Re: The Chechens US friends

[Chris Doss <lookoverhere1@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- "Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> how about the drugging of journalists?

PS the only evidence we have that these journalists
were drugged is that they claim to have been drugged.

From: "Robert Bruce Ware" <@@@@@siue.edu>
Subject: Beslan and the Media
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004

It is important for the Ossetians, Ingush, Chechens,
and Russians to come
to an understanding of what happened in Beslan, and it
is important for the
Anglo-phone media to report on their efforts to do so.
 Eventually, as
their efforts progress, or fail to do so, there will
also be a need for
critical Western commentary, since it is also
important that people in the
West should come to their own understanding of these
events.  Yet this is
very far from the role that has been taken been taken
by much of the
American and British media during the Beslan tragedy
and its
aftermath.  Instead nearly all reporting has indulged
in a disjointed,
hysterical, and grotesque frenzy of sanctimony,
complacency, and
condescending didacticism in articles that drip saliva
all over
their  revelation s of President Putin s weakness.

I have often felt frustrated over the imbalanced and
misleading American
and British reporting of events in the North Caucasus.
 But this is the
first time that I ve felt ashamed.  I remember how
Russian officials and
ordinary Russian citizens responded after 9/11, with
many words of sympathy
and kindness, with flowers and candles, and long
empathetic vigils outside
the American embassy in Moscow.  Last weekend
President Bush joined Russian
tennis players in their assurance that Americans and
Russians will stand
 shoulder to shoulder . But our media have made us
look so small as to seem
that our shoulders would not reach those of our
Russian friends.

There is much to be said for the view that President
Putin is making
mistakes in the North Caucasus, and that his mistakes,
and those of his
subordinates all the way down to the troops in the
field, are partly
responsible for the troubles in the region.  But
clearly the last week has
not been the time to say it.  All of these
recriminations over Russian
mistakes have been stated, restated, and grossly
overstated ad infinitum in
the past.  The deaths of the children of Beslan should
not have been used
as an excuse to restate them yet again.  Western
journalists and
commentators have exploited this tragedy for the sake
of their personal,
professional, and ideological agendas, and have
disgraced us all by doing so.

Some of the West s better moments in the past week
have included: the
unreservedly empathetic and supportive statements of
US Ambassador Vershbow
and President Bush; US State Department spokesman
Richard Boucher s
sustained resistance to persistent efforts by American
journalists to
badger him into criticism of Russian actions; American
humanitarian aid for
Beslan; and a scattering of articles that were
primarily empathetic or
constructive by writers such as John Helmer, Fiona
Hill, Peter Lavelle,
Anatol Lieven, and Ira Straus.

The West s worst moments defy enumeration, but here
are a few that washed
in on this morning s tide:  The claim by Peter Baker
and Susan Glasser in
this morning s Washington Post that:  In 1999, (Putin)
promised Russians a
two-week war that would crush the separatist enemy.
(Washington Post,
September 13, 2004,  Chechnya War a Deepening Trap for
Putin In Confronting
Separatists , Russia Relies on Force By Susan B.
Glasser and Peter
Baker)  The statement about  two weeks  has more to do
with Yeltsin in the
first war than Putin in the second.  And how could the
second war have been
an effort to  crush the separatist enemy ?  The war
began when Russia
defended its Dagestani citizens against a series of
bloody and devastating
invasions from Chechnya?  Prior to those invasions,
Russia had tolerated
Chechen independence despite daily provocations for
three long and horrific
years.  This statement by the Washington Post
reporters is not only
factually inaccurate, but grossly misleading.

Or take the New York Times article titled  Chechen
Rebels Mainly Driven by
Nationalism , by C.J. Chivers and Steven Lee Myers
(September 12,
2004).  This article is largely devoted to the
substantiation of
connections between Chechen militants and
international Islamist
organizations, though readers who glance at its
headline and opening
sentence would be forgiven for concluding the
opposite.

Then there s the latest strange affair involving Anna
Politkovskaya.  On
September 9, in a Guardian article that was  helpfully
titled  Poisoned by
Putin , Ms. Politkovskaya provided her readers with
the following innuendo:
 Then followed a long evening at Vnukovo airport.
Crowds of journalists
were trying to get on a plane south, just as flights
were being postponed.
Obviously, there are some people who would like to
delay our departure.

