--- boddi satva <lbo.boddi at gmail.com> wrote:
Russia
> is not just being
> allowed, but encouraged to slide into
> authoritarianism (and Chris,
> it's not just the Chechens that Moscow is beating
> up).
Wrong. Russia is not "slid[ing] into authoritarianism." Russia is sliding from the poverty and misery of the "democratic" (ha ha) 1990s into prosperity and normality, although that seems to piss people off for some reason.
Wrong again. "Moscow" is not beating up "the Chechens," 80% of whom do not support independence and never supported it, which is why Djokar Dudaev dissolved the parliament in 1993 on the eve of the referendum. Anyway the second (largely over) Chechen conflict is not about independence. It is about ending a vicious kidnapping and slave trade, successive waves of Islamist jihadi attempts to destabilize Russia along the Volga, and the ethnic cleansing of non-vainakh from Chechnya.
Who the hell are these other people that "Moscow" is supposed to be "beating up" anyway? The answer is "no one."
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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