What You Should Know About Chechnya as the Boston Story Unfolds

As a Russian, I find the article very biased and misleading.

It gives no historical perspective on the roots of centuries-old conflict, and tries to expose terrorists and religious extremists as freedom fighters without mentioning their involvement in such events as Beslan massacre or the theater hostage crisis. For everyone living in Russia, this region is the source of all recent terrorist attacks and a major source of crime. I did not expect to find an article of such low quality and biasedness on HN.

http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1coamb/chechen_te... > This comment on Reddit gives more or less accurate description of Chechnya, I won't copypaste it here.

This article is full of inaccuracies and has several very dubious conspiracy theories reported as facts. The quality of the Atlantic continues to decline. This article basically has the accuracy of an anonymous internet forum rant.

However, it is true that there has been a terrible off and on war in Chechnya during the last 20 years with some tragic consequences for the civilian population. There have been many abuses perpetrated by the Russian government, but also many terrible civilian murders perpetrated by Chechen islamic groups that cannot possibly be blamed on Putin.

For what it worth I should say that ordinary Chechens are very much against terrorism and against the hardcore Muslim militarists. It is notable that when Chechnya was relatively independent after the first Chechen war, they elected a relatively secular president and not one of the hard core sharia law Islamists. Nevertheless, there is an armed Islamist minority in Chechnya that tends to make trouble. That secular president ended up declaring sharia law just to appease the militants.

The most interesting thing about this article is how differently the atlantic treats chechnya and palestine. Regardless of the Russian abuses in the region, the life of the average Chechen is much better than that of the average palestinian. Currently, Chechens cannot vote for their chosen president and tend to get hassled by police when they travel in parts of Russia outside of Chechnya but otherwise their life is a far cry from what Palestinians in the occupied territories have to endure. They are not being starved intentionally in ghettos, they do not have settlers coming in and taking their houses and farms, they are not surrounded by walls, or military firing zones, etc., they do not have to wait 9 hours at a check point to go to a neighboring village, etc.

Nevertheless, the Atlantic calls Chechnya a country, which it isn't and when it rarely mentions Chechen terrorism, it tries to justify it by referring to Putin's actions. The Atlantic would never call Palestine a country (even though under international law Palestine is much closer to being a country) and would never suggest that the Israeli occupation is a justification for Palestinian terrorism.

In summary these are all tricky issues but one way to keep our journalists and politicians honest is to hold them to the same standard when dealing with separatists from countries they like (Israel) and countries they do not like (Russia).

tl;dr;

Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and other former Soviet states are just the same to Russia as most central american countries are to the USA.

i.e. the super power killed several legitimate presidents, ruined/poisoned most of the people for cheap labor and nobody learns about that in school.

For anyone looking to learn more about Chechnya regardless of whether it's linked to these attacks, I'd highly recommend Sebastian Smith's "Allah's Mountains: The Battle for Chechnya".

For wider reading on the region, I thoroughly enjoyed Oliver Bollough's "Let Our Fame Be Great: Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus", a nice blend of travelogue and history from the journalist who was Reuters' correspondent in the caucasus throughout the late 90s and early 2000s.

What I don't understand is that US was actually on Chechen's side - both Clinton and Bush were hard on Putin on how was he was handling Chechenia war.

"However, a recently published book about the events by a Stanford University academic indicates that the horrific attack was most likely organized and financed by Putin and his henchmen"

So, how does people in russia read that? Anyone?

i'm guessing it's the same reaction as an American reading that bush financed the groups that led to 9/11. or not?

Critique of the linking to Chechnya from Aljazeera - http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201304200024-0022691

I prefer to read news after it has been gestated through the gauntlet that is hackernews readers.

Russia's treatment of Chechnya doesn't explain why these two knuckleheads, who stayed in the US as refugees for a time, decided to blow up a bunch of Americans. Maybe Chechnya is a shitty country because it's full of Chechens, and the Russians feel the need to be brutal because they're tired of schools, theaters, and subway stations being blown up.