Apollo

Good for you ,now you think i believe my media much? I read a lot about the Chechen conflict ,i don't say i know it all ,but i think to some point i know what i'm talking about. Well thats just the problem really ,outside media isn't even allowed in Chechnia ,so it's hard to get any news from what is happening out there.Why isn't media allowed there? Maybe Russia has something to hide? Â There is just now way of really knowing whats happening out there as free media is just not allowed to get there. War is war ,those conscripts will shoot rebels as they are ordered to.They are send there by the Russian goverment ,the responsibility for them lies as such with the Russian goverment.And they are not all conscripts ,Russian soldiers don't earn much and for them it's a nice way to earn something extra ,many go for the extra income. Indeed many do for obvious reasons ,and i have the right to say my oppinion whether you find it biased or not ,but clearly many westeners will agree on the notion that Russia is responsible for a large part for the atrocity's in the Chechen wars.But they arn't very well docuumented ,the outcry is mainly there because the result is so visibly ,namely for ex. Grozny is in ruins ,even if you havn't witnessed the carnage first hand it isn't hard to draw conclusions as what an lenghty artillery siege on such a city with such results will have done on the civilian poppulation.The witness reports are there to ,from many refugee's now living in europe ,or the hard facts that 75% of Grozny's citizins have lost a direct relative.And another thing ,youre just sitting behind youre computer making remarks to. And i do not support any of the factions involved ,but i feel bad for the children.I must be not normal? Anyway ,say what you want ,but such attacks will continue because of the past Chechen wars ,i got to feel symphaty for the russians anytime such an attack happens but Putin doesn't want to give in an inch to not loose face?He could have prevented all this by not innitiating the 2nd chechen war ,COLD FACT ! The term "terrorist" has been turned around ,inside out and upside down a zillion time's to fit the agenda of multiple country's facing seperatism movements ,because they know that after 9/11 they can easily use this term to stamp the justification of those movements into the ground and give their actions international justification ,to the point of rediculousness really ,if a seperatist gunman shoots an enemy soldier these days he is considerd a terrorist ,while thats pure conventional warfare ,and deffinatly any for of verticval warfare is to easily labelled terroris ,while at many cases it's guerilla warfare.And you have to take into acount my nuancations ,as long as they were taking people puraly as hostage's they wern't terrorists ,but when they started blewing up hostage's they were terrorists ,but shooting on fleeing hostages is by definition not a terrorist act ,in a pure hostage situation shooting hostage's that try to flee is normal as iff you wouldn't it would defeat the purpose of taking hostages (all hostages would see that they can just go away) ,but if youre blowing up hostages withought having to under such circumstances that is terrorism by certain definitions. Do not make interpretations of what i seem to understand ,in discussion i find such remarks offensive and unconstructive. NOONE knows the definition of terrorism ,after 9/11 university's all over the world have hard times to find a good definnition of the term terrorism as it has been misused all over the world.Because at many times the the term is used in conflicting curcumstances. For ex. ,was the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki or Hiroshima terrorism? Or the allied bombings on Dresden for ex. in WWII? And youre brain washing remark is clearly offensive ,you don't have to patronize me ,i do not do such thing's onto you. Â

My rebels? I didn't order them.You make it sound like i support them. I do not justify their actions ,i'm a humanist and i hate all killing. I was talking symantics ,when a bunch of bankrobers take a number of people hostage while robbing a bank ,and one hostage tries to flee upon wich the bankrobbers shoot that hostage ,does that make them terrorists or bankrobbers? And another thing ,don't trust on Russian media to much ,ever since Putin ousted Goerzinsky "the goose" oligarch and boss of the only free Russian media group with the channel Nedtv Russian media hasn't been exactly unbiased.I wouldn't be surprized if Russian soldiers had more to do with the start of the shooting that what they claim ,the deathtoll is deffinatly higher than what they first claimed. Thechnia is off limits for western media ,some French journalists with film crew managed to clandistinly make a report in chechnia once some time ago ,what they filmed was hardly less horrible than what ive seen today ,and i was shocked today to.And that was just one report by the only free filmcrew that ever got in there to make such a report ,it was just the tip of the iceberg. This is a highly dirty war ,and the russians really arn't a hair better than the men opperating under Bashayev ,in fact i would call them worse ,only Russia's atrocity's in chechnia arn't as well documented as the terrorist attacks on russia.

