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Home » Beslan: second anniversary

Beslan: second anniversary

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s the second anniversary of one of the worst terrorist acts in history, the Beslan kidnapping and massacre.

I wrote this post one year ago, on the first anniversary. Nothing much has changed since then. The sorrow of the parents who lost children has probably not eased much, although it has gotten a little older.

The main thrust of most articles written on this second anniversary (and there are relatively few, especially outside of Russia) focus on the rage the families feel at the Russian authorities for what is perceived as their negligent handling of the incident. This feeling has been fueled by a new and controversial report by a member of the State Duma, Yury Savelyev, who disagrees with the official findings that the first shots fired in the final confrontation were set off by the terrorists. He writes that the initial blasts came from the Russian authorities.

It’s impossible from this vantage point to even begin to evaluate who might be correct. Some accuse Savelyev of distorting the facts for political gain (sound familiar)? Whatever the truth might be, his report–and other articles about the anniversary–are definitely part of a trend that I’ve noticed before under similar circumstances, which is this: when terrorists attack, people often seem to direct the bulk of their anger at their own authorities, blaming them for failure to protect.

In this case, my guess is that the Russian authorities are indeed guilty of some sort of contributory negligence. Perhaps they didn’t fire at the school first, despite what Savelyev has said. But they may indeed have messed up in some way or other, perhaps even in several different ways.

But any negligence on their part is contributory only. There’s no question this was a terrorist attack of extreme and unusual coldbloodedness. The guilt and responsibility lie squarely with the terrorists themselves. They were the ones who chose a target with a predominance of children among the victims, they were the ones who subjected those children and others to great suffering both before and during their deaths, and they were the ones who had a chance to view that suffering and yet still did not relent (even shooting some of the children in the back as they fled the final conflagration).

But most of those terrorists–except one–are now dead. They are out of reach; the Russian authorities are not. It’s a normal human reaction to blame those close at hand, especially if they are perceived as having had a duty to protect and as having failed that duty.

But history only plays once; we don’t have an alternate universe in which the Russian military and police get another opportunity to do something different, something more effective, something that preserved more lives. Was there any chance of a more successful outcome, given the ferocity of the hostage-takers? I personally don’t think so, but I have no way of knowing. Neither does anyone else.

Many people in Russia criticize the fact that the terrorists were not stopped somewhere on the way to their target. This is similar to criticisms mounted in this country towards the CIA and FBI for not noticing and stopping the 9/11 hijackers long before they did their nefarious business.

A group calling itself the Mothers of Beslan speaks out:

“We are convinced that the difficult last two years have not brought us to the truth about the Beslan tragedy but to the covering up of the truth.”

That lack of trust means that even the trial of Nurpashi Kulayev, who officials say was the only hostage-taker not to die during the fighting, failed to bring closure to victims and their relatives.

“One person cannot be responsible for the deaths of more than 300. Those who allowed the fighters to travel unhindered to Beslan along federal roads should sit in his place. And those who allowed the bloody ending,” said Valery Karlov, who lost his father.

That last quote says a great deal. There is only one person left alive from among the perpetrators, hardly enough to bear the brunt of all the rage and grief the families–and much of Russia–still feel. The authorities, however, are alive and kicking, as well as numerous.

And no doubt there are plenty of reasons to blame them, as their response was far from perfect, as are most human responses to an unforeseen and unprecedented crisis. The basic human need to believe that, if the police and military and government had done their job correctly, no one need have died, is compounded by a traditional (and probably justified) distrust of the Russian government. Any official report from that source is already seen as a whitewash.

But we can all agree that Beslan was one of the saddest episodes yet in the annals of terrorism, and that many of the rescuers distinguished themselves that day. Here are some poignant photos, for remembrance (I have omitted any photos of the dead out of respect, although there are many at the website from which I got these pictures):



Comments

Beslan: second anniversary — 34 Comments

  1. Sad images.
    Authorities mught be accused of negligence of errors, but the main guilt lies with the ideologue of the massacre, Basaev, who fortunately is dead now.

    Children murdered in what amounted baiscally to a propaganda coup. I cannot fathom how, after Beslan, anyone can be sympathetic to the islamist cause (as much of the left disgracefully is).

  2. Zeno, don’t subvert this horrific incident for your own selfish causes. To do so is an insult to the dead children of Beslan. This tragedy was perpetrated by desperate, dehumanised individuals but there is as much blood on the hands of the Russian security forces as there is on the hands of the dead terorists.

