

What You Should Know About Chechnya as the Boston Story Unfolds - kumarski
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/04/what-you-should-know-about-chechnya-as-the-boston-story-unfolds/275156/

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cabirum
As a Russian, I find the article very biased and misleading.

It gives no historical perspective on the roots of centuries-old conflict, and
tries to expose terrorists and religious extremists as freedom fighters
without mentioning their involvement in such events as Beslan massacre or the
theater hostage crisis. For everyone living in Russia, this region is the
source of all recent terrorist attacks and a major source of crime. I did not
expect to find an article of such low quality and biasedness on HN.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1coamb/chechen_te...](http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1coamb/chechen_terrorism_what_you_need_to_know_islamist/c9ij35e)
> This comment on Reddit gives more or less accurate description of Chechnya,
I won't copypaste it here.

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hristov
This article is full of inaccuracies and has several very dubious conspiracy
theories reported as facts. The quality of the Atlantic continues to decline.
This article basically has the accuracy of an anonymous internet forum rant.

However, it is true that there has been a terrible off and on war in Chechnya
during the last 20 years with some tragic consequences for the civilian
population. There have been many abuses perpetrated by the Russian government,
but also many terrible civilian murders perpetrated by Chechen islamic groups
that cannot possibly be blamed on Putin.

For what it worth I should say that ordinary Chechens are very much against
terrorism and against the hardcore Muslim militarists. It is notable that when
Chechnya was relatively independent after the first Chechen war, they elected
a relatively secular president and not one of the hard core sharia law
Islamists. Nevertheless, there is an armed Islamist minority in Chechnya that
tends to make trouble. That secular president ended up declaring sharia law
just to appease the militants.

The most interesting thing about this article is how differently the atlantic
treats chechnya and palestine. Regardless of the Russian abuses in the region,
the life of the average Chechen is much better than that of the average
palestinian. Currently, Chechens cannot vote for their chosen president and
tend to get hassled by police when they travel in parts of Russia outside of
Chechnya but otherwise their life is a far cry from what Palestinians in the
occupied territories have to endure. They are not being starved intentionally
in ghettos, they do not have settlers coming in and taking their houses and
farms, they are not surrounded by walls, or military firing zones, etc., they
do not have to wait 9 hours at a check point to go to a neighboring village,
etc.

Nevertheless, the Atlantic calls Chechnya a country, which it isn't and when
it rarely mentions Chechen terrorism, it tries to justify it by referring to
Putin's actions. The Atlantic would never call Palestine a country (even
though under international law Palestine is much closer to being a country)
and would never suggest that the Israeli occupation is a justification for
Palestinian terrorism.

In summary these are all tricky issues but one way to keep our journalists and
politicians honest is to hold them to the same standard when dealing with
separatists from countries they like (Israel) and countries they do not like
(Russia).

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gcb0
tl;dr;

Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and other former Soviet states are just the same
to Russia as most central american countries are to the USA.

i.e. the super power killed several legitimate presidents, ruined/poisoned
most of the people for cheap labor and nobody learns about that in school.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
> ... as most central american countries are to the USA

I would include the whole america there, not just central.

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robmil
For anyone looking to learn more about Chechnya regardless of whether it's
linked to these attacks, I'd highly recommend Sebastian Smith's "Allah's
Mountains: The Battle for Chechnya".

For wider reading on the region, I thoroughly enjoyed Oliver Bollough's "Let
Our Fame Be Great: Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus", a nice
blend of travelogue and history from the journalist who was Reuters'
correspondent in the caucasus throughout the late 90s and early 2000s.

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tlogan
What I don't understand is that US was actually on Chechen's side - both
Clinton and Bush were hard on Putin on how was he was handling Chechenia war.

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gcb0
"However, a recently published book about the events by a Stanford University
academic indicates that the horrific attack was most likely organized and
financed by Putin and his henchmen"

So, how does people in russia read that? Anyone?

i'm guessing it's the same reaction as an American reading that bush financed
the groups that led to 9/11. or not?

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chokolad
Yep, pretty much. I am amazed that The Atlantic has published that drivel.

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nsns
Critique of the linking to Chechnya from Aljazeera -
<http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201304200024-0022691>

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kumarski
I prefer to read news after it has been gestated through the gauntlet that is
hackernews readers.

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rdl
That seems like it might be a good policy; reading a lot of primary sources
(in English, though, or translations) and decent-analysis news sources
(Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, etc.) is kind of silly given that it doesn't
directly affect my life anymore (other than as a citizen/voter).

~~~
kumarski
My news combination is hackernews+quora+Vice.

When I'm really bored I read your older quora answers, some of them are great
for laughs. True story....

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tsotha
Russia's treatment of Chechnya doesn't explain why these two knuckleheads, who
stayed in the US as _refugees_ for a time, decided to blow up a bunch of
Americans. _Maybe_ Chechnya is a shitty country because it's full of Chechens,
and the Russians feel the need to be brutal because they're tired of schools,
theaters, and subway stations being blown up.

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gruseom
Your comment is ignorant (Chechnya is not a country), off-topic (the OP in no
way attempts to explain the Boston attacks) and horrid ("maybe Chechnya is a
shitty country because it's full of Chechens"—what kind of person says such
things?). I don't think you should exploit this awful situation to excrete
something vile of your own.

Not to endorse the OP, which is oddly tendentious and smells of a pre-existing
agenda.

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tsotha
I don't think pointing out the obvious is "excreting something vile" (though I
will give you credit for a nice turn of phrase there). We accepted 200
refugees from Chechnya and fully 1% of them turned out to be terrorists.

