Over 200 pupils & parents taken hostage at Russian School

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Yeah, I know. Really sad, but now that I think of it, ALL of the "democratic" world leaders are like that, although not always as clearly. But that probably belong to a different topic.

 

I'm at a loss for words

 

Here is a BBC report trying to piece together the chronology of events:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/world/04/russian_s/html/1.stm

 

Since it's media, divide that amount by half to get the real estimate; they always exaggerate things like that.

 

I guess everybody wants to know now what exactly went wrong. Why the high death toll? Who opened fire first, the hostage takers or the Russians? Could the high number of casualties have been avoided?

But since we're talking Russia here, I guess a lot of questions will remain unanswered.

 

I don't condone in any way what happened at Beslam but the Russians are guilty of just as many attrocities in Chechnya. They've practically flattened that country.

The Chechnyan's speak a different langauge and have a different religion to most Russians and yet Russia still don't give them independance. Why? Oil.

The Russians will never let Chechnya go and the Chechnyan's will never be happy without their independence. All about money and power unfortunately.

 

This is, of course, a horrible atrocity (sp?) but when you think of it, what choices do the chechnians have? as far as I can see it is the following
A) Let the Russians have their way and do nothing about it?
That would be nice for the Russians, and for the world, but not the logical choice for *them* - they'll be opressed forever more, and the Russians really can't get much more brutal anyways
B) Try negotiating with the Russians?
See A)
C) Trying guerilla warfare against Russian military targets
On it's own, that won't get them anywhere, and the only nation which has a remote chance of getting Russia to change it's way, the USA, is unlikely to side *against* what might be a powerful ally, in favour of a handful of rebels, who have no strategic importance whatsoever.
D) Hitting the Russian people where it hurts most... using any and every means to make the Russians go to their knees.
While this is unlikely to yield results, it can't worsen the situation, as it can't get any worse, and at least it'll show the Russians just how good that feels, having your children murdered by soldiers/terrorists/whatever you call 'em.

I know this isn't the moment to show understanding, let alone *sympathy* for their actions, but this isn't a war... a war is two *armies* fighting each other.
The Chechnians have no army, they very best (or worst, depends on perspective) thing they can do is bleed the Russians as hard as they can.
The Russians have opressed the Chechnians with brute force, and they're trying to return the favour. With the most effective weapon: Fear.
This doesn't make their actions acceptable, just logical. These aren't religious fanatics with no real goal other then killing as many westerners, or in this case Russians, as possible. They want their own country back, no matter the cost, and these guys simply take it more literally than most "no matter the cost" so as my heart goes out to the thousands of individual and innocent tragedies, my head tells me that the Russians in generally are getting as they've given.

 

yeah there were alot dead, but how many of those were dead before the battle? witnesses said that there had been explosions and gunshots inside the school since the terrorists took the hostages, and witnesses from inside the school said that the terrorists were shooting troublesome captives. the assulting team said that when they entered the gym the 103 bodies found there were "stacked or piled" which seems to suggest that the gun men had been storing the bodies there as a good psychological attack on the captived held inside the gym.
the events of yesterday morning unfolded when hostages started to escape and in their panic the gunmen opened fire on the fleeing hostages fireing randomly at anything moving, that included russian forces who returned fire and then in the chaos took the course of action that they believed would save the most lives. they blew a hole in the gym wall so the hostages could flee and then opened fire on the gunmen who were now on the move shooting hostages as they went, one was shot dead inside the gym with a live grenade in his hand, that explosion is then believed to have caused the structural damage which caused segments of the gym roof to collapse.

i must say that despite the grim ending the russian forces acted with but a moments notice - they had no time to plan this, they were taken off guard and they had to respond. i dont think any of the worlds forces could have come out of something like that with a good result. i respect the security forcces for thait actions in this, many of whom are now probably depressed and distraught at the fact that they couldnt do more. they did everything they could.

 

Some here have said the Chechnyans had no other option and to that I say; bullpoo. If the choice is between bending over and giving up and taking a 1500 children hostage then any normal person would give up.

Now if things were fair the atrocities the Russians have committed in Chechnya since Stalin's time would have got as much attention as this and we would have seen two sides killing each others civilians indiscriminately instead of like now when it is only the Chechnyan atrocities who reach us. Stalin for instance decided that the Chechnyans had supported Hitler in WW2 and as punishment he deported 300.000 people in cattle trains to Siberia. Suffice to say that there were a lot less people when the train finally reached Siberia and none who ever returned. Tit for tat and it is always the innocents who pay.

 

Oh please. Sure Russians are doing attoricities in Chechenya but it was the Chechenyans who started the rebellion. Chechenyans don't stand a chance and still they go on fighting. They will never get any international support and unless Russia falls apart they won't get independence.

The Russian military is still huge and they continually strike against military targets in Chechenya but of course they can't get any significant damage done to an army of such size unless they manage to get their hands on Russian nukes of course. The Chechenyans have very limited resources and even less allies. USA won't help because they probably consider Chechenyans to be terrorists and after an attack like this who would blame them?

This only makes the people angry at them. Unlike in the USA the Russian "liberal" media is quite limited and it's quite easy to arouse anger in the people against the Chechenyans. The crisis of course will probably not end in years but Russians probably won't hesitate wiping out all Chechenyans if they manage to do so without the international community noticing or worse with its blessing.

What country? Now I'm not an expert in Russian history but if Chechenya has ever been independenet that has to be very very long ago since I can't really remember it. Chechenya has been a part of Russia for a long long time and for the same reason as China will never accept the independence of Taiwan, Russia will never accept the independence of Chechenya. Now I'm not exactly fond of what the Russians are doing but I'm quite convincend that using the "fear" tool against Russia will only work for the government in their hard line Chechenya policy and therefore only worsen the situation in there.