Russian subway bombed

[mimartin]

@mimartin: That's part of the problem with us getting out of Iraq.

There is a difference between helping someone out and over staying your welcome. $714,719,392,956. U.S. dollars, over 4,287 American Soldiers lives and another 30,000 plus U.S. wounded is hardly what I would call cutting and running. The problem with installing a democracy is eventually you have to leave it up to the people to what they want from their government.

[Tommycat]

There is a difference between helping someone out and over staying your welcome. $714,719,392,956. U.S. dollars, over 4,287 American Soldiers lives and another 30,000 plus U.S. wounded is hardly what I would call cutting and running. The problem with installing a democracy is eventually you have to leave it up to the people to what they want from their government.

You misunderstand my intentions here. I fully agree we need to get out. But more to pointing that we need to make it stable first. The region would probably have been best if we hadn't been there. So in essence I agree with your Chechen proposal. But if we pull out without making sure that Iraq is stable, we not only violate the GC, but also risk Iraq turning into another Afghanistan. And to go in with high morals and good intentions to save teh Chechyns might leave us with another Iraq, where we're stuck cleaning up.

 

And some perspective... in 4 years of WWII we lost over 400,000. The number of deaths due to the Iraq war averages out to about 2 deaths per day. Vietnam was a full 13 times that(not including the MIA). The Korean was around 45 per day. The Civil war was around 600 per day. All told 4000+ is pretty low for a war this long. Not that I like to hear of deaths of fellow service members, but it seems that some have lost perspective of how relatively few deaths there have been.

 

Of course this is all tangental to the conversation, so feel free to cut where needed.

[urluckyday]

Just a question out of pure curiosity...is this the first time a woman has suicide bombed a civilian target?

[jrrtoken]

Just a question out of pure curiosity...is this the first time a woman has suicide bombed a civilian target?

No. It's more frequent in Palestine, Pakistan, Iraq, etc, but not in the West, which is why everyone was in a state of disbelief. This thing happens on a near-monthly basis in Iraq and Pakistan, and usually results in more civilian casualties, particularly when mosques are targeted, but, again, why care about them? :¬:

 

Still, I'm not sure what you're getting at, but I'm afraid to even ask.

[Liverandbacon]

Well, after Beslan, I'm not so sure many people would agree they're not terrorists. Unless you wish to assert that was some kind of Russian false flag operation to poison the well against the Chechens......

 

Beslan was the first thing to jump in my mind when I read the opening post.

 

talk about hypocracy, we support Taiwan's independence from China yet we condemn another area that has been oppressed for years as "terrorists" because that is their last hope for improving their condition.

 

Well, as soon as Taiwan takes a school full of children hostage and kills a large number of them, yeah I'll call it hypocritical. However, Taiwan's been pretty peaceful in their pursuit of guaranteed independence. The Chechens target civilians, not the government (even if they targeted gov. targets, but there were collateral civilian casualties, I'd be more charitable), moving them over the line from "freedom fighters" to terrorist ****heads.

[Web Rider]

They want to go on playing like they're the Russian Empire/Soviet Union. It's either that or forcibly destroying almost all of the the military hardware they have.

 

So what? Start a war to prevent a war? Didn't you um just, START A WAR? So they want to play little Soviet Union. Who cares. It's not like a sovereign nation isn't allowed to be ya know, sovereign. And even if you're going to start talking about them playing around in other countries. Hey, guess what, we're not one to talk as we do that all the time.

 

Countries to be concerned about playing little empires? Try China, as they actually have the manpower and warpower to do something about it.

 

Russia's got all the might of a 10th-grade DnD nerd.

[Tommycat]

Russia's got all the might of a 10th-grade DnD nerd.

Pffffff... That's so insulting....

Maybe a 9th grader, but not a 10th grader...

[Darth Avlectus]

They want to go on playing like they're the Russian Empire/Soviet Union. It's either that or forcibly destroying almost all of the the military hardware they have.

