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In pictures: War in Chechnya

what we are doing in Iraq is so minor compared to what the russians are doing over there.

I would never trust a Russian soldier nor the Russian government. I would feel more safe being in the hands of the Chinese than the Russians.
 
Heh, makes you realize how little we know of current world affairs... I never even knew it was on this much of a scale. A estimated 12,000 russian soldiers killed!
 
Originally posted by: Tabb
Heh, makes you realize how little we know of current world affairs... I never even knew it was on this much of a scale. A estimated 12,000 russian soldiers killed!
Click to expand...

Between 1999 and 2003; however, the overall conflict has claimed over 100,000 Chechens and Russians.
 
Originally posted by: Aimster
what we are doing in Iraq is so minor compared to what the russians are doing over there.

I would never trust a Russian soldier nor the Russian government. I would feel more safe being in the hands of the Chinese than the Russians.
Click to expand...

Nice to see you are in denial🙂 As far as trusting Russian soldier, my exact feelings towards you too, I would never turn my back on Amerikanski🙂 Especially considering latest developments. I think the numbers about Iraq are those that are impossible to cover up, just like in Russia. With reports of 100 attacks in Iraq daily do you actually belive there are no casualties after every one of them? Silly. HRW reported over 10 000 Iraqies killed since beginning of invasion. Multiply this by number of yours Russian federal forces are in Chechnya and you will get very similar picture. US is just lucky that Iraq is on the other side of the globe.
 
Originally posted by: Aimster
what we are doing in Iraq is so minor compared to what the russians are doing over there.

I would never trust a Russian soldier nor the Russian government. I would feel more safe being in the hands of the Chinese than the Russians.
Click to expand...

That's like saying you'd rather have your left ball cut off than your right.
 
Originally posted by: Trianon
Originally posted by: Aimster
what we are doing in Iraq is so minor compared to what the russians are doing over there.

I would never trust a Russian soldier nor the Russian government. I would feel more safe being in the hands of the Chinese than the Russians.
Click to expand...

Nice to see you are in denial🙂 As far as trusting Russian soldier, my exact feelings towards you too, I would never turn my back on Amerikanski🙂 Especially considering latest developments. I think the numbers about Iraq are those that are impossible to cover up, just like in Russia. With reports of 100 attacks in Iraq daily do you actually belive there are no casualties after every one of them? Silly. HRW reported over 10 000 Iraqies killed since beginning of invasion. Multiply this by number of yours Russian federal forces are in Chechnya and you will get very similar picture. US is just lucky that Iraq is on the other side of the globe.
Click to expand...

Denial of what? There are not "hundreds" of attacks daily, this Iraq was has been completely put into the eye of the public and every single attack is very well documented. Around 10,000 Iraqs have been consider as confirmed deaths however this Checyan conflict seems to be extremely larger than the one in Iraq.
 
Originally posted by: Aimster
what we are doing in Iraq is so minor compared to what the russians are doing over there.

I would never trust a Russian soldier nor the Russian government. I would feel more safe being in the hands of the Chinese than the Russians.
Click to expand...

huh??

😕

i dont understand how Iraq is minor compared to chechnya. i think you mean in terms of civilian casualties.

oh and never ever trust the Chinese. they deceive and have been deceiving for thousands of years and will be for thousands more.

"China is the monkey that sits on a tree watching two tigers tear each other apart" -- taken from John Batchelor's radio show
 
Fast forward to pictures 10 and 11. And remember one thing. Chechnya got de facto independence in the 90's, and they used it to what end? That's right, to launch attacks into neighboring provinces of Dagestan, where they don't have popular support. If it wasn't for Russians, the place would be a terrorist base of unimaginable proportions, like Afghanistan, but with oil and access to Russian weaponry through black market. There are a huge number of terrorists there now, though America deserves credit for diverting some to Afghanistan and Iraq. Chechnya gave up any claim they had to independence when they took help from Al-Qaeda to achieve that goal. That fact by itself shows that they are not only undeserving of independence, but it would be suicidal to allow them to have it. And all these arab countries supporting Chechens, are they taking Chechen refugees? No, Russia is. Have Russians gone over the top in Chechnya? Yes, but their enemy has done much worse, and you don't take a knife to a gun fight. They are freshly drafted 18 year old kids who don't want to be there, who take a lot of abuse from their superiors, and who have seen their comrades killed in a most gruesome fashion. And they are facing trained fanatical terrorists who have been fighting for 20 years in Afghanistan, Chechnya, etc. I don't blame them for trying to soften the targes with artillery before they go in house to house. I don't blame them for shooting first and asking questions later. When the enemy blows up schools full of children, you can't be soft or you'll be dead. Like Rumsfeld said, you go in with the army you have, not the one you wish you had.
 
