Tuesday, 12 February 2008

2004_09_01_archive



No Joy in Mudville

The wind has been snuffed from my snide sails.

I wanted to come in this morning, and write a bitchy post about the

Bush twins making utter fools of themselves with their ill-suited teen

banter, and how you'd never have seen Chelsea pull such a stunt upon

her graduation from college because she respected herself as an

accomplished young woman.

But frankly, I don't have the heart. Because I pulled up the Post

on-line this morning and was greeted with this:

And right now, there are maybe hundreds of children huddled in a gym

on a long, sleepless night while heavily armed thugs stomp around

them, threatening to kill 50 children for every one of their fighters

who is killed. A mere 20 children will be slaughtered for the wounding

of a fighter. Children have been spotted up against windows -

"apparently being used as human shields."

There's a lot to be said. About the string of attacks, about the

sources and contacts and motivations of these groups. Russian security

services need to have a