t Yeltsin’s and later Putin’s imperial war of conquest against the Chechen population the root cause of the act of terror so recently visited upon the innocent population of Beslan.

[MKSheppard]

http://windsofchange.net/archives/005468.php

A little background ...

First of all, claims that this has to do with the Russian military presence in Chechnya completely misunderstand the situation.

The problem with Chechnya, more or less, is that the Russians tried to surrender after their failure to bring the rebellious republic back into the fold in the first Chechen war and it didn't work. The country was taken over by a mixture of international terrorist organizations, Wahhabi theocrats, drug cartels, and other criminal organizations that subsided more or less on generous funding from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

This funding helped the Wahhabis to finalize control over the institutional infrastructure of the de facto independent state and led for calls for the imposition of sha'riah even though most Chechens (and Caucasus Muslims in general) are Sufis. The al-Qaeda presence in Chechnya was headed up by bin Laden's protege Amir ibn al-Khattab, a Saudi national who had previously assisted Islamic fighters in the Tajik Civil War and the Armenia-Azerbaijan War over Nagorno-Karabakh.

In 1999, Khattab and his "Islamic International Brigade" used Chechnya as a base from which to invade the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan (summarized here by GlobalSecurity) as part of a long-term al-Qaeda strategy to export the Chechen political culture to the rest of the Caucasus. That failed invasion of Dagestan marks the proper beginning of the current fighting in Chechnya.

Originally, the Chechen command structure was fairly solid and made up of both secular nationalists led by President Aslan Maskhadov and Wahhabi extremists led by Shamil Basayev, the former Chechen prime minister who serves as Khattab's superior, having fought alongside him in Nagorno-Karabakh and been yet another product of Afghanistan's terrorist training camp. However, since the fall of Grozny in 2002 the Chechen Wahhabi fighters under Basayev have increasingly been in ascendance and are set up along the following lines:

* United Forces of the Caucasian Mujahideen: The Russians refer to this group as the Supreme Military Majlis ul-Shura of the Mujahideen Forces of Caucasus, but this is the coordinating organization under which all of the Chechen Wahhabi groups operate that is headed up by Shamil Basayev. It also includes the Chechen sha'riah court, which provides theological rationales for activities such as that which we witnessed in Beslan.

* Islamic International Brigade (IIB): Commanded first by Khattab and then his late successor Abu Walid al-Ghamdi (a relative of 3 of the 9/11 hijackers), the IIB is also known as the "Arab brigade" or the al-Ansar Mujahideen due to the high percentage of Arab al-Qaeda fighters in its ranks. While other Chechen groups contain al-Qaeda members serving either as "officers" or in some kind of a military advisor capacity, the IIB is unquestionably the hub of the al-Qaeda presence in Chechnya.

* Special Purpose Islamic Regiment: (SPIR) Also known as the al-Jihad Fisi Sabiliah Special Islamic Regiment and formerly commanded by the late Ruslan Gelayev (killed in early 2004), SPIR engages primarily in guerrilla attacks against Russian forces as well as the execution of those Chechens deemed to be collaborators. Also contains a fair number of Turkish jihadis in its ranks.

* Riyadus Salikhin: This is a Romanization of the Russified form of Riyadh al-Saliheen or Garden of the Righteous, which I believe comes from Islamic descriptions of Paradise. This is basically the Chechen equivalent to the Tamil Tigers' Black Tigers suicide bombing squad and essentially performs the same duties for the Chechen Wahhabis. It first came into existence in June 2000 when two suicide bombers blew up a truck loaded with explosives at a checkpoint near a Russian OMON (Special Forces) unit at Alkhan-Yurt in Chechnya.

Suicide bombing, I should mention, is not an indigenous Chechen tradition but rather a Middle East import, although the Chechen sha'riah court has appropriated the concept of smertnitsi (the idea of virtuous warriors willing to sacrifice their own lives in defense of others) in its theological justifications. In most cases, members of Riyadus Salikhin are the widows of dead Chechen jihadis.

* Islamic Army of Dagestan: The name given to the Karamakhi-based Dagestanis recruited by Khattab that helped him to forment his 1999 invasion of Dagestan.

* Military Council Majlis al-Shura of Ingushetia: The name given to the Ingush Wahhabis who fought alongside the United Forces during the June 2004 raid into Ingushetia and led by Abu Kutayba, a Saudi national.

* Urus-Martan Front: A small Ingush group led by Akhmed Basnukayev that was fighting for greater autonomy in the Urus-Martan and Achkoi-Martan districts of Chechnya before it was absorbed into the framework of Basayev's United Forces.

Basayev's terror offensive ...

Since August 21, Russia has been subject to a wave of Chechen terrorist attacks masterminded by Basayev and bankrolled by al-Qaeda through the personage of an Arab national named Abu Omar al-Saif who serves as the network's paymaster in the Caucasus. While the European and Pakistani arrests of numerous mid-level al-Qaeda figures over the summer appear at least on the surface to have disrupted the network's plans for attacks inside Pakistan and hopefully the continental United States, no similar pattern of disruption appears to have occurred in Iraq or the Caucasus by virtue of the famed al-Qaeda decentralization.

Here's a basic chronology of Chechen attacks prior to Beslan:

* From August 21-22, upwards of 60 Russian and Chechen-backed troops were slaughtered in and around the Russian-controlled Chechen capital of Grozny. While Russian troops routinely die by the dozens inside Chechnya, these attacks utilized the same tactics that were first harnessed in the June 22 raid by hundreds of Chechen and Ingush jihadis into the Ingush capital Nazran as well as the nearby cities of Karabulak and Sleptsovsk. Over 100 Ingush were killed during that raid, including the republic's interior minister, and the 3 cities were more or less sacked by Basayev's fighters. I mention this because it indicates just how confident Basayev was feeling to have devoted such a large percentage of his forces to the raid. In contrast to the tactics employed by Sadr's Mahdi Army (which attempted to take and hold territory), Basayev's fighters took what they needed from the Russian armories and banks and left the town before Russian reinforcements could arrive.

* On August 24, we had the twin plane bombings apparently carried out by members of Riyadus Salikhin that killed 89.

