Chechnya & Iraq: Comparable Conflicts?
“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.“–Karl Marx, 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. With reports of 180,000 displaced Iraqis since mid-February and 1,398 civilian deaths in May, it is a stretch to compare the present state of the American induced civil war in Iraq to the present conditions of war in Chechnya. By most accounts the war in Chechnya has been reduced to a low intensity conflict where formal military violence has abated, while in Iraq everyday seems to bring more violence, misery, and atrocities committed by insurgents, Shia militias, and the American military. Yet to analysts, Chechnya does invite comparison with Iraq. First, both conflicts involve two of the world’s largest military powers locked in a quagmire of counter insurgency. Second, both wars are ..read more