  3. but there is as much blood on the hands of the Russian security forces as there is on the hands of the dead terorists

    And it was Hurricane Bush that devastated New Orleans and South Mississippi — it indeed damn shaw was!

  6. Robert,
    Short answer; historic geopolitics. Long answer: Too long for here. Let’s see if Sergey comes in and has a reference.

  7. “Incident”, Scary?!?
    “Desperate, dehumanised individuals”?
    Go tell that one to the millionaire Bin Laden, Nasrallah, and the middle class British-born Pakistanis that blew themselves on the tube.
    Really, what’s your problem, man? Do you actually believe the things you write or are you just a meme-replicating engine?
    And regarding “selfish causes”, I have no idea what you mean. I said I didn’t understand how someone could be sympathethic to the islamist cause. I still don’t understand. Maybe you can explain it to me.

  8. If you believe that communist empire is dead, I have to disillusion you: it is alive. Peacefull demise of USSR mean also that almost all party apparatus is practically intact. There were no purges. This is especially so with intelligence, special services and Ministry of Forein Affairs staff. We have a political revolution, but no social revolution. And, of course, there are huge vested interests of Militaryi-Industrial Complex, which amounts to 40% of national economy. Their traditional customers are Syria and Iran, India and China. Army can’t buy their production because of lack of funding, so they strive for external market. All national policy is result of lobbying, huge bribery and so on. And, of course, Putin exploits traditional nationalistic sentiments, and anti-Americanism is integral part of it.

  9. The notorious “fog of the battle” is very thick on Beslan, indeed. It has something to do with long-standing Russian tradition of bureaucratic cover-up. Russian rulers never admit their guilt if only pressed too hard; and now there is no influential political force to compel them do so.

  10. May be, somebody wants to analyze comparable events, for example Munich Olimpics fiasco of German police or Maalot massacre? Or, contrary, Israeli triumph in Entebbe?

  11. Beslan is an atrocity on the scale of 9/11. Low tech savages destroying what they can’t possibly comprehend.

    But.

    Where’s the American hegemony in this story? Isn’t that the supposed impetus of Mohammadean Anger? How does Beslan fit into the blame America rubic?

  13. “How does Beslan fit into the blame America rubic?”

    ROFL!

    I’d like to see what kind of conspiracy theory islamoleftists can cook up. I’m sure the Kos Kiddies and the DUmmies have an answer.

  14. There is only 100% of blame available:
    0% for the victims.
    90-99% for the terror murderers.
    1-10% for the “authorities”.

    It is indeed hypocritical to say the authorities should “do more”, but oppose additional measures (like more wiretapping, or data mining…).

    Reminds me of a huge problem I see in one terrible future:
    Iran gets nukes; terrorist get and use a nuke on Miami.

    The Left will … blame Bush! Especially those who say a) Iran is far from getting a bomb (Bush’s bad intel is the fault!), or b) even if Iran gets a nuke, they aren’t crazy, they can be deterred (Bush in Iraq means he’s a a war-mongering cowboy, making them “desperate, dehumanised individuals”, so it’s Bush’s fault!)

    This is like the Left who blame Nixon/ Reps for the 600 000 murders of S. Viet who surrendered to the Peace Treaty violating N. Vietnamese.

  16. “Desperate, dehumanised individuals” imply that sometime they were human. Alas, they never were. Nothing in their primitive tribal culture, religion or education could possibly “humanize” them so that lives of another tribe members have some value to them, except from what can be given for these lives at nearest slave market. And the whole Chechnya became a huge slave market after Russian population was expelled from it by Chechen “freedom fighters” and its native population can happily return to its traditional occupations: robbery, abduction and slave trade. Read some real antropology of 19 century, before this scientific discipline was successfully prostituted by political correctness: von Humbolt or Claud Levi-Strauss. You shall find a lot of interesting things about ptimitive tribes and their customs.

  17. sometime they were human. Alas, they never were.

    They indeed were human — welcome to the condition [or concept] we call “humanity”.

  18. My guess (hope?) is that scary is referring to the immensely brutal suppression of the Chechen attempt at independence. The Russian security services and their political leaders do have a great deal of blood on their hands, which perhaps explains a bit of the motives of the terrorists at Breslan, but does not absolve the terrorists of guilt.