* On August 31, a double suicide bombing in Moscow killed 10, also perpetrated by members of Riyadus Salikhin.

Why North Ossetia ...

Basayev's reasons for selecting North Ossetia in general and Beslan in particular are obvious to one familiar with the warped nature of al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers.

Unlike most of the North Caucasus, most North Ossetians are Eastern Orthodox Christians, so it "makes sense" to target them rather than say Russian Muslim schoolchildren in Ingushetia or Dagestan if you're a Wahhabi who subscribes to bin Laden's belief in a Huntingtonian-esque clash of civilizations. In addition to being majority Christian, North Ossetia was also one of the few regions of the North Caucasus that voluntarily joined the Russian Empire and its population formed a lot of the levies that were eventually used to subdue other Caucasus nations that refused to submit to the Tsar. As such, even the murder of innocent schoolchildren can be fit into a warped idea of "vengeance" for actions that their ancestors may have committed.

I should point out that regardless of what one thinks about Russian involvement in Chechnya, the people of Beslan had no power whatsoever to effect Russian policy in region. Basayev is an educated man who is quite familiar with the North Caucasus, so he must have known this when he was planning the attack. Things like this make his decision to target the innocent people of Beslan all that much more inexcuseable.

However, I should point out that Basayev's ambitions extend far beyond just Chechen independence, so everybody saying that a political solution to the Chechen war or Russian withdrawl from the region is going to solve the issue is going to be sorely disappointed. Here's Amir Ramzan, one of Basayev's flunkies, in an interview with the Chechen propaganda website Kavkaz Center from last year:

Q: From your words I can assume that you operate not only in Chechnya but all over the North Caucasus.

R: Yes, very much so. Not only we carry out raids to various areas in the Caucasus, but we also form local Jama’ats, militant sabotage groups locally. We are joined by a lot of Kabardinians, Dagestanis, Karachaevans, Ingushetians and even Ossetians (Muslims).

Q: That means that those in Russia who say that you want to create a caliphate in the Caucasus from sea to sea, are right?

R: Yes, it is so. Since they are unwilling to negotiate with us, then we’ll be doing what we can. And there is a lot we can do. Next year the war will seize the entire Caucasus from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea. Apart from Ossetia and Ingushetia, this year another guerrilla war has already started in two areas of Dagestan bordering Chechnya. I swear by Allah, this is only the beginning. Russian authorities are well aware of this and this is why they are trying to organize formations of the local residents in the area who could resist us effectively. Similar process is taking place in Chechnya. But it will come to absolutely nothing. Having reached a certain level of confrontation inside Chechnya, Russia will sooner or later have to withdraw its troops beyond the Terek River, for instance. In that case we will need no more than two weeks to destroy all the pro-Russian puppet formations.

Note that his reference to negotiations refers to the establishment of a caliphate from the Black Sea to the Caspian, not to Russian withdrawl from Chechnya. So unless one wants Putin to consider placing millions of people in the hands of these madmen, there is really very little for him to negotiate with Basayev about. Maskhadov is another matter entirely and the Russians might do well to obtain a political settlement on that end, as he has indicated that he might well be open to such a thing.

Fred Pruitt also has some thoughts on what the Russians can learn on their end from what happened in Beslan and I think he hits the nail pretty well on the head.

Links to al-Qaeda ...

People keep asking me about this over on Regnum Crucis or via e-mail, so I'll be up-front: in my own opinion, the only difference between al-Qaeda and Basayev's Chechen Killer Korps is one of semantics, especially when one considers the prominence of people like bin Laden's protege Khattab or Abu Walid al-Ghamdi within the hierarchy of the Chechen forces loyal to Basayev. I've said as much before, but since there is a fair amount of quibbling that can be done in this regard I'll just stick to what is pretty much universally agreed upon by serious observers of the situation in Chechnya, including even some politicians:

* Khattab first met bin Laden during the Afghan War and later served as the leader of an al-Qaeda brigade sent to assist first the Tajik Islamists in the Tajik Civil War and later the Azeri military during the Armenia-Azerbaijan War during the early 1990s.

* Ties between al-Qaeda and a number of other Chechen leaders go at least as far back as the early 1990s.

* Basayev first met with Khattab while fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh and then traveled to Afghanistan to receive al-Qaeda training along with several hundred fellow Chechens.

* By August 1995, a large number of Basayev's followers were Afghan-trained Chechen or Arab fighters.

* Several hundred additional Chechens were trained in Afghanistan during the republic's period of de facto independence from Russia and former Chechen president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev convinced Mullah Omar to recognize Chechnya as an independent state and allow it to set up offices in Kabul and Kandahar. A number of elite Chechen fighters were also made members of bin Laden's personal guard.

* Basayev and Khattab sent emissaries to Afghanistan in 1999, who met with bin Laden in Kandahar and returned with several hundred members of al-Qaeda's elite Brigade 055 as well as a large amount of cash to help bankroll the invasion of Dagestan. An additional $30,000,000 was later funnelled to Khattab from bin Laden through the International Islamic Relief Organization and Global Relief NGOs based in Georgia.

* As the fighting intensified in late 1999, bin Laden sent large amounts of money and weapons to Basayev, Khattab, and Arbi Barayev and appointed Abu Tariq to oversee the distribution of al-Qaeda funds in Chechnya. Abu Tariq was killed in December 2002 and succeeded by Abu Omar al-Saif, another Arab national.

* Al-Qaeda funding was used by Chechen commanders loyal to Basayev to recruit fighters from Georgia, Ingushetia, South Ossetia, Azerbaijan, and Dagestan.

* The last contingent of Chechen trainees arrived in Afghanistan in the spring of 2001 fought against the US-backed Northern Alliance at Mazar-e-Sharif and Kunduz during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF).

* After 9/11, Khattab sent a token force of Chechen and Arab fighters to Afghanistan to demonstrate his solidarity with bin Laden as well as recognition of him as the undisputed leader of the international Islamist movement.

* A number of key al-Qaeda commanders, including Saif al-Islam al-Masri and Abu Iyad, a member of the group's ruling council, sought sanctuary with Khattab following the fall of the Taliban.

* After Khattab's death in February 2002, al-Qaeda contacted its various NGO front organizations in the Gulf to urge an additional shipment of $2,000,000 to Khattab's successor Abu Walid al-Ghamdi.

