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| Putin: Boston bombing shows West's mistake |
| 2013-04-25 |
| The Boston bombings should spur stronger security cooperation between Moscow and Washington, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday, adding that they also show that the West was wrong in supporting militants in Chechnya. Putin said that "this tragedy should push us closer in fending off common threats, including terrorism, which is one of the biggest and most dangerous of them." The two brothers accused of the Boston bombings are ethnic Chechens who had lived in the U.S. for more than a decade. Putin warned against trying to find the roots for the Boston tragedy in the suffering endured by the Chechen people, particularly in mass deportations of Chechens to Siberia and Central Asia on Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's orders. "The cause isn't in their ethnicity or religion, it's in their extremist sentiments," he said. Speaking in an annual call-in show on state television, Putin criticized the West for refusing to declare Chechen militants terrorists and for offering them political and financial assistance in the past. "I always felt indignation when our Western partners and Western media were referring to terrorists who conducted brutal and bloody crimes on the territory of Russia as rebels," Putin said. The U.S. has urged the Kremlin to seek a political settlement in Chechnya and criticized rights abuses by Russian troops during the two separatist wars since 1994, which spawned an Islamic insurgency that has engulfed the entire region. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #9 IIRC, and I don't claim to have been paying much attention, Yeltsin tried giving the Chechens a certain degree of autonomy but they kept on committing acts of terrorism. I seem to recall losing a lot of sympathy for them as a result of that. Maybe that's why Putin decided to crack down on them again. I understand that the Russians have their faults and I don't mean to be an apologist for them. But if I had to chose between sharia and Putin that'd be a no brainer, it'd be Putin. g(r)omgoru asks a pertinent question and Russia's relationship with Iran is very disturbing as well. But I've thought for a long time that as far as jihad goes we could be cooperating a lot more with Russia and India...and a lot less with Pakistain, Turkey and Soddy Arabia. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2013-04-25 16:01 |
| #8 "I don't think the US ever actually supported Chechnya" And I'm sure Bambi, et al., think they missed a golden opportunity there. ("Caucasian Spring"? Oh, wait....) |
| Posted by: Barbara 2013-04-25 15:42 |
| #7 Dislike Chechnyan wacko Muslims a lot more than I do the Russians; wouldn't object if they went all Tamerlane on them. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2013-04-25 15:38 |
| #6 I was following Chechnyas in the late 90s and I have to say I was impressed with their balls. A lot of Red Army muslim veterans from the Afghan war that took on the Red Army in Grozny (in some cases with swords) causing the worst tank battle loss the Russians had faced since WW2 (the Russian tankers were raw conscripts without infantry support mind you). All the while keeping a blog of sorts running on the action. Of course the bits about them hanging wounded Russians in front of machine gun nests to slow down counter-fire was also noticed. I had no delusions that they were tough and they were scum. Even Team America noticed that. Still, I don't think the US ever actually supported Chechnya. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2013-04-25 14:50 |
| #5 So, how do you feel about "Palestinians" Vlad? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2013-04-25 14:47 |
| #4 Did I miss some neocon push to support Chechen separatism? I seem to remember the line on this was generally "the Chechens are increasingly-jihadi-addled maniacs, but the Russians are prone to Mongol-style brutality and corruption on a truly squalid scale". And coverage of the Beslan tragedy tended to emphasize both the horribleness of the Chechen terrorists, and the sloppy, careless aggressiveness of the Russian response. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2013-04-25 14:29 |
| #3 What Rob said. |
| Posted by: Barbara 2013-04-25 13:41 |
#2 I think we Americans were dupped by some very big lies about the Chechnyan unrest Speak for yourself. I'm pretty sure the Rantburgers recognized the monsters from day 1. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2013-04-25 12:12 |
| #1 As often as I've been on Vlad about his "royalty" and his channeling of "Uncle Joe," I have to say that I agree with him on this one. I think we Americans were dupped by some very big lies about the Chechnyan unrest and the bleeding heart liberal press crying about Russian brutality. The problem with the liberal press is that once they romanticize some group or some individual, they cannot come to ever criticize them. For example, the NVA, and the VC, romanticized in the radical chic of the 60s, once the reeducation camps and the indoctrinations and the show trials and the executions started, the liberal press didn't report on it. They also knew all about Pol Pot but gave him a pass until the French came out with the real story. Now we have the "freedom fighters" in Chechnya who the press will never criticize even after Beslan and the movie massacres. Now that is why they are going all fuzzy bunny on the two in Boston and why they'll try to paint the parents (who are in this up to their eyeballs) as poor suffering grieving parents. They are both raving frothing fanatics, the radicalization started at home. |
| Posted by: Bill Clinton 2013-04-25 10:39 |