Some journalists may have a hard time in Russia but internet is still uncensored as far as I’m concerned. Story like this can’t be kept a secret.

War Novelist: Scott Anderson

Interviewer. Journalists come off pretty dumb, too.

Anderson. I think part of it is the romantic notion that the rest of the world doesn’t know and you’re going to make them know. In fact, people do know, but they don’t care. And after you’ve seen your fourth or fifth suicide bombing or you hear the bullshit people use on all sides to perpetuate a conflict, you start seeing how war in a lot of places has become addictive to people.

Interviewer. So why do you keep doing this?

Anderson. I admit this about myself—there’s kind of a rescue fantasy at work and, frankly, an exalted sense of self. I mean, the money’s not that good.

…

Great post, Sean. & Great comments too.

#14 – JRL 8021
From: “Robert Bruce Ware”
Subject: Ten Questions for John Dunlop (JRL 8017)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004

John Dunlop has performed a considerable service by compiling a large quantity of information about the Nord Ost hostage crisis in an article titled “The October 2002 Hostage-Taking Incident” (JRL 8017). Dunlop presents this material in order to argue that the hostage incident was the result of a conspiracy between the Russian FSB and Shamil Basayev that was designed to discredit Aslan Maskhadov and thereby disrupt, what Dunlop regards as, tendencies toward a negotiated settlement of the conflict in Chechnya. Dunlop also asserts that, in 1999, similar alliances between Basayev and the FSB were responsible for the invasions of Dagestan and the apartment block blasts in Buinaksk, Moscow, and Volgodansk. He offers little evidence or argument for the latter claims, though some evidence has been presented elsewhere.

It is possible that Dunlop is correct, and no possibility can be disregarded. However, even the incomplete scenario that Dunlop paints is Ptolmaic in its complexity. For all of its merits, it remains an unwieldy and precarious stack of sub-hypotheses loosely connected by innuendo. In the absence of conclusive evidence, Dunlop does not explain why his account should be preferred to alternative explanations that offer greater simplicity and coherence. It would seem that Dunlop’s account would be further complicated if he were to attempt to address the following questions, which his account appears to beg:

1. If Basayev concocted the Moscow hostage incident in order to discredit Maskhadov then why, immediately after the incident, did Basayev claim full responsibility? Why did Basayev attempt to distance Maskhadov from the incident, and why did he acknowledge and accept the demotion with which Maskhadov punished him?

2. If Maskhadov had no responsibility for the Moscow hostage incident then why didn’t he condemn it while it was in progress? A similar question might be asked about the 1999 invasion of Dagestan?

3. Dunlop’s argument that Basayev conspired to discredit Maskhadov presupposes that Maskhadov was unable to control Basayev. But if Dunlop assumes that Maskhadov was unable to control Basayev then why does Dunlop think that negotiations between federal officials and Maskhadov (which, Dunlop believes, the hostage incident was intended to prevent) could have brought an end to the conflict in Chechnya? If Maskhadov were unable to control Basayev, as Dunlop assumes, then negotiations with Maskhadov would more likely have proven to be a meaningless exercise.

4. Dunlop argues that the Chechen terrorists who were responsible for the hostage incident intentionally “sabotaged” their own explosives that they brought to Moscow (in order to prevent them from detonating) because they did not wish to kill large numbers of Russian civilians. If that were true then why did they bring the explosives to Moscow in the first place? Certainly, Basayev does not hesitate to kill large numbers of Russian civilians, for he has claimed responsibility for several blasts that have done exactly that. Nor, on Dunlop’s account, does the FSB hesitate to kill large numbers of Russian civilians, since he holds the FSB responsible for the apartment block blasts in September 1999. Hence, if the explosives were brought to Moscow as a result of a conspiracy between Basayev and the FSB then it would seem difficult to explain why those explosives were intentionally “sabotaged” by the terrorists. Conversely, if the Chechen’s intentionally sabotaged their explosive devices in order to prevent them from actually detonating, then why did one of them explode at a Moscow McDonalds?