* Al-Qaeda WMD chief Midhat Mursi has used the Chechen stronghold in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge as a base from which to train European al-Qaeda members in toxins and crude chemical weapons.

* Abu Omar al-Saif has called for attacks on US forces in Iraq and Abu Walid sent a force of Arab and Chechen fighters to Iraq in answer to Abu Musab Zarqawi's January 2004 request for assistance.

This does not include, of course, Russian reports that Abu Omar al-Saif bankrolled this most recent attack or that there were dead Arabs found among the bodies of the Beslan hostage-takers.

What can be done to help the victims?

As I said, the innocent people of Beslan had absolutely nothing to do with Russian policies in Chechnya and should not be held accountable for whatever differences one may have with the policies of the Russian government. MoscowHelp has been set up to assist the survivors of this tragedy and has already raised $95,206, or nearly double what the US government is donating.

UPDATE: The Telegraph has a pretty good primer on what Basayev's ambitions are that should help to make it clear why negotiations aren't going to end the fighting in the region.

[Vympel]

Why isn?t de facto sovereignty the issue? Is the article incorrect when it states that Chechnya had a constitutional right to secede?

??? What "constitutional right" did it have to secede? What constitution? What referendum was held to establish secession? Chechnya was part of Russia even when Russia formed a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, it has never been an independent country.

Do you deny that the Chechens had every reason to rid them selves of Russia which only conquered them in the 1850s and has visited nothing but misery on them ever since.

Yes- I don't believe in this "X happened 150 years ago therefore we can leave now" bullshit; what's past is past. If you truly believed that, you'd be advocating a recipe for mass seperatism in war wherever an aggrieved section of a particular ethnicity decided they weren't being treated right.

Was the level of lawlessness and instability from 91-94 really so severe so as to make Russia?s invasion necessary if lawlessness was the real reason wouldn?t shoring up the newly independent regime have been a more sensible option? Wasn?t ?lawlessness? really just an excuse to invade because Russia was concerned that other imperial dominions might follow Chechnya?s example and declare their independence?

"Shoring up" the regime? How? Let me get this straight, they seize power, declare independence with no referendum and no authority, and then Russia's supposed to shore them up because they can't look after their own shit and they're spewing their shit across the borders into Russia? Shore them up how? They're seperatists, remember? The Russians never accepted their secession.

Frankly, to declare a part of Russia itself (Chechnya is part of the Russian Federation) "an imperial dominion" implies that say Texas is an "imperial dominion" of the United States- i.e. rubbish. Furthermore, why was there a civil war in Chechnya when *full* independence was declared in 1993, seperate from Russian attempts to overthrow the seperatist government? Clearly, the notion of independence is not as popular with the Chechen people as you would have us believe, which is amply shown by what Chechens really think of Chechnya's place- i.e. part of Russia.

Did the invasion actually serve to make Chechnya more stable or it reduce the country to rumble, fatally weaken the central government and bring in the era of the warlords, did it not in fact make the situation far, far worse?

? Assumes that the central government had any power to begin with, which seems blatantly false from what the situation was during its tenure in power.

Wasn?t Yeltsin?s initial poorly planned, unsuccessful but brutal war the key factor in turning a relatively secular nationalist movement into an Islamic Fundamentalist Jihadi movement?

Where's the evidnece for this supposedly secular nationalist movement coming out of a population that is Sunni Muslim?

Wasn?t the excuse for Putin to send the troops in the second time because of a series of explosions in Russian tower blocks that just happened to coincide with him becoming PM, which he immediately blamed with very little evidence on Chechens?

Absolutely low bullshit like this can only fly when you're talking about Russia and no other country- this is on par with saying Bush caused 9/11, and I will not dignify it with an answer whatsoever. I suppose the incursions into Dagestan were also staged Russian FSB operations ...

Isn?t there a tremendous amount of doubt that these explosions were the work of Chechen?s at all?

Why, because some crackpot "find the Boeing" conspiracy theorist says so?

Wasn?t Putin?s astonishingly brutal second ongoing reconquering of Chechnya a key plank of his first presidential campaign without which he most likely wouldn?t have been elected?

More "find the Boeing!".

Do you deny that the occupying Russian army and later the puppet regime have committed human rights abuses on an astonishing scale

Not at all.

and that this brutal occupation has been a key factor in radicalising the sections of the Chechen population

Big fat bullshit. Certain elements of Chechnya were already radicalised, and remain radicalised. This doesn't extend to the whole population whatsoever.

so that they have nothing left to lose and desire above all else to exact some revenge upon Russia?

And? This is supposed to be news?

Basically isn?t Yeltsin?s and later Putin?s imperial war of conquest against the Chechen population

Never have I seen such a polemic chocked with fragantly prejudicial language and inflamed rhetoric. You cannot engage in an "imperial war of conquest" in your own fucking country.

the root cause of the act of terror so recently visited upon the innocent population of Beslan.

Yes it is- in that, undisciplined Russian troops have in their actions in Chechnya caused much unecessary suffering and destruction. That doesn't make your loaded prejudicial terms and distortions of Chechnya's position and recent history any more valid, which is why I was attacking the article's merry gloss over inconvenient facts as it portrays Chechnya as some sort of beautiful virgin fleeing from the lecherous Russian bear, to borrow a phrase from a movie.

[Rogue 9]

Is the article incorrect when it states that Chechnya had a constitutional right to secede?

I don't know about Russia's constitution, but I know that no working constitution or any working government at all can allow provinces or states to legally secede and still effectively function. Russia has major problems, to be sure, but those don't seem to be the kind that would be/are caused by giving states/provinces that degree of power over the central government. So in the absence of further evidence, I would hazard to say that no, they do not likely have such a constitutional right. I will gladly concede if or when anyone produces a translation of the document that says otherwise, and then I will laugh at the Russians for being idiots for allowing such.

