HOME
This Is Moral Clarity?
By Fareed Zakaria
Thank goodness for moral clarity. President Bush's black-and-white
picture of the war on terror has apparently made sense of Russia's
complicated struggle with the Chechens. The White House offered its
wholehearted support to President Vladimir Putin in the aftermath of the
Moscow
theater siege, despite accounts of a heavy-handed Russian operation that
had little regard for the lives of the hostages or the terrorists. (The
latter were shot dead despite being unconscious.) But that's all
understandable. Russia is, after all, fighting terrorism.
Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, revealed that "the president's first
reaction [to the events in Russia] is sorrow that other nations around
the world are being victimized by terrorists." The notion of Moscow as
victim in this conflict is strange. To review the history briefly: The
Chechens were forced into the Russian empire in 1862, after 45 years of
bloody resistance. They were granted independence in 1918, but in 1920
the Soviet Union invaded the country again and brutally suppressed
periodic revolts. In 1944 Joseph Stalin applied a Stalinist solution to
the
Chechnya problem. He deported most of its inhabitants to Central Asia
-- more than a half-million -- and burned their villages to the ground.
(Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev, allowed the survivors to return
to their lands in the late 1950s.) In 1990, as the Soviet Union was
breaking up, a national conference of all Chechen political groups
declared independence. Russia refused to recognize it and in 1994
launched the
first Chechen war. After two bloody years Moscow was unable to win and
signed a peace treaty with the Chechens. In 1999 Russia reinvaded
Chechnya, and since then it has had 100,000 troops in this republic, the
size of Vermont.
When asked whether Russia's actions might also be to blame, Fleischer
disagreed vigorously: "Your question supposes that the Russians are to
blame for the terrorists' taking Russian citizens hostage. And the
president does not share that. . . . The people who shoulder the burden
and
the blame are the terrorists. And there is no excuse around the world
in any region for people resorting to terror against innocent
civilians."
If terror against civilians is the yardstick, what does the White
House call the actions of the Russian army in Chechnya? Over the course
of
the past decade, it has killed an estimated 100,000 civilians -- almost
10 percent of the prewar population -- displaced more than 200,000 and
turned more than a quarter of the tiny republic into an ecological
wasteland.
Memorial, a Russian human rights organization, has documented how
Russian troops have terrorized the village of Tsotsin-Yurt during the
past
two years, driving half its population away. Over the course of 40
raids, Russian troops have rounded up the young men and demanded
ransoms.
"Those who could not pay were taken to the village outskirts, where they
were beaten and tortured with electricity for several hours. Wires were
attached to penises," Memorial writes. After taking these men, Russian
troops raped and sodomized most of their wives. Almost 100 men are
still missing. This is just one example among thousands that have been
documented.
The Chechens are no angels. They have been ruthless warriors for
their cause, utterly unable to form a stable government, and have indeed
resorted to terror. But Russia's actions have helped turn them into
terrorists. Russia has destroyed Chechnya as a place, as a polity and as
a
society. Chechnya is now a wasteland, populated by marauding gangs. No
leader can control the increasingly radicalized and lawless youth, such
as those who took over the Moscow theater. Putin has spoken of al
Qaeda's presence in Chechnya, but none existed until recently, when
Chechens, devastated by the Russian onslaught, took help from wherever
they
could get it. As things got worse, the Chechens got desperate, and
increasingly their political conflict is taking on a religious
dimension. This
pattern recurs in other cases; violent repression creates extreme
opposition.
The lesson to be drawn is that there is no moral clarity here.
Terrorism is bad, but those fighting terror can be very nasty, too. And
the
manner in which they fight can make things much, much worse. It is a
lesson we had better learn fast, because from Egypt to Pakistan to
Indonesia, governments around the world are heightening their repression
and
then selling it to Washington as part of the war on terror. Russian
officials called the Chechen fighters "rebels" or "bandits" until
recently.
Now they are all "international Islamic terrorists."
As a candidate, George W. Bush was asked by Larry King what he
thought of Russia's actions in Chechnya. "Not acceptable," replied Bush.
"And
that's why we need to cut off foreign -- the aid to Russia." "Now?"
King asked. "Yes, absolutely," Bush insisted, adding, "The nations of
the
free world [must] condemn the -- you know, the killing of innocent
women and children."
Now, that's moral clarity.
The writer is editor of Newsweek International and is a columnist for
Newsweek.
Copyright 2002 Newsweek