They also said the man behind this was Shamil Basayev ,WELL DUH! I knew that when the whole stuff started ,there is only one part of the Chechen seperatist movement who organize such stuff and thats Shamil basayev's splinter group. And the arabs are logical ,remember that Ibn al-khatab was poisend by the FSB in 2002 ,and that Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was killed in Doha beginning of this year by a car bomb? (not proven but most probably FSB) Al khatab was a seperatist supporter of Basayev of Saudi Arabian origin ,Yandarbiyev was a former president (came to power after the assasination of Dudaev) who imported Wahibism to a number of Chechen fighters who later organized under Basayev's command ,both these men had many connections under international terrorists and raised funds for actions of Basayev's group ,in turn many of Basayev veteran commando's trained multiple terrorists in the training camps in Afhanistan ,it's probable that for ex. the 9/11 terrorists were trained by commando's of Basayev. I would go as far as saying that Basayev his group is more a part of Al-Quaida ,and quite directly ,than allied to the real chechen seperatists led by Aslan Maskhadov. (yandarbiyev tried to assasinate Maskhadov btw ,Maskhadov wasn't exactly keen on yandarbiyev spreading wahabism under his commando's) The connections between Basayevs group and Al-Quaida run so deep that personally i consider Basayev group the strongest allie of Al-Quaida ,and this from way before the 9/11 attacks.

We had the discussion earlier and frankly i felt that all my sources that clearly IMO validated my points at that time were also ignored ,now i do not understand where i have ignored youre posts ,i have read them and i see nothing that i have ignored ,plz repeat what you think i have ignored. I ignored youre request of not discussing the Chechen war in this thread? Well probably then ,but mostly because i feel that a) russia and especially putin has a large responsibilety on this conflict and b) that while due to the media attention that this case gets the casualty's that happen here are moarned more than those casualty's that fell in the Chechen war in far larger numbers when the Russians managed to keep the media witnissing most of that. Another thing is that find it frankly rediculous that i should have to disconnect this episode from the chechen conflict ,it's clearly linked to it and you need to take the chechen conflict into account to correctly review this episode.This IS the right time to discuss the Chechen conflict! Im not saying this isn't a tragedy ,but i won't moarn more those casualties that have a lot of media attention than those killed or brutalized in anonimity ,and that goes for all dying children all over this world ,suddently everybody must be schocked about this atrocity ,but most people arn't interrested or don't care anymore for those thousands of children dying every so time by starvation in the endless conflicts in Africa. IMO ,terrorism is highly over rated and over mediatized.

There is actually a very big chance that there are other lifeforms in the universe. The universe is so immensly hughe ,that even if life on a planet happen only on 1 for every 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000 planets then there are still billions of inhabited planets out there.

