Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Moscow rules

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Russian President Dmitri Medvedev did the unthinkable the other day.

Following the suicide bombings in the Moscow metro in which 38 passengers were blasted apart and ripped to pieces by shrapnel, and 60 others injured, Medvedev called the plotters "beasts" and said, "We will find and destroy them all."

Gasp!

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin struck a similar note:
"We know they are lying low, but it is already a matter of pride for the law enforcement agencies to drag them out of the sewer and into broad daylight."

Gasp!

What they did not say:

"We will arrest those responsible and bring them to justice."

"As terrible as this tragedy is, it would be worse if our diversity became a casualty as well."

"Lord, all those around us search for motive, search for meaning, search for something, someone to blame. That is so frustrating," an Orthodox minister told a group of about 120 people gathered at the Moscow Cathedral. "Lord, teach us to love and pray for those who rise up against us and pray for those who do us harm. We pray for these bombers."

I hardly admire Putin, although in realpolitik terms he is probably as good a leader as any that Russia could come up with, considering its history of authoritarian rule. I'd even go so far as to say that if a large majority of those living in Chechnya and the other rebellious provinces want independence, let them have it; who needs 'em? But I respect Putin and Medvedev for refusing to equivocate concerning the killers of Russian people.

Of course, the AP writes the story from its usual template.
The old Vladimir Putin is back, confronting a terrorist attack in Moscow by using the same kind of coarse and colorful language that helped him win the presidency a decade ago. …

The choice of the gutter language recalled Putin's famous threat to "wipe out the Chechen rebels in the outhouse" after they were blamed for a series of apartment building bombings that terrorized Moscow in 1999.
"Gutter language"? Almost a hundred innocent people are dead or wounded, and the AP is shocked that the prime minister uses "coarse" and "gutter" language? (Putin could undoubtedly have come up with even more, er, colorful terms to describe the bomb plotters.)
Now in his second stint as prime minister after serving two full terms as president, Putin has an excuse to revert to the tough line that shored up his authority following past terrorist attacks.
An excuse? What next from this dopey AP writer, Lynn Barry? "Now that five American cities have been attacked by nuclear 'dirty bombs' and 10 shopping malls blown up, extremists have an excuse to call for an end to Muslim immigration."

The rest of the story writes itself. Ms. Barry probably has a macro in her word processing software for the usual clichés: "raising fears that civil liberties may be further sacrificed under the pretext of fighting terrorism"; "address the root causes of the terrorism in the Caucasus, where deep poverty, rampant corruption and heavy-handed tactics by security forces have provided fertile ground for Islamic militants"; "Many say the Kremlin can no longer ignore the social and economic problems of its southern fringe"; " 'The question is whether there will be accomplishments with social development to give people an alternative to blowing themselves up,' said Sam Greene, a political analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center. "

Fascinating. Sam Greene is upset about the terrorists blowing themselves up. I wonder if he had anything to say about the metro passengers.

And of course the usual cry from a Victim Group member:
Lidia Yusupova, a Chechen rights activist, was more alarmist.

"The system will have its hands untied completely," she told The Associated Press. "There will be a crackdown on all walks of life. We have no rights now, but we will have even fewer soon."

Meanwhile, the president of the Union of Soviet Socialist States put aside his distaste for diplomacy with a capitalist country. Barack Obama called Medvedev to "personally convey" his condolences, and offer help in "bringing to justice" those responsible for the attacks.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Meanwhile, the president of the Union of Soviet Socialist States put aside his distaste for diplomacy with a capitalist country. Barack Obama called Medvedev to "personally convey" his condolences, and offer help in "bringing to justice" those responsible for the attacks.

Now now Rick, that is getting a tad bitter.

There are reports that America was helping Georgia with recruiting Jihadis to attack Russia.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/03/stubbornly-ignorant-and-unwilling-to.html

Anonymous said...

Trouble in Andalus

Two arrested after fight in Cordoba’s former mosque

Trouble erupts as tourists break ban on Muslim prayers in Spanish cathedral which was once world’s second biggest mosque

A confrontation between Muslim tourists and guards employed by the Roman Catholic bishop at the world-famous Cordoba mosque saw two people arrested and two guards injured last night.

Trouble broke out when the visitors knelt to pray in the building, a former mosque turned into a Christian cathedral in the 13th century, where a local bishop, Demetrio Fernández, recently insisted that a ban on Muslim prayers must remain.

Half a dozen members of a group of more than 100 Muslims from Austria had started praying among the marble columns and coloured arches of the vast building when security guards ordered them to stop.

“They provoked in a pre-planned fashion what was a deplorable episode of violence,” the bishop’s office said in a statement.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/01/muslim-catholic-mosque-fight

There will come a time when Muslims will very nicely request that they be given a place to worship, say at St Pauls. Given our idiot leaders, all out for appeasement, the request will be granted. In no time, Muslims will start to expand their space, and before you know it, Christians will be unwelcome.

I realise that Cordoba cathedral is special, as a mosque did exist there, but it is also a fact that invader colonialist Muslims destroyed a church at the same site, to build their mosque in Cordoba.

It is also noticeable that no where, no where in the world, is a mosque being offered to other religions , to share or otherwise.

The MO we see here is repeated in every other space. It is land grab, slice by slice.