http://www.globalsecurity.org/...ld/war/chechnya2-2.htm
and not to forget
http://www.globalsecurity.org/...ld/war/chechnya2-3.htm

One has to remember that the Russians were almost singlehandedly fighting Al-Qaeda since 1994, ignoring Afghanistan in the 80's. (Kinda reminds you of another war the Russians were almost singlehandedly fighting until Americans decided to help) All the while the European and American media and political elites were bashing them for it. 9/11 shut the Americans up, but Europeans have not had their wake up call apparently. They just hit the snooze button after Madrid.
 
That happened in 1999, they declared independance in 1991, and then the Russians invaded and they still dont have their independance. So its impossible to say that they used their independance to invade another provence or what is a result of what. Saying that the Chechnyans have done much worse than the Russians is also impossible to say because of lack of accurate information coming from the conflict.
 
Czar, you should read the whole recent history of the conflict at that site.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/...world/war/chechnya.htm
There was first Chechnyan war 1994-1996, which Russia in fact lost. Then there was a gap in hostilities while Chechens were contemplating what to do with their new found independence. Then in 1999 they decided that what they were gonna do with it is launch attacks into other parts of Russian federation, and blow up apartment buildings, at which point he hostilities resumed.
Russia withdrew from Chechnya in 1996. They had de facto independence. Noone recognized them, but nonetheless they were free to rule themselves. Hostilities were resumed in 1999 at the initiative of Chechens and their Al-Qaeda handlers, not Russia. At which point whoop@ss was unleashed by both sides to the extent of their abilities, with many civilian casualties, no doubt, and many civil rights abuses no doubt, on both sides. But there is no way out of it if Chechens use their independence to attack Russia or become a base for Al-Qaeda.
 
I mean, do you realize how ridiculous it is. Can you imagine if Taiwan attacked mainland China, what would happen to it?
Well, that's somewhat like what happened in Russia in 1999. A province with de facto indpendence (Chechnya) attacked neighboring provinces of Russia. There was absolutely no way Russia could have not reinvaded it at that point, otherwise it would simply cease to exist.
 
Up until frame 10, the article from the BBC is horribly biased towards the Chechen side. In general, I think it tilts toward portraying the Russians in a negative light.
 
Originally posted by: Astaroth33
Up until frame 10, the article from the BBC is horribly biased towards the Chechen side. In general, I think it tilts toward portraying the Russians in a negative light.
Click to expand...

I guess the FSB shouldn't have been caught by Moscow Police planting those fvcking apartment bombs eh?

I bet you don't read that in your newspaper or see it on CNN.

It did make it into several independent newspapers in Europe and the USSR. I'll try to find the report on it. Ahhh here it is:

24 November 2000.

John Sweeney works for The Observer newspaper and has visited Chechnya
twice this year. He has won an Emmy and a British Journalist of the Year.
E-mail: john.sweeney@observer.co.uk

This report was written for Cryptome. Responses, critiques and additional
evidence welcomed, especially from Russia and Chechnya: anonymous
contributions invited. Send-to information at cryptome.org.

November 24, 2000
THE FIFTH BOMB: DID PUTIN'S SECRET POLICE BOMB MOSCOW IN A DEADLY BLACK
OPERATION?
John Sweeney on the evidence that the old KGB deliberately planted bombs in
Moscow and blamed them on Chechen terrorists.

The secret policeman stood on the edge of a field of rubble and burnt
wreckage, the ruins of what had been only the night before a block of flats.