I have flown from Vnukovo airport to the North
Caucasus several times.  On
every occasion my flight was delayed.  On average, my
flights out of
Vnukovo have been delayed by about three hours.  On
one occasion my flight
was delayed by more than ten hours.  Yet on none of
those occasions did I,
or any of the North Caucasians with whom I was
traveling, or anyone else
with whom I had contact on any of those flights, pass
our time in that
stale and airless terminal by contemplating conspiracy
theories.  As far as
I could tell, we all simply concluded that our flights
were delayed because
of general incompetence.  Anyone who flies to the
North Caucasus knows that
one reason flights are routinely delayed is because
flights from the North
Caucasian cities to Moscow are routinely overbooked.
Usually it takes a
while to determine who is actually entitled to a seat.
 So the plane
arrives late to Vnukovo, and then the delay is
compounded while the plane
is being prepared for the return trip.  I know lots of
people who fly
regularly between Vnukovo and the North Caucasus and
all of them are
generally satisfied if the plane departs on the same
day that it was
scheduled and they eventually find a seat on it.  Anna
Politkovskaya knows
all of this, and she should not have led her readers
to believe anything to
the contrary.

In the same article Ms. Politkovskaya claims that she
was poisoned by a
toxic substance that was deliberately placed in her
tea during the
flight.  Maybe she was.  Her claim is supported by the
facts that she lost
consciousness, required hospitalization, a nurse
whispered something about
poison, and medical records relating to the incident
were
unavailable.  Certainly, it is up to Ms. Politkovskaya
to interpret her own
experience.  Evidently, she is comfortable leaping to
the claim that
security agents "neutralized me because they knew I
was going there to set
up talks" (as quoted in the Time article below).   It
seems that she is
also comfortable with the Guardian s claim that she
was  Poisoned by Putin .

Yet it might have been helpful to consider other
hypotheses before numerous
Western media began uncritically repeating her claim
(e.g. Time Europe,
September 20, 2004, Communication Breakdown Could the
Kremlin have talked
its way out of the massacre at School No. 1?  by
J.F.O. MCALLISTER).  For
example, I have never visited the North Caucasus
without getting sick.  In
some cases, the cause was food poisoning connected
with inadequacies of
food storage and preparation, such as those which
sometimes occurs in some
of the food concessions at Vnukovo airport, and on
some of the regional
flights to the North Caucasus.  Yet I never concluded
from any of my bouts
with illness in the North Caucasus that someone was
deliberately trying to
prevent me from accomplishing my work.  I concluded
that I came into
contact with bad food, or that I suffered any of the
other problems that
constantly plague travelers in far flung regions.
Conversely, I have
hosted North Caucasians who have become ill as a
consequence of their
travels to the United States.  Moreover, there is
nothing unusual about
documents and records being unavailable in the North
Caucasus.

Now, everyone who travels to the North Caucasus knows
that everyone who
travels to the North Caucasus frequently gets sick,
and that documents are
frequently unavailable.  So why are so many reporters
uncritically
repeating Politkovskaya s claim.  It appears that
either they have never
traveled to the North Caucasus, or that they are
deliberately choosing to
ignore these simple possibilities.  Yet if either of
these is the case,
then such reporters have no business writing such
articles.

Finally, there are the endless comparisons in the
Western media of Beslan
with the Dubrovka hostage crisis in 2002.  Who can
forget that more than
800 hostages were held by Chechen terrorists in a
Moscow theater?  Who can
forget that more than 120 hostages died when, in a
flawed and risky attempt
to immobilize the terrorists, Russian authorities
pumped gas into the
theater, and then failed to provide adequately for
their treatment?  All of
those journalists and commentators who have mentioned
these events in
recent weeks have done so in order to illustrate their
insinuations that
Russian authorities are fundamentally immoral and
incompetent.  Perhaps
someday, when we ve allowed time for the facts to come
forward, and for the
Russians themselves to review them, our commentators
might be justified in
claims such as these.  But that certainly is not the
case
today.  Meanwhile, I can t help but think that if
American authorities or
Israeli authorities had managed to rescue 80 percent
of the hostages in a
situation such as Dubrovka, the same media would have
hailed it as a
brilliant triumph.