  19. To nyomythus:
    I know the concept, of course, but it have different meaning in realms of biology, antropology and western moral philosophy. Biological definition of humans was given by Aristotel: bipedal animal without feathers and with flat nails. In antropology “human” means “non-abberant individ, socialized to its native culture”, that is, not insane or lacking human psiche because of societal deprivation (like Mawgly). Bur the third meaning, developped by Renaissance humanists, is rather tricky one and hardly applicable to New Guinea cannibals or jihadists. Christians, secular humanists and Jews are universalists in their respective ways; but belligerent mountain tribes are definitely not, and expect from them “human behavior” to enemy tribesmens, even children, is dangerous naivete.

  21. “In the US, the leading group which pleads the Chechen cause is the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC). The list of the self-styled “distinguished Americans” who are its members is a rollcall of the most prominent neoconservatives who so enthusastically support the “war on terror”.

    “They include Richard Perle, the notorious Pentagon adviser; Elliott
    Abrams of Iran-Contra fame; Kenneth Adelman, the former US ambassador
    to the UN who egged on the invasion of Iraq by predicting it would be
    “a cakewalk”; Midge Decter, biographer of Donald Rumsfeld and a
    director of the rightwing Heritage Foundation; Frank Gaffney of the
    militarist Centre for Security Policy; Bruce Jackson, former US
    military intelligence officer and one-time vice-president of Lockheed
    Martin, now president of the US Committee on Nato; Michael Ledeen of
    the American Enterprise Institute, a former admirer of Italian fascism
    and now a leading proponent of regime change in Iran; and R James
    Woolsey, the former CIA director who is one of the leading
    cheerleaders behind George Bush’s plans to re-model the Muslim world
    along pro-US lines.

    “The ACPC heavily promotes the idea that the Chechen rebellion shows
    the undemocratic nature of Putin’s Russia, and cultivates support for
    the Chechen cause by emphasising the seriousness of human rights
    violations in the tiny Caucasian republic. It compares the Chechen
    crisis to those other fashionable “Muslim” causes, Bosnia and Kosovo –
    implying that only international intervention in the Caucasus can
    stabilise the situation there. In August, the ACPC welcomed the award
    of political asylum in the US, and a US-government funded grant, to
    Ilyas Akhmadov, foreign minister in the opposition Chechen government,
    and a man Moscow describes as a terrorist. Coming from both political
    parties, the ACPC members represent the backbone of the US foreign
    policy establishment, and their views are indeed those of the US
    administration.

    “Although the White House issued a condemnation of the Beslan
    hostage-takers, its official view remains that the Chechen conflict
    must be solved politically. According to ACPC member Charles Fairbanks
    of Johns Hopkins University, US pressure will now increase on Moscow
    to achieve a political, rather than military, solution – in other
    words to negotiate with terrorists, a policy the US resolutely rejects
    elsewhere.”

    — from “The Chechens’ American friends”
    by John Laughland
    Wednesday September 8, 2004
    The Guardian, UK

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/chechnya/Story/0,2763,1299407,00.html#article_continue

    —————————-

  22. This move looks utterly foolish. There are no real hostilities in Chechnya now, and situation is quite stable. As for “political solution” of 150-year long conflict, it is simply impossible. There are conflicts that seem eternal: for several hundred years Roman Empire contained Germans, and no negotiable solution was available. This is Wilsonian pipe dream, that every tribe is ready for self-government and democracy and wants peacefully coexist with their neighbours. In practice tribal psychology is totally incompatible not only with democracy, but with any form of government of its own. It takes a long period of historical development to make people law-abiding citizens, and sometimes only colonial administration can sustain any semblance of civil order on tribal territories.

  23. “And regarding “selfish causes”, I have no idea what you mean. I said I didn’t understand how someone could be sympathethic to the islamist cause. I still don’t understand. Maybe you can explain it to me.”

    The simple explanation is that scary is trying to exploit the Beslan massacre for his own selfish causes, and is so determined to keep everyone else from doing so that he freaks out when anyone even mentions Beslan. Sort of like the crazy old fart that thinks the entire world is out to ruin his lawn, only armed with suicide bombs.

  24. This type of reaction is what some of us call a “nanny state” (While I agree with the principle I tend to dislike the term. I prefer protectionist state). That is – the state protects, shelters, and cares for us. Thus when the wolves make it in there is a default failure of state.