He looked Central Casting's idea of a KGB operative, sporting a cowpat
hairdo, a cheap black raincoat, black tie, lean, tall, clean shaven,
saturnine. They call the KGB the FSB these days, a new name for the Soviet
state's old organ of terror.

There had been two bombs in Moscow in four days. The first bomb exploded
just after midnight at a block of flats at Guryanov Street. It killed 92
Muscovites sleeping in their beds in the early morning of 9th September,
1999. Several bodies were rocketed into the surrounding streets. By
daybreak people could see the sad detritus of the atrocity: children's
clothes, a sofa hanging off a ledge in what had been someone's living room,
open to the sky, books, pictures scattered far and wide. Broken glass
crackled underfoot in all the surrounding streets. The edge of fear in
Moscow was tangible.

Four days later the second bomb blew up a similar block of flats at
Kashirskoye Highway at five in the morning. The wounded, shocked, painted
in dust, as semi-naked as when they went to sleep, a night and a lifetime
ago, were carried off in stretchers. The most haunting image was of a man
quite blackened by soot from a fire, crawling on his hands and knees
through the wreckage: more beast than man. He survived. 130 other residents
in the block of flats - men, women, children - did not.

Enter the secret policeman. He walked up to the TV cameras and presented to
the compound eye of lenses a black and white e-fit picture. The e-fit
depicted a Chechen man, with a fleshy face, almost Buddha-like in its
plumpness, swarthy skin and tinted spectacles. This was the Chechen
terrorist the authorities were blaming for the bomb. He was using the name
of Mukhit Laipanov, who had recently rented ground floor space in the two
apartment blocks devastated by the bombs. The real Laipanov died in a car
crash earlier in 1999. The authorities were very quick to pin the blame on
a group of Chechen trained terrorists. It was the Chechens who did it -
that was the instant effect of the secret policeman's e-fit. It was posted
up all around the bus stops of Moscow. The Russian authorities have yet to
produce a single solid piece of evidence to support their theory that
Chechen terrorists blew up Moscow. No-one has been tried, no chain of
evidence explained. A few men have been arrested, but none of the alleged
'ring-leaders'. Three days after the second bomb, the bulldozers moved in,
obliterating the sites and also destroying evidence against the bombers.

Two more bombs had exploded in cities in southern Russia. The four bombs
together killed more than 300 people in less than two weeks.

There was a fifth bomb. This one didn't go off. But the fifth bomb - proved
by photographs of its detonator shown above - provides hard evidence that
challenges the official 'Chechen version' of the Moscow bomb outrages. The
fifth bomb points the other way: that the KGB-FSB bombed Moscow
deliberately to blacken the name of the Chechens as a pretext for the
second Chechen war.

The photographs of a detonator, taken by a Russian bomb squad, and other
fresh evidence point to a plot carried out by the FSB working to assist
their old spymaster, Vladimir Putin, in his rise to control the world's
number two superpower and its nuclear arsenal.

When the two Moscow bombs went off, Putin had just been appointed prime
minister by President Yeltsin. With no public track record, the former
secret policeman was widely mocked as a political nobody, a cold, faceless
Kremlin insider who had spent 16 years in the KGB and had emerged as the
chief of its successor, the FSB. Boris Kagarlitsky is a seasoned Kremlin
watcher in Moscow: 'You cannot turn a bureaucrat into a glamorous person.
He is as grey as he used to be. There is a propaganda machine which works
but that is exactly the weakness of Putin, because as a politician he is a
nobody. To be a politician you need some kind of past.'

Matt Ivens, editor of the Moscow Times, thought the same: 'Yeltsin had been
through a couple of prime ministers and each time he dropped them he made
it clear that it had something to do with elections.

By the end he's picking Vladimir Putin. No one has ever heard of Putin,
except very careful watchers of politics or people from St. Petersberg.
He's announcing "this is my successor, this is a man who can run the
country" and there is widespread ridicule. All the newspapers in town
including ours said, there's no way this guy could win an election, unless
something really extraordinary is going to happen.'

The Moscow bombs were the extraordinary thing.

