Interview: Robert Bruce Ware on Basayev's playing with the American media By Peter Lavelle Published on August 01, 2005 This article was written for RIA Novosti
RIA Novosti political commentator Peter Lavelle sought some perspective on the ABC interview with Shamil Basayev from Robert Bruce Ware, associate professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and noted expert on the North Caucasus.
RIA: Did you watch ABC's interview of Shamil Basayev?
Robert Bruce Ware: I'm relieved to say that I didn't, but I read the transcript.
RIA: What's the difference?
RBW: The first difference is that the transcript omitted the advertisements; ABC didn't make money from it. The second difference is that an examination of the transcript allowed for scrutiny of Basayev's claims. The ABC format did not.
RIA: What did you think of ABC's justification for the interview?
RBW: ABC failed to grasp several important points. For example, Ted Koppel defended the interview on air by noting that he also interviews common criminals. Yet there is an important difference between common criminals and terrorists. Common criminals do not commit their crimes for the purpose of attracting media attention; terrorists do. Terrorists depend upon media coverage, and without media coverage they are powerless. If we are serious about preventing terrorism, then we must begin to accept responsibility for limiting media access for recognized terrorists.
RIA: What do you mean?
RBW: If Basayev had a large army behind him, or if he were popular, even in Chechnya, then he would not need to be a terrorist. He is a terrorist because he lacks popular support, and so the only way that he can attract attention, and acquire power, is to commit shocking atrocities-such as Budenovsk, Dubrovka, and Beslan-that attract media coverage. No one can blame the media for covering a hostage crisis at a school, but that is different from turning the microphone over to the terrorist, and permitting him to spread disinformation.
RIA: Disinformation?
RBW: So it was. For example, Basayev said that his ambitions were strictly confined to Chechnya. Yet if Basayev's ambitions were confined to Chechnya then he would not have invaded Dagestan on two separate occasions. In 1998, when Basayev was sitting in Chechnya and leaving the rest of the North Caucasus more or less in peace, Russian troops were not sitting in Chechnya. Russian troops went into Chechnya in 1999, only after Basayev led 2,000 fighters into Russia, where they murdered scores of people and displaced 32,000 Dagestanis from their homes. As another example of disinformation, Basayev claimed that he had wanted merely to "hijack" two Russian planes last summer, but that when he attempted to do so, the Russian military shot them out of the sky simultaneously. Yet there is no evidence either that there was a hijack attempt or that the Russian military had time to intervene. The two planes simply exploded without warning. They exploded because of the bombs that Basayev has previously acknowledged that his people smuggled aboard, and they did not explode simultaneously. As another example of disinformation, Basayev blamed Russian officials for the Beslan atrocity, as if Russian officials herded 1,200 hostages into a school gymnasium, denied them food, water, and opportunities to use a toilet for three days, watched children drink their own urine, murdered several people in cold blood execution style, and hung bombs all around the room. ABC failed to note these, and several other, important inaccuracies that together constitute systematic disinformation.
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