When all the facts have come forward, and it s time to
sort them out, maybe
it will become appropriate to blame the Russian
authorities.  But it s
certainly not time for that now because, right now, no
one knows very much
about what happened, and the Russians deserve a chance
to sort it out for
themselves.  Meanwhile, here are a few facts that must
be accommodated by
anyone who is looking for opportunities to blame
Russian authorities for
the tragedy:

1)  The terrorists had killed hostages prior to the
intervention of
security forces.

2) Many hostages reported an explosion of one of the
terrorist bombs,
followed by chaos and fleeing hostages, followed by
shooting from all
directions and many deaths.  Given such a scenario, it
is difficult to
blame security officials for intervening.

3) It s easy for Westerner s to say that relatives of
the hostages should
have been kept away.  But in the North Caucasus many
people have weapons;
everyone has a deep, well-defined sense of personal
honor; and family means
everything to everyone.  At all costs (meaning at ALL
costs), a North
Caucasian man is dutifully responsible for punishing
any affront, let alone
injury, to members of his family.  Sometimes the
prominence of that duty is
the main reason that families in this region are able
to survive.  Hence,
it would have been no easier for Russian officials to
control the hostage's
relatives than to control the terrorists themselves.
That s simply how it
is in the North Caucasus, and unfortunately Beslan was
not located in
Oxfordshire or Fairfax County where it might have been
possible to obtain
popular compliance with police perimeters.

4)  The terrorists had already deprived the hostages
of water and
opportunities to use the lavatory for more than two
days, so evidently they
were not planning on lengthy negotiations.  Children
were drinking their
own urine.  After three days without water, children
start to die.

5)  One hostage reported that a terrorist had told her
on Friday morning
that she would drown in blood that same day.

6)  Several hostages reported that some of the
terrorists had changed into
civilian clothing prior to the first explosion and
shooting, suggesting
that they were preparing for an end to the crisis that
day.

7) Most Western journalists have seemed comfortable
concluding and
repeating, as did the terrorists themselves, that
Russian authorities
deliberately  lied  about the number of hostages.
Pehaps I am at fault
here, but I can t remember if anyone has taken time to
determine whether it
was more a case of deliberate mendacity or more a case
of momentary
confusion, perhaps not so different from all of the
erroneous statements
that American officials inadvertently made on
September 11th, 12th, and
13th, of 2001.

8)  Moreover, Western journalists have uncritically
repeated the terrorists
claim that Russian officials deliberately
under-reported the number of
hostages in order to hide the number of deaths that
would result from their
subsequently botched operation. The implication being
that the Russians
knew in advance that they were going to botch it, and
they didn't care to
avoid botching it, because either they realized that
they were incompetent
or they had no regard for human life, or both.  But I
have yet to find
anyone considering the possibility that the hostage
numbers might have been
deliberately mimimized from a worthy motive, such as
to minimize the number
of North Ossetian vigilantes that would come streaming
into Beslan and
crashing through the police perimeter.

We Westerners cannot possibly understand what happened
in Beslan, because
we can t yet know what happened there.  The people of
Beslan don t yet know
what happened there.  The people of Russia don t yet
know what happened
there.  Our turn comes after theirs.  Meanwhile, there
is nothing for
decent people in Britain and America to do, except to
do what our Russian
friends did for us three years ago, that is to simply
and sadly join our
Russian friends in their shock, and horror, and grief.
 With President Bush
and the Russian tennis players, we must rise up and
stand shoulder to
shoulder with our Russian friends, even though it
means that we must turn
our backs on our own media in order to do so.

And if all of this is not enough, here is one more
tragedy for American
readers to consider.  The unfortunate fact is that
people in the North
Caucasus do not have much need for the sanctimony of
American
journalists.  What they do need are things like health
clinics, microloan
programs, highland fruit processing plants,
opportunities to attend
educational and professional programs in the United
States, and partnership
programs with American communities, organizations, and
institutions.  These
are things that they need.  One of the reasons that we
Americans cannot
help them to have these things is that our Congress
won t provide funding
for programs like this.  One of the reasons that our
Congress won t fund
programs like this is that the ignorance, imbalance,
and unprofessionalism
of our media have misled and distorted American public
opinion about the
North Caucasus to the point that the American Congress
is entirely
incapable of sponsoring any constructive programs in
this region.  If
American journalists are anxious to speculate about
who has hurt the people
of the North Caucasus, then they should begin by
examining themselves, and
have the decency to allow the Russians a little time
to grieve.




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