5. According to Dunlop’s information, some of these explosive devices were prepared by Arman Menkeev. Menkeev, who has a Chechen mother and a Kazakh father, went on to become “a Russian officer, a major, and a former deputy commander of a [GRU] special-forces detachment.” After the hostage incident Menkeev was arrested, imprisoned, interrogated, and released. If Menkeev prepared the explosives on assignment from the FSB then why was he arrested? If he prepared the explosives and was subsequently arrested, then why was he released? It would seem that the conspirators would not wish to draw attention to themselves by arresting one of their own. If they did so, perhaps due to a failure in communication, then why would they release him? If one of the government conspirators were arrested then it would seem more likely either that he would die mysteriously during his captivity, or that he would be convicted in a closed trial, sentenced to a remote detention center, and then quietly disappear. If Menkeev were part of a government conspiracy, then it seems unlikely that he would be arrested and then released after his arrest had attracted media attention. However, that is exactly what occurred, and Dunlop offers no explanation.

6. Since his invasion of Dagestan, the fortunes of Shamil Basayev have suffered a dramatic reversal. He has lost power, prestige, the admiration of the Chechen people, and one of his feet. Yet this is nothing compared with the on-going social catastrophe suffered by his fellow Chechens as a consequence of his actions. If, as Dunlop suggests, the invasion of Dagestan were the result of a conspiracy between Basayev and the FSB, then why would Basayev wish to repeat what was clearly the greatest mistake of his life by conspiring with them again? Moreover, Basayev would surely know that if he conspired with the FSB, and if his fellow Chechens were to learn of his betrayal, then they would likely take mortal revenge upon Basayev as well as many members of his family. Given the liklihood that a conspiracy would eventually come to light, can anyone be sure that Basayev would wish to place himself and his relatives in that position?

7. Why would federal officials have encouraged Basayev and Khattab to invade Dagestan at a time when many federal officials seemed to believe, as Basayev seemed to believe, that most Dagestanis would side with Basayev against Russia? Had the Dagestanis welcomed Basayev then it is unlikely that Moscow could have prevailed against the unified forces of Chechnya and Dagestan. If that had been the case, then Russia would have lost 70 percent of its Caspian seashore and access to considerable resources, including a pipeline. Moreover, Russia would then have confronted a viable and militant Islamist state on its southern periphery. In the summer of 1999, it was clear that many Russian officials, including Vladimir Putin, did not expect the Dagestanis overwhelmingly to resist the invaders from Chechnya. It therefore seems unlikely that they would have encouraged Basayev to invade Dagestan.

8. If the FSB is responsible for the apartment block explosions in September 1999, then why did Basayev make the following statement on September 9, 1999 (in an article by Petra Prokhazkova published in the Prague periodical, Lidove Noviny): “The latest blast in Moscow is not our work, but the work of the Dagestanis. Russia has been openly terrorizing Dagestan… For the whole week, united in a single fist, the army and the Interior Ministry units have been pounding three small [Dagestani] villages [Karamakhi, Chabanmakhi, Kadar- RBW]…And blasts and bombs — all this will go on, of course, because those whose loved ones, whose women and children are being killed for nothing will also try to use force to eliminate their adversaries. This is a natural process and it is yet more evidence of Newton’s third law, that each action generates a reaction… What is the difference between someone letting a bomb go off in the center of Moscow and injuring 10-20 children and the Russians dropping bombs from their aircraft over Karamakhi and killing 10-20 children? Where is the difference?”

Among those whose women and children were in Karamakhi during the federal assault was Ibn ul Khattab, Basayev’s Arab partner in the invasion of Dagestan. Khattab was married to a Karamakhi woman. On 15 September 1999, an Associated Press reporter (Greg Myre) quoted Khattab as saying: “From now on, we will not only fight against Russian fighter jets (and) tanks. From now on, they will get our bombs everywhere. Let Russia await our explosions blasting through their cities. I swear we will do it.”

