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7 October 2008, 12:11 pm |
Alec
There are a lot of assassination of political opponents and critics which occur in Russia and go unsolved despite state investigation. Some (Litvinenko/Politskaya for instance) fingered the Russian Govt. and claimed that they were using both the FSB and criminal gangs to execute these murders. Unfortunately for them, one died of polonium poisoning and the other was gunned down in their apartment complex IIRC. Oddly enough, neither crime has been solved.
Don’t agree with the flat bombings/Beslan nonsense though. The Chechens are more than nasty enough to do those.
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7 October 2008, 12:20 pm |
Oniad, I can *just* about believe in complicity with the flat bombings. But, direct involvement with Beslan – not just incompetence (which abounded when the parents were permitting to patrol the site with small-weapons) or, even, letting an unknown quantity slip through (as has been alleged with Omagh) – is ludicrous. And promoted by the one who died of polonium poisoning, as it happens.
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7 October 2008, 12:50 pm |
Oniad, I can *just* about believe in complicity with the flat bombings. But, direct involvement with Beslan – not just incompetence (which abounded when the parents were permitting to patrol the site with small-weapons) or, even, letting an unknown quantity slip through (as has been alleged with Omagh) – is ludicrous. And promoted by the one who died of polonium poisoning, as it happens.
-i agree, but he must have pissed someone off fairly mightily for them to have put the effort in to poison him with polonium, true?
and besides, who knows? I personally think he was in a better position to judge the integrity of his fellows in the FSB than your or I, true? It is intriguing however that the Russians have managed to eliminate just about every major legitimate (and non) Chechen leader since the event, with minimal external criticism – after all, whose going to criticise the extra-judicious assassination of the child-killers (or their associates) of Beslan?
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7 October 2008, 1:02 pm |
Oniad, the Chechen war(s) had been grinding on for a decade before Beslan, including the Seige of Grozny, with minimal external criticism (leaving it to Vanessa Redgrave, while everyone else on Newsnight was discussing Beslan, to proclaim that her friends” were mistreated).
Litveneko was a man with many enemies, with a fair few well-deserved and little worse than he was (not that this justifies his killing, and its manner). If he were taking the moral high-ground on anything, I’m the Queen of Sheba.
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7 October 2008, 1:19 pm |
Alec
fair enough but the list is compelling;
Maskhadov – killed 8/3/05
Sadulayev – killed 17/6/06
Basayev – killed 10/7/06
the first couple of the Arab fighter leadership were also eliminated.
the Russians have also made a couple of attempts on Umarov as well.
as to critics of the Russian regime – I’m sure your aware of how many of them have turned up dead as well.
as to criticism of the war in Chechnya, after I saw my first (and last) jihadi video made by the Chechen “resistance” and watched the live beheadings of prisoners and civilians, my sympathy totally dried up for their cause as well.
as to Litvinenko – as you said, he wasn’t a nice guy, but he certainly was in a good position to judge the people he worked with and make a call about what they were capable of in his estimation. Its a nasty conflict and I wouldn’t put it past either side to do anything if they thought it would be to their advantage.
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7 October 2008, 1:35 pm |
Oniad, I agree that the Chechen conflict is fairly unique in that the principle actors’ are all thoroughly unlikeable (as seen in the utterly heart-breaking Dom Durakov, aka House of Fools), but you started by declaring that the Chechens were more than nasty enough to have carried out Beslan by themselves. Now you’re giving credence to involvement of the Russian state. Which is it?
Except, you haven’t stated this outright. In a Conor Foley moment, you’re using insinuation and open questions to avoid committing yourself. Litvinenko’s statements should be distrusted because he’d been intimately involved with precisely the same amoral and immoral process himself, and his new-found dissent had the ring of a disgruntled hoodlum.
Post-Beslan, Russia has continued pretty much as before. Assassinations of high-ranking enemies/opponents tend to come towards the *end* of conflicts, not before. It’s been over the past two years, for instance, that Colombia has been whacking FARC leaders; not the past two decades.
You’re making precisely the same sloppy reasoning and post hoc ergo propter hoc argument that 11/9 was to justify the invasion of Afghanistan.
Maven, d’you have any evidence to link Obama and Ayers in the same comment?
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7 October 2008, 1:42 pm |
Alec
Fair enough – I believe that both sides were capable of involvement in Beslan (based on their atrocious past actions) however I believe that the Chechens actually perpetrated the atrocity (and without active Russian assistance). Clear enough?
