>>You would prefer the Ossetians and Ingush had just
killed each other with no referee? (How can you
"intervene" in your own country anyway? Can the United
States "intervene" in Utah?)>>
Since I think I'm the only one who actually read the lousy spikedonline piece, I deserve the right to get a last word in even after the last word.
I hope Chris, someday we write something together, since whenever I get writer's block, I could just wait for you to put words in my mouth. Moreover, since you would systematically eliminate anything I felt to be important in the ongoing discourse, by the time we reached 40 pages or so, we would have at least two completely different pieces written up (so long as I saved the other drafts).
Sure, the federal government has 'intervened' repeatedly in state affairs that many in the states feel are constitutionally given to the states. I just wish some states would interfere in the federal government on foreign policy. My point--hadn't you noticed--was it might not have seemed like a fair settlement for the Ingush, or make the N. Ossetians innocents in the eyes of the displaced.
>>I really don't know how the events have been portrayed
in the Western media.>>
Really? That seems to be a lot of what you cite in reporting about Russia. In fact that seems to be your raison d'etre on the list, to address how ignorant we poor westerners are about Putin's Russia.
>>Certainly everybody in Russia
knows the history, and that was reflected in the media
coverage. I suspect omission in the Western media was
probably due to ignorance of the history. How many
Anglo-Americans had ever even heard of Ossetians
before Beslan?>>
How many still don't know the term or forgot it already? How many would know that Ossetians as an ethnicity are Russified Persians who are also Russian Orthodox in religion? Now the Russian Russian patriots line up and say, We are all Ossetians now!
>>I don't see why
"counter-insurgency" is in quotes though.<<
Because a counter-insurgency that bites you in the ass is called 'blowback'. The terms are in quotes because I punctuated them that way.
>>Who are the "proxies"? Everyone in the North Caucasus
is a Russian (rossiyanin, that is, citizen of the
Russian Federation).<<
I'm sure even the 30,000 - 80,000 dead are citizens of the Russian Federation. I'm not arguing for proliferating ethnic rights to self-determination. However, there could be other ways of pursuing subsidiarity and local autonomy than what we've seen from Yeltsin and now Putin. By proxies I mean people hired to operate outside the law, so I don't really get the point about RF citizenship.
>> This is like accusing the
Americans of using New Yorker proxies in New England.
Moreover, almost everyone in the North Caucasus
supports Moscow. Moscow is their only source of
protection from you-know-who and almost their only
source of income. Dagestan gets 85% of its budget from
Moscow. Ingushetia gets 80%.>>
Well, no it's not like that at all. For a start, the US is a much much older country than modern, post-Soviet Russia (while the S.U. wasn't a very long-lived country either). In fact, the US is constitutionally speaking far older than most of Europe. Then there is the ethnic diversity. And then there is the ethnically based moves to break away from the center in some form. Anyway, by proxies I meant the use of force outside of law, but I'll bet you always think guys like Putin obey the law because they make the law. I actually admire Putin for his restraint, his willingness to try and rule with consensus, and his ability to express himself. However, he hasn't excelled at this 'war on terrorism' thing yet.
>>And you can get equipped and trained quite effectively
without Moscow doing it for you. The North Caucasus is
swimming in weapons and there are plenty of people who
would be willing to sponsor and finance such an
operation. In any case Basayev took credit.>>
Wait, you said they were all Russians, so it's Russians training Russians, isn't it? Well, get the irony in that. OBL didn't take credit and he's guilty, this guy takes credit and he's guilty. Being guilty is in season I guess, though some guilt just lacks credibility. I thought for sure it was Zarqawi and the foreign fighter cells in Fallujah who would eventually get blamed, but spikedonline in its pursuit of the wahhabist disease didn't follow up on that.
>>They wouldn't need to pass as Ossetian. North Ossetia
is a multithnic republic. There are ethnic Russians,
Ingush, Chechens, Ukrainians and everybody else living there.>>
Yeah, but who runs the police force? Besides, what most likely happened is that these people passed as 'legitimate' residents of N. Ossetia. In other words, not people forced out and sent into refugee status in their own country, how do you like that?
F
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