Radio War Nerd #332 — Chechen Wars, Pt. 4: The Second Chechen War
Recorded: May 26, 2022
Part 4 in our series on the Chechen Wars. This episode, following Shamil Basayev and Khattab's invasion into Chechnya, Vladimir Putin is named Prime Minister, and apartment buildings start blowing up.
First - We discuss recent mass shootings in the US.
At 24:23 - We discuss the Second Chechen War and background...
Maps:
*Chechnya
*Khattab (l) and Basayev (r)
*Aslan Maskhadov
Previous episodes on the Chechen Wars:
*EP #321 - Intro to Chechen Wars
*EP #322 - Chechen Wars, Part 2: 1722-1991
*EP #324 - Chechen Wars, Part 3: First Chechen War, 1994-96
Book mentioned:
The Insurgency in Chechnya and the North Caucasus: From Gazavat to Jihad, by Robert Schaefer
Total time: 1:37:03
Comments (38)
Could you add the Chechen war series to the "collections"?
the US has so many more guns per capita than any other comparable nation, and it isn't even close: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country
Hello! Is the event at nowadays still happening tomorrow, and if so, at what time?
Hi Dorothy! There is still a week to go. The venue for the June 17 meet-up has changed to Slattery's Midtown Pub (8 E 36th St, New York, NY 10016) starting 7.30pm . Let the door staff know you're with Radio War Nerd. Hope to see you there!
It's funny how you didn't say it (this time), but when you described how Kadyrov was from the right clan, I immediately added "just like in the U.S."
There is an article in a German paper written by someone who was (involuntary) recruited to the TDF in Ukraine. Thought you might find it interesting. It can be translated using Google Translate: https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/427348.ukraine-dokument-des-krieges.html It gives another glimpse (there was an article in the NYT 1-2 weeks ago iirc) about the situation for ppl in the TDF though it doesn't tell us anything about the UAF.
those like Corruption Index Survey things are always talking about a specific type of low-level corruption that boils down to like, having to give small bribes to civil servants to keep your business running. It's a neat rhetorical trick to separate this type of daily nuisance corruption from the more common western forms, such as, regulatory capture, pork barrel, lobbying, financial engineering, industry revolving doors, tax loopholes, stuff like that.
Legalism. If the process is enshrined in some kind of a code, it can't be evil.
Bullying is a part of life and this will probably never change. These mass shootings are not caused by bullying, racism, poor parenting, poverty, heavy metal, violent video games etc because these phenomenon are not unique to America. The problem is guns. No guns, no gun violence. I live in Hong Kong but grew up in the US and am American so speak from experience. We don't have gun violence here because it's illegal to own a gun. Another informative episode, by the way.
I'm 22 my senior year was when the Stoneman Douglas shooting I think I was in middle school for Sandyhook. At that time I was anti gun but have you thought about what it would entail? Say you ban all semi auto rifles and pistols that can hold more than 10 rounds then that needs to be enforced. While a lot of people who own all of those AR 15s and AKs and hi cap glocks are right wing fundamentalists there are also a lot of minorities who rightly don't trust the government native Americans, African Americans and Latinos. Now if that is enforced what that would mean is police or FBI going in to those communities and taking them by force because lots of these people sill not give them up willingly. the amount of police shootings would skyrocket and more places in America would become a domestic warzone. The guns for the most part are here to stay unfortunately. As someone relatively recently out of high-school I can tell you the dull horror of learning about climate change and then learning in your bones that you're powerless to stop it because people who will be dead when we see it's major effects are doing it to us. The fact that more and more people literally have no friends in high-school. It is a prevailing lack of purpose and the knowledge that the future is only getting worse all the time. We can't get rid of guns but hopefully we could do something about that.
I disagree with Mark that it could be chalked up to anti Slavic sentiment to believe those bombings were a false flag if the fsb was literally caught planting explosive in an apartment. The question becomes if it really was explosive material. I don't believe that 911 wasn't an inside job not because I believe that the US deep State is moral I don't believe it because there's no proof if a bunch of Cia agent were caught painting thermite onto the wtc I'D start believing.
Ok you dont have proof that cia agents painted the walls with thermite but there is story after story of intelligence fuck ups and incompetence, completely irrational and suspicious behaviour from cheney and rumsfeld and strange coincidences and business links. You dont have to believe that jet fuel cant melt steel beams to believe there was some sort of complicity of some faction of the deep state. We will never know for sure because its impossible for a single believeable account either way to emerge, much like JFK to this day, but for me i agnostically believe it was an 'inside job' if you have to use that term.
I am following the war in Ukraine on a YouTube channel called Military Summary - which breaks down what’s happening each day using maps. It seems pretty good to me, but what do I know? If anybody actually does know I’d value some assessment of the channel.
Also while it's pretty obvious that the Russians are performing much better in this stage of the war, it also seems like that isn't enough to make a difference. Maybe it would be a different story if they hadn't lost so much momentum (to say nothing of men and materiel) in Kyiv and Mariupol, but they did, and now even if they manage to cut off Ukrainian forces in Lysychansk (by no means a certainty) they will still have to grind through the rest of Donetsk province. Will the Russians manage to take the remainder of the province without turning Bakhmut, Sloviansk, and Kramatorsk into Mariupol? Anything is possible, but I have my doubts, and I would be surprised if the Russians don't pay a heavy price for each of those cities.
If they're willing to pay the price, they'll be able to occupy as much territory as they want, given time. Then the war turns into a guerrilla war and Ukraine turns into Afghanistan, with psychos like the Azov Batallion playing the role of the mujahideen. Then the Russians get to keep whatever land they took as long as they're willing to put up with the insurgency, and then they'll leave, and Ukraine will be a devastated basket case. After that, who knows?