The last of the apartment block blasts occurred on 16 September 1999, the same day that Basayev’s insurgents were driven from Dagestan. Dunlop does not consider that the blasts might have been retribution for the federal attack upon the Wahhabi enclave centered in the villages of Karamakhi, Chabanmakhi, and Kadar, which was in progress at the time.

Nor does Dunlop mention the credible convictions that resulted in the case of the first of the four apartment block blasts. That explosion occurred on 4 September 1999, in the Dagestani town of Buinaksk, near Karamakhi, Chabanmakhi, and Kadar. In the winter of 2001, a Dagestani court convicted five so-called Wahhabis from those same three villages for the Buinaksk apartment explosion. One of them, who had worked as a cook for Basayev and Khattab, admitted that he had brought the explosives from Chechnya beneath a truckload of watermelons. Later he retracted his confession.

9. Why would Khattab and Basayev have conspired with the FSB to stage an invasion of Dagestan, when it was clear that a likely outcome of that invasion would be the destruction of Karamakhi, the village of Khattab’s wife and the place where Khattab was spending much of his time? Wouldn’t Khattab have recognized that he was thereby creating an opportunity for federal authorities to attack his family, friends, and neighbors?

10. Why does Dunlop think that Moscow leaders would have been influenced by the peripheral efforts of various individuals and NGOs to inspire a negotiated peace in 2002? Why does he think that Russian leaders would be likely accept advice from Zbigniew Brezinski? Why does he think that Western leaders were increasing the pressure on Moscow to negotiate a settlement in 2002? Hasn’t it been widely agreed that Western leaders decreased their pressure on Moscow after 11 September 2001?

Dunlop’s analysis answers none of these questions. Moreover, he neither addresses nor refutes the evidence for Maskhadov’s complicity in the Moscow hostage incident that was compiled by Ralph Davis and myself and published in The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 16, 3, September 2003.

The simplest explanation for the invasion of Dagestan is that Basayev’s judgement was clouded by his own grandiosity. Perhaps he miscalculated the mood of the Dagestanis because he was unduly influenced by the Dagestani Wahhabis with whom he associated. In those years, Dagestani Wahhabis chronically overestimated their influence in Dagestani society, and would have had a clear interest in exaggerating their support during discussions with Basayev. On the other hand, the principal weakness of this explanation is that Basayev’s second entrance and exit from Dagestan (in September 1999) appeared to be too easy.

The simplest explanation for the 1999 apartment block explosions is that they were retribution by Wahhabis (drawn perhaps from throughout the North Caucasus) for the federal assault upon the Wahhabi enclave of Karamakhi, Chabanmakhi, and Kadar. The first apartment block blast occurred in Buinaksk, the town nearest to those villages, on 4 September 1999, just a couple of days after the federal assault began. The last apartment block blast occurred in Volgodansk on 16 September 1999, the same day that Basayev was finally driven from Dagestan. On the other hand, the principal weakness in this explanation is the incident at Ryazan, which it does not explain. Legitimate concerns are also raised by the closed, and consequently unsatisfactory, nature of the trial that recently convicted two men for the Moscow blasts.

The simplest explanation for the hostage incident of October 2002 is that Basayev conspired with Maskhadov to bring the Chechen conflict to Moscow. To his credit, Dunlop essentially has catalogued the weaknesses in this explanation. While that is a significant contribution, it is not a credible alternative explanation. However, Dunlop’s analysis does succeed in raising a number of important questions, and these deserve as much attention as the ten that I have noted above.

Giant quote:

Only with the bombings in Moscow and elsewhere in September 1999 that killed more than 300 people did the growing crisis make headlines in the West. Western reporting of these bombings was invariably accompanied by statements that proof of Chechen or Islamist responsibility for the bombings had not been established (no one claimed responsibility). It was also argued that the behavior of the security forces had been highly suspicious; notably, that they moved quickly to bulldoze the buildings affected by the Moscow blasts, thereby also perhaps destroying evidence, and that they carried out an alleged “antiterrorism” operation in the town of Ryazan, which involved planting explosives in a building-something of which they had apparently not warn-ed the local police. The blasts of course also seemed to be very convenient for Putin and his supporters. They created a great wave of public support for a new war in Chechnya and allowed Putin to present himself as a forceful and courageous leader in the run-up to the presidential elections of 2000.