Putin struck out in the immediate aftermath of the bombs: 'Those that have
done this don't deserve to be called animals. They are worse . they are mad
beasts and they should be treated as such.'

His poll ratings soared, and he struck again: 'we will waste them. Even
when they are on the bog.' This was pure gangsterese, but it went down a
treat with the Russian public. Putin was working with the grain of Russian
racism. For centuries, the Muslim renegades from the savage rocks of the
Caucases have been the folk devils of Russia. The nineteenth century poet
Lermontov wrote a lullaby which has stuck in the Russian mind:

'The Terek streams over boulders,
the murky waves splash;
a wicked Chechen crawls on to the bank
and sharpens his kinzhal;
But your father is an old warrior
forged in battle;
sleep my darling, be calm,
sing lullaby.'

The Chechens had humiliated the might of Russia in the first Chechen War,
which Yeltsin had started in a drunken rage in 1994. They had kidnapped and
killed mnay Russian soldiers, sometimes in a bloody and disgusting fashion.

The Islamic terror

Now it was the turn of the old guard, the Russian military and the FSB, to
get their own back. And the Chechens were wasted, Grozny mulched to rubble,
again, their economy annihilated, their ecology destroyed, their men shot
and tortured and dumped in pits - to this day.

The tanks started to roll, and the war in Chechnya which has seen a Russian
victory at the expense of thousands of civilian lives, began.

Putin's brisk, savage reaction to the Moscow bombs made him a Russian
superstar. The Chechens lost everything they had gained from the first war.
One Chechen view is this: 'if we had wanted to bomb Moscow, we would have
blown up the Kremlin or a nuclear power station. Why should we blow up a
couple of blocks of flats?' Putin's tough guy stance saw his opinion poll
ratings rocket from close to zero to 70 per cent. Hugely popular, he was
anointed President of the Russian Federation by Boris Yeltsin on New's Year
Eve. Sick, drunk, a joke but not a funny one, Yeltsin bowed out, escaping a
fraud and money-laundering investigation by the Swiss Chief Prosecutor
which was getting very close to his 'family' in the Kremlin.

Earlier in 1999 Special Prosecutor Yuri Skuratov had been hot on Yeltsin's
case. He had received damning evidence from the Swiss investigators,
evidence that put Yeltsin's daughter, Tatiana, directly in the frame. Then
he got a phone call. 'We've got you on tape. Resign, or you're finished.'

Skuratov refused to be blackmailed - and then Russia's TV millions saw him
being entertained by two young prostitutes. They saw their Special
Prosecutor lying on his back, naked, one of the woman on top of him, her
head bobbing up and down. It was a classic dirty trick.

And the man responsible? Skuratov said: 'As head of the FSB, Putin was one
of those who fought against me, who compromised me, who plotted to get me
off the case.'

The shaming of Skuratov finished off the Special Prosecutor, but not the
case. By August 1999, the evidence against Yeltsin and his family was
growing. It centred around an expensive refurbishment of the Kremlin, the
central allegation being that a Swiss businessman of Albanian origin had
supplied credit cards to members of Yeltsin's circle in return for the
contract. Worse, the evidence was in Swiss, not Russian, hands. Yeltsin's
popularity rating was hitting 2 per cent. At that point he promoted his spy
chief, Putin, and made him prime minister.

At the same time Russian TV showing a video of clip of Chechen guerrillas
purportedly torturing and killing Russian soldiers. The worst clip shows a
knife being put to the neck of a shaven-headed white man. Then his artery
is severed and one can see his blood drain from his face in close-up. The
next shot is of the man lying prone on the ground, to all intents and
purposes a corpse. There is no way of telling whether the victim was a
Russian soldier and the killers Chechen, no supporting evidence.
Nevertheless, this and other clips were shown on Russian TV repeatedly - as
if someone in authority was minded to soften Russian public opinion against
the Chechens. And this happened before the bomb outrages.

The first came in the southern city of Buinaksk, killing 62 in September
4th, 1999. Then came the two bombs in Moscow, then a fourth that killed 17
in the southern city of Volgodonsk on September 16th.

