Headline in my local newspaper 2 days ago: "Militants attack Russian town, 48 killed".
OK. I start reading.
The town, of course, was in the embattled area of Chechnya. Militants attacked it. Or separatists. Or militant separatists.
OK. 5 paragraphs into the story I find this: the militants were trained in Afghanistan with the Taliban and Al Qaida.
Paragraph 6 I find this: the militants are tied to the Wahabbi Muslim sect in Saudia Arabia which spawned Osama bin Laden.
So my question is: Why did it take 5 or 6 paragraphs to get to this information? Why wasn't it in the headline that "Al Qaida attacks Russian town, 48 killed"? Why do we mask who they are by calling them militants or separatists, as the media has done for the last decade.
So now I'm rethinking Russia and their decade long battle in Chechnya. I don't even know where that is, and I'm sure I don't know all of the details of that conflict. I do know that we in America have condemned the Russians for trying to put down the "separatists" every time.
Now I'm thinking that the Russians are fighting a common enemy to us and are 10 years ahead of us in the War on Terrorism. If they are indeed fighting Al Qaida I say "Go Russia"!
My thinking is that after 9-11 it is our obligation to go back and review every conflict in the last 20 years through the lens of the War on Terrorism. How long has it really been going on?
For example, President Clinton is out promoting his book and trumpeting as one of his major accomplishments the defeat of the Serbians in Kosovo. Were we on the right side in that one, thru the lens of the War on Terror? Serbia is a Christian nation. Kosovo / Albania were Muslim nations. Serbia was accused of "ethnic cleansing". What ethnicity were they trying to cleanse? As I remember it, they were principally fighting against the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) which was a militant islamic group. Was Serbia an early combatant in the War on Terror before we ever realized there was a War on Terror. I'm thinking so.
We owe ourselves a re-evaluation of recent history so we know the full extent of the fight that we're in.
2 comments:
no, serbia was systematically slaughtering ethnic albanians, not fighting a "war on terror." fighting terror implies rooting out terrorists; serbs were storming through villages raping and killing those who they viewed as ethnically and religiously inferior. if this is what you think the "war on terror" is about, then you are a scary, scary person.
also, i would advise reading a little bit more about the situation in chechnya before you comment on it. chechnyan rebels are not al-qaeda, they are separatists. there may be ties, but that doesn't mean that they are one and the same. to refer to them as al-qaeda would be not only misleading, but entirely innacurate.
Jill - excellent comment. Points taken.
As I said in my post, I'm rethinking the situation. I haven't reached conclusions. Also, as I said in my post I don't know a lot about Chechnya.
I would say two things:
1. I don't support eradicating whole villages or equate that to the War on Terrorism.
2. Are you sure you're not downplaying Islamic facist/terrorist role in the conflicts in that region of the world? By whatever name - whether you call them Al Qaida or not. Militant Islamic aggression plays a role.
I just think we need to re-evaluate all of the world conflicts in the last 2 decades in the light of our new framework. We've moved from treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue to a War issue. There are other armed conflicts involving militant Islamic populations. I want to rethink them, is all I'm saying.
I guess I hardcore way of coming accross when all I'm saying is we should re-evaluate.
Did you have any thoughts on this regarding Kosovo and the KLA?
Post a Comment