This was all in itself correct; if not the Russian security forces, then it is certainly plausible that a tycoon supporter of Putin might have contracted such an operation. Yet, as far as the general Western discussion of the issue is concerned, the history of bombings in the North Caucasus was barely mentioned, nor was the character, antecedents, or links of Khattab and his men. Whatever the suspicions about pro-Putin forces, it should be obvious that the suggestion that a force largely composed of Arab Muslim extremists would have lacked the motive, the expertise, or the ruthlessness to carry out a terrorist bombing campaign against Russians is absolutely ridiculous.

In an interview with a Czech newspaper, Lidove Noviny, immediately after the September blasts, Basayev made the following remarks (he did not at that stage attribute the bombings to the Kremlin): “I denounce terrorism, including state terrorism used by the Russian empire. The latest blast in Moscow is not our work, but the work of the Dagestanis. Russia has been openly terrorizing Dagestan. . . . For the whole week, united in a single fist, the army and the Interior Ministry units have been pounding three small villages. . . . [A]ll this will go on, of course, because those whose loved ones, whose women and children are being killed for nothing, will also try to use force to eliminate their adversaries. . . . What is the difference between someone letting a bomb go off in the center of Moscow and injuring 10 to 20 children and the Russians dropping bombs from their aircraft over Karamachi and killing 10 to 20 children? Where is the difference?”

I have some sympathy with this point of view, which is almost identical to that expressed by an Algerian terrorist leader in Gillo Pontecorvo’s anticolonialist epic film, The Battle of Algiers. But that is the point. One could just as well put these words into the mouth of an Algerian, or a Palestinian, or a Kurd in Turkey-and if they were, would the United States media have the slightest sympathy for them?

To suggest that Khattab and his men had no motive to carry out the Moscow bombings is similar to suggesting that Osama bin Laden had no motive to attack the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing hundreds of innocent Africans in the process. Bin Laden and Khattab share not only the same background but also exactly the same beliefs and attitudes. The tendency of too many Western commentators to believe automatically in Russian responsibility for the bombings is tragicomically reminiscent of the attitude of the old leftists for whom the anti-Israeli forces in the Middle East could do no wrong. Western Russophobes believe that Russia can do no right, and their views have colored Western media approaches.

Yet the bitterly anti-Western ideology of Khattab, Basayev, and their followers is not a matter of debate, and does not have to be sought out by intrepid journalists venturing to interview these men in the mountains of Chechnya. Their views can be found, on the Internet, in English, on the web site of the international mujahedeen in Afghanistan, at qoqaz.net. This is Basayev himself on the nature of the war (interviewed in early January 2000): “The crucifix is being raised anew and war is being declared against Islam and Muslims; this is proof that this war is like the Crusades, where all of Europe’s intelligence capabilities are geared towards providing Russia with information and other support. . . . The Russians and their supporters in the West are fighting us collectively, as Allah has described them: ‘And fight the unbelievers collectively as they fight you collectively.’”

Klebnikov didn’t believe Putin was behind it, suggested that if there was a conspiracy among Russians it would have been Berezovsky or “maverick members of Putin’s camp.” But in the end, Klebnikov wrote: “The most likely explanation is that the attacks were in fact carried out by Chechen militants or by Islamic extremists acting on behalf of their embattled coreligionists.” (GFITK, 302-306)

Maybe Chris knows of some places you can look.

I do want to sound a kook alert for this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/bombing-russia-and-media_b_278527.html

Here is the typical line: “The Gawker translation is of extreme importance. The fact that there is almost an entire media black-out of these allegations is astonishing. Why is this so important?”

If there is a media black-out then why is every Russian media outlet reporting on the GQ story?? Even so much that the Putin’s press secretary gave a response?

The kookiness of the comments to the article are also gems.

Crazy!