Russian Siege Over

[jonogulls]

I kind of agree with both sides of the argument. The Chechen situation is deeply, deeply sad and, without question, the Russians have acted unlawfully and like barbarians in the area. I found those pictures pretty upsetting before but even so I still cannot accept that this is a justified reason for killing young children. In my mind nothing anyone can ever do to me (killing family included) will make me take the lives of innocent people.

It's just really sad when these people feel that the only way the world will hear their viewpoint is through such violence, carnage and murder. Can we, as human beings, not just get along with each other and live together in peace?

 

[London Irish]

As usual the questions are being asked about who is to blame. And as usual I fail to see how anyone can see anything beyond the actions of these people in taking hostages and killing children in a school.

If we stopped talking about what Putin has or hasn't done or how the army and emergency services coped and started concentrating on nothing but the singular condemnation of the people responsible then we might be able to fight terrorism properly. Unfortunately we seem unable to do this and becasue of this, this kind of thing will happen again and again.

I'm sure that's what Putin will want you to do. You've now taken sides in a war between the Russians and the Chechens. And almost certainly the wrong side.

This is also the George W Bush approach - define anything and everything you don't like as "terrorism" and "evil" and banish any kind of moral complexity and political insight. The result of such a "a fight against terrorism" is Afghanistan and Iraq overrun by more warloads and extreme "terrorist" paramilitary groups than ever before.

 

[jonogulls]

I agree London but, even so, no one or no cause can justify the death of 300 innocent school children.

There are other ways.

 

[London Irish]

No one is justifying it though.

I'm sure the Chechens would be delighted to hear any bright ideas about how they can get their country back. I fear we don't have any.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

9 Arab rebels were amoungst the 30 terrorists, yes terrorists. Gladly 27 of the terrorists were blasted to death to meet their worst nightmares( no doubt they think they will go to heaven and meet virgins ). 3 were arrested to be questioned with blowtorches hopefully.

Whatever the reasons and supposed justification any group of men that targets a school with 850 kids knowing they would kill all of them if necessary are scum of the lowest order and I don't give a shit about their cause.

The made the kids kneel down for 2 days and then told them to run for their lives, they tried but couldn;t run and they shot them in their backs.

Scum !. don't even try and give us a history lesson LI, I don't give a shit.

 

[B.M.F]

9 Arab rebels were amoungst the 30 terrorists, yes terrorists. Gladly 27 of the terrorists were blasted to death to meet their worst nightmares( no doubt they think they will go to heaven and meet virgins ). 3 were arrested to be questioned with blowtorches hopefully.

Whatever the reasons and supposed justification any group of men that targets a school with 850 kids knowing they would kill all of them if necessary are scum of the lowest order and I don't give a shit about their cause.

The made the kids kneel down for 2 days and then told them to run for their lives, they tried but couldn;t run and they shot them in their backs.

Scum !. don't even try and give us a history lesson LI, I don't give a shit.

Not forgetting the self proclaimed Angels of Death as at least 2 of the terrorists were women

 

[dougdeep]

It said on the news this morning that none of the terrorists were Chechens.

 

[smudge]

No one is justifying it though.

I'm sure the Chechens would be delighted to hear any bright ideas about how they can get their country back. I fear we don't have any.

Oh now I understand. Killing kids was someone's bright idea as a way of freeing their country.

I'm glad that we have such an enlightened chap as you on here to explain these things. Otherwise my "moral outrage" would get the better of me!

 

[DJ Leon]

I'm sure that's what Putin will want you to do. You've now taken sides in a war between the Russians and the Chechens. And almost certainly the wrong side.

This is also the George W Bush approach - define anything and everything you don't like as "terrorism" and "evil" and banish any kind of moral complexity and political insight. The result of such a "a fight against terrorism" is Afghanistan and Iraq overrun by more warloads and extreme "terrorist" paramilitary groups than ever before.

