An article appeared in the New York Times on September 15, 2004, that completely explains the dynamics in the area of Afghanistan that continually creates extremists that will fight any authority to the death.
The story is about a man named Shamil Basayev. He was born to rebel parents that assisted in winning the Chechen highlands. That victory came with a reality most children don't have in that along with victories 40 of his relatives had died in exile. The first reaction is, "Of course, he would grow to be a rebel like his parents, so what is there to understand, the man is a terrorist." Not so.
Terrorists aren't born they are developed.
Mr. Basayev is responsible for organizing militias and carrying out both in leadership and participation, deadly attacks against Russia well known by the world. Included in those attacks were the Breslan School and the hostage-taking in a Russian theater. But, Mr. Basayev was not always such a terrorist, so much as an attempt at politics and leadership of Chechnya. He would have been better at leadership than the current president who is believed to be in Putin's back pocket.
The current president of Chechnya is Ramzan Kadyrov. He is in power because he has name recognition. His family and his family's name are well known to the Chechen people.
For more than a decade the Kremlin has relied on him to maintain order in Chechnya - the Russian North Caucasus republic he has ruled like a personal fiefdom.
Human rights groups have accused him of a string of abuses, including the forced disappearance of opponents, torture and the persecution of homosexuals.
Critics have linked Ramzan Kadyrov to several assassinations, some of them in Europe, but he denies involvement.
In 2015 he praised a Chechen security officer charged over the Moscow killing of Boris Nemtsov, who had been one of President Vladimir Putin's most prominent critics.
Mr Kadyrov said Zaur Dadayev, a Russian Interior Ministry officer, was "sincerely devoted to Russia, ready to give his life for the motherland". In 2017 Dadayev and four others were jailed for the murder.
A day after having praised Dadayev in 2015 Mr Kadyrov received a top award from President Putin....
The USA policy on Chechnya is so far afield we haven't separated it from Russia since 2002.
Chairman Nighthorse Campbell, Co-Chairman Smith and CSCE commissioners, thank you for the invitation to speak today on Chechnya. The Administration welcomes this opportunity to discuss U.S. policy on Chechnya and the events of the past several months.
As you all know, the current conflict in Chechnya in a few months will begin its third year. Coming on the heels of the first conflict in Chechnya from 1994-1996, this latest conflict has dragged on nearly twice as long but with a similarly tragic price in human lives, people’s homes, and Chechen society. The casualties mount every day -- for both sides, Chechen and Russian alike -- and the pain and suffering of innocent civilians resulting from the fighting see no end in sight. There are few places in the world that have borne such devastation as Chechnya. Continuation of the conflict not only constitutes a drain on Russian development and a living nightmare for innocent Chechens, but it poses a threat to the entire Caucasus region.
Sadly, this tragic situation shows no signs of ending soon. The fighting goes on. Russian forces conduct sweeps, sealing... towns and villages and searching house to house for fighters. Often these sweeps are subsequently followed by reports of the beatings and torture of civilians, of extortion, or the disappearances of young men. Russian convoys are ambushed daily by Chechen fighters using landmines, and Russian blockposts or administrative buildings are often attacked in hit-and-run raids. Pro-Moscow Chechen administrators are assassinated. The economy is in shambles. Housing and infrastructure are destroyed, especially in Grozny where thousands still live, struggling from day to day in the most difficult conditions....
May of 2002 was an interesting time. September 11, 2001, has occurred and we had soldiers in Afghanistan at that point as well as other places in the world where they act in the balance of power. At this time, little did we realize the Bush White House was planning a war campaign into Iraq, but, that would initiate in March of 2003. But, in that context, it is somewhat understandable that Chechnya was placed on the back burner and probably at the request of Vladimir Putin who was still a member of the G8. But, no focus has ever returned to Chechnya and it shows it. The leadership is brutal and it panders to Putin, even if in name only.
Russia was an ally to the USA following September 11, 2001. They set up the first field hospitals in Afghanistan so in case our troops arrived and were injured there would be personnel and supplies to take care of them immediately. Nearly every country on the world was traumatized by the attacks that day and those that weren't are angry with the world in general anyway.
So, we understand now how leadership can be made to choose allies that are unfavorable to the people at a time when many things are going wrong. The choice between a war with the Taliban and al Qaeda vs. favoring Chechnya's independence is a no-brainer. Russia is given a pass on the brutality leveraged in Chechnya. And history speaks for itself.
The reversal of any support, if you can call it that, by the USA was after September 11, 2001. But, the unrest and priorities of the people of Chechnya don't stop there. Remember the Boston Bombing on April 15, 2013. It was linked to domestic sympathizers to the struggle in Chechnya. Russia had warned the USA about the Tsarnaev brothers. But, the FBI came up short in being able to arrest, detain or exile them from the USA.
October 23, 2013
By Mark Memmott
Papers filed by prosecutors in Boston (click here) this week confirm that a friend of accused Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev told investigators that Tsarnaev took part in a 2011 triple murder in Massachusetts.
