Dear friends,
I am totally sick with the flu and I don’t feel like writing much, but I hear so much nonsense about the blast in Moscow that I want to share some really quick thoughts with you:
1) Don’t rush to blame the Chechens for what happened. Yes, it most definitely *could* be them, but there are *many* other possible explanations including, but not limited to, the following:
a) Western and Zionists interests who might try to push Russia into a more obedient role in the “coalition of the willing” worldwide
b) Interests – Russian or other – which might try to upset the current dialog between Moscow and the Karzai administration
c) A false-flag operation by Russian elements interested in creating the conditions for more “security measures” Russia
2) Even if the suicide bombers are ethnic Chechens, we should not rush to any conclusions since, as so often the case with Muslim extremists, it is far from certain that the suicide bombers really knew whose interests they were promoting with their actions.
3) No amount of “security measures” can defeat this type of attacks. The fact that they occurred does not necessarily indicate a failure of the security services (although it could), and no amount of additional measures can prevent further attacks.
4) The Medvedev administration did take one very bad decision today – the decision to order the Mayor of Moscow, along with many other officials, to immediately personally visit the site of the blast. If the terrorists had shown more foresight, they could have prepared a 2nd explosive to detonate when the big politicos would show up.
Still, the Chechen terror hypothesis is not unreasonable and should not be rejected out of hand either. The Chechen insurgency has been militarily defeated, and it has now been reduced to a terror-capability-level similar to what the IRA had during the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Even though pretty much all the main Chechen insurgency leaders have been killed, and even though the remaining Chechen insurgents are mostly busy fighting over who should be considered the “Emir of the North Caucasian Emirate” (sic), their insurgency still has money and enough resources to switch from insurgency operations to banal terrorism. In fact, a terrorist attack like the one which occurred today could very much be a Chechen way of “fund raising” from their foreign ‘sponsors’ by proving that they still can strike in the Russian capital.
Yet, if we follow the age old advice of cui bono, I would not necessarily have the Chechen terrorists on the top of my list (though I might well by tomorrow morning, depending on what I learn overnight)
My 2cts.
The Saker
Dear Saker,
As usual you’re spot on in your initial analysis…always a pleasure reading you.
Please Get Well!
Two Words on Lebanon… Remember All the Hoopla in the Western Media, MSM…about Hizbullah’s planning a forceful Coup D’Etat…Well, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah proved them all wrong again. There is a new PM today voted in with a 68 to 60 majority of parliamentarians and it ain’t Saad Hariri….
Some hooligans are on the streets demonstrating because of the “loss of Hariri”….it is not expected to last very long…and their will be a Democratic transition to a New Majority backing the Resistance.
Your ability to avoid criticising Islam continually amazes me.
@jack:Your ability to avoid criticising Islam continually amazes me.
I assure you that I am even more amazed by your apparent *inability* to understand even a rather simple line of thought. I don’t know what kind of nonsense you are reading into what I posted here and, frankly, I don’t care. You are like a broken record repeating “Islam bad”, “Islam bad”, “Islam bad” over and over again regardless of what the topic is (my post does not deal with Islam in any way) or who your interlocutor is (an Orthodox Christian whose blog as a long record of vehemently denouncing Wahabism (and all its derivatives) as even more sick, evil and barbaric that what the American propaganda describes it to be).
Jack – I refuse and reject your primitive and illiterate lumping of everything Muslim into one category “Islam”. Such a conflation can only be the product of a sadly uneducated mind as it is factually wrong and logically absurd. I equally reject your insistence on constantly seeking an opportunity to parrot the most stupid and crude Zionist propaganda about “Islam”. Your inability to understand that all I care about is the truth, and not some ideological position, bores me to death. If the Wahabis are dumb tools in the hands of the USraelian Empire, then so are you, because even if you are utterly unaware of that, your mantric vilification of everything Muslim only serves the interests of the Zionist lobby.
Sorry for being so direct, but I am quite literally sick and tired today to begin with, and your idiotic and immature insistence that what is my blog should somehow comply with your ideological prejudices really pisses me off. Dude, start your own blog and write whatever nonsense you want! And I can tell you that with your kind of ‘ideas’, you will find plenty of enthusiastic supporters.
I think I already told you that the only thing I ban on my blog is spam. The rest, I will not touch. But neither do I feel any obligation to answer what I consider to be a self-evidently crude and ignorant comment. So if you want, keep on posting anti-Muslim slogans here, but please be aware that I will henceforth ignore them.
The Saker
Saker, according to what I read, the blast occured in an unsecured area of the airport: in the hall of arriving international flights, that comes after the passengers passed through customs and immigration. It is an open part that just cannot be secured or controled, like in any major airport in the world. These kind of things happen so much in Russia not because the country is not secure (it would be as easy to make the same in the US or Europe), but because terrorist who make attacks there are the one with most foreign support.
Then, I think it is most likely that it was made by terrorist linked with the North Caucausus which, we all know well, are supported by a lot of countries, directly or undirectly: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait, Egypt, Israel, Georgia, the US, the EU. Which is one reason why it is pretty obvious that Russia should ally with countries like China, India, Iran and Venezuela: these are the only countries in the world which are not acting in one way or another to fragmentate Russia, and show interest in a strong Russia.
@VINEYARDSAKER:
Still, the Chechen terror hypothesis is not unreasonable and should not be rejected out of hand either.
I wonder why we would think that I am sure it is natural that people just blow up.
my post does not deal with Islam in any way
Exactly the problem because suicide bombings wouldn’t happen to be a Muslim terror tactic used by Islamic terrorist and insurgent groups and glorified by Islamic imams would it.