 

That could prove to be quite a large number of hardware over quite an expanse of area, no?

 

Russia's got all the might of a 10th-grade DnD nerd.

 

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Don't they have about 10X the number of Tactical nukes as the U.S.? Sure they could be bluffing but still...their military operations aren't exactly something to thumb your nose at, quality wise. They may not have much economy because of it--or so I'm told. They may not have nearly the man power as china, but I would not underestimate their hardware or technology.

[Drunkside]

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Don't they have about 10X the number of Tactical nukes as the U.S.? Sure they could be bluffing but still...their military operations aren't exactly something to thumb your nose at, quality wise. They may not have much economy because of it--or so I'm told. They may not have nearly the man power as china, but I would not underestimate their hardware or technology.

 

If they are bluffing, its not about them claiming to have more nukes than they do you know... And they do have the second largest military budget in the world, and they do not spend it on useless toys like the number 1.

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

If they are bluffing, its not about them claiming to have more nukes than they do you know... And they do have the second largest military budget in the world, and they do not spend it on useless toys like the number 1.

 

yeah but the us has the largest military budget by a wide margin, to the point where we should take ourselves out of the rankings so we don't **** up the scale of any charts or graphs people make out of data like that

[urluckyday]

No. It's more frequent in Palestine, Pakistan, Iraq, etc, but not in the West, which is why everyone was in a state of disbelief. This thing happens on a near-monthly basis in Iraq and Pakistan, and usually results in more civilian casualties, particularly when mosques are targeted, but, again, why care about them?

 

Still, I'm not sure what you're getting at, but I'm afraid to even ask.

 

I'm not trying to get at anything...I was just curious...b/c they were making a big deal out of her being a woman, that's all.

[vanir]

Chechnya applied for UN recognition as an independent (sovereign) state was was refused. The reason is because it is the Kuwait of Russia. It is the Russian oil field. The Chechens only applied for independent status because a number of local community villages want to claim the oil is theirs and not Russia's. The Chechens are not an independent peoples which may historically be regarded as a state, like the Georgians or the Ukrainians or the Moldavians. Chechnya is like Abkhazia. It's just some locals who are using the opportunity of soviet collapse to make a grab for as much fiscal assets as they can get their hands on.

 

For the Abkhazians it is the Georgian Navy and Black Sea ports, which is roughly half the economy of the entire nation and more than half its military hardware in dollar value (Georgia has no airforce or armour, but it does have some missile-frigates that are very valuable and handles a lot of oil shipping).

 

For the Chechens it is the Russian oil fields, the same ones Hitler tried to get his hands on. Grozny, the central Russian oil capital is the capital of "Chechnya" which is just a territorial region in the transCaucasus district of Southern Russia, it is not a historically independent state. You get the actual country of Russia itself, you go to the bottom of the map where the Caucasus mountains are and while you're still inside the country's historical millenia old borders, you're in Grozny.

 

The place wasn't named for its people it was the other way around. It's just local villagers trying to steal oil, Russian citizens ergo criminals ergo terrorists, and digging their heels in because the region is right next to northern Georgia and Georgians are kinda tough nuts (a lot of them are Gherkas). So when they say "Chechen rebels" they're talking about Russian nationals working in conjuction with Georgian criminals all working together as a terrorist organisation whose objective it is to rationalise the stealing of the Russian oil fields by claiming a new independent state. And neither the UN nor EU are having any part of it. But NATO is still diametrically opposed to the CIS so every time Russian peacekeepers head into the mountains MSNBC media says they're invading Georgia.

 

That's what Chechnya is about.

[Arcesious]

I not too long ago in this thread made a post explaining the history of the situation, but I did not realize that Chechnya was rich in oil, so I now sympathize with them. Its unfortunate that they resort to terrorism. Don't bomb the subway and kill innocent civilians. The governments and big oil corporations are to blame. Murder is always bad, but if they have to bomb a place, they should bomb the capital building in Moscow, not a civilian-filled subway. The oil field thing explains a lot. Money is the cause of too much death.

 

Edit: Reading above post, I might want to revise this post, but I'm not sure. Could you provide proof for what you said in the last paragraph of your above post?

[vanir]

My last paragraph is necessarily speculative, an existentialist conclusion of the first three. It would be counterproductive if it belied in any way the nature of the first three paragraphs.

 

Just for interest sake jump on GoogleEarth and zoom in on Georgia and Grozny. Sometimes obvious things like where countries are tend to clarify media terminology, for example "policing action" translates to "oil concerns" when you look up where/what Kuwait is, the context completely altered. Also search the web for material on the Georgian conflict.

 

The Russians in Georgia and Chechnya are very much like NATO in the Middle East and Central Asia, there is a lot of terminology floating around for what are basically very simple elements being involved.

 

Also keep in mind Chechnya is not a nation. The word in Russian means much the same thing as saying "Midwest" in America. It's just a region in southern Russia proper, it is in the foothills on the Russian side of the Caucasus overlooking the Kuban peninsula. Chechnya is a rural area, except for the oil field (Grozny) which was built by the Soviets back during industrialisation. Calling people who live in the Chechnya region Chechens is just like calling some Americans southerners. Giving the "Chechens" the oil field is like giving Texan farmers Fort Knox to the exclusion of the rest of the US. The "war" in Chechnya is like Texan farmers claiming Fort Knox is theirs (I dunno where Fort Knox is, Texas? you get the idea anyway).

 

That's why the Russian Parliament, even though it takes great exception to the Kremlin's military policies also agrees wholeheartedly they are not partisans, but are just criminals.

 

Russian Parliament on the other hand considers Tblisi-Georgians to be more partisan than terrorist, whilst the Kremlin regards them as terrorist. Unfortunately the Kremlin controls the CIS militaries.

 

There is a great disparity on the status of Tblisi based Georgian government in Russian politics, and Georgia is an independent nation, capable of demonstrating a distinct and valid cultural history which is unique and independent of the old Russian Empire of which it was a part (and thus was absorbed into the Soviet Union). Not true of Chechnya.

Georgia would've been a part of Turkey if it wasn't for inherent, culturally biased religious differences, whilst Armenia would've been part of Iran.

 

In terms of peoples, the Kuban is Cossack, the Caucasus Gherka and the south side of the mountains Turk. Head north or west of the Don basin and you get Slav.

 

 

 

edit. Only after these points are clearly observed, then it can be stated the Chechens have a valid case regarding state welfare and their abandonment in terms of infrastructure and support as a Russian rural region and industrial operation. Chechens live like a third world nation and it is a crime, seriously walking around Chechnya is like walking around Sierra Leone in Africa. Only corruption could leave an entire national region in such a state unless the entire nation was bankrupt, which it isn't.

 

But part of their problem is actually something most Americans would overwhelmingly support on the Russian side. It is about privatisation of the oil industry, where Chechens are effectively a welfare state who just happen to live where the oil is. Since industry is no longer state controlled, the Chechen local economy has reverted back to pre-industrial rural despite being surrounded by delapidated modern ammenities (I'm not even sure if they have a power station anymore). Under the Soviet system Chechens received community dividends of any production in their region. Simple example, schooling and services were provided by the State with coupon bonuses for being where the oil is; now they have to pay for their own schools and power and the only people mining oil there are private companies who bring their own labour. The Chechens shut this down, the military responded.

 

If it was in America most yanks would just say, "Get a job," and would stand in line to sign up in the military that shoots the Chechens. Personally I think it is a state responsibility to ensure a minimum living standard of all citizens and regions, which is the Chechen argument. Like you I don't agree that justifies murder, but I'm not there to see just how desperate the situation is for the man on the ground.

People have been talking about Russian atrocities in Chechnya for some time, I don't doubt it.