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Quagmire
So you want to talk about a quamire, aye? Well, ok then, Iâve got a beauty for you. How about Chechnya?
| This is opinion, but I'll leave it up for its hard news content. Chechnya is an area we should cover in more detail... |
The Russians arenât just suffering through little dink and dunk attacks that come sporadically. They donât have their Muslim Terrorist enemies running away at the mere thought of having to face the toothless mighty Russian army. After four years of fighting, the Russians are facing more frequent and more effective attacks than they have ever faced before. And this so soon after getting bitch slapped out of Afghanistan — where, by the way, we kicked ass.
| And we're still kicking it... |
Weâll take ourselves a little look-see at how bad things have been for the Russian military over just the past week or so.(Q) -- Recently the Russian military lost over 100 soldiers in a single attack near the town of Avturi.
(U) -- Theyâve been in fire fights with Muslim Terrorists in the regions of Shatoi, Vedeno, Nozhai-Yurt and Urus-Martan.
(A) -- Convoys have been attacked near the village of Harsenoy.
(G) -- Fifteen Russian soldiers were killed in an attack near the village of Samashki.
(M) -- A helicopter, several armored vehicles and several more military trucks have been destroyed or crippled.
(I) -- In just the last week almost 400 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded.
(R) -- The past ten days have been more destructive to the Russians than the past 5 months have been for America and the Coalition in Iraq. Should Russia give in to the Muslim Terrorists in Chechnya? Can America afford to allow a Russian defeat there? Why donât we hear endless reports from CNN and MSNBC about the Chechen quagmire? About the continued and mounting losses that Russia is facing? About the string of successes the Muslim Terrorists are having against Russian military forces? About Russiaâs failure to bring peace to their own soil after 4 bloody years of fighting?
(E) -- If you read the linked article youâll also see that Chechen civilians are killed at increasing rate, because the war in Chechnya is not just a Russian war, but a civil war. The Russians arenât losing one or two soldiers here and there. Theyâre having a dozen or several dozen killed in each attack. Yet they keep fighting, even though they can little afford to fight economically.
Russiaâs fight needs to be our fight. While I still get a joyful feeling when I hear about the Russians getting beaten up like this — after they way they helped Saddam illegally and aided in the liquidation of his NBC stockpiles — I know that America can not afford to allow a Russian loss in Chechnya. If Islamic Terrorists win in Chechnya they will be emboldened throughout the world. They will have a rallying cry, a source of motivation and a boost to their moral. Money and men will flow into their ranks at an increased rate and our own fight against Islam will be that much longer and harder.
So you see, there really is a quamire involved in the War on Terror. It just isnât in Afghanistan or Iraq.
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Originally posted on Yankee Jihad
Those are some good points, though I should point out that Chechen Press and the more readable Kavkaz.org routinely carry inflated accounts of the successes of the Chechen bandits mujaheddin. I prefer Gazeta.ru, which has pretty good coverage without being hysterical or forcing one to wade through ITAR/TASS English. Moscow Times is sometimes okay, other times its Caucasus coverage comes from Associated Press, which seem weird to me.
Chechnya's a wedge issue between Russia and the U.S., and it shouldn't be. There's no difference between Chechnya and Afghanistan as far as the enemy's concerned. The same prayers are offered every Friday in Mecca, the "charities" raise money for both, and the al-Ghamdis and their work-alikes turn up in both places. Zarqawi's been there, the Soddies send men and money — the only thing different is that the Bad Guys are fighting the poorly trained and equipped Russian conscripts instead of the 101st or 82nd Airborne. They didn't fare quite so well when they were at Konduz.
The Bad Guys are also doing their best to export jihad to the surrounding areas, none of which want anything to do with it. Dagestan was invaded, Ingushetia's being subverted, and North Ossetia's being casually trampled whenever the Chechen killers please. Basayev's a nasty sonofabitch, regardless of the number of times the Washington Post whines about "human rights abuses" by the Russers. The Nord-Ost Theater episode was enough to settle things once and for all for me — but then, I suppose my attention span's too long. I'd make a lousy journalist or diplomat.
Yeah. I agree. Russia's stuck in a quagmire. The way out of the quagmire involves retaining their legendary ruthlessness, which is called for when dealing with the Chechen banditti, but also reorganizing their military and treating Chechnya as a reconquered territory. There are still lots of nice areas around Khabarovsk that need logged. With hand saws. In winter. |
Posted by: Tom Schaller 2003-08-28 |
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