LOL, what absolute rubbish. It's good to see though that you've proved my point in one condescending paragraph. On a serious note, I would watch what you say about 'taking sides' in all of this. I found that part of your statement offensive. If you'd have bothered to try to understand what I was saying you would have realised that my point is this - don't take sides on issues like this! I condemn the September 11 bombings etc, but I also condemn America's foreign policy and role in world order. I am appalled by the Israeli's and the Palestinians. I am horrified at what the Chechens have done, but at the same time I am horrified by how the Russians have conducted themselves.

You are right about everything you say about Bush, but I never agreed with his view. There is only one way to beat terrorism and that is to create an environment where behaving in the way that all of the above players have is deemed so wrong as to be self-defeating. It is then that we won't have a situation in which such callous acts as we saw yesterday can be 'understood' by people like you.

Point over - but, really, how dare you suggest that I have taken sides in this. You are the one that has taken sides and shame on you for doing it.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

I don't understand the situation as much as you LI, obviously as who could ?. you seem to know everything about every state and every conflict in the history of the world. Ever though of going on mastermind as you know the answers to every question in the world.

Perhaps you should be made PM.

I do know one thing in my misunderstanding of the situation I according to you made the mistke of saying the killing of 300 kids was - evil and was terrorism. You appear to disagree. What type of acid are you on ?.

 

[ben andrews' girlfriend]

I'm sure that's what Putin will want you to do. You've now taken sides in a war between the Russians and the Chechens. And almost certainly the wrong side.

the wrong side?? ok, are you on the side that has now killed over 300 people - most of them kids - then??

 

[B.M.F]

the wrong side?? ok, are you on the side that has now killed over 300 people - most of them kids - then??

I would be careful with that one BAG. The russians have committed atrocities and voilations against civil liberties themselves.

Not targeted at children but their are 2 sides to every story and although Very Very wrong the Chechnyans have their reasons but just went about it the VERY WRONG
WAY

 

[Yorkie]

Reuters 12.58.

Russian school death toll hits 322



By Richard Ayton and Oliver Bullough

BESLAN, Russia (Reuters) - At least 322 people, almost half of them children, have died in the bloodbath that ended a school siege by Chechen separatists in southern Russia, says a senior justice official.

With hospitals overflowing and many bewildered relatives still seeking news of missing loved ones after Friday's bloody denouement, President Vladimir Putin ordered a security crackdown in the Caucasus.

As he visited the hospital in the town of Beslan, the scene of the drama not far from Chechnya, he warned separatist sympathisers that they would be viewed as "accomplices of terrorism".

Giving figures that confirmed the episode as the grimmest hostage-taking of modern times, Deputy Prosecutor-General Sergei Fridinsky said on Saturday: "As a result of the terrorist acts, 322 people were killed, 155 of whom were children ... I think the death toll will rise, but probably not very much."

Putin said he had ordered Beslan and the surrounding region of Ossetia to be sealed off in the hunt for perpetrators.

"One of the tasks pursued by the terrorists was to stoke ethnic hatred, to blow up the whole of our North Caucasus," he told security officials.

"Anyone who feels sympathetic towards such provocations will be viewed as accomplices of terrorists and terrorism."

Fridinsky said 26 militants had been involved in the hostage seizure, and all had been killed.

ANXIOUS RELATIVES

With hundreds still being treated for burns and gunshot wounds, anxious relatives milled at the town's cinema, where officials were due to provide details of the dead and injured.

Ruslan, a young man, was searching for his wife: "I've been searching all day and I can't find her. Where are our people ? No one tells us anything. No one is protecting us."

Most of the dead had been in the school's gymnasium, officials said. They were killed either by explosions that brought down the roof, mined by the hostage-takers, or by the fire and the battles between soldiers and captors that followed.

Putin's harsh tone in his quick visit to Beslan suggested he had no plan to relax his determination to crush mainly Muslim Chechnya's rebellion and keep it within Russia, using tactics long criticised by human rights activists.

The storming of the school by Russian forces, after explosions inside, unleashed pandemonium. Pupils, parents and teachers, many drenched in blood, were carried out on stretchers or in the arms of local men as bullets flew overhead.