[Vympel]

The consitution of the Russian Federation is on the web- I see nothing in there indicating any right to secede whatsoever. In fact, this extract from a larger article says precisely the opposite:

To begin with, Chechnya's secession would be illegal in the absence of a constitutional amendment. Article 65.1 specifically identifies "the Chechen Republic" as one of Russia's 21 republics. Moreover, there are no provisions for secession in the Constitution. On the contrary, Art. 4.1 specifies that the "sovereignty of the Russian Federation extends to its entire territory," while Art. 4.3 requires that the Russian Federation "ensure the integrity and inviolability of its territory." Likewise, Art. 67.1 states that Russia's territory "shall comprise the territories of its members, inland waters and the territorial sea, and the airspace above them." Both the drafters of the Constitution and the voters who ratified it on December 12, 1993, clearly understood Russia's "territory" to include Chechnya, an understanding that was shared by the international community, which afforded Russia formal territorial recognition on the basis of the
Soviet-era borders of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR). The RSFSR included Chechnya, which was then part of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic.

[Vympel]

On September 1, 1991 some Chechen politicians formed the "National Congress of Chechen People", declared that part of the Chechen-Ingush Republic became an independent state of the Chechen Republic and stated that supreme power is given to the Executive Committee lead by Dzhokhar_Dudaev.

On September 2, 1991 a group of religious and public figures made a petition, claiming that Executive Committee is not legitimate and that actions of the Committee might inevitably lead to bloodshed.

On September 6, 1991 the building of the Supreme Soviet was occupied by the Dzhokhar Dudaev's guards.

On September 15, 1991, a last session of the Supreme Soviet of the Chechen-Ingush Republic took place, and it decided to dissolve itself (under requests of Dudayev's guards).

On October 1, 1991 some of the ex-deputies decided to divide the republic into the Chechen Republic and the Ingush Republic.

On October 27, 1991, an unofficial election was held. Less than 20% (probably 12%) of the population participated, and Dzhokhar Dudaev was elected. Many false ballots were made, so the number of ballots significantly exceeded number of registered voters.

On November 1, 1991 Dudayev issued a decree of Chechen independence

On November 2, 1991, the 5th Assembly of People's Deputies of RSFSR (the Russian parliament of that time) took place. A resolution was issued stating that the Chechen Supreme Soviet and President are not legitimate.

On May, 1993 Chechen parliament and Muftiat (Islamic high council) made an appeal to the Chechen people to defend the old constitution and restore legitimate power. The decision of the Chechen constitutional court was that Dudayev's actions are illegal.

Time line, and more evidence of this article's glossing over of inconvenient facts. I'm all for fidning the root cause, but don't tell me that vapid crap like "oooh, the Chechens were brutalized and they tried to leave" is an effective summing up of the situation there.

[Plekhanov]

I’m a little confused as to the point of your last cut and paste post Shep was it in someway supposed to rebut my arguments because save for a fundementalty flawed piece of analysis in the first 2 paragraphs it effectively backs up my argument filling in a great deal of detail along the way

First of all, claims that this has to do with the Russian military presence in Chechnya completely misunderstand the situation.

The problem with Chechnya, more or less, is that the Russians tried to surrender after their failure to bring the rebellious republic back into the fold in the first Chechen war and it didn't work. The country was taken over by a mixture of international terrorist organizations, Wahhabi theocrats, drug cartels, and other criminal organizations that subsided more or less on generous funding from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

Wrong the problem with Chechnya is that the Russians invaded in the first place, Chechnya wasn’t a country "taken over by a mixture of international terrorist organizations, Wahhabi theocrats, drug cartels….” before the Yeltsin’s 1st invasion but it was when the Russian army left, the root cause of Chechen terrorism is Russian imperialism.

If you want to rebut this argument how about cutting and pasting a story about Chechens taking hostages in a hospital, theatre, school and so forth BEFORE the 1994 invasion, go on Shep get googling see what you can find, and when you come up with nothing take another look at the “false cause fallacy” thread I linked and quoted above and you’ll see why the article you quoted for all it’s exhaustive detail is flawed as is your whole take on the situation.

[Ma Deuce]

Wrong the problem with Chechnya is that the Russians invaded in the first place

Are you suggesting Russia was supposed to sit idly by while Chechniya illegally seceeded?

If you want to rebut this argument how about cutting and pasting a story about Chechens taking hostages in a hospital, theatre, school and so forth BEFORE the 1994 invasion, go on Shep get googling see what you can find, and when you come up with nothing take another look at the “false cause fallacy” thread I linked and quoted above and you’ll see why the article you quoted for all it’s exhaustive detail is flawed as is your whole take on the situation.

The Chechen separatists never really saw independence as a possibility before the fall of the Soviet Union. Note that their first attempt for independence was immediately after that point? Given what happened to even supposedly "independent" countries that tried to rebel against Moscow (Hungary, Czechslovakia, Poland), it's understandable why they didn't even consider it until Russia was considerably weakened by the fall of the USSR, giving them their opportunity.

[Ma Deuce]

The Chechen separatists never really saw independence as a possibility before the fall of the Soviet Union. Note that their first attempt for independence was immediately after that point? Given what happened to even supposedly "independent" countries that tried to rebel against Moscow (Hungary, Czechslovakia, Poland), it's understandable why they didn't even consider it until Russia was considerably weakened by the fall of the USSR, giving them their opportunity.

To add to that: Since The Chechens didn't try to secede until after the fall of the USSR and the Russians had no reason to invade Chechniya before they tried to secede, there would be no separatist/terrorist movement before that point. Although Russian troops did commit plenty of totally unjustified atrocities against Chechen civilians (which certainly contributed to the violence), that does not mean Russia shouldn't have taken action to stop Chechniya's illegal attempt to secede from the Russian Federation.

[Plekhanov]

Why isn?t de facto sovereignty the issue? Is the article incorrect when it states that Chechnya had a constitutional right to secede?

??? What "constitutional right" did it have to secede? What constitution? What referendum was held to establish secession?

Maybe he meant under the soviet constitution which gave “autonomous republics” such as Chechnya the right to secede

Constitutionally, the Soviet Union was a confederation. In accordance with article 72 of the Soviet constitution adopted in 1977, each republic retained the right to secede from the USSR. Throughout the Cold War, this right was widely considered to be meaningless, however Article 72 was used in December 1991 to effectively dissolve the Soviet Union, when Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus seceded from the USSR.

