Re: [Marxism] More Russian paranoia I suppose???

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

This is an article about a spate of kidnappings nearly 10 years ago,
most of which seem to be carried out by ordinary criminals. The
kidnappings seem to have been set off originally by the seizure of
Russian soldiers who were held for the exchange of Chechen fighters. The
same exact thing is happening in Iraq today and has nothing to do with
whether the Iraqi cause is just or not. The USA does not have the right
to colonize Iraq even if innocent people are being kidnapped for ransom
and beheaded occasionally. I guess you are trying to justify the Russian
colonization of Chechnya on the same basis as George W. Bush's
justification for the occupation of Iraq--because bad people are doing
bad things there.

David Quarter wrote:
> Los Angeles Times
>
> Chechnya's Grimmest Industry
> Thousands of people have been abducted by the war-torn
> republic's kidnapping
> machine. Tales of the survivors read like relics from
> a barbaric past.
>
> By ROBYN DIXON, Times Staff Writer
>
>
> Kidnap victim Mikhail Brenner, shown with wife
> Tatyana, lost all but one of
> his teeth in beatings. "You try not to succumb to the
> pain," he says.
> YURI KOZYREV / For The Times
>
>
>      NALCHIK, Russia--As awkwardly as a newborn foal
> struggling on spindly
> legs, Lena Meshcheryakova is learning how to curl her
> lips up at the corners
> to make a smile.
>      Drifting just beneath the surface of her
> 5-year-old world are the
> memories of a darker place: the cellar in Chechnya
> where she was held
> prisoner by kidnappers for nine months.
>      When she was freed at age 3, she had forgotten
> how to smile. She could
> barely even speak. But she knew how to pray like the
> devout Muslim Chechen
> men who had imprisoned her. The words she kept
> shouting out were "Allahu
> akbar!" (God is great!)
>      Lena, kidnapped from her Russian mother's home in
> Grozny, the Chechen
> capital, was a victim of Chechnya's most voracious
> industry, the trade in
> hostages and slaves. Thousands of people have been
> gobbled up by the Chechen
> kidnapping machine, which has ravaged Russia since
> 1994.




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