Was MH17 Terrorism?

This about Geopolitics, tagged , , , , was written by for on July 20, 2014

Reprinted from Facebook (2018/02/15):

Let’s say that the SBU recordings are genuine and the NAF was directly responsible for shooting down MH77 on the mistaken impression that it was a (valid) military target. Should this then be classed as terrorism? Would it invoke NATO’s Article 5, as some of the most heated rhetoric is suggesting?

(See http://www.spitsnieuws.nl/…/nederland-en-vs-bereiden-invasi…)

Well, I suppose you *can*. But then for consistency’s sake you would also have to label the US and Ukraine (ironically enough) as terrorist states themselves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 – US tried to avoid responsibility, never apologized to Iran. Eventually paid up some blood money.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812 – Ukraine tried to avoid responsibility, until the Russian investigative team came up with definitive proof that they did it. Never apologized, though did eventually pony up blood money.

If you do not support declaring the US and Ukraine to be terrorist states on this basis, with all the consequences thereof – massive sanctions, pariah status, etc. – then you have no ground to do so either for the DNR or Russia. However, if it is found that they were responsible – either the DNR directly, or Russia for supplying the Buk in question – then it would be appropriate to expect them to pay off the relatives. If that is the official finding, then I would strongly support it myself.

Of course, this would not apply if the DNR shot down MH77 on purpose. However, that possibility is disproved by the junta’s purported evidence itself.

Translation: The Caucasus Situation

This about Politics, tagged , , , was written by for on September 10, 2013

In this article by Alexey Stepanov from Komsomolskaya Pravda, recent events and continued concern over the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi demonstrate that terrorism still afflicts Russian territory

Putin: Several Countries Are Deliberately Destabilizing the Situation in the Northern Caucasus

The President of the Russian Federation urged to “more roughly stop such attempts and to always give an appropriate response.”

At an enlarged meeting of Russia’s Security Council, the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin stated that several countries and international organizations are still interested in the destabilization of the situation in the Northern Caucuses.

“We are facing the destructive, anti-Russian activity of a number of foreign countries and non-governmental and international organizations under their control, who still consider the Northern Caucasus as a base for the destabilization of Russia as a whole” said Putin, as quoted by the BBC.

In connection with this, Putin considers it necessary to “more roughly stop such attempts and to always give an appropriate response.”The head of the government also emphasized that the terrorist threat in the Northern Caucuses is holding out (still remains), now as before.

“In spite of the obvious positive progress, the state of affairs in the Northern Caucuses improves much too slowly.  The terrorist threat and challenges to security have not been removed once and for all”, Vladimir Putin declared, recalling, “the suppression and neutralization of terrorist and criminal threats are especially important in connection with the holding of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014.”

We remind you that on Monday, September 9th, at around 8 in the morning, a Russian diplomat in Abkhazia was shot and killed.

In Moscow on Sunday, September 8th, the 25 year old militant Sherali Kuratov, of the extremist organization “Mujahideen Jamaat al-Tawheed Val-Jihad”, was arrested with a grenade in his pocket.

On the eve of the holiday¹ in the capital, several attacks against members of Moscow’s police force occurred, which led to (ended up with) mass arrests of immigrants and members of criminal ethnic groups.  Moscow’s Central Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs stressed that these raids in the struggle against illegal immigrants were not demonstrative and will be conducted regularly.

Translator notes

1.  The holiday in question is “Election Day”

Angsty Chechens Come To Boston

This about Society, tagged , , , , was written by for on April 20, 2013

Is discussed at the other blog.

To add a couple of things that are Russia specific:

(1) We now learn that the FBI had interviewed the older brother at the bequest of an unspecific foreign government – almost certainly Russia. Tamerlan had visited it for 6 months in 2011. I wonder if he established links with some of the Caucasus Emirate Wahhabi types while there – and if so, whether US suspicions about Russia’s “assaults” on human rights in Chechnya made them drop their guard on a man who, it is now clear, was by then fast becoming an Islamist radical. The one silver lining to this horrible event is that it will become even more obvious that the Chechen rebellion has now been completely subsumed into the global Islamist struggle – and by extension, it will encourage the West to take a closer look at its “friends” in Syria.

(2) The reactions of Russian liberals has as always been as hilarious as it is nauseating. They seriously believe that the FSB is behind this.

Vasily Gatov, state news agency RIA employee: “I am watching three TV channels and listening to the radio, and reading the Boston Globe, and I gather that the main task of the FBI is to take the suspect alive. There is a drama brewing between Watertown, Washington, Moscow, and Grozny… And who knows which other cities. But I’m sure that the greatest fear is felt in Grozny. Which is why he will be taken alive.”

Self-hating random Echo of Moscow commentator: “I will not be surprised if it turns out that the Tsarnaev brothers where recruited by Russian special forces for the execution of this terrorist act, because Russia will benefit from it. Why? Because this terrorist act will change American and Western public opinion – and hence, that of their politicians  – towards Chechnya. If before the Western public supported the Chechens’ independence struggle, it is now more likely that they will support the Russian government’s policy on the Caucasus. And this means that the Kremlin KGBists will be able to use still crueler and more barbaric methods to fight separatism on the part of the Caucasus peoples. In other words, this terrorist act will untie the hands of the Kremlin in its war against the peoples of the Caucasus.“

The Tsarnaev Brothers

This about Society, tagged , , , , was written by for on April 19, 2013

Make of this what you will.

(1) The older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, never adjusted to life in the US. “I don’t have a single American friend,” he said. His younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, had an understanding of US teen hood / SWPL culture. He was a 9/11 “truther.” That’s from the Twitter account. That said, he wasn’t too down with America either.

[Read more…]

Chechnya, A Once And Future War?

This about Geopolitics, tagged , , , , , was written by for on December 5, 2010

Truly, if Willian Burns were to issue an anthology of his Moscow cables during his 2005-2008 ambassadorship, I’d seriously consider buying it. Just consider this cable from May 2006, on Chechnya’s “Once and Future War”, a nuanced US view of that conflict and the cynicism and corruption it engendered amongst all its parties.

What struck me first was its reminder of the awesome magnitude of corruption and state dissolution during the 1990’s. Though Transparency International might claim that nothing much has changed in the past two decades (or even regressed), it is belied by Burns’ vision of a “military-entrepreneurial” officer corps that proclaimed President Yeltsin’s “business” was to “sit in Moscow, drink vodka, and chase women” while they did “[their] work” in the Caucasus region. And profitable work it was too. Due to post-Soviet Russia’s low domestic energy prices, it was highly lucrative to launder oil it through Chechnya, sell it on foreign markets, and make big dollar on the difference. Army officers profited from the racket; their Chechen partners spent their cut of the gravy to arm themselves for war. One of the primary causes of the First Chechen War, apart from the state’s usual hatred of separatism, was a specific desire to reassert control over Chechnya’s oil and arms bazaar.

[Read more…]