This is of course a very tangled and complicated piece of History but the “National Congress of Chechen People” declared Chechen independence before the dissolution of the USSR, as for legitimacy how just how legitimate were most of the goings on as the USSR collapsed what “What referendum was held to establish secession” of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus?

Chechnya was part of Russia even when Russia formed a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, it has never been an independent country.

Never been an independent country?

Chechen society has traditionally been organized around many autonomous local clans, called teips. Even today, many Chechens consider themselves loyal to their teip above all, this is one reason why it has been difficult to forge a united political front against Russia.
From the 7th century through the 16th century Chechens and Ingushs were Christians, but then the influence of Islam spread until Sunnites became the majority.
Russian influence started as early as the 16th century when Ivan_the_Terrible founded Tarki in 1559 where the first Cossack army was stationed 1587. Until the late 18th century the area was protected from Russian occupation by the khanate of Crimea. Only after it was annexed by the Russian_Empire in 1783 the Russian colonization of the Caucasus began, met with fierce resistance by the mountain tribes. In 1785 they started waging a holy war against the Russians under Sheikh Mansur who was captured in 1791 and died a few years later.
Imperial Russian forces began moving into Chechnya in 1830 to secure Russia's borders with the Ottoman Empire. The Chechens resisted fiercely, led by national hero Imam Shamil, but Chechnya was finally incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1859.
Russian occupation caused a prolonged wave of emigration until the end of the 19th century. Thousands of Caucasians moved to Turkey and other countries of the Middle East, while Cossacks and Armenians settled in Chechnya.
During the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78 the Caucasians rose against Russia once more, but were defeated again.

There might not have been a country formally known as Chechnya so what? They were an independent self governing people who fought Russian imperialism every step of the way and were only defeated in 1859, even then they kept on fighting for their freedom, they escaped briefly in the chaos following the October Revolution but were forcibly brought back under Moscow’s control in 1922. They never chose to become part of the Russian Empire, the USSR or the Commonwealth they have fought Russia every step of the way.

Do you deny that the Chechens had every reason to rid them selves of Russia which only conquered them in the 1850s and has visited nothing but misery on them ever since.

Yes- I don't believe in this "X happened 150 years ago therefore we can leave now" bullshit; what's past is past. If you truly believed that, you'd be advocating a recipe for mass seperatism in war wherever an aggrieved section of a particular ethnicity decided they weren't being treated right.

How about the fact that Moscow deported the entire population killing over ¼ of them at the end of WWII and only aloud them to return to their homeland in 1957. That’s right as the article mention MOSCOW KILLED OVER 1 IN 4 OF THE CHECHEN POPULATION WITHIN LIVING MEMORY of many Chechens, are you telling me that if that had happened to you you’d just shrug your shoulder’s an say “what’s past is past”? Not a chance, you’d take the first opportunity to get away from the Imperial power responsible and that’s what the Chechen’s did.

Was the level of lawlessness and instability from 91-94 really so severe so as to make Russia?s invasion necessary if lawlessness was the real reason wouldn?t shoring up the newly independent regime have been a more sensible option? Wasn?t ?lawlessness? really just an excuse to invade because Russia was concerned that other imperial dominions might follow Chechnya?s example and declare their independence?

"Shoring up" the regime? How? Let me get this straight, they seize power, declare independence with no referendum and no authority, and then Russia's supposed to shore them up because they can't look after their own shit and they're spewing their shit across the borders into Russia? Shore them up how? They're seperatists, remember? The Russians never accepted their secession.

I was just calling you on your bullshit claim that Russia was in some way forced to invade initially because:

Chechnya was not exactly a haven of stability during its period of de facto independence- both from 1991-1994 and 1996-1999. Various forms of smuggling, kidnappings, etc. made Chechnya a boil on the arse of the Caucasus, indeed, the Russians made it a condition of the 1996 pullout that the Chechens deal with it, as that was the reason they went in the first time. It was also the reason they went in the second, as the article correctly notes. It was a state "run by and for criminals" both times, not just once. Chechnya was not a normal place, even by Caucasian standards.

That is to say that Russia invaded because Chechnya was unstable and a haven for criminals so it was necessary to invade to restore order, if the problem really was lawlessness as you claim (and not the fact that Moscow no longer controlled Chechnya’s resources and the chance that other ethnic groups forcibly incorporated into the Russian Empire and the USSR might follow the Chechen’s example and go for independence) then you have to admit that Yeltsin fucked up massively because bombing the shit out of places tends not to stabilise them and it emphatically did not stabilise Chechnya. If as you claim lawlessness was the problem then there were a whole range of much better solutions than invasion such as the one I suggested.

Frankly, to declare a part of Russia itself (Chechnya is part of the Russian Federation) "an imperial dominion" implies that say Texas is an "imperial dominion" of the United States- i.e. rubbish.

No it isn’t, Chechnya is an unwilling part of the federation that has fought Moscow every step of the way, it has a ethnically and religiously distinct population which has suffered greatly at the hand of Moscow (remember that small incident that killed between 1 in 4 and 1 in 2 of the population) and Chechnya also arguably legally declared it’s independence in 1991, can you say the same things about Texas? No you can’t so your bullshit analogy breaks down.

Furthermore, why was there a civil war in Chechnya when *full* independence was declared in 1993,

Maybe because Dudayev was a power hungry bastard and many Chechens wanted a more representative form of government, just because they opposed Dudayev doesn’t mean they wanted Moscow instead.

seperate from Russian attempts to overthrow the seperatist government?

Yes that’s right the Federal government was totally uninvolved in anti Dudayev movements and did nothing to agitate opposition to his rule

Clearly, the notion of independence is not as popular with the Chechen people as you would have us believe, which is amply shown by what Chechens really think of Chechnya's place- i.e. part of Russia.

Do they now? Care to back that assertion up

Did the invasion actually serve to make Chechnya more stable or it reduce the country to rumble, fatally weaken the central government and bring in the era of the warlords, did it not in fact make the situation far, far worse?

? Assumes that the central government had any power to begin with, which seems blatantly false from what the situation was during its tenure in power.

So are you actually denying that Chechnya was more stable before Yeltsin’s invasion? Are you actually denying that the legacy of the first Chechen war was a country ruled by warlords? Are you actually denying that the first Chechen war made the situation worse?

