Getting Ugly in Russia

[lookout123]

Originally Posted by DanaC

And now here we all sit in condemnation of the Chechen rebels and their actions whilst no sympathy can be found for their suffering. Suffering which the world has been deaf to for as long as they have been tormented.

no you have missed the point. i do sympathize with the suffering of these people. i don't really follow that conflict so i don't know all the details, but if your description of the conflict is accurate i do sympathize with them. any concern at all is reserved for the ones who choose NOT to strap bombs to themselves and target civilians. these individuals are filth.

To be in a position to espouse an opinion about this which has any worth whatsoever, one needs far more information that almost anyone has,

nope, rebels have taken kids hostage. i know enough to condemn these individuals to death. i don't care what their political motivation is - their actions have made their ideals irrelavent.

The thing is, most of you are approaching this with a fair degree of if not extreme moral absolutism, sadly, the real world exists in shades of grey, not black and white. There is no space for moral absolutism in the modern world and certainly not in dirty little wars in the ex-buffer states of the Soviet Union.

there is black and white in the world Jaguar. specifically targeting innocent women and children is wrong. end of story. no matter how sympathetic to a cause you may be you have to admit that.

Many people have said that nothing excuses the targetting of innocent children. I would counter that nothing excuses the strong violently imposing their will upon the weak.

say explosive and gun carrying rebels vs school children?

It may have been possible to resolve this siege with minimal loss of life had they stuck to the rather novel tactic of negotiation.

it is unreasonable and unwise to negotiate with people who think these tactics are acceptable. if you cave to their demands you better be prepared to go to the next school because it will happen again.

The Chechens are an indigenous population of sunni moslems who have been fighting for their independance for upwards of three hundred years. They have made many attempts to free themselves from Russia both in it's Empire days and it's communist days.

if they are trying to secede from a russia then i can see why the russian troops are there. we had something called the civil war here. quebec tries and fails every few years (without gunfire) and i believe the UK has had some experience with folks that just don't want to be a part of the family anymore. nations don't typically find it in their best interests to let parts of the country , or their holdings break away.