The Russian government's case that Chechen terrorists or Chechen-backed
terrorists bombed Moscow and the two towns in southern Russia was spelt out
by Vladimir Kozlov, head of the FSB's anti-terrorism department, in a
Moscow press conference a year after the outrages. Kozlov said that the
terrorists were members of a radical Islamic sect, led by one Achemez
Gochiyayev, who was paid $500,000 by the feared Chechen warlord Khattab. He
recruited Yusuf Krymshamkhalov and Denis Saitakov to deliver the Moscow
blasts. None of these men have been arrested. But two other men have been:
Taukan Frantsuzov and Ruslan Magayayev. The evidence against them, when or
if it comes before the courts, is keenly awaited.

The terrorists were trained in Chechnya, then dispatched to neighbouring
North Caucasian republics, such as Karachayevo-Cherkassia, with tons of
explosives, said the FSB. There, they rented trucks and smuggled the
explosives to Moscow, usually camouflaged as sugar, potatoes or some other
produce. Most of the bombs were made of a mixture of potassium nitrate and
aluminium powder, with Casio watches used as timers, according to Kozlov.
FSB detectives say they also found 500 kilograms of this mixture near the
Chechen city of Urus-Martan in December, 1999, citing this as proof that
those responsible for the attacks were not only trained in Khattab's camps
in Chechnya, but also obtained explosives there.

Common sense says it would be madness for a group of Chechens to smuggle
explosives all the way from Urus-Martan to Moscow. Since the first Chechen
war, Chechens are routinely singled out for harrassment by Russian police,
vehicles stopped and searched, identity papers demanded. Besides, there has
long been a strong Chechen mafia in Moscow, very capable of getting its own
hands on arms or explosives locally. In Russia, you can bribe your way into
a nuclear rocket silo or buy the list of the lost sailors of the doomed
submarine, the Kursk. The 'Chechen terrorists' would have been risking a
great deal by hauling their explosives roughly 1,000 miles to Moscow, when
they could have bought them locally.

Six of the suspects, including those for the bombs in southern Russia, have
been killed in fighting with federal forces in southern Russia. Dead men
don't tell tales. Much of the evidence presented at the FSB news conference
was circumstantial.

But the FSB's official version of the bomb outrages starts to fall apart
when you examine the case of the fifth bomb. The story of its discovery,
defusal and denial casts huge doubts on the Kremlin's line.

Around 9pm at night on 22 September in the provincial city of Ryazan, 100
miles south east of Moscow, Vladimir Vasiliev, an engineer coming home for
the night noticed three strangers acting suspiciously by the basement of
his block of flats at 14/16 Novosyolov Street, literally New Settlers
Street. Vasiliev said: 'A white was parked outside the entrance, with the
boot towards the entrance. In the car were two men, young men, also young,
about 20 or 25 years old.'

Vasiliev noticed that the last two digits of the car number plate had been
stuck on with paper, showing 62, the Ryazan regional code. Underneath the
paper was the true plate number, giving a Moscow code. Vasiliev, puzzled,
decided to call the police. 'As we were waiting for the lift and it was
empty, one of the young guys got out of the car and the girl asked: "have
you done everything?" "Yes." "OK, let's go." And they got into the car and
quite quickly left.'

Vasiliev observed the three in the car with the mismatched plates. 'I
remember the driver sat at the wheel, quite thin, with a moustache, and the
other man was heavier. The girl had blond hair, cut short, wearing sports
clothes and a leather jacket. They were Russian, absolutely, not Asiatic.'

The police arrived. Inspector Andrei Chernyshev from the local police was
the first to enter the basement. He said: 'we had a signal from a man on
duty. It was about 10 in the evening. There were some strangers who were
seen leaving the basement from the Building 14/16 at Novosyolovo Street. We
were met by the girl who stood by the building. She told us about the men
who came out from the basement and left with the car with a licence number
which was covered with paper. I went down to the basement. This block of
flats had a very deep basement which was completely covered with water. We
could see sacks of sugar and in them some electronic device, a few wires
and a clock. We were shocked. We ran out of the basement and I stayed on
watch by the entrance and my officers went to evacuate the people.'

