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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Yaacov who wrote (14818)	10/6/1999 5:12:00 PM
From: jbe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17770

Do I think the Russians provoked the Daghestan incident so that they could retake Chechnya? Certainly, many people think so. As for me, I think it is possible -- if indeed Berezovsky was in cahoots with Basayev & Co. But there is no way to prove it -- at least not at the moment. Russia is awash is conspiracy theories right now. They are born not so much out of paranoia, as out of a perfectly natural desire to make sense of what looks like a totally preposterous and irrational situation. In my experience, people -- and governments -- often do behave irrationally, and often to the detriment of their real interests. But those brought up under the Soviet system are unprepared to accept irrationality as a fact of life. So they always look for a rational explanation; and the question they always ask is "cui bono?" "Who profits from it?" You may conclude that the Kremlin profits from the fighting in the Caucasus, because it distracts attention from the corruption scandal that threatens "The Family" (Yeltsin, his daughter, and his closest advisors). Then you reason backwards: they profit from it, therefore they did it. The United States is another candidate, by the way. The US does not want Azeri oil to flow northward through Russia, and it wants to establish complete control over the Caspian Region. That requires "squeezing Russia out of the North Caucasus." Ergo, since the US profits from this, the US provoked it in the first place (presumably by bankrolling Basayev et al.). And so on... Going back to your original question, however, there is something very odd about the fact that although the radicals' plans to stage an attack on Dagestan were widely known (even discussed,in detail, in the newspapers), the Russian forces were supposedly "caught unprepared" -- not once, in Botlikh, but twice, in Novolaksk as well. No adequate explanation has been produced, IMO. Another thing: the apartment bombings. I think that the Buinaksk bombing was probably the work of local Dagestani radicals, irate over the destruction of the local Wahhabi community in the Kadar zone. But I'll be damned if I know who blew up the buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk. I do NOT think it was done by Chechens or their hired guns, as both the government & the media have been trumpeting. It's just not the Chechen style: they go in for dramatic hostage-takings (Basayev in Budyonnovsk, Raduyev in Pervomaiskaia, etc.), not anonymous bombings of civilians. (Khattab maybe -- but then he's an Arab.) Let's say I am not inclined to dismiss altogether the idea (also widely bruited about) that the secret services themselves planted them. What better way to stir up popular ire, and get the kind of public backing you need to attack Chechnya! What makes this theory gain credibility for me is the mysterious incident that took place in Ryazan, when the FSB itself was caught planting what seemed to be explosives in an apartment building in Ryazan. The explanation was that it was a "training exercise," designed to "test the population's vigilance." Oh, yeah? Another theory I have not seen discussed, but which I propose because it fits what I know about the people involved. And that is that the "radicals" among the Chechens -- Basayev, Udugov, Yandarbiyev, etc. -- EXPECTED the "revolution" in Dagestan, if it failed, to lead to a war on Chechnya -- and WELCOMED the prospect. But that's a long, complicated story, and best saved for another day. Anyway, there is a lot more here than meets the eye. The question is -- what? jbe