"Hype" about Chechnya?
What the world objects to in Chechnya, I believe, is the way the war is being fought.
Look at the documented atrocities (by both sides). Look at the totally indescriminate bombing and shelling by one side in particular.
Yeah, people die in wars; soldiers and civilians. The problem is that a WHOLE LOT of civilians are dying in Chechnya with the deaths directly attributable to the way the Russians are waging war.
There is a "green light" from around the world to go after terrorists.
There's still no authorization to kill civilians wholesale if it can be avoided.
Chechnya Death Toll"In spite of the alleged hushing-up of casualties, Gladkevich said losses have been lower than during the 1994-96 Chechnya war, when barely trained conscripts marched into Chechnya's cities and suffered heavy losses at the hands of a much smaller separatist force.
Between 30,000 and 100,000 people are believed to have been killed in the last war, most of them civilians.The Russian military says it lost about 3,000 soldiers, but independent observers put troop losses at 6,000. The soldiers' mothers say they are still looking for about 600 soldiers missing from that war."
Heavy civilian toll in Chechnya's "unlimited violence"The price of continued conflict has been high for civilians. Acts of violence are "designed to humiliate civilians: arbitrary executions and mopping-up operations, arrests and disappearances, extortion and racketeering of cadavers," last month's report by Médecins sans Frontières notes...
Detailing severe beatings and the impunity with which federal forces operate here, the New York-based group Human Rights Watch reported in October on the "cycle of torture and extortion faced by thousands of Chechens whom Russian forces have detained in Chechnya."
WAR HAS NO RULES FOR RUSSIAN FORCES BATTLING CHECHEN REBELS"They call it bespredel--literally, "no limits." It means acting outside the rules, violently and with impunity. It translates as "excesses" or "atrocities."
It's the term Russian soldiers use to describe their actions in Chechnya.
"Without bespredel, we'll get nowhere in Chechnya," a 21-year-old conscript explained. "We have to be cruel to them. Otherwise, we'll achieve nothing."
Since Russia launched a new war against separatist rebels in its republic of Chechnya a year ago,
Russian and Western human rights organizations have collected thousands of pages of testimony from victims about human rights abuses committed by Russian servicemen against Chechen civilians and suspected rebel fighters.
To hear the other side of the story, a Times reporter traveled to more than half a dozen regions around Russia and interviewed more than two dozen Russian servicemen returning from the war front.
What they recounted largely matches the picture painted in the human rights reports:
The men freely acknowledge that acts considered war crimes under international law not only take place but are also commonplace."
So, it's not the dealing with Chechen terrorists that causes people to view the Russian operation with a jaundiced eye.
It's the WAY the battle is being fought and the number of civilian casualties.
I recall a thread of Boroda's not long ago bemoaning how US forces were going to slaughter thousands of innocent Afghans in the yet to be initiated war in Afghanistan.
Take a look at the results. It's almost over and best information puts the number of Afghan civilian casualties between 300 and 600.
Then take a look at the civilian death toll in Chechnya in the '94-'96 campaign. 50,000 would be a VERY conservative estimate.
Pretty well speaks for the difference in the way the US and Russia wage war, doesn't it?
... and that's what people object to, IMO.
[ 11-22-2001: Message edited by: Toad ]
