Russian hostage crisis ended

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Russian hostage crisis ended
46
Fri, 09-03-2004 - 8:42am
I have just learned -- not so much thanks to our US news mind you, but the internet about the bloody end to the hostage situation. www.bbc.com has a very thorough article and a time line and some amazingly sad pictures.

My prayers and positive thoughts all go to the people who are suffering in this crisis today. It's heart breaking. Devastating. Why would people hurt children? What's it worth?

I don't understand this world. All I can do is pray for peace and for the health of the families who have suffered today. And for those who have died -- which for now are few. Praying hard no one else dies.

Kelly

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 09-05-2004 - 8:09pm
Hi, welcome, now I'm going to give my 2 cents worth. Chechnya has been a hot bed of strife for almost 10 years now. In fact, before the 9/11 attacks, the US castigated Russia and Putin's heavy handed and repressive measures in Chechnya. It's there in the press if you go back and look. In the recent Chechan elections, there was one, Kremlin approved candidate-the other was taken off the ballot on a superficial technicality. In other words, Russia has been culpable for its actions in Chechnya. If you were a "black widow" with a spouse killed by a hostile government, one wonders if you too might feel as angry and fatalistic as some of the women who have been committing suicide bombings.

Moreover, Russian responses to previous episodes of terror have been inept, poorly coordinated and probably resulted in needless deaths. In no way, does that mean that I condone the Beslan horror, only that it's important to have a more complete picture than simply saying "these people are evil". Simplistic answers tend to overlook complexities.

My prayers are also with the children, parents and families of Beslan School 1 and the misguided, hopeless and angry Chechans--that they may find peaceful ways to resolve their issues.


Edited 9/5/2004 8:19 pm ET ET by gettingahandle

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 09-05-2004 - 8:15pm
Better go look at what some of the Russian troops have done in Chechnya before you start talking about animals, riddance, and peace.

See the following: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/international/july-dec99/chechnya_10-25.html

Moreover, some of your words are taboo to a fact-based journalist and you know it. Referring to middle school aged children as "babies" is carrying the emotional issue out there a bit.


Edited 9/5/2004 8:25 pm ET ET by gettingahandle

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Sun, 09-05-2004 - 10:44pm
Here are a couple of stories:

Before the crisis ended, Bush offers help

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040901/pl_afp/russia_attacks_us_bush_040901230335

After the crisis Bush offers sympathy:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5906677/




iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 09-05-2004 - 10:55pm
Oh puhleease - this is so tedious. OBVIOUSLY everyone condemns the terrorists for this outrageous, unforgivable, horrific attack on innocent people. SURELY that goes without saying ????? Do you want the whole board clogged with UN-style platitudes, with every poster having to formally 'condemn' the actions before they are allowed to move on to discuss other aspects of the issue ??

I think it was perfectly plain what the original poster was talking about. Putin himself announced that he felt it could have been handled better - for example there were not even enough soldiers present to remove the wounded who were fleeing - the villagers had to rush in to do it, endangering their own lives in the process.

No-one here is suggesting that Putin is responsible for the carnage - what a stupid suggestion.

Octagonal
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 09-05-2004 - 11:00pm
You have compeletely misunderstood the post. Why do you make the VERY WORST assumption that you possibly could, about the poster's intentions, instead of clarifying.

Talk about a knee jerk reaction !
Octagonal
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-02-2004
Mon, 09-06-2004 - 10:13am
thanks for the links, I hadn't seen them.


alfreda

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-29-2003
Tue, 09-07-2004 - 12:22pm
I've taken enough English comprehension classes to choke a horse. In case the screen name leaves any room for confusion, I make a living writing and reading things. As a professional in this regard, I believe that people should be more careful with what they write, and take a moment to ensure that they are communicating their thoughts and feelings accurately. Instead, I find more and more people blurting out the first thing that comes to mind, relying on the fact that they can always deflect criticism of their communications later by insisting that what they wrote isn't at all what they meant. Funny, I can trace this trend back to Bill Clinton, who actually insisted there were numerous connotations for the word "is." :)
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-29-2003
Tue, 09-07-2004 - 12:27pm
Bravo.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-29-2003
Tue, 09-07-2004 - 12:57pm
Thanks for the link. Here's an interesting explanation from Michael McFaul about the start of the war in Chechnya:

"Well, I think there were two precipitants; one was the bombing that you just mentioned in Moscow, where 300 innocent Russians were killed and terrorized the city of Moscow for the first time really in this century. The second was when Jamael Basaef and a group of so-called Islamic militants invaded Dagestan, the republic that borders Chechnya, with the intention to liberate Dagestan and to create a greater Islamic republic in the Caucasus. Mr. Putin then, I think, was right to respond. That was a terrorist act; there's no other way to describe it."

You and I simply come at issues from squarely different sides. I see your posts as mostly apologistic, while I admit that I tend not to allow for much in the way of explanations of why people do wrong, bad things. This is a consequence of the fact that I am a parent of very young children, and right now "right and wrong" as a concept is huge in our house. My focus is just not on the various shades of gray in the right versus wrong debate. If my son whacks his sister in the nose because she took his favorite Mighty Bean, we don't have a summit about how she was feeling outcast and unappreciated because she didn't have a Mighty Bean of her own, or about how he was feeling victimized and outraged by the loss of his Mighty Bean. Instead, we get the short version: "It's wrong to take another's things without asking. Please apologize and give back the Bean. It's also wrong to hit, no matter what. You must use your words. Please apologize and take a Time Out."

Now, as for your comment about my use of the word "babies." First, I was not reporting as a journalist when I wrote it, and so I'm not sure why you would use journalistic standards to critique my post. I know I am not alone in calling my own children my babies, even though they are 8 and 4, and they protest vigorously when I do so in their presence. There's this indescribable mother-child thing that happens in the first few weeks, when the baby is so trusting and so connected to the mom, and from then on, they're just always your babies on some level. So yeah, I wouldn't hesitate to call a school aged child someone's baby. And if we had audio of the throngs of mothers outside that school, I guarantee the term "my baby!" would have been heard frequently...and with much anguish.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 09-07-2004 - 3:17pm
Apologistic? I think not! Who the heck am I apologizing for? What I AM trying to do is see a bigger picture--when, where, and how the awful bloody blooms of violence were first seeded. There are lessons in that picture and we ought to be learning them. I used to tell my own children that foolish people don't learn from their mistakes, smart people learn from their own mistakes, and wise people learn from the mistakes of others.

I don't know who Michael McFaul is or what his claim to fame may be but he blithely overlooked a number of episodes of Russian troop brutality to civilians in Chechnya. Dig deeper and once again, there's a cycle of violence and retribution on both sides--who started it is often difficult to determine. Here's another link to consider: http://www3.sympatico.ca/sr.gowans/hobgoblins.html (emotional but informative). Please note too that the PBS site placed the beginning of Russian conflict in Chechnya in 1994 (for this particular cycle) which is well before the 1999 apartment bombings to which McFaul refers. Here's another link (a bit dry and pedantic but still informative): http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2000/p30-cwb.htm

Dagestan's "invasion" is dated at 1999. Hmmmmm. Still quite some time after 1994 with that action too. The problem is that the situation is escalating--draconian measures will just accelerate it.

Black and white, in your case, may well be a function of the age of your children. However benevolent a despotcy of your children may be, the fact remains that they ARE children, not fully grown adults. Mature humans are capable of more complex thinking and behavior. Lord knows, I remember the despot days though my children lived them over 15 years ago. I also note that your children have not reached middle school age so you don't yet know the "joys" of adolescence. Maybe that's part of the reason I had a difficult time with the "babies" phrasing. I have a probably imperfect memory of a child rearing author of about a dozen years ago who referred to kids in the fifth or sixth to ninth grade age group as "critters"! They can be a real challenge to live with, however much a mother loves her young. I also got the sense that the use of the word "babies" in your post was to elicit a sympathetic reaction--without seeing that the other side may have had its own terrible tales to tell. But I will agree, wholeheartedly with your comment--"And if we had audio of the throngs of mothers outside that school, I guarantee the term "my baby!" would have been heard frequently...and with much anguish."

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.