If there was an inside job element to 9/11 it was well-hidden. If elements in the US government did something like that, they would *never* have used controlled demolitions, a cruise missile, etc. That would leave FAR too much evidence behind, too many potential witnesses, too many conflicts with what the stated story was. Why take that risk when you it would be so, so easy to just get 19 highjackers onto planes? It doesn't make sense. So what is plausible? Remember; the best coverups include as much of the truth as possible. The planes really were highjacked and flown into buildings or terrain by 19 people. But did anyone in the government know about it beforehand? There is evidence that some in the US security state (Tom Wilshire and Richard Blee, among others) may have taken steps to prevent one or more of the highjackers from being caught in the year leading up to the attacks, as well as well-established connections between the highjackers and Saudi intelligence. I take this more seriously than controlled demolition theories because, if this is what happened, it would be relatively simple to cover up. This could be very easily compartmentalized to the point where even the top echelons of the executive branch didn't know about it. So is that what happened? Unfortunately we'll probably never know, but it might be worth thinking about. For the record, I think the apartment bombings were most likely an inside job- I once read an interview with Putin held right after he came to power, and the interviewer asked him about it. Putin's response was incredulous, but not in a way that came across as genuine. Sort of hard to take him seriously when he says "Bomb apartments? Who would do that!?" given the events of the past two decades.
There's plenty of evidence that the official story about 9/11 is just a lie. You're overlooking the more important detail that nobody cares and nobody will do anything. No one anywhere is going to challenge the U.S. empire on its crimes, whether they blow up a couple buildings full of Americans in New York, a big chunk of their own Pentagon, or millions of people overseas. Plenty of regular Americans, probably more than half, believe 9/11 was an inside job in some capacity or another. But a majority of Americans also still believe in the legitimacy and integrity of U.S. institutions and still support all the wars, abrogations of civil rights, and foreign interventions that were justified by 9/11. I don't know why they even bother covering anything up anymore, except that it keeps someone somewhere employed. It's a matter of public record that the George W. Bush administration launched two illegal wars under false pretenses which got millions of people killed and funneled over a trillion dollars to corrupt war profiteers around the world (which is much worse than engineering 9/11), and no one even noticed. At this point half of American voters believe the government has been hijacked by the deep state and a cabal of liberal Jewish pedophiles and the other half believe the government has been hijacked by Vladimir Putin and some hackers, but none of them do anything besides vote in elections that they don't even believe are valid and post about it on-line. I don't know if it's fear or just, as I heard someone say once, this idiotic refusal to let go of what people learned in elementary school social studies class. Anyway, yeah, the government did 9/11. Why not? On the list of American crimes, blowing up some buildings full of innocent people and then half-assedly covering it up is actually not that big a deal.
Another major benefit of having assault weapons everywhere is that it'll be that much easier to organize the right-wing street gangs/paramilitaries/death squads who will be responsible for crushing any socialist challenge to the established order. American financial capitalism isn't that far away from having to violently defend itself at home.
I’ve spent less than a year cumulatively in the US over the past decade. Certainly a lot of great places and people to visit but it gets more unfamiliar and frightening each time. So I can deeply relate to John/Gary in that respect
also, i wasn't shocked or disturbed by sandy hook or columbine but i was by fallujah and gaza cast lead. the first two made no sense other than adolescent nihilistic idiocy - which i can vaguely remember - but the others are just fucking tragedies. i mean they are heroic not just stupid. surprised ames is cut up about sandy hook. I am a long way from uvale or buffalo (but not from christchurch) .
I take it you don’t have any children in elementary school?
wah wah about bullying. I don't think you can blame us gun crime on it. I'm from NZ, the home of anti-bullying - and death rates in construction from very woke mother fuckers. bullying is part and parcel of every class society surely. fine balance is. a great book about that ay
Anti-bullying is the latest neoliberal trend. It will never get rid of workplace bullying. Neoliberalism loves to hide its hierarchies (you're not an employee, you're an equal opportunity non discriminatory contractor) but they are as savage as ever. If the unions ever get strong enough again we will be the target of sanctimonious PMC anti-bullying crusades.
The militarized US police is there to kill and oppress you not to protect you. Should be obvious now.
The company I work for is having this program to improve worker efficiency. What do they call it? The "phoenix program". Yikes. Seems like some people have not read enough history (or they have read too much).
Haven't listened yet, but really enjoying this series, thanks for the latest installment!
Getting to the bombing part and FSB conspiracy - what I usually come back to is that you will likely never know if a conspiracy is true. The best you can do, then, is ask yourself, "what are the implications of it, if the conspiracy IS true?" That often gives you a maximal position to start evaluating from
So police budgets are for harassing poor and homeless people while buying expensive props and costumes for cops to cosplay with
🌎🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
As of May 30, the US has had 231 mass shootings for 2022, assuming 4 people shot is the minimum to define a shooting as a mass shooting https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/query/0484b316-f676-44bc-97ed-ecefeabae077
Needling as an 'adolescent ego control measure' is an interesting framework, I like it
Didn’t the cops stand outside Steven Paddocks’s suite for like an hour, too? I’m sure that was reassuring to the 600 people he wounded and 60 he murdered. Cops are the fucking worst.
The bullies become cops.
Which is 1:1 correlation to that bullies are cowards shit. But cops are just the lowest forms of life on earth. They are beneath contempt.
LOL. The 2022 war nerd summer offensive.
Gary and Mark have you thought about releasing exile articles into a compilation book ? I would love to read. I was 1 years old in 1991 so I missed it !
That would be nice. I can think of one big obstacle to that, though.
RWN is on a tear right now 😮💨