subject change

[ChrisD(RJ)]

I think we're all off-base to one degree or another when it comes to
Israel/Palestine. Too dense and depressing a topic, and I think that's what
leads some to use terms like "genocide" to describe what seems to be an
endless tragedy. It's akin to throwing up our hands and saying "Fuck
analysis -- so-and-so are just Nazis!" and leaving it at that. Easier to
define. Less strain.
---
I think the word "genocide" gets bandied about way too often. I am sick of
hearing the Russian Army's actions in Chechnya, which are plenty brutal,
described as "genocide." What you have in Chechnya is untrained conscripts
who are scared out of their minds and know full well that, if they are
captured, they will be tortured to death and have their heads lopped off,
with the predictable result that they shoot everything that moves. You
ahould hear people who have come back from Chechnya: "My No. 1 priority was
coming back to my wife and family. Men, women, children, sheep, it's all
going down! They give five-year-olds remote-controlled bombs and say "Go
talk to the nice Russian soldiers!' They kill right and left, and we are
supposed to be nice. I made it back. If I had not tossed a grenade into
houses before I went in, I would not be talking to you now. Mu head would be
on a pole."

That conflict is breeding a generation of seriously scarred Russian young
men.