cheese it, the cops!

it takes a lot of damn gall: they're celebrating victory day in the "great patriotic war" (wwii) in chechnya again, only they're keeping the time and place secret, as well they might. last year on victory day, the chechen resistance blew up the puppet president & co. now you might ask: well, what in the world is wrong with celebrating victory over the nazis? consider this :

Josef Stalin, who accused Chechens of helping Germans during World War II, sent the entire nation into exile, killing about one-third of them on the trek to Kazakhstan.

 

“When they came back, they never stopped thinking of separatism, but it was impossible during Soviet times,” says Gasan Gusejnov, an expert on ethnic conflicts in the former Soviet Union who has taught Chechen history and politics at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.

 

you wouldn't have to be a chechen nazi to believe that stalin was as much a genocidal maniac as was hitler. much of the chechen resistance was born in exile. the killing of kadyrov on may 9 was rich in the symbolism of justice.
note: reading itar-tass or ria novosti etc is every day more like reading pravda circa 1973. there is hardly even the pretense of factuality. i'll document this a bit as time goes on, but it is, as clearly as anything, proof or autocracy.

i call this profoundly encouraging. i say that putin is amongst the world's worst and certainly most dangerous autocrats. i say he is guilty of crimes against humanity (scroll down below the catholic entry on top). i would like to see his empire crumble from the outside in. i predict it's going to be a hell of a job trying to keep it together. of course, if anyone has the lack of scruples to do what it takes, it's putin. but of course, it's his hatred of democracy and autonomy, his contempt for his own minorities, and his brutality that are going to end his nation. 

my creators column for last week is on chechnya, and this week i'm going to write about a study showing (shockingly) that the professoriate is stocked with leftists .

this story about the disappeared of chechnya is disturbing enough. but combine it with human rights watch reports that include torture facilities and mass graves. and then consider that their mode documentation is extremely conservative: essentially case by case. when all is said and done we will see tens of thousands of kidnapping/torture/execution victims, all of them the responsibility of  russian "security" forces.

at least everyone has not simply fallen silent. this from the washpost editorial page this morning:

The death of Mr. Maskhadov probably eliminates for the near future any chance of a diplomatic end to the war in Chechnya. Mr. Maskhadov, who was elected president of Chechnya at a time when Russia recognized the election as legitimate -- had requested talks with Moscow but was repeatedly refused: The Kremlin insisted on calling him a terrorist, despite his condemnation of terrorism, and would not negotiate. On the same grounds, Russian authorities are refusing to hand over what they call "the body of a dead terrorist" to Mr. Maskhadov's family for burial. Thus will the spirit of brutality continue to perpetuate itself in Chechnya

it's worth pointing out who the russians killed , and it's worth pointing out that for putin and for bush, terrorism is genuine issue but also a pretext for domestic repression and for war.

pictures from grozny

pictures from grozny:

grozny theatre before:

grozny theatre after:

there were people in grozny by the time the russians came. but mostly they were people who couldn't be moved: the elderly and handicapped. maybe 35,000. of course they were all "rebels,"  "terrorists," according to putin. they died almost to a person. but that was redundant. the russians had already emptied and destroyed the city, while trying to surround it and kill every young man in the region.

i am posting my reply to el serracho:

the numbers are hard to come by (because of the absolute-ish press ban in chechnya, obviously enforced only by the russian gov: also it's insanely dangerous to be a journalist in chechnya). this is more or less the (high) average of all the sources i consulted. the truth, unfortunately, is hard here. the best sources say "between 100,000 and 300,000." there is no doubt they leveled grozny with thermobaric weapons: makes dresden circa 1946 look intact. and the cleansing operations throughout the countryside: no idea: sheer rape: kill all the males in the village etc. i'm telling you this is the great untold story of our generation. when it all falls out there will be trials for  crimes against humanity etc. putin has portrayed this as part of the war on terrorism, which we buy because it's convenient, because the rhetoric is familiar, even as we express...reservations.
the palestinians, if you ask me, have been dispossessed and repressed. that is no excuse for killing innocent people. the chechens have been completely destroyed as a culture: murdered in their totality. i am not sure i myself would not respond with terrorism.

understand a few things. in the russian wars on chechnya - which demanded only independence - perhaps 200,000 chechens have been killed and another 300,000 displaced. that is out of a population of less than a million. it's worth mentioning that during world war 2, stalin removed the *entire population* to central asia in cattle cars after accusing them of collaboration with germany. at any rate, putin's policy is - more clearly than any case since rwanda - sheer, clear genocide.

here's a nice little story out of chechnya, in which the russian stooge state says it won't negotiate with opposition leader aslan maskhadov.