    For many of us, we would take care of our selfs. You do not have to imagine what happens in populaces that tends to be armed and with that attitude – we can see it now. There is a reason when you hear about attempted mass shootings and such in the south eastern US (and a few other states) – they tend to go no further than “attempted” (Most of the south eastern states carry permits are as easy or easier to get than a drivers liscense. Schools are pretty much the only places they are restricted – by federal law and even then at least two in Tennessee have been stopped by a carry permit holder).

    The biggest problem with this is that the protective state people (who like to throw blame) tend to react about “The Old West coming again” or act as if I’m blaming the people who were hurt (no, they never had the ability to defend themselfs – and even if they did it is still the agressors fault). Heck, in Tennessee we have had our carry permit for over a decade and some are *still* predicting the return to the OK corral in the next few years.

    *shrug* simply giving the means to protect one self back to the people isn’t enough (and in this respect I understand why many are afraid of such things – in thier society it *would* be dangerous). The society has to think that way – otherwise it is simply extreme danger. To arm yourself with deadly weapons yet assume the state is protecting you is *really* bad. I wouldn’t give a child a deadly weapon (and note, I do not say firearm – I think the 2’nd amendment and it’s philosophy covers MUCH more than just that – the ability to defend yourself and to overthrow a corrupt govt) any more than I would give them to a culture that has no idea of the responsibilities of having them.

    And, to anyone who ever says “But what good would they do in a revolt – our military is too powerful” may I remind you of your outlook on Iraq. That’s what a very small dedicated armed force can do – if it ever were to become a popular movement we would be gone within a month (either wilfully pulling out or killed). As is less than 1% of the population is doing quite a bit of harm and will take years to root out.

  25. “Bush’s field theory of fear”
    Sidney Blumenthal
    23 – 8 – 2006
    The United States president’s flawed understanding of the global war on terror connects Israel’s strategic debacle in Lebanon with the US’s in Iraq, says Sidney Blumenthal.

    On 14 August 2006, the day the ceasefire was imposed ending Israel’s war in Lebanon against Hizbollah, and just days after police in London arrested a group of people in connection with an alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners, President Bush strode to the podium at the state department to describe global conflict in neater and tidier terms than any convoluted conspiracy theory.

    Almost in one breath he explained that events “from Baghdad to Beirut”, and Afghanistan, and London, are linked in “a broader struggle between freedom and terror”; that far-flung terrorism is “no coincidence”, caused by “a lack of freedom” – “We saw the consequences on September the 11th, 2001” – and that all these emanations are being combatted by his administration’s “forward strategy of freedom in the broader middle east”, and that “that strategy has helped bring hope to millions.”

    If there were any doubt about “coincidence”, the president concluded a sequence stringing together Lebanon, Iraq and Iran by defiantly pledging: “the message of this administration is clear: America will stay on the offense against al-Qaida.” Thus Bush’s unified field theory of fear, if it is a theory.

    Then, once again, Bush declared “victory.” Hizbollah, he asserted, had gained nothing from the war, but had “suffered a defeat.”

    Sidney Blumenthal is a former assistant and senior adviser to President Clinton. He is the author of How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime (Princeton University Press, [forthcoming, September 2006)]. He writes a column for Salon and the Guardian.

    Also by Sidney Blumenthal in openDemocracy:

    “Bush’s Potemkin village presidency”
    (September 2005)

    “Republican tremors” (October 2005)

    “George W Bush: home alone” (October 2005)

    “Dick Cheney’s day of reckoning”
    (November 2005)

    “Dick Cheney’s shadow play” (November 2005)

    “Condoleezza Rice’s troubling journey” (December 2005)

    “Bush’s surveillance network”
    (December 2005)

    “Bush’s shadow government exposed” (January 2006)

    “The Republican system” (January 2006)

    “George W Bush: running on empty” (February 2006)

    “The rules of the game” (February 2006)

    ” The imprisoned president”(March 2006)

    “Bush’s world of illusion” (March 2006)

    “Bush’s truth”
    (April 2006)

    “The secret passion of George W Bush”
    (May 2006)

    “The ruin of the CIA” (May 2005)

    “The president of dreams” (May 2006)

    “The Bush way of war” (June 2006)

    “The war for us”
    (June 2006)

    “The rule of law vs the war paradigm”
    (July 2006)

    ” The infallible president”
    (July 2006)