Grandmother Clara Stepanovna recalled that night: 'the neighbours began to
knock at the door and said: "get out fast, something's been planted
underneath us." We quickly grabbed what we could and leapt out. My daughter
leaped out not dressed, without stockings, without tights, not anything,
just flung a jacket on. The kids also dashed out not dressed. They held us
away from the block of flats and started investigating. They didn't give us
permission to come near.'

Vasiliev said: 'After we were standing in the square, my wife remembered
that she hadn't switched off the stove, so I went up to an MVD officer to
tell him. We went up in the lift. He told me they had really had found a
device.' (MVD stands for Ministerstvo Vnutrennykh Del, the Interior
Ministry.)

Yuri Tkachenko, head of the local bomb squad, went down into the basement.
'For me it was a live bomb. I was in a combat situation,' he said. He
tested the three sugar sacks in the basement with his MO-2 portable gas
analyser, and got a positive reading for Hexogen, the explosive used in the
Moscow bombs.

The timer of the detonator was set for 5.30am, which would have killed many
of the 250 tenants of the 13-storey block of flats.

The sacks were taken out of the basement at around 1.30 in the morning and
driven away by the FSB. But the secret police left the detonator in the
hands of the bomb squad. They photographed it later that day.

As the residents were finally allowed back into to their homes at seven in
the morning, one of the policemen let Mrs Stepanovna see what was left. She
said: 'there was a bit left, and the policeman said: "there, that's it.
That's the stuff that was meant to blow you up.'

The local police arrested two men that night, according to Boris
Kagarlitsky, a member of the Russian Institute of Comparative Politics.
'FSB officers were caught red-handed while planting the bomb. They were
arrested by the police and they tried to save themselves by showing FSB
identity cards.'

Then, headquarters of the FSB in Moscow intervened. The two men were
quietly let go.

The next day, on September 24, the FSB in Moscow announced that there had
never been a bomb, only a training exercise. There was no hexogen, only
sugar. Pro-Kremlin newspapers reported that the Ryazan bomb squad had made
a mistake when they detected hexogen. One newspaper commented that perhaps
they hadn't washed their tester, a remark to which Tkachenko the bomb
disposal expert replied: 'it wasn't an enema. There are two sources of
radiation in the tester. These people don't know what they are talking about.

Alexander Sergeyev, head of the Ryazan regional FSB, said, when asked about
the training exercise: 'the decision wasn't taken by our local FSB. If it
was a training exercise, it was done for everyone to check the combat
readiness of all the towns in Russia. Nobody told us it was a training
exercise and we didn't receive a call that it was over. For two days and
nights, we didn't receive any documents or order that it was finished.'

Officially, the Minister of Interior has forbidden the police and the FSB
from talking about the bomb that never was. But few believe the Kremlin's
version that it was only a training exercise.

Vasiliev said: 'I heard the official version on the radio, when the press
secretary of the FSB announced that it was a training exercise. It felt
extremely unpleasant. A lot of neighbours started to call me and say: "did
you hear that?" I heard it, but I cannot believe it.'

The credibility of the FSB version of events hangs on the notion of a
training exercise. Why use real hexogen and a real detonator in a dummy
bomb? If was just a training exercise, why turn out the residents of the
block of flats for a sleepless night? And why should the Ryazan bomb squad
be so concerned about a dummy detonator that they took a photograph of it?

The concern of locals deepened when the newspaper Novaya Gazeta alleged
that sacks of hexogen were found at a military base in Ryazan. The paper
reported that a paratrooper on guards duty at a weapons warehouse outside
the city discovered piles of sacks labelled sugar. He opened one of the
bags and tried to use the white powder to sweeten his tea, only to recoil
at the taste. An explosives expert called in to examine the bags declared
that they contained hexogen.

Putin has declared: 'there is nobody in the Russian special services
capable of committing such a crime against our people. It is immoral even
to consider such a possibility. In fact, this is nothing but an element of
the information war against Russia.'

His problem is that the residents of the Ryazan block of flats, among
others, do not believe his word or the word of the FSB on the matter.
Click to expand...
 
