Brutal Humilation for Russia In Iraq
After siding with Sadaam Hussein against America in the Iraq war, attempting to play off Iraqi nationalism, the Iraqis have now brutally bitten the Russian hand that tried to feed them, seizing Russian hostages and cruelly spurning the Kremlin's frantic attempt at diplomacy and showing how utterly insane Russia's policy has been in Iraq all along. As the Moscow Times reports (relying on the AP wire):
CAIRO, Egypt -- An al-Qaida-linked group posted a web video Sunday showing the graphic killings of three Russian Embassy workers abducted earlier this month in Iraq.
An accompanying statement by the Mujahedin Shura Council, an umbrella organization linking seven insurgent groups including al-Qaida in Iraq, said all four Russians were killed.
The 1 1/2 minute video, posted on an Islamic web site that frequently airs militant messages, showed two blindfolded men beheaded and the shooting of a third man.
In the footage, two men clad in black and wearing black ski masks shout "God is great!" before beheading the first man. Then one militant appears standing over the decapitated body of a second victim in a pool of blood, with the head placed on top of the body.
Both beheadings appear in a closed room with white walls. The shooting appears outdoors in what looked like an alley between buildings.
The footage was stamped with the logo of al-Qaida.
"God's verdict has been carried out on the Russian diplomats ... in revenge for the torture, killing and expulsion of our brothers and sisters by the infidel Russian government," the Mujahedin Shura Council said in an accompanying statement.
The council last week gave Moscow 48 hours to withdraw troops from Chechnya
In Moscow, the Foreign Ministry said Sunday that it was trying to confirm the authenticity of the video, Interfax reported.
The video begins with a verse from the Quran appearing in white letters on a black screen, and a voice reading "Those who aggress on you, you aggress on them."
One at a time, the four men appear on camera, staring ahead and speaking in Russian. Then the camera cuts to the killings.
Footage of the men speaking into the camera is dated June 13, but the footage of the killings is undated.
Four Russian Embassy workers were abducted on June 3 after an attack on their car in Baghdad's Mansour neighborhood. A fifth Russian was killed in the incident.
The captives included the embassy's third secretary, Fyodor Zaitsev, and three other staffers: Rinat Agliulin, Anatoly Smirnov and Oleg Fedoseyev.
Last Wednesday, the Mujahedin Shura Council posted a statement on the Internet saying it had decided to kill the four Russians, prompting one hostage's sister, a Muslim, to make an impassioned plea for the men to be freed.
"I beg you to pardon them and release them. You are Muslims, and Islam before anything else is a religion of peace and justice," Aliya Agliulin, wearing an Islamic headscarf, said on Al-Jazeera television on June 21, according to an Arabic voiceover of her statement.
"I, as a Muslim like all other Muslims in Russia, feel pain for what is happening in Iraq," Agliulin said. "Please act wisely and think of the feeling of the families of the hostages and their children who are waiting for their return. ... My brother is the lone provider for our family."
Videos of beheadings were an early signature of the insurgency, as well as a grisly trademark of tapes produced by the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But such graphic images have become rare in the past year.
The exception was a June 10 video showing militants beheading three Iraqis accused of belonging to a Shiite "death squad." Its posting three days after Zarqawi's death in a U.S. airstrike suggested an attempt to show his killing had not weakened militants' resolve.
The targeting of Russians in the kidnapping was unusual, since Moscow opposed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, winning it favor in the eyes of some Sunni Arabs, who now form the backbone of the insurgency.
But memories of that stance may be fading three years on -- and many Islamic militants despise Russia for its military campaigns in Chechnya, seen by radicals as a battleground for jihad, or holy war.
23 comments:
Well, 4 dead vs. 2500. The Russians will likely take those odds.
As always, there is no logic to your arguments. The tragic fact that four people have been killed, something you sickly derive a thinly disguised pleasured from, only serves to confirm the fact that the Iraq invasion was ill-executed, if not ill-conceived. You absurdly assume that Russians should have benefitted from the war ("the Iraqis have now brutally bitten the Russian hand that tried to feed them"), as if the Russians would have ever favoured the current situation of instability, which makes life a misery for foreigners and Iraqis alike.