I didn't hear Russians yelling "atrocity" when kids died in chechnia ,and newsflash kids die every day all over the world due to conflict ,hunger and what not. This situation is one of action and consequence ,It's Russia's bloody campaign that spawned this grim actions on it's civilians ,im not calling them nice but it's a consequence of russia's actions.If Russia had left Chechnia alone after the defeat of Jeltsin ,all of this would never have happened ,PERIOD! But then Putin knew that he could stirr the nationalist feeling's of many Russians by declaring war on a minor country that hummiliated russia some years before it. And the important thing to remember here is that THIS WILL CONTINUE ,as long as Chechens don't get what they want ,you can whine as much as you want about the terrorist attacks but as long as Chechnia isn't granted independance by mr Putin (wich would be a loss of face for him ,wch he can't face) russian civilians will die! These terrorist attacks are mostly the work of Shamil Basajev and his clan ,not the Chechen insurgents in total. The Chechens have tried to gain independance by conventional warfare.The first war they won ,and after that they establisished a stable democratic country.Then a second campaign ordered by Putin rolled over the country with more men and material and the use of extensive bombardment on city's with many civilians in it and mass pillaging ,murdering ,raping etc. More Chechen civilians died in that campaign that there will ever die by Chechen terrorists. That conventional war was lost by the Chechens ,some Chechens fought on as insurgents and guerilla's but eventually the Russians keep reinforcing and won't back down for these insurgents ,some chechens made the conclusion that they need terrorism to either reach their goal or simply take revenge ,while others keep on fighting as guerilla's in conventional ways. profile: Shamil Basayev Not all chechen rebels are terrorists ,Maskadov for ex. is a leader of Chechen guerilla troops.In fact Basayev is one of the only muslim Chechen clan leaders!Maskhadov as supreme leader of the rebels often tried to get Wahabists (fanatic religion originating from Saudi Arabia ,often the religion of international terrorists) out of his faction. profile: Aslan Maskhadov

I was just talking symantics ,not justifying their deeds. quaote by Monkey Lib Front: Where do you think you have the right to make that interpretation of me? Â It's not that because i find Russia's involvement in Chechnya wrong that i hate Russians in general ,in fact i got a Russian immigrant here called Igor that i consider a good friend.I find putin a reasonable leader ,deffinatly better than the Oliarchy that flourished under Jeltsin ,but his Chechnya affair was a move to get him ellected and now has run thurally out of hand ,he shoulda kept the situation with the Defeat Jeltsin had. I got nothing against Russians and i find Putin a reasonable leader to Russia standards.But the Chechens have fought for independance of Russia in many century's and after Jeltsin campaign tchechnia had a democraticly ellected goverment ellected by the majority of it's people ,IN my oppinion that makes their right for independance more than justified. I wonder how much you really know about that conflict.Chechnia'n society has always been one of clans in a very decentralized country where concensus was used to make agreements and decission between multiple layers of society's and clans ,the Highly centralized and authoritarian nature of russian goverment never worked well with this social structure.

Well they started blowing up when the negotiations failed ,as to put more pressure on Russia probably ,and since Russia wouldn't give in to their demands the explosions were used as a solid justification for them to storm the building.it was not like casualties had fallen on day one ,so if russia would have given in from the start probably no casualties would have fallen.Afcourse the Russians knew they would never give in ,so they were waiting for the one shot or blast to have a public justification to storm the building ,they couldn't storm it withought provocation as then the public oppinion would have been devastatingg for the Russian goverment ,just like it was after the Moskou theatre crises.But the Riussians did know that eventually it had to end like this.

"rebels" is a common name given to members of seperatist movements. They are not terrorists defacto ,they took those men in hostage with a political demand: Freedom of Chechnia from Russia. If russia had given in to their demand (unlikely afcourse) then probably no casualty's would have fallen ,as such this initial purpose of this hostage taking was seperatism and not pure terrorism.A pure terrorist would have just gone in and blown the building to bits.

Yeah the russian soldiers were hardly any better in the Chechen war ,mass killings ,rapings ,even of women and children were undiscrimatly executed. Well it's the war that won Putin his ellection ,but the whole conflict is a quagmire withought an end in sight .It won't stop with this hostage crisis ,6 months from now were probably gona see another one.This crises even overshadows the fact that just a few days two airplanes were taken down presumably by Chechens with also large death toll. I'm not a supporter of terrorism ,but personally ive always seen the Chechen independance movement as justified.