Originally posted by: Tabb
Denial of what? There are not "hundreds" of attacks daily, this Iraq was has been completely put into the eye of the public and every single attack is very well documented. Around 10,000 Iraqs have been consider as confirmed deaths however this Checyan conflict seems to be extremely larger than the one in Iraq.
Click to expand...
100 attacks a day
attacks on pipeline
I don't have time to find every link, but here some excerpts link
I would not expect to see much reported in US mainstream media the same way Russian government affiliated media doesn't tell the true story about Chechnya.

Secondly, total number of Chechen ppl in Russia is a little over a million, so this is definitely on the smaller scale than Iraq. Difficult terrain and help of local population is making eradication of Chechen insurgents very difficult, same as in Iraq, you never know who is loyal by day and shoots in your back at night.
 
Russia invaded Afghanistan. It destroyed almost every building Afghanistan had. The U.S does not go around bombing apartments, etc. Afghanistan would have had no taliban if Russia did not invade. Russia invaded and killed millions and ruined a culture.
OBL would probably be a nobody if Russia did not invade Afghanistan.
U.S does what it can to minimize civilian deaths. Look at what Russia does when they go to war.
 
Originally posted by: Aimster
Russia invaded Afghanistan. It destroyed almost every building Afghanistan had. The U.S does not go around bombing apartments, etc. Afghanistan would have had no taliban if Russia did not invade. Russia invaded and killed millions and ruined a culture.
OBL would probably be a nobody if Russia did not invade Afghanistan.
U.S does what it can to minimize civilian deaths. Look at what Russia does when they go to war.
Click to expand...

I am not sure how old you are and how well you know history, but the same way Cuban crisis (moving of nuclear launchers to Cuba) was in part caused by Turkey joining NATO and US moving nukes there and having capability to strike most of European part of USSR with nukes because of it.
One of the reasons for USSR invading Afghanistan was a chance that Moscow-backed DRA goverment will be deposed in 1979 by US- backed mujahedeen and USSR will have another US nuke launcher outpost that will cover entire territory of the USSR Interview. BTW, Taliban as official widespread movement began way after end of Russian invasion. OBL was molded into what he is now with help of CIA, you can thank them, Russians had nothing to do with it🙂 For them he was just another mujahedeen field commander.

About minimizing civilian casualties in Iraq, I don't think how this can be done when troops surround the city and not let anyone out, than pound the city with artillery and 500lbs "smart bombs", as it happens in Najef, Faluja, etc... 500lbs bomb will level half the block.
 
Originally posted by: Aimster
Russia invaded Afghanistan. It destroyed almost every building Afghanistan had. The U.S does not go around bombing apartments, etc.
Click to expand...
USSR didn't destroy every building Afghanistan had. Most of the fighting was in the mountainous areas. You think there were no apartment buildings blown up by US in Fallujah? It's just part of war.
Afghanistan would have had no taliban if Russia did not invade. Russia invaded and killed millions and ruined a culture.
Click to expand...
really, it ruined the culture? It wasn't all those terrorists the US was supporting in the 80's?
OBL would probably be a nobody if Russia did not invade Afghanistan.
Click to expand...
OBL would have definitely been a nobody had the US not funded every wannabe terrorist in the 80's.
U.S does what it can to minimize civilian deaths. Look at what Russia does when they go to war.
Click to expand...
US minimizes civilian deaths by calling every civilian they kill a militant. Russia is not as PR savvy.
 
"the U.N. Commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution on Chechnya that condemned serious human rights violations by Russia's forces, and raised concern about forced disappearances, torture, and summary executions. Sponsored by the E.U., and with strong U.S. backing, the resolution called for U.N. special rapporteurs to investigate these abuses in the war-torn republic and for credible criminal investigations by domestic agencies into all human rights and humanitarian law violations. Russia rejected a similar resolution adopted by the commission last year, and refused to comply with its requirements. It has vowed to do the same this year.?
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/Chechnya.asp

It is important to remember that the 'Chechnya' and 'the Chechnyan people' weren't part of Russia from the beginning. Different religion, different culture.


