Jane Pauley and Bryant Gumbel are in the next room, anchoring the Today show for old time's sake. It'd be interesting to go back to 1980s me and see the reaction when I was informed that in thirty years' time, the people blowing up Russians would be the bad guys.
Books. Bikes. Boomsticks.
“I only regret that I have but one face to palm for my country.”
Monday, December 30, 2013
Creepy-Ass Crackers.
Well, it looks like them kooky Chechens are up to their old antics in Tsaritsyn Stalingrad Volgagrad. I think I can safely point the finger at Chechens without being accused of racial profiling because I don't reckon it's possible for me to racially profile somebody from the, you know, Caucasus.
Jane Pauley and Bryant Gumbel are in the next room, anchoring the Today show for old time's sake. It'd be interesting to go back to 1980s me and see the reaction when I was informed that in thirty years' time, the people blowing up Russians would be the bad guys.
Jane Pauley and Bryant Gumbel are in the next room, anchoring the Today show for old time's sake. It'd be interesting to go back to 1980s me and see the reaction when I was informed that in thirty years' time, the people blowing up Russians would be the bad guys.
Why exactly did the Russians violently insist that Chechnya remain part of Russia? I've never seen the benefit.
ReplyDeleteOld time's sake?
ReplyDelete"Ah, Comrade, remember the days of informants and gulags? When people could be denounced and out of their apartments by dawn so the Cheka junior officials could move in quickly and without bother?
I think Chechnya remaining part of Russia was purely for the sake of tradition. Poor choice.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of the country targeted, blowing up civilians is still terrorism regardless of how it is justified and not acceptable.
It's those crazy, wacky, guys from Chechnya!
ReplyDelete@Bram - I was told that it was to encourage the other resource bearing satellite regions wouldn't get the idea that they too could separate.
ReplyDeleteI suspect it is a way to stay close to the pipelines across the region - thus the invasion of Georgia a few years ago. And it's pride - if the tsars had it, and the USSR had it, Russia must have it.
ReplyDeleteNote I am not a Russologist or Sovietologist, nor do I play one on CNN or MSNBC.
LittleRed1
Regarding your post's title: XKCD comic has a fun way of looking at hyphenated phrases.
ReplyDeleteShift the hyphen by one word and the entire context changes.
http://xkcd.com/37/
Relevant to the title: http://xkcd.com/37/
ReplyDeleteRuzhyo, then they should have thought of this long ago. The analogy of an abusive spouse (gender neutral, of course) comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteBram:
ReplyDelete"Pot to kettle, you are black, repeat, you are black. Pot out."
I recall a chap named Lincoln who reacted poorly to secession. And we may end up facing the secession question ourselves yet again.
It also ain't that simple in Chechnya. The people that really want secession are mostly Islamist radicals.
If an atheist group in California wanted to secede, and started bombing churches and federal buildings in California and surrounding states, while the average Californian went "WTF?", would you be in favor of these people taking over California?
>Why exactly did the Russians violently insist that Chechnya remain part of Russia? I've never seen the benefit.
ReplyDeletesearchfu: Chechnya oil
-SM
For a really interesting read on the Chechen thing, try "One Soldier's War" by Moscow lawyer and opposition journalist Arkady Babchenko, who served two tours in Chechnya as an enlisted man. Probably the most horrific first-hand account of war I've ever read. If there are any good guys in that mess it is the first-year draftees (who are beaten and extorted on a daily basis by the second-year draftees, who receive similar treatment from the thirdyear guys) and the Chechen peasants who are caught between the militants and the Russians. When the Special Forces good guys steal anti-tank missiles to swap to the bad guys for heroin the notion of good guys gets hard to follow. As we said in boats back in the 70s... sixteen empty missile tubes, a firestorm from Berlin to Valdistock, and now it's Miller Time!
ReplyDeleteWell, my dim recollection of history kinda reminds me that the Chechens basically haven't changed in the past few hundred years in relations with Russians.
ReplyDeleteThe Chechens are basically unpleasant, pushy, violent, tribal , annoying, muslim and criminal, to Russians ( and everyone else)
The Russians are invasive, pushy punitive, not muslim, and have odd ideas like taxation, and service to the state.
The tzarist Army and bureaucracy had the same problems with Chechens as the current regime.
As far as as I can tell the reasons the Russians are there are so punitive expeditions can be resolved as internal matters ( they'd happen anyway, this makes for less paperwork at the foreign office) and to keep any other state trouble makers out.
(Basically being nominally under russian control is less work that having a "country" "run" by out and out criminal gangs on your border.)
I used to argue that the Chechens had valid grievances against the Russians (which actually could be said of any nation or ethic group on the Russian doorstep).
ReplyDeleteUntil Beslan.
My attitude now is that they deserve each other. Good and hard.
You knew about this song, right?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3dTkv60h-A
There was a news report back in September that said Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia said they would turn off the Chechen terrorists IF Russia abandoned Assad and Syria. Bandar claimed they had that much control over the Chechen Independence Movement?
ReplyDeleteIf there is a reprisal in KSA, then we will know that the media report was true. Do not worry though, the Princes and Commissars are well protected. The only blood spilled will be the little people's.
Paul, apparently our minds work in parallel. But you need to reset your clock ahead by 13 minutes.
ReplyDelete*sigh*
ReplyDeleteSomebody beat me to it. I can't help reading "Crazy Ass-Crackers" and wondering what they are.
Of course that should be "Creepy Ass-Crackers"...derp.
ReplyDelete