Well said Reith. The admins of the LR just don't understand it because they are not that smart...
ANONYMOUS: More Russians have been killed fighting in Chechnya than Americans in Iraq. The fact that you ignore this is typical Russophile propaganda. What's more, you ignore the point, that Russians imagined they could make friends with Iraq, and now they've paid the ultimate price for it.
Of course, it is true that, as we saw in Beslan and in the Dubrovka theater, the Russian government couldn't care less about individual human lives, which are viewed as expendable.
REITH: You're the one who has no logic. Russia OPPOSED American action in Iraq, yet the Iraqi terrorists who ALSO OPPOSE American action STILL HATE THE RUSSIANS. So Russia got no gratitude for its actions, meanwhile causing the U.S. to being Cold War II, the one that will destroy Russia. Your total inability to see Russia's errors and try to reform them is a classic example of why Russia is literally going extinct.
just an observation, the LR make no difference amongst Al-Qaeda, Iraqi insurgents and the Iraqi people:-)
Uh-huh, and more Americans were killed in Vietnam. I thought we were talking about Iraq?
The Russians may well have imagined that they could be friendly with Iraq - so what? That government is no longer anywhere near power. It's a US-supported mess right now, with a daily kill rate that looks like it'll outstrip Russia's 10-year stretch in Chechnya fairly soon.
We hear talk of 100 000 killed in Chechnya. GWB himself gave of figure of 30 000 for Iraq: want to bet he lowballed it? And that's in three years, not ten.
I would like to hear how Russia "caused the US to begin Cold War II." Shall I read your expose, or just head over to FrontPageMagazine now, you screaming nutbag?
ANONYMOUS #1: Oh, I see. So I guess you think that that various OTHER insurgents or people protested against what THESE insurgents did to the Russians, right? Please post some links describing these protests, then. Of course, it would be rather strange to find ANY arabic people making friends with Russians given what the Russians are doing to Muslims in Chechnya, and certainly not Sunnis in Iraq given Russia's attempt to provide nuclear power to Iran.
ANONYMOUS #2: Actually, what we're talking about is the killing of RUSSIANS in Iraq, and YOU ARE THE ONE who brought the unrelated issue of Americans into it. So since you have, I'm glad you admit that Russia has been a FAR bigger fiasco in Chechnya than America has in Iraq, and leave it at that before you embarass yourself even more.
The original point was that somehow Russia is "happy" to have had its diplomats brutally killed because America has lost more people in Iraq than Russia. That's something only a truly insane Russophile could say. Russia has been totally humiliated by being attacked in Iraq just the way America was even though Russia opposed American action. It doesn't get any worse.
Russia has provoked Cold War II by :
(1) providing U.S. military secrets to Iraq during the war;
(2) providing nuclear technology to Iran;
(3) providing financial support to Hamas in Palestine;
(4) refusing to allow Ukraine and Georgia to determine their own destiny even though it signed a treaty agreeing to do so.
America now, because of these actions, is of course free to support the rebels in Chechnya by giving them Russian military secrets and financial support.
So, you believe that the Russians were against the war because the resultant civil war and spiralling terrorism would somehow further their geopolitical cause. On that top of being wrong about this nonsensical premise, you are also now dissembling about the crass glee you have taken in the death of the Russian dipolmats. The fact is that the Russians, like most of the world in case you had not noticed, did not want the war to take place.
Sorry, but you stated that the killing of 4 Russian diplomats is humiliation, conveniently glossing over the degrees-of-magnitude greater loss/humilation to the USA. That's why I wrote that, if those are going to be the odds, Russia will take them every time. It doesn't mean that they, or I, are happy about it.
On your list:
1) this has _not_ been proven and certainly not to any extent more than the "mobile bio-warfare labs" in Iraq were. The world is getting accustomed to the US making outlandish claims.