    “Bush’s axis of failure” (August 2006)

    Parallel worlds

    At the mome

  26. Sergey,

    Your reports from Russia are most interesting and helpful. Also, I don’t know if there is any equivalent in Russian political thought, possibly from Czarist times, but your views are perfect expressions of classic Anglo-American conservatism. (No disrespect to the new fangled varieties, Neo-Neo)
    Can the gangocracy that you describe last? At some point doesn’t a society, a nation, have to have guiding beliefs, some point for existing? Putin seems to be trying to replant some, a mixture from the USSR and Imperial times.
    Is it working? A healthy and sane Russia, attached to the West by ties of religion, culture and interest would be most welcome in these weird and frightening times.

  28. Yes, in Russia there was some equivalent of what you call “conservatism”, but it never became so popular as to precipitate political movement or party. It existed as a cultural phenomenon only. I prefer to name it “common sense” approach, but, ironically, it never was “common” at all. Its best representative was almost unknown to western public poet and writer, count Alexey Konstantinovitch Tolstoy. (I is another Tolstoy, not Lev Nikolaevitch.) There is a sad joke in Russia: when in London the first underground railroad was open, in Russia slavery was abolished (in 1861). After that a profound administrative reform was launched, first elected bodies representatives of different classes organized at municipal and provincial levels, and so civil society emerged. Immediately a lot of political and ideological movements come to being, because censure of press was cancelled. In many ways it resembled moral and ideological situation in US in 1960, and only recently I understood, how close these analogies are. New ideas were absorbed by youth, they often were radical and all-out negation of traditional values and norms. These radical liberals, influenced by French Enlightment with its anticlerical, atheistic and anti-despotic agenda, fiercely oppose traditionalists, who, in their turn, were influenced by German national-romanticism,defend Church and idealised rustic tradition. The first group accepted the name “nihilists” or “zapadniks” (from Russian word for “West”); the second – “Slavophyls”. A lot of Russian classic literature deals with this divide of society – Turgenev (zapadnic) wrote a novel “Fathers and Sons”; most prominent Slavophyles were Gogol and Dostoevsky. There simply was no place for views, alternative to both of these parties, and at that time, it seems to me, only one known writer had pozition, which can be described as “classical liberalism” or “conservatism” of Aglo-American type – A.K.Tolstoy. In 20 century this line is represented by Nabokov, author of “Lolita”; his works exist both in Russian and in English.

  30. A list of Blumenthals writings. Was this an appeal to authority or just a bibliography? I’d rather read VDH, but Blumenthal can be interesting also. Though for me neither rise to papal infallibility, I do believe scary may be embracing infallibility for Blumenthal.

    Sergey, your posts are always interesting and informative.

  31. Sergey,

    Thank you for your kind offer, and I will contact you. However, can’t you be persuaded to send them here? Would you mind, Neo? I don’t think I’m the only one who is keenly interested in the Russia factor.

  32. What I described I cannot call gangocracy. It is only rampant corruption. Real gangocracy lasting indefinitely long is a definition of a failed state. But Russia is not failed state, as, for example, Somali or Lebanon. It can be rogue sometimes, but almost never failed. When it fails, we have a revolution, but rather soon order is reestablished. In 1917 destruction of state and society was total, but in 1927 new order was firm. Western scare of “Russian mafia” was hysterical exaggeration. Yes, for 5 or 6 years Moscow and Petersburg were somewhat alike Chicago in 1930th. But in 2000, as state resumed control, street crime almost completely vanished. (Just as it was in Chicago after FBI was established.) When Russian speak about Mafia, they do not refer to thugs with guns, but only to black market profiteers and other non-official business groups, often selling infringing merchandise and avoiding taxation. These groups do not have political power, only some influence via bribery.

  33. From your blog, dear Neo-Neocon, it is obvious that you’ve never read the Savelyev report, that is not only exhaustive and thorough in its argumentation for accusing the Russian security forces (the FSB) of triggering the first explosions in the gym – just the chapter on the use of Shmels, the flame throwers banned in situations of urban warfare when civilians are involved is a jaw-dropper. But the report also leaves almost without a doubt that there were much more terrorists than the mere 30 or so in the official version, and the whereabouts of them in the present are unknown: they could be in secret custody, but most likely they are still at large.
    The report is available in Russian at http://www.pravdabeslana.ru – all hundreds of pages of it. – recommended reading.

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