Tsarnaev had been linked to the murders before. We wrote on May 23 that:
- Ibragim Todashev, the 27-year-old man shot and killed after he allegedly attacked an FBI agent [on May 22] in Orlando, may have been involved with Boston bombings suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a 2011 triple murder.
- As NPR's Dina Temple-Raston reported on All Things Considered, "it's still under investigation, but law enforcement authorities told us that this young man had been interviewed extensively" about the September 2011 killings of three men in Waltham, Mass., as well as his friendship with Tsarnaev....
So young men who were in the USA for all the right reasons, when they weren't necessarily successful in the way they wanted, turned to be fighters for the cause and the American people paid the price that day of perhaps wayward foreign policy with Chechnya. There is still a huge gap between the Chechen people and their leadership. This is how Chechen leadership appears to be amicable people that everyone can trust. After all, Chechnya is a difficult place to take control and no one wants more problems in the region after all.
July 17, 2021
By Gojko
The flamboyantly militant Chechen leader and his cronies famously clowned with a visiting Mike Tyson. He flew in former Brazilian soccer stars for a celebrity match against his own private team. And he hired Hollywood stars for his 35th birthday.
His critics and perceived opponents have had less reason to celebrate a regime marked by alleged political assassinations, kidnappings, and other systematic persecution.
Rights groups describe Kadyrov's 14-year tenure as ruthless and oppressive, petty and vindictive, and serially abusive of women and minorities.
But that hasn't deterred a local youth group in northern Bosnia-Herzegovina from adopting Kadyrov as the face of a summertime Chechnya Fest music festival that they say actually has nothing to do with Chechnya or its strongman.
They're using images of Kadyrov, in full military dress, in promotional materials on- and off-line to attract visitors to the festival in Bileca, in the Serb-dominated part of the country, on July 22....
In my opinion, it is a shame Shamil Basayev was never allowed in many ways to become a leader of significance to Chechnya, even though he had a time as Prime Minister. That is pure speculation, but, at the same time, was Russia attempting to make a martyr out of Basayev? It sort of seems that way to me. They destroyed his life and what was left was a man that had no reason to be civil anymore. That is Russia and the demonization of a strong Chechen military leader. That is also not the entire story here.
All that said, the departure into Chechnya is somewhat of a backdrop to what I will write here. Now, back to the article I cited at the top of the page.
...During his long run as Russia's most wanted man, Mr. Basayev briefly shed the image of a terrorist in the mid-1990's to become a storied guerrilla commander, exuding tactical dexterity and sarcastic charm as he led fighters who chased the Russian Army from Chechen soil. Back then he rarely displayed the ascetic habits of the Islamic extremists he later embraced; in a break during a battle in 1995 he pointed to looted vodka and offered a journalist from The New York Times a drink....
...How did the separatist become the nihilist? What makes Shamil Basayev tick?...
..As a young man living in Moscow, he joined Boris Yeltsin at the barricades to resist the coup when the Soviet Union unraveled in 1991, a decision he described as a calculated move, telling the newspaper Moskovskaya Pravda several years later that if the hard-liners had succeeded, "you can kiss Chechnya's independence goodbye."...
...Many who have studied him claim that Russia's intelligence services trained him for the Abkhaz war, a version of history that casts him as a proxy who broke his leash -- the Kremlin's Frankenstein monster. The public evidence is unclear....
...Details of his next months are also contradictory. Mr. Ignatchenko said Mr. Basayev went to Afghanistan in 1994 to train in a terrorist camp. Mr. Basayev once told a New York Times correspondent that the charge was not true, but he has been quoted elsewhere confirming it.
Any mingling with terrorists will turn the USA policy to ice if found out.
..."From April through July 1994, myself and a group of 30, we were in Afghanistan, in the province of Khost," the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta quoted him saying in 1996. "I sold some weapons and borrowed some money and we went."
War broke out in Chechnya in December 1994. Mr. Basayev organized Grozny's defenses and emerged as the resistance's most capable commander....
The terrorists they trained with were the Taliban. Training militants, especially those with a talent for battlefield successes was commerce to the Taliban.
...In May 1995, the Russians destroyed his family's homes. The attacks reportedly killed 11 of his relatives, including his wife, two daughters and a brother. "That could have propelled him, because he was not a born terrorist," Dr. Trenin said. "The annihilation of his clan may have pushed him in this direction."...
This was done for one reason and one reason only, and that was to propel Shamil Basayev into the worst demon in the world second only to perhaps Osama bin Laden. That is Russia. There was absolutely no reason to kill those people. They never carried weapons against Russia, yet they were the ones to pay the price of being born to a man that Russia wanted to destroy. These are the tactics of Russian intelligence with their leaders. They kill because people pose a threat to the power of the communists. So, if they can't kill the person causing the problem, why not all his relatives? Why not? They must have bad blood or something and Shamil Basayev's children could be worse than him and we can't stop him and he was a child of a rebel family. So, kill them all and end the rebellion. Right? That act by Russia, in and of itself is genocide. There are a lot of people killed because of their bloodline. That is genocide. It is not on a large scale, but, it is the definition of genocide. Ending a genetic line of people is an act of genocide.