The number of hostages that the russian managesd to get free were only a small number of total hostages ,as said on BBC.Those rescued were mainly the older children and some adults. Some of the rebels managed to flee the area and took some hostages with them ,as reported by BBc also. I expect a similar deathtoll as in the Moscow theatre tragedy ,if not more ,and mostly kids.

I'm an atheist. Well ,expect political consequences.

Parts of the school building have collapsed just a few minutes ago now after some explosions ,Russian soldiers look to be storming the building ,it's all happening right now. edit; Multiple wounded people being brought out ,lots of children heavily wounded. Â @Avon: The gunfire was already on for 50 minutes when the rebels tried a breakout ,it started after some explosions at the school itself ,a firefight then started and later some Chechens tried to escape. It looks like it's going to be a bloodbath ,reports of multiple dead body's now all over the school ,many wounded children are being brought away in ambulances.

Breaking news ,check at BBc world ,Lots of gunfire now around the school ,mutliple explosions ,some kids have been reported to be freed by russian soldiers from the school ,looks like Russians have given up on negotiations. Expect a bloodbath.

Well some variation in civilians would be nice ,right now they all look like a homogenious Slavic bunch of guys. (bohemians maybe?) Some Chinese civilians ,usually  bit smaller than other people and having other eyes ,some North African and central african types of persons usually more black ,some latino's usually called Jezus or jose (pronounced: Geesus or Gosé) Some traditionally clothed Bavarians usually holding a Half a liter Beer and a Bratwurst ,some Dutchy's with klomps and a boll of cheese ,some French with a silly hat and puffy pants with suspenders.Some Canadian mounty's and lumberjacks.Some Indians with nothing more than a towel around their waist and one on their head ,Muslim woman in Burkha's ,Australians in Bush gear alla crocodile Dundee. Yes i know these are all steriotype's (i'm dutch btw ,well Flemmisch actually) that doesn't mean they wouldn't be cool to have as civilians ,call it a multi cultural country. And while were at it ,id would always like a groups of Hare Krischna's or 10 Elvisses to run over with a car in the city's. Guys in bussiness suits are lacking to ,woman in sexy clothing ,kids in general or old folks ,...

The Ofp community probably has the best modders in the whole gaming community ,because Ofp provides the most realistic and flexible platform to date to make modifications on. Personally i am gratefull for that ,i feel almost guilty that i bought this game + expansion for only about 100$ ,it's worth way more than that.I am gratefull that there are so many excelent modders out here that i would have to make a whole list just to name the uber-best of them ,their efforts to extend the life of this game is well appreciated. Are we spoiled? Well if you begin to complain when an addons is only 95% the quality of one of the top addon makers then i would call you spoiled ,i however am gratefull for every addon made even if ill never use it because it pushes the community to make even more addons. In this sense ,i would rather call us LUCKY to have into possesion such a great game with such and excelent modding community ,that we have a numbr of artists doing stuff for free here where the quality of their addons many times far exceed the quality of art made by some payd gamming programmers. This will make Ofp an eternal classic.In 20 years we will probably be shooting eachother in VR games and when youll pull youre jet to the max in turning youll probably feel the G-Forces while sitting in youre comfty chair at home ,but still with all that luxury will still remember Ofp with many good old sentiments just like many of us probably remember Half-life with such sentiments although they don't play it much anymore.

My favourite's in order: Full metal Jacket (brilliant from beginning to end ,a great source for oneliners ,and a much misunderstood pshychological movie) Das boot (brilliant overall to ,and great atmosphere) Bridge over the river Kwai (so brittish! )