As for China and Russia...sigh, Tibet anyone? Like is said herearound: 'It is like choosing between plague and cholera'.


Further:

"British journalist Lindsey Hilsum notes how the Russian hard line in Chechnya is breeding terrorists.

Furthermore, she suggests the west doesn't really seem to care. Contrasting British Prime Minister's strong support for a war on Iraq, Lindsey notes:

Tony Blair maintains that intervention in one place where people are tortured and oppressed doesn't mean we can or should intervene everywhere. But Chechnya is a shameful example of western leaders refusing to confront another government on human rights abuses and war crimes because, in the end, strategic and political issues matter more. Chechnya is complex and dangerous and miserable, and we just don't care enough to try to make a difference."
 
Originally posted by: Grakatt
It is important to remember that the 'Chechnya' and 'the Chechnyan people' weren't part of Russia from the beginning. Different religion, different culture.


As for China and Russia...sigh, Tibet anyone? Like is said herearound: 'It is like choosing between plague and cholera'.


Further:

"British journalist Lindsey Hilsum notes how the Russian hard line in Chechnya is breeding terrorists.
Click to expand...

Huh? And you think Iraq occupation is breeding who? I seriously doubt Iraqies will forgive all the casulties inflicted by US.

"Further": Chechnya was part of Russian Empire since late 18th century, it's the same as to question whether descendants of English settlers have right to Native Indian land... Please, either be objective everywhere, or don't even start it.
Like Supertool said, they had their stab at independance, but kidnapping people all around Russia, running drugs and weapons trade and attacking neighbouring regions in attempt to seize them from Russian Federation so they could establish "islamic Halifate" is not a good start for a new nation.
 
Originally posted by: Grakatt
"the U.N. Commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution on Chechnya that condemned serious human rights violations by Russia's forces, and raised concern about forced disappearances, torture, and summary executions. Sponsored by the E.U., and with strong U.S. backing, the resolution called for U.N. special rapporteurs to investigate these abuses in the war-torn republic and for credible criminal investigations by domestic agencies into all human rights and humanitarian law violations. Russia rejected a similar resolution adopted by the commission last year, and refused to comply with its requirements. It has vowed to do the same this year.?
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/Chechnya.asp

It is important to remember that the 'Chechnya' and 'the Chechnyan people' weren't part of Russia from the beginning. Different religion, different culture.
Click to expand...
What are you talking about? Chechnya has been part of Russia for a long time. It was Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, part of Russian Federal Soviet Socialist Republic of USSR. Chechen people aren't ethnic Russians, but so what, there are hundreds of nationalities and cultures in Russian Federation who aren't ethnic Russian. If Russia let them all be independent, it would cease to exist. Autonomous, yes, independent no. And there were a lot of Russians in Chechnya before the war broke out. The whole region has been hijacked by Wahabbism and Al Qaeda, who incited these conflicts.That's who you are siding with. It is not just Chechens fighting for their independence. It's Al-Qaeda fighting for a foothold. They didn't stop with Chechnya.
As for China and Russia...sigh, Tibet anyone? Like is said herearound: 'It is like choosing between plague and cholera'.


Further:

"British journalist Lindsey Hilsum notes how the Russian hard line in Chechnya is breeding terrorists.
Click to expand...
Stalin took a hard line in Chechnya, I don't remember any terrorists coming from that. It's the Soviet soft line in 80's that allowed Wahabbism to take root. Russia took a soft line between 1996 and 1999, and they got hammered. Now they know better.
Furthermore, she suggests the west doesn't really seem to care. Contrasting British Prime Minister's strong support for a war on Iraq, Lindsey notes:

Tony Blair maintains that intervention in one place where people are tortured and oppressed doesn't mean we can or should intervene everywhere. But Chechnya is a shameful example of western leaders refusing to confront another government on human rights abuses and war crimes because, in the end, strategic and political issues matter more. Chechnya is complex and dangerous and miserable, and we just don't care enough to try to make a difference."
Click to expand...
On the contrary, the west does care. Especially Europeans never met a terrorist they didn't like. Americans cared too until they got a little taste of what the Russians were having on 9/11.

 
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