Wasn?t Yeltsin?s initial poorly planned, unsuccessful but brutal war the key factor in turning a relatively secular nationalist movement into an Islamic Fundamentalist Jihadi movement?

Where's the evidence for this supposedly secular nationalist movement coming out of a population that is Sunni Muslim?

Do I detect some Islamophobia in that last paragraph of yours why is it you assume that any movement involving Muslims is automatically fundamentalist?

1992 - Chechnya adopts a constitution defining it as an independent, secular state governed by a president and parliament.
…..
1999 January/February - Maskhadov declares Islamic Shari'ah law will be phased in over three years.

Most Russians are Orthodox Christians should I now ask you for proof that the war against the Chechens isn’t some sort of fundamentalist Christian crusade or is it only muslims who you assume to be fundamentalists?

Wasn?t the excuse for Putin to send the troops in the second time because of a series of explosions in Russian tower blocks that just happened to coincide with him becoming PM, which he immediately blamed with very little evidence on Chechens?

Absolutely low bullshit like this can only fly when you're talking about Russia and no other country- this is on par with saying Bush caused 9/11, and I will not dignify it with an answer whatsoever. I suppose the incursions into Dagestan were also staged Russian FSB operations ...

Isn?t there a tremendous amount of doubt that these explosions were the work of Chechen?s at all?

Why, because some crackpot "find the Boeing" conspiracy theorist says so?

I’m not actually a follower of conspiracy theories so I have absolutely no idea what “finding a Boeing” has to do with anything but there has always been a great deal of doubt about Chechens being to blame for the apartment bombings of 1999 and by no means just from the usual tin foil brigade. You so fit to quote Wikipedia’s timeline on Post-Soviet Chechnya will you accept their page on the bombings as well? (note selectively quoted for length click to get the whole story)

The Russian Apartment Bombings were a series of bombings in Russia that killed nearly 300 people and led the country into the Second Chechen War. They happened over two months in 1999.
….
It was at this time when Russian President Boris Yeltsin declared a war against the terrorists. Though there was not much evidence pointing to Chechens, preparations were made to begin a new invasion of the province. The motive for the invasion was further quenched when a truck bomb exploded September 16 outside a nine-story apartment complex in the southern Russian city of Volgodonsk, killing 17 people.
….
In the evening of September 22 an alert resident of an apartment building in the town of Ryazan noticed strangers moving heavy sugar sacks into the basement from a car. Militia (the local police) were called to the site and all residents were evacuated. The first test of the powder from the sacks showed the presence of an explosive. All roads from the town were brought to heavy surveillance but no leads were found. A telephone service employee tapped into long distance phone conversations managed to detect a talk in which an out of town person suggested to take care and to watch for patrols. That person's number was found to belong to an FSB office in Moscow.
Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti has declared that the incident was its training exercise one day later. The original chemical test was declared inaccurate due to contamination of the analysis apparatus from a previous test. The public inquiry committee could not come to a complete conclusion on this and other incidents due to incoherent answers from federal bodies. The General Prosecutor's office has closed the criminal investigation of the Ryazan incident in April 2000.
Russian oligarch, Boris Berezovsky supported (financed 25% of the costs) a documentary film "FSB blows up Russia" ("An assault on Russia"?), accusing Russian special services of organising the explosions in Volgodonsk and Moscow. According to the research carried out by two French journalists, Charle Denie and Charle Gasel (spelling?), the explosions were carried out by FSB to provide justification for the continuance of Chechen War.

If you only trust Wikipedia articles you post how about the BBC which is also openly sceptical about Chechen culpability for the bombings.

Wasn?t Putin?s astonishingly brutal second ongoing reconquering of Chechnya a key plank of his first presidential campaign without which he most likely wouldn?t have been elected?

More "find the Boeing!".

Don’t duck the question do you deny that Putin’s brutal reconquering of Chechnya was a key plank of his first presidential campaign? If you aren’t sure have a read of this BBC article (selectively quoted for length)

Playing the Chechnya card

By Russian Affairs Analyst Stephen Dalziel

Nothing has helped Vladimir Putin's image more than the Russian military action in Chechnya.

The war has kept the Russian public on his side and established him as the frontrunner in the upcoming presidential election. But, more importantly, he gained public support before the war, something which the then President, Boris Yeltsin, failed to do at the start of the first campaign in 1994.
….
And with the shame of 1996 still fresh in many people's minds, and with the provocation of an attack from Chechnya, it was always going to be easier to persuade the Russian people that this time the problem would have to be dealt with once and for all.

But in case people still needed convincing, in late August and early September there was a series of bomb explosions in blocks of flats in Moscow and in the southern town of Volgodonsk. Nearly 300 citizens died.

Public opinion swept overwhelmingly behind the idea of a military campaign in Chechnya. The Chechen rebels denied responsibility for the explosions. By the time questions began to be raised as to whether the rebels would actually have had the resources or the know-how to carry out such hugely destructive acts of terrorism, support for the war had already gathered its own momentum.
…
Chechnya proved a major positive factor for the Unity political party in December's elections. The party's leader, Sergei Shoigu, is Minister for Emergency Situations, and gained a great deal of publicity in the run-up to the elections, as he was seen dealing with the problem of refugees from Chechnya.

In the run-up to the presidential elections, the military operation in Chechnya looks to have been the ace in Mr Putin's presidential pack, too.

and that this brutal occupation has been a key factor in radicalising the sections of the Chechen population

Big fat bullshit. Certain elements of Chechnya were already radicalised, and remain radicalised. This doesn't extend to the whole population whatsoever.

So please do explain the lack of Chechen’s committing terrorist atrocities before the 1994 invasion if they were already radicalised why is it they only started taking hostages mounting suicide attacks after the invasions?

Basically isn?t Yeltsin?s and later Putin?s imperial war of conquest against the Chechen population

Never have I seen such a polemic chocked with fragantly prejudicial language and inflamed rhetoric. You cannot engage in an "imperial war of conquest" in your own fucking country.

And just how do you figure that Chechnya is Putin’s “own country”?

the root cause of the act of terror so recently visited upon the innocent population of Beslan.

