Now it appears that sleep deprivation is “only” CID and used on Guantanamo Bay captives. Well, congratulations, comrades! It was exactly this method that
the NKVD used to produce those spectacular confessions in Stalin’s “show trials” of the 1930s. The henchmen called it “conveyer,” when a prisoner was interrogated nonstop for a week or 10 days without a wink of sleep. At the end,
the victim would sign any confession without even understanding what he had signed.

Thank you very much.

The Bolsheviks didn’t have much of a constitution to work with, so they went ahead and enshrined in law what they would need. (No other parties, secret police have carte blanche, politburo makes decisions, command economy, you get the idea.) The (here it comes) National Socialist German Workers’ Party (orwellian name aside) used elections to get into office and then used the Reichstag to pass whatever laws it wanted (no other parties, just to start with).

Sigh.

And by the way, Dick Cheney must be stopped. The man is just ridiculous. The Chechen War is Not About al-Qaeda, God Dammit. They are not (generally) jihadists. They are (generally) nationalists who are trying to get out from under a few hundred years of Russian domination. I do not mean to condone or endorse anything that has been done, on either side, I merely want to clarify that this is (I repeat) Not About al-Qaeda, God Dammit. And hey Dick, here’s a news flash for you — the North Caucasus is not populated by A-rabs. There are a few Arab Muslim extremists who have worked their way into the area to take advantage of the disaffectedness of the local Chechen (and Ingushetian, etc) Muslim populace. God Dammit.

This to me is the most important thing that is coming out of the WH. Not the thundering silence of the democracy-spreaders, but rather their the instant leap toward “those baby-killers! they were all arab al-qaeda jihadists! let’s stand shoulder to shoulder with vlad while he kills ‘em all!”. Very, very, VERY dangerous stuff. Hey, we could call them Dimya and Dubya! Heh.

Though I will say I saw today a hopeful analogy with the abandonment of Marcos in the 80s. (via Political Animal, which we should all be subscribing to during pledge week, by the way.)

This is what I majored in, and as people who know me will tell you, I have lamented the end of the cold war for years! (I know, I know.) But my main area of interest, historically speaking, was “Russia As Empire” and well, that was over well before I graduated in 1993. People have asked me many, many, MANY times why I did not pursue a career related to my degree, and that is the reason — the political nature of the CIS, and its subsequent devolution into the many independent states which once comprised the USSR, was really just not interesting to me. I was interested in the boot heel of Russia’s leaders, Tsars and Soviets, as they asserted, expanded, and maintained their grip on surrounding territories in the USSR and, to a lesser extent, the Soviet Bloc.

Now it looks like we might be headed that way again, and so I am really, really, really sad that i did not pursue a career more directly related to my degree. This is what I know about, and what I love. Putin’s ascendancy was worrisome to me for this exact reason.

Keeping a close eye.

The New York Times > AP > International > Putin Agrees to Inquiry Into Russian School Siege: “U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday that it was too soon to say whether al-Qaida played any role in the school attack, but he said there was an “absolutely” a connection between rebels in Chechnya and the terror network.

“I mean, they’ve been trained in the same training camps in Afghanistan,” he said at the National Press Club in Washington. “So there’s no question but that there’s a linkage between the Chechen terrorists and al-Qaida. But I can’t say that about this event because the investigation’s just in its early stages.””

Grrr….

Sigh….

I don’t mean to make light of the situation, but this is just some TERRIBLE writing! What leaps to mind reading this bit is, “Duh”. Can’t think of many folks who wouldn’t do just that while making such an address. Of course, the Post’s coverage of this, while prominent and thorough, has also had consistently pointed out things like this — for instance, the relentless focus on the idea that all the women were screaming, wailing, crying; all the men were red-faced with rage. Come ON.

In addition to the immediate issues to the town of Beslan, I think this story is huge for other reasons….In combination with the recent attacks, it throws into sharp relief the problems with Putin’s policies, not to mention the problems with the Security Services, which (when you take Beslan with the Nord-Ost theatre siege) are becoming obvious. I will be quite interested to hear what Putin has to say today; he has arrived in Beslan just this morning (local time). People are angry, and rightly so; Putin’s hard-line policy does not seem to be working, and his security people don’t seem to have any sort of a handle on things — and thanks to 15+ years of glasnost and perestroika (gorby!), the angry populace can’t be fully pacified with a cult of personality any more. Something must be done. Also, what will happen in the next few months is critical — the May elections might just turn into a referendum on Chechnya and oligarchy. Hmmm. Will he take a leaf out of Bush’s book — “if you don’t vote for me, the terrorists win”?

The RNC and Frances have been eclipsing this story but I think it is much more important than many people think. I hope that the trend I have seen today with great coverage in the Post and a network lead is just the beginning. We need to know – this affects everyone (remember, GWB did look into Putin’s soul….you know the rest). And the suffering people of Beslan deserve our support. I plan to visit the Russian Embassy this weekend.