We don’t yet know much about what happened in North Ossetia, in the sense of the motivations and ethnic origins of the murderers. A lot of people are jumping to the conclusion that they are Chechens. A subset of this group are also delivering blithering rants along the lines of ‘this proves that John Kerry is a poof and we should kill all brown persons’ (the cleverer ones disguise their intentions slightly).
My favourite so far is from Matthew Yglesias’s comments:
If Joe Stalin, the toughest motherfucker of the xxth Century couldn’t conquer these folks, it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than a Sensitive War on an “Exaggerated” War on Terror to resolve the issue. No, on second thought, let’s vote for Kerry and Wait until our kids are held hostage (JFK promises a swift response!)
You absolute fuckheads. If Joe Stalin, the most genocidal maniac of ever, “couldn’t conquer these folks”, this is fairly definite proof that your stupid solution of defeating a chiefly perception-related problem with overwhelming military force is doomed.
The Russians have tried overwhelming brutality in Chechnya. If this outrage is predominantly Chechen, then it’s a pretty good indication that overwhelming brutality is a discredited policy. This makes life difficult for the Russians, who can’t exactly reward the Chechen gunmen for what they’ve done – but at least it’s a lesson on what the West ought not to do going forward.
In short, vote Kerry.
‘Conquer these folks’. Nice.
It’s the typical knee-jerk reaction to these kinds of atrocities. It’s hard to use head over heart in the face of such a massive disregard for the value of human life (and yes the children make it worse) so it’s understandable to a certain extent – but not when you start committing your own little ‘outrages’ in response. Brutality breeds brutality but, judging by Putin’s comments today, I don’t think he’s planning on keeping that particular thought in mind.
10 Arabs.
"You absolute fuckheads."
That’s a succinct and elegant formulation and I wish more politicians felt comfortable using it. That’s not sarcasm by the way.
Eric: Officials initially claimed there were nine or 10 Arabs among the hostage-takers – possibly in an attempt to back up their allegation of al-Qaeda involvement – but some surviving hostages have said they saw no Arabs in the school. (from the BBC). I think my ‘we don’t know much yet’ is probably the most accurate, if not precise, observation we can so far make.