Yes it is- in that, undisciplined Russian troops have in their actions in Chechnya caused much unecessary suffering and destruction.

What about the disciplined blowing of most significant urban areas to rubble? What about the creation of poor treatment of 100,000s of refugees? What about the fact that to quote amnesty international “extrajudicial killings, "disappearances" and torture, including rape and unlawful killings occur systematically.” It’s not just a few ill disciplined soldiers that the problem here it’s the whole war.

That doesn't make your loaded prejudicial terms and distortions of Chechnya's position and recent history any more valid,

Really the fact that you admit the key argument of my post to be essentially correct doesn’t effect the validity of my post?

which is why I was attacking the article's merry gloss over inconvenient facts as it portrays Chechnya as some sort of beautiful virgin fleeing from the lecherous Russian bear, to borrow a phrase from a movie.

Your posts have been every bit as partial and selective in their use and interpretation of facts as mine or the article and do a fair bit of “glossing over” themselves please don’t try to pretend that unlike me you in some way have an impartial take on the Chechen situation because that clearly isn’t the case.

[Vympel]

Maybe he meant under the soviet constitution which gave ?autonomous republics? such as Chechnya the right to secede

Which is incorrect. Chechnya was part of the Russian Soviet Republic, not the USSR per se.

Rest snipped for irrelevance- with that many days to reply, I would've thought you'd actually read my post regarding Russia's place in the USSR.

And your ignorance of the history involved is indeed curious- you asked what referendums were held- referendums were indeed held regarding independence in, to my knowledge, all former Soviet republics, and if not all, the majority. These were at various times in 1991, depending on the Republic.

Of course, with notes to the above distinction between Russia and the USSR, any analogies drawn between the seperation of Belarus, Ukraine etc are therefore false- they *did* have authority to separate under the USSR's constitution, Chechnya didn't.

Never been an independent country?

Bunch of tribes does not equal "country".

There might not have been a country formally known as Chechnya so what? They were an independent self governing people who fought Russian imperialism every step of the way and were only defeated in 1859, even then they kept on fighting for their freedom, they escaped briefly in the chaos following the October Revolution but were forcibly brought back under Moscow?s control in 1922. They never chose to become part of the Russian Empire, the USSR or the Commonwealth they have fought Russia every step of the way.

I don't give a damn, as you will have seen later. By the same logic I could argue that Greece has a right to take Asia Minor back from Turkey. History is fucking replete with these conquered and/or displaced peoples, territory that changes hands, areas are annexed into other countries, etc. Should they all be allowed to make good of their past woes? Who decides, and why?

How about the fact that Moscow deported the entire population killing over ¼ of them at the end of WWII and only aloud them to return to their homeland in 1957. That?s right as the article mention MOSCOW KILLED OVER 1 IN 4 OF THE CHECHEN POPULATION WITHIN LIVING MEMORY of many Chechens, are you telling me that if that had happened to you you?d just shrug your shoulder?s an say ?what?s past is past?? Not a chance, you?d take the first opportunity to get away from the Imperial power responsible and that?s what the Chechen?s did.

No, that's what *some* Chechens tried to do in 1991, and not everyone agreed.

I was just calling you on your bullshit claim that Russia was in some way forced to invade initially because:
That is to say that Russia invaded because Chechnya was unstable and a haven for criminals so it was necessary to invade to restore order, if the problem really was lawlessness as you claim (and not the fact that Moscow no longer controlled Chechnya?s resources and the chance that other ethnic groups forcibly incorporated into the Russian Empire and the USSR might follow the Chechen?s example and go for independence) then you have to admit that Yeltsin fucked up massively because bombing the shit out of places tends not to stabilise them and it emphatically did not stabilise Chechnya. If as you claim lawlessness was the problem then there were a whole range of much better solutions than invasion such as the one I suggested.

Thank you for simply repeating what you've already said. Answer the question.

No it isn?t, Chechnya is an unwilling part of the federation that has fought Moscow every step of the way, it has a ethnically and religiously distinct population which has suffered greatly at the hand of Moscow (remember that small incident that killed between 1 in 4 and 1 in 2 of the population) and Chechnya also arguably legally

Bullshit. Based on nothing but ignorance of the difference between Russia as part of the USSR and the USSR as a whole.

declared it?s independence in 1991, can you say the same things about Texas? No you can?t so your bullshit analogy breaks down.

Do you know anything about Texas? It was forcibly taken from Mexico in the 19th century- get it? What some Chechens did to seize power and get out as opposed to the population of Texas has nothing to do with the point, which was that your "Imperial dominion" rhetoric is complete bullshit. I suppose you'd be the first sap to declare the Texan seperatist movement has legitimacy and should be speeded on its merry way by the United States because of the history of the place- and every other country that has ever annexed territory, to boot. Or does this prejudicial language only apply in situations where it is appropriate for you?

Maybe because Dudayev was a power hungry bastard and many Chechens wanted a more representative form of government, just because they opposed Dudayev doesn?t mean they wanted Moscow instead.

Funny, then why do 70% of Chechens see themselves as part of Russia?

Yes that?s right the Federal government was totally uninvolved in anti Dudayev movements and did nothing to agitate opposition to his rule

Of course they did. That doesn't mean that you can agitate an anti-movement out of nothing- see the timeline posted- there was much internal dissent regarding the illegal seizure of power- period.

Do they now? Care to back that assertion up

Already have- maybe you should read the wikipedia piece more thoroughly.

So are you actually denying that Chechnya was more stable before Yeltsin?s invasion? Are you actually denying that the legacy of the first Chechen war was a country ruled by warlords? Are you actually denying that the first Chechen war made the situation worse?

No. I'm saying that your bullshit attempts to make Chechnya out to be some sort of stable country which Russia should've merrily helped on its way with its illegal seperatism are false.

Do I detect some Islamophobia in that last paragraph of yours why is it you assume that any movement involving Muslims is automatically fundamentalist?

Answer the question, keep your poisoning of the well to yourself.

1992 - Chechnya adopts a constitution defining it as an independent, secular state governed by a president and parliament.
?..
1999 January/February - Maskhadov declares Islamic Shari'ah law will be phased in over three years.