Wait a minute ,didn't the Hutton inquiry explicitly say that most of the intel leading to the war was "sexed-up" and at some points even just invented by the Blair administration? All the Hutton inquiry didn't do was blaming the Blair administration after clearly showing that the Blair administration forged the evidence ,however they'd blame the BBC wich was quite ridiculous actually. Even then ,weapons of mass destruction was just a way for Bush to build a coalition for going to war with Iraq instead of doing it tottaly unilateral (something he considerd before even comming up with the weapons of mass destruction) ,in fact Bush and his horde of neocon buddy's were plainning to attack Iraq even way before 9/11 ,with explicit statements to that direction. Besides if you take into account that no weapons of mass destruction have been found and that all the after war contracts have gone to big bussiness supporters of Bush himself then it's not hard to see that this war was fought for oil and for the American economy ,Iraq being a insurance should Saudi Arabia become problematic for the U.S. These same bussines owners are now pumping a monumental amount of ellection funds into G.W Bush his pockets ,atleast 10 times larger than the funds Kerry can trust on. This is all in line with GW Bush his domestic policy's.Lowering taxes for rich strata , destroying ecology regulations so that Industry can decrease it's costs and make use of resources beneath normally protected nature parks and other policy's that mainly are interresting for big bussines.Bush his policy's clearly carry's the mark of a big industry supporter ,America is almost descending in Oliarchy with it. And the U.S media is clearly in most cases taking the Bush side.Channels like Fox and CNN are in hands of investers that profitted a lot under GW Bush his policy's both domesticly and Iraq ,and are clearly taking side of Bush ,as is about 80% of the American media landscape.Rupert murdoch ,a fanatic republican supporter ,is owner of Fox in addition to about 35 news channels and about 175 newspapers in the USA ,with this media powr he reaches more than 40% of the media share in the U.S ,just an example. Therefore i fear that Bush will win afterall ,given his Hughe ellection funds and Media support.And if not they can always tamper a bit with the Ballots ,Just ask Jeb Bush of Florida to stall a bit.

Well there are upcomming presidential ellections in Afhanistan. Thats going to be a weird affair IMO ,with the Warlords and their militia's having to power to probably force a number of civilians to vote for them ,and with ellection controls wich will be very hard.Though Karzai has the whole Populzai clan behind him to.And the possibilety of assasinations not being small ,as usual in Afhanistan. Lets just hope they manage to get Abdul Rashid Dostum out of the goverment.

Yeah well ,i was in favor of the law to actually ,since it mainly was for the shool's and it included bans on christian and jewish symbols to. But then ask yourself ,if these guys are threathening to decapitate these two journalists ,wouldn't you want youre goverment to give in to protect it's nationals even if it's giving in to extortion? Another thing is that the ban can be lifted from the national level but put trough at the local level if needed to ,be it at the provincial or city level ,or even that the shool's could be asked to put it in their own rulesset.

Still i think for Israel's sake they would rather prefer G.W Bush to win the ellection's than Kerry. Bush hasn't been exactly hard on Israel the last 4 years to push them towards peace talks ,something he actually prommised in the light of the war on terrorism.

About the incident with the French journalists. (i actually posted something about it in the war against terrorism thread ,euh sorry) Anyway ,i see it as probable that this law could be retracted. (as it was highly controversial anyway) But indeed the logic of these kidnappers bothers me ,what if they begin to take nationals as hostage with the demand to lift non secularization of the state and impose muslim law??Given the logic of these guys such demands don't look to far fetched. (well not for them)

2 French journalists kidnapped by an Iraqi religious millitant group ,they demand France to revise it's ban on headscarfs it issued some time ago. bbc article I wonder how the French goverment will react.I wasn't opposed to the ban ,however i presume under this circumstances the already very controversial ban might be retracted.In any case i don't think France will go lightly over endangering the lives of 2 nationals.

IMO the best young rider in this years tour. (regardless of the white jersey) It was also his first tour ,and it's really exceptional to win 2 courses for youre first one.

Number 2 for Boonen!! And winning the sprint in Paris is extra nice. It has been a very succesfull year for the Belgian teams again.Thats good for the future of our cycler tradition.And Boonen is a pure talent ,23 he is now ,won 15 courses this year alone of wich thus 2 tour courses ,impressive for his age.