@Carlo
You can remove Iran from that equation.
@Carlo: being sick with the flu has its advantages: I spend the last 24 hours watching Russian TV and reading the Russian press. There appears to be a growing consensus that the Domodedovo airport did a sloppy job securing the area. According to Russian reports, there should have been 6 ‘layers’ of defense, and the terrorists exploded their device between layer 5 and 4 meaning that they *should* have been checked at least twice before getting there.
Still, I firmly believe that terrorists attacks are impossible to prevent. It is possible to protect one specific object and it is possible to make it harder to carry out an attack. But if the Chechens want to blow up Russian people, they can do that anytime they want.
I remember the hysterical panic in Greece after a couple of bombs were smuggled in airplanes from (now closed) Ellinikon International Airport. The stupid cops even put a armored personnel carrier with a machine gun inside the main hall of the airport. You know what the terrorists did next? They attacked a passenger ship in the port of Piraeus.
Chechen terrorist have already attacked a gynecological clinic, a performance theater, a soccer stadium, a street parade, etc. etc. etc.
Bottom line: Russia is not secure and will never be.
The way to deal with Chechen terrorism is to comprehensively hunt down and kill all the terrorists. I know, this sounds extreme, yet as a professional military analyst I assure you that there is no other way. I calculated the other day that I spent a full decade studying the wars in Chechnia, from memoirs, movies, analyses, interviews, etc. etc. etc. And at the end of this decade long process of analysis I came to the inescapable conclusion that Russia, as a nation, has no other choice than to eradicate Chechen Wahabism once and forever. Sure, other methods such as seeking alliances with Chechens opposed to the terrorists, undermining the foreign economic support the Chechen terrorists get from abroad, sending economic aid to Chechnia and trying to make sure that this aid is not stolen my local crooks (Russian or Chechen), cracking down on the Chechen Mafia in Russia and at the Russian Mafia which deals with it, etc – all these are good too. But I do believe that none of that will work unless the worst of Chechens are completely exterminated. There is simply no way to negotiate with people who make films of people tortured to death and then watch them as a form of entertainment, there is no way to deal with people for whom murder, slavery, rape, torture, extortion, and other forms of violence are not only natural, they are the only “lifestyle” (so to speak) they understand. Finally, Wahabism is an ideology which presents a terrible threat to all the countries and religions it can reach.
(to be continued…)
(…continued)
And before the Islam-haters begin to smile and mistakenly assume that I am somehow siding with their delusional ideology, I would add that I think that the extermination of Wahabism in the Muslim regions of Russia, and in the rest of the world, for that matter, would be most aided by the promotion of other forms of Islam, Sufiism and Shia Islam in particular. Of course, this is not a choice for me or any other non-Muslim to make, but I cannot ignore the obvious reality that 1) Russia and the Orthodox people have the same enemy as the traditional Muslims of the former Soviet Union (many of which were Sufi – like in Kazakhstan) and 2) Sufiism and Shia Islam are of absolutely no threat to other religions, not only other branches of Islam, but also to Christianity (as long as it is non-Crusading, non-Fascist and not allied to Israel) and other religions (Hinduism for ex). Finally, there is, of course, a moderate form of Sunni Islam, but I don’t hear it too much – it seems to be torn betwen the pressure to betray Muslim interest and support the West, on one side, or fall in the ‘gravitational pull’ of Saudi Islam, which is Wahabi by essense. Anyway, I am getting off topic here…
Coming back to the blasts in Moscow, I do suspect that this is probably a Chechen attack. What I am saying is that I see no EVIDENCE of that yet, only speculations, and that those who will benefit the most of it (cui bono) might not be the Chechen terrorists anyway. Lastly, I am firmly convinced that the real pupetteers of the Chechen terrorists are not in Russia, but in the UK and elsewhere and these anti-Russian interests, mostly Zionist, are my prime suspects.
I hope that this long post will clarify a few things.
Now I am going back to bed, my fever is creeping up again :-(
Cheers,
The Saker
@jack:I wonder why we would think that I am sure it is natural that people just blow up.
This sentence is meaningless, both syntacticly and logically. I will ignore this type of nonsensical comments too.
suicide bombings wouldn’t happen to be a Muslim terror tactic used by Islamic terrorist and insurgent groups
You are such an ignoramus, its actually amazing! Read this:
http://www.amazon.com/Dying-Win-Strategic-Suicide-Terrorism/dp/0812973380/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296011106&sr=8-1
or, AT LEAST, read this:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_was_the_first_suicide_bomber
In conclusion, I am quite proud to inform you that the first suicide bomber against the Israeli invaders of Lebanon was a CHRISTIAN GREEK ORTHODOX girl:
Photo here: http://www.ssnp.com/new/gallery/shohadaa/Sana_01.jpg
Now go read something about the Russian nihilists or the Tamil Tigers before posting nonsense here. And Jack, before you post, *THINK*
(I am usually more polite with folks I don’t agree with, but you, Jack, really need an attitude readjustment, I am sorry to say).
@VINEYARDSAKER
Lastly, I am firmly convinced that the real pupetteers of the Chechen terrorists are not in Russia, but in the UK and elsewhere and these anti-Russian interests, mostly Zionist, are my prime suspects.
No shit!
The centre of this is like Marxist terrorism before is in London and it is mostly British-Jewish interests not a Zionist driven project.
Fact is there support and recruitment inside Russia and neighbouring Eurasian states are from Muslims who the Chechens themselves publically announce.