Now who's the one employing false cause fallacies? 1999 was *three years* after Russian forces pulled out and gave the Chechens a five year period over which to resolve Chechnya's status.

Most Russians are Orthodox Christians should I now ask you for proof that the war against the Chechens isn?t some sort of fundamentalist Christian crusade or is it only muslims who you assume to be fundamentalists?

It wasn't Orthodox Christians who invaded Dagestan.

I?m not actually a follower of conspiracy theories so I have absolutely no idea what ?finding a Boeing? has to do with anything

It's the bullshit 9/11 crackpot theory that the Pentagon wasn't actually struck by an aircraft.

but there has always been a great deal of doubt about Chechens being to blame for the apartment bombings of 1999 and by no means just from the usual tin foil brigade.[/qutoe]

Bullshit. Show some legitimate evidence for this doubt.

You so fit to quote Wikipedia?s timeline on Post-Soviet Chechnya will you accept their page on the bombings as well? (note selectively quoted for length click to get the whole story)

I'm well aware of Boris Berezovksy says, nor am I particularly surprised that an anti-government oligarch given the flick by Putin would finance such propaganda, and if you think this actually evidence of anything, you should take a course in logic, especially considering the supposed "evidence" you have is an FSB phonecall tracked A WEEK after both bombings. Tin foil hat bullshit indeed. The "find the boeing" book was also written by a french journalist, I guess that means its legit.

If you only trust Wikipedia articles you post how about the BBC which is also openly sceptical about Chechen culpability for the bombings.

Oooh, repetition fo the same inane inneuendo, I'm so impressed.

Don?t duck the question do you deny that Putin?s brutal reconquering of Chechnya was a key plank of his first presidential campaign? If you aren?t sure have a read of this BBC article (selectively quoted for length)

I'm not ducking the question I'm attacking the reasoning, which implies that since Chechnya was part of his campaign, therefore that's somehow evidence for him having a hand in the deliberate murder of Russian citizens. Like I said, only with Russia can tin foil hat bullshit like this fly. Why don't you start a thread telling us how Bush caused 9/11 because it helped his presidency too? I'm sure there'll be plenty of crackpot websites to help you out. And I see you artfully dodged my question as to whether the incursions into Dagestan where FSB organized too

So please do explain the lack of Chechen?s committing terrorist atrocities before the 1994 invasion if they were already radicalised why is it they only started taking hostages mounting suicide attacks after the invasions?

You were speaking the in the present tense "and this brutal occupation", not of 1994.

And just how do you figure that Chechnya is Putin?s ?own country??

Because Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation. The Russian Federation is a country. Chechnya is not.

What about the disciplined blowing of most significant urban areas to rubble?

Disciplined? You call indiscriminate artillery bombardment disciplined?

What about the creation of poor treatment of 100,000s of refugees? What about the fact that to quote amnesty international ?extrajudicial killings, "disappearances" and torture, including rape and unlawful killings occur systematically.? It?s not just a few ill disciplined soldiers that the problem here it?s the whole war.

More strawmen- I never said "a few ill disciplined soldiers"- its symptoms of the entire fucked up conscription system and corrupt, under paid officers.

Really the fact that you admit the key argument of my post to be essentially correct doesn?t effect the validity of my post?

I'm not going to let you throw out the baby with the bathwater and sneak every single assertion you've made simply because of the obvious point that it's the atrocities/abuses in Chechnya that have visited terrorism on Russians.

Your posts have been every bit as partial and selective in their use and interpretation of facts as mine or the article and do a fair bit of ?glossing over? themselves please don?t try to pretend that unlike me you in some way have an impartial take on the Chechen situation because that clearly isn?t the case.

Its clearly more impartial than you- your breathless and frenzied posts are reminiscent of a bad closing argument on Law & Order- your attempts to paint Chechnya as a perfectly normal place glad to be free of its evil Russian oppressors is not borne out by the facts, nor is your misconception of the difference between the Soviet Union itself and Russia as part of the Soviet Union. Not to mention your assigning the automatic right of any supposedly aggrieved populace (never mind that the populace doesn't seem to be so unanimously aggrieved) to arbitrarily seperate from its country because of history long since past is nothing but a recipe for chaos.

[HemlockGrey]

By the same logic I could argue that Greece has a right to take Asia Minor back from Turkey

I wouldn't think that works, since the majority population of Chechnya is still Chechnyan (as far as I know), whereas the population of Asia Minor is predominantly Turkish and has been for centuries.

[Vympel]

I wouldn't think that works, since the majority population of Chechnya is still Chechnyan (as far as I know), whereas the population of Asia Minor is predominantly Turkish and has been for centuries.

Actually there was still a sizeable Greek population in Asia Minor as early as the 1920s (war with Turkey, "catastrophe", all that) but fuck it, who's counting. Smyrna was sacked and 30,000 Greeks died- yeah, we should get Smyrna back, the fuckers. All of Asia Minor used to be Greek anyway, we should get that back to. Oh, and Constaninople, we all know how many Greeks were slaughtered when the Turks took that, we should definitely get that back. Remember that Plenk has also been beating the drum heavily about the forced reloacation of Chechens during WW2- the same thing happened to Greeks in Asia Minor about 80 years ago; what's the statute of limitations for this sort of thing? Who decides?

You can repeat this shit ad nauseum for every petty historical dispute and piece of conquered territory you care to name. Especially with Chechnya, where this flagrant spin on some broad based nationalist movement which wants to free itself from Russian oppression is simply flat out false- 6 of the 14 districts in Chechnya didn't even take part in the "election" that Dudayev supposedly won. Not only was their dissent among the population regarding this split, they couldn't even run the damn place so they didn't become a black hole of crime and smuggling. And the country they split from is just supposed to bend over? Not on this planet. The problem is obviously the Russian militaries conduct in Chechnya when attempting to bring the place to heel- NOT what some Czar did in the 1830-50s, and NOT what happened in 1944- the very existence of significant dissent among Chechens at the idea of seperatism puts the lie to this easily. It is, however, bigger than that now. Some of these pychos want to establish a Caucasian Caliphate.

What I'm saying here is that geneally, this backward looking, asinine "this happened X years ago and so we get X now" shit is the cause of way too much fucking misery in the world.