2) providing a reactor - not weapons. Have you got any proof that they offered weapons designs, or were those more likely to have come from A.Q. Khan of US ally Pakistan?
3) Hamas is a democratically elected government, though a loathsome political force. What's your option? Starve the Palestinians, or give to Fatah? Neither likely, nor workable. And besdies, what has _that_ to do with US interests?
4) Ukraine and Georgia. Well, the "frozen conflicts" are an tough one to defend, less so, however, if you've ever paid much attention to the fact that South Ossetia and Abkhazia were joined by the USSR to Georgia, or that they both agitated for removal from Georgia as far back as 1978. They wanted self-determination then and they want it now. Of course Russia's playing the spoiler here, but that's what states do, i.e. look to their own interests. thers do it unabasedly, not caring where the chips fall. Russia is no different in this: ruthless and self-interested. And, by the way, Georgia used US cash to buy Iranian gas this year and have noted that they'd like more. Supporting Iran, anyone?
Ukraine: if you have NATO in mind, decidedly non-Russian polls have put opposition to Ukraine joining NATO at 2/3 of the population against. As far as gas goes, why do you expect Ukraine to get a free lunch? Belarus is getting their rates hiked, too. Russia is under no obligation to sell gas to Ukraine at the price the latter wants.
The US can go ahead and give what they've got to the Chechens, who've alreedy got it, anyway.
Humiliating? Not at all. That's exactly what they were waiting for. Now, at the G8 they will have a reason more to show how they are part of the global war on terror and how the world must stand behind them. Frankly, that's all very suspect....
Russia wanted to preserve status quo with Iraq, while Rosneft, Transneft and Igor Sechin were getting Saddam Hussein's oil for food vouchers. Simple petty money grab, not even high politics of trying to derail something US had in mind.
But I have to disagree with La Russophobe on the Cold War II. Using Marx's analogy, this time around it will repeat as a farce, sort of like North Korea. No wonder the two countries plus Belarus seem to get so close these days.
CYRILL: you're right about the farce, except for the actual Russian people. They'll be at least into the tragicomedy area I'd say.
But the really interesting question: Russia replaced the USSR after Cold War I, what will replace Russia after Cold War II.
LA RUSSOPHOBE: Russia is one of the last colonial empires. It is like an onion - every war it looses (hot, cold or an economic one) will peel off another sliver.
CYRILL: You mean when the last layer is peeled it will simply disappear? In a thousand years will we see a desert on the map where Russia is now? Or will we see an enormous China?
In thousand years, Cyrill and Russophone will not see anything because you will be dead...
A thousand years, is also a long time-frame, at the current technological rate, we will need to speak in terms whether certain planets are belonging to the USA, Russia, China, or who knows, Peru...
Maybe there will be no Russia, maybe no China, maybe no USA, maybe the whole world would become a Confederation of Islamic States, or Christian Emprire with emperor Bush XXXIII or Vladimir Putin Jr. the XXXIII.
So please stop with you stupid crack halucinations, how you peel a sliver from onions, etc.
You two crazies crack me up (one reports through AM radio station, and another through a blog).
ANONYMOUS: If it's a bad thing to be on AM radio and a blog, then what can be said about YOU, who can't even manage one of those?
ANONYMOUS: or, in fact, to even have his own original name?
Now THAT is funny.
LR again has nothing to say. Maybe all anonymouses here think that creating a name for this blog is beyond their dignity.
In my case, does it make a difference to you whether I am "anonymous" or anything else? You still will be an ignorant bigot.
Yes, it makes a BIG difference. Because then one can tell which comments in a series are yours and you appear as less of a craven coward.
YOU have nothing to say. YOU have no blog, no activity, you stand behind nothing, DO nothing, just sit in the shadows and make personal attacks on those who do, contributing nothing of value to the discussion.
Now THAT is funny. And pathetic.
BTW, try to think at least a LITTLE before you embarrass yourself. Nothing to say??? There are over 350 posts from La Russophobe on this blog, and hundreds of comments about them. Your statement it typical Russophile blather.
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