...Mr. Basayev relented, exchanging hostages for passage back to Chechnya, where in 1996 he commanded the assault that ousted the Russian Army from Grozny and led to de facto Chechen autonomy....
The Russian Army could not stop him on many occasions. They never could even with a bounty on his head.
...By then Mr. Basayev was the unrivaled guerrilla leader of Chechnya, a role he played with style. Unlike Osama bin Laden, with whom he is sometimes compared, Mr. Basayev lacked a list of global grievances and the blank messianic stare. He focused his rage against Russia, and, even after the deaths of his family members, often wisecracked....
...Those who have studied Mr. Basayev and his fighters say they appear to have made a marriage of convenience. Marginalized in politics, they joined with Islamists and found access to foreigners and cash....
..."My distinct feeling is that this was not a religious conversion," he said. "This was a means to an end, but a means that led him down this horrible path."...
...In early 2000, when the Russian Army was attacking Chechnya again, only one government recognized Chechnya's independence: the Taliban's in Afghanistan....
..."These are beasts, not people," said Aslan Aslakhanov, a Kremlin adviser on the Chechen war. "These animals have shown their true face."...
Others are tied to Mr. Basayev, whose core now calls itself the Riyadus-Salakhin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs, which the State Department designated as a terrorist organization last year. During the siege at Beslan, a hostage taker spoke by telephone with The New York Times and said he was from that group....
..No matter the immediate fate of Mr. Basayev, the experts said, his legacy will almost certainly be much like the followers that Al Qaeda developed in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and will include continued terror acts.
"These guys are incredibly professional, to use the most morbid sense of the word," said Nick Pratt, director of the Program on Terrorism and Security at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany....
On January 10, 2016, Shamil Salmanovich Basayev died and is survived by two relatives still alive.
This entry to this blog is not about elevating a known terrorist to the status of hero, but, many do and probably for all the right reasons. But, Shamil Basayev is a clear demonstration of what occurs under oppression and a heavy hand by the government. The intention by Russia was to silence Shamil Basayev, which in turn, would bring peace to Chechnya. It didn't. It brought a brutal dictator that oppresses the Chechen people and provides a platform for Shamil Basayev with the right to be exalted by people that value him.
This entry is about the very wrong point of view taken by the extreme right-wing politics of the USA in the Republican camp and FOX News currently engaged in attempting to resurrect the USA's presence in Afghanistan.
President Biden is absolutely correct in leaving Afghanistan. There is no taming it to accommodate democracy. The Taliban nearly 20 years later, a generation's time, is still the most powerful force in the region. There are others, like the remnants of Deash, that call Afghanistan their home for the sake of remaining terrorists to try again sometime in the future to bring back the Islamic State.
There is absolutely nothing the USA can do in Afghanistan that will change anything. The Taliban will exist as long as they are making money in their terrorist training camps and selling poppies to the world. For any Republican or FOX News to advocate returning to Afghanistan is nothing but propaganda and very dangerous propaganda.
The American people tried in Afghanistan. We threw troops and military hardware and money at the country and it has changed little in a lasting way. The Taliban love roadblocks called checkpoints to facilitate their power over the people. The religion of the day is a foreign understanding of the Muslim faith. The killing they do and the brutality they practice have no basis within the Muslim faith.
The American people did the best they could and lost many of our bravest men and women there. Some soldiers returning with severed limbs, brain injury, and permanently disabled requiring intense and lengthy rehabilitation. We, as a country, are lucky to hang on to them because they and their peers from Iraq are all too willing to end their PTSD in their own killing.
There is no further story in Afghanistan and right-wing propaganda has to be viewed by the FCC to determine if this is more deception of the American public and is it bordering on treason and instilling fear into voters to cause them to shift their ballots to expose themselves to further war.
Afghanistan is a very dangerous place. It is in a hellish part of the world with mountains that do not forgive mistakes and kill through exposure people who thought all they needed to get through any mountain pass was a sturdy donkey. The country will have problems forever. It is now returning to an unstable government where the people will eke out a living and will live once again under the thumb of the Taliban.
The USA doesn't have a role there anymore. There is no reason for American contractors to visit in hopes of making millions. The Taliban are back and in a backhanded way, they will police Afghanistan and bring about some degree of control and order. Yes, women will lose whatever they gained but only because the men don't value their women for talent so much as leisurely recreation.
It is my hope that President Biden's administration will bring about a method to recognize the underbelly of a country to elevate the people involved in movements to change their lives and make them happier. "Free Russia" which has a de facto leader in Mr. Navany is a good example. The Chechens have to be a part of the international dialog along with many unsettled people in Africa that struggle to maintain a life without starvation and with hopes of educating their children.
It is morally wrong to classify people as part of a sovereign country when they do not believe they are and there is a strong history of resistence.
AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE GAMING OF WAR AT FOX NEWS, please.
