The Chechen Press prints a story whose particulars are pretty strange to this pair of Western eyes, but whose conclusion brings forth a vague feeling of recognition.
Though this accusation has an old date, it was news to me:
"You may still remember information spread by Russian mass media ("Commersant", Gazeta.Ru, etc.) of 31 January 2002 that Bombay police started a search of the "Chechen seaman two meters in height with a scar on the right cheek", who, ostensibly, was preparing an attempt on the commander-in-chief of the US Navy, Vice Admiral James Metsger, to be committed during to meeting of the latter with the Indian Naval Commanders."
The author then goes on, in a strange (probably poorly-translated) sarcastic tone, to strongly imply that this story was fake, a smear by the Russians (the scar-faced thing is pretty silly, a 40s noir Hollywood charicature that would be laughed at in America) to include Chechens in with Pakistanis (hence earning India's wrath) and in with the Taleban (hence earning America's and Britain's wrath). But the story died. Nonetheless, as I interpret it, the Russians continued along this vein by claiming that most of those "combatants" "detained" at Guantanamo were in fact Chechen. But since the release of some "detainees," the Russian charges look even more suspect:
"The Americans have not much jibbed and given out eight citizens of Russia. Earlier tony Blear [sic], who had not insisted on it, had to take the British Talibans from Guantanamo, but in his anti-terrorist reports he does not stresses this fact. As to Moscow, it has turned out that not the North Caucasus prosecutor's office but the one of the Volga basin territory administration should have been charged with the case of "Russian Talibans", as among the extradited Talibans there were only two natives of the North Caucasus, and even not of Chechnya, but of Kabardino-Balkaria. The others were from Tatarstan and Bashkiria. And there was one even from Siberia. But one cannot tell for certain who was more disappointed with the absence of Chechens among the extradited captives of Guantanamo - Fridinsky or Tony Blear [sic].
Who knows how much of this to buy. I just post it because it's from a point of view denied most in the West, and above that, about a Theatre of the War on Terror than not many Americans think about.
posted by RETARDO MONTALBAN @ 12:49 AM
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