Chechen President Alu Alkhanov said in a statement that "there is no question of talks with those involved in bloody crimes against society."

alkhanov is sayhing, i assume, that there is no question of talks by anyone in their right mind with the russian state or its chechen representatives.

person of the year

i'm unable to update my website (which should at least be viewable again; it's been down for a couple of days). so i thought i'd just publish this here: my creators column:

 

The Real Person of the Year

By Crispin Sartwell

   Every year, the world awaits the announcement of Time magazine's Person of the Year. Time's 2004 choice was extremely bold: they honored George Bush for paying down the national debt.

   But true connoisseurs of the Person of the Year concept know that the definitive award is made by this column. Every year we measure the zeitgeist with our supersensitive "scientific" instruments and locate the person who crystallizes it most perfectly.

    Overall, there were two great themes of 2004: pure pop pleasure and sheer degraded death. We searched the world over for the people who made those things happen for all of us.

     First, the short list.

     In one of the great achievements of the year, Yasser Arafat lapsed into a coma and died.

    P. Diddy brought out the youth vote in unprecedented numbers, leading to John Kerry's victory in the presidential election.

     Kerry himself would have been a plausible choice. He shone like a moral beacon across this great land. As the most electable Democrat, he substantiated yet again the old adage: Moe was the smartest Stooge.

     Like every other year, 2004 was an extremely good year for white men, led by Dick Cheney and Eminem.

    Shortlisting publishing uberbabe Judith Regan was literally a no-brainer. She brought together the two most important stories of the year: the Scott Peterson trial (Regan signed a book deal with person-of-the-year finalist Amber Frey) and the Bernard Kerik meltdown (trysting with Kerik at his love nest).

    It was the year of the neocon. American idealists such as Richard Perle, William Kristol, Islam Karimov, Augusto Pinochet, and Crown Prince Abdullah spread democracy and good cheer throughout the world.

   Jesus Christ visited a storm of death upon His enemies in Fallujah.

    Before resigning over the oil for food scandal, Kofi Annan spearheaded the heroic multinational effort in Sudan that saved tens of thousands of lives. The next Secretary-General, Bam Margera, can only hope to follow in the footsteps of greatness.

     Vlad Putin had an amazing year. He seized dictatorial power, killed the last few Chechens, and published the bestselling "Cooking With Dioxin" (Regan Books, 2004).

     A strikingly similar set of accomplishments must be attributed to Kobe Bryant.

     In 2004, like Yasser Arafat, government of the people, by the people, and for the people perished from this earth. A few people shed a nostalgic tear.

     No one on earth has ever had more magnets and less armor, more support and less chance of success than our troops.

     Men with erectile dysfunction stayed on the scene like lovin' machines this year, while James Brown underwent prostate surgery.

   In a world gone mad, Sponge Bob Squarepants was the last voice of sanity. 

 

    But no figure combined pure pop pleasure with sheer degraded death like our Person of the Year. She was at once the best and most typical American artist. As Afghans and Iraqis contemplated her greatness, they understood for the first time the true meaning of their liberation. Her ten-gallon leadership style brought the world to heel. Without further ado, I give you the Person of the Year: the great Lindsay Lohan.

person (sic) of the year

and now it's time to announce the eyeofthestorm person of the year.  there were so many amazing candidates. judith regan. amber frey. lindsay lohan. shitstuffer cripply. kobe bryant. george tenet. sauron the dark lord. rob dauses. p diddy. augusto pinochet. sponge bob squarepants. yo momma (that's right, i said yo momma). the great john kerry, whose uncompromising moral vision inspired so many, a moral beacon shining across this great land. but after much debate among our staff we reached the only possible conclusion: vlad (the lad)  putin.

some of vlad's accomplishments this year:
seizing dicatorial power
killing the last 6 chechens
"cooking with dioxin" (regan books 2004)
maintaining the respect and esteem of the world, especially george w. bush
making orgiastic love to a bonobo

chechnya watch

you may know that i'ma bit obsessed by the situation in chechnya. i regard the russian intervention there as genocide. perhaps 2 00,000 people have died out of a population of less than a million, and most cities and towns and villages have literally been leveled. here's a story . i would expect this church to be attacked. i'd attack it myself. for more info here.