The authorities said they had been forced to send in troops when the gunmen opened fire on fleeing children.

"When we entered the gym there was a huge fire and a lot of people on the floor. Everything was on fire, even their hair was burning," the daily Kommersant quoted a commando who took part in the storming of the school as saying.

Some 25 bodies were laid out in the yard of Middle School No. 1 on Saturday morning, most in body bags, but some, men without shirts, lay uncovered just outside a school window.

Four of the dozen or so mass hostage sieges in the past 30 years have been in Russia. All four have been linked to the war in Chechnya and all ended in huge loss of life.

Putin, who had promised on national television to do everything to keep the hostages from harm, appeared angry as he put down officials who sought to commend the security forces.

"As far as the special forces are concerned, this is a separate story. We will talk about it later," he said.

Explosives and arms used by the gunmen had been smuggled into the school well in advance during summer building work, Interfax quoted an unnamed regional security source as saying.

Western governments offered sympathy to Putin. But the European Union said in a statement it wanted an explanation from Russia of "how this tragedy could have happened".

Freed hostages described Friday's mayhem. "Bombs were strung all over the gym," one teenage girl told state television. "Tape came unstuck on one and it blew up."

"There were two big explosions," said a women in her 40s. "We started pushing all the children out of the windows ... Everyone who was there started pushing them out."

North Ossetia is the only predominantly Orthodox province in the otherwise mostly Muslim North Caucasus. But the whole region is a tinderbox of small national groups and any crackdown carries a risk of disrupting further a delicate ethnic balance.

____________________________________________________

This is evil. Two wrongs do not make a right.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Al Queda must be very proud of themselves as this is down to them make no mistake. They cannot stoop any lower now, they have reached the lowest possible point.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

LI - I have read some more of your stuff. You really have lost the plot on this one haven't you.

You say the killing of hundreds of kids is and I quote not evil . I am very glad to say I am a weak minded individual.

Have you any kids, I wonder if you would think the same if someone blew their brains out when they were fleeing for their lives.

 

[jonogulls]

People must realise that you can support the Chechen cause without supporting the actions of these 30 terrorists.

You don't have to group them together and say that all Chechens are murderous terrorists simply because some of them chose to do this. Equally so you can not say that it was OK for these people to do this just because they have a just and fair cause.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

A lot of the terrorists were arab mercenaries, soldiers of fortune who would shoot their own child for a few gold coins supplied by bin Laden.

They don't care about the Chechen cause , they are evil people who enjoy killing and terrorising.

Some as the 19 tossers on 9/11, they were just evil losers who enjoyed killing innocent people.

Its as simple as that really, don't complicate matters.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, as they say.

Little kids on their first day of school got no say in the matter tho.

No matter where your sympathies lie, can't believe that anybody on here would condone the actions of the hostage-takers.

 

[Sorrel]

You don't have to group them together and say that all Chechens are murderous terrorists simply because some of them chose to do this. Equally so you can not say that it was OK for these people to do this just because they have a just and fair cause.

Obviously you can't say that all Chechens are terrorists because of this. But equally I don't think the correct response is to start looking for reasons anyone would be so "desperate" to have to commit this atrocity.

I've had enough of causes that have groups who support them prepared to commit acts of terror to bring the world's "attention". I've spent many years explaining to people, for example, that the Palestinians have been treated terribly by the Israelis, but this incident is the last straw for me. If any group targets civilians alone, like here – or the bus bombings in Israel, then I'm no longer interested in the whole cause they support, however worthy some of it may be. I’m sick of apologists for atrocities, when any group could commit themselves to only attacking military or government targets, or indeed committing themselves to purely peaceful means if they wanted.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Spot on Duncan

I am sickened by some people on here and their justifications as to why the terrorists killed 320 people, 150 children. I don't care !.

There is no justification whatsever for this so just shut the f*** up trying to get in the terrorists minds and rationalise their reasoning.

They should be put against a wall with 50 parents of a murdered child who have access to weapons of torture and killed very very slowly and painfully.