Noam in Turkey

Chris Doss chrisd at russiajournal.com
Sat Jan 26 06:23:42 PST 2002


I'd also like to point out that, despite what you may have been lead to believe, there is no "genocidal campaign" or "war of terror" against Chechens in Russia. The abuses of the Russian Army, which are legion, are not the result of some Kremlin order. They are because the army is broke. As a result, it cannot pay its soldiers, who therefore turn to kidnapping and banditry and gun running.

Moreover, nobody wants to join the Army. Even though Russia technically has a conscript army, according to official government statistics only 12% of those called up to serve actually do (as mentioned above, the Army has zero cash, making it very easy to bribe your way out of military service). The Army is populated mainly by people who have fallen through teh cracks and have nowhere else to go; drug addicts, people with criminal records, people with psychological problems. Once again according to official statistics, about 40% of conscripts have criminal records; 25% are drug addicts; 15% have serious mental disturbances; and 10% have attempted suicide. This is not a recipe for efficient military operations.

Chris Doss The Russia Journal ------------------

Luckily, despite the 15-year war, here has been no "ethnic cleansing" of Kurds as Chomsky erroneously defends. At least 1/2 million Kurds have been forced to relocate from the conflict zones for military reasons. It's illegal, brutal, and there were deaths but it's no ethnic cleansing. Those displaced Kurds are being allowed very gradually to return now. You don't have that if there's ethnic cleansing. There's no ethnic hatred against Kurds, who mostly live in the western parts of the country anyway (not in "Kurdistan"). That said, the police, who are fascist thugs and crooks (courtesy CIA and PKK), will prey on Kurds to a certain degree - to a heavy degree in the war zone. But police harassment isn't ethnic cleansing either. Armenians and Greeks have been ethnically cleansed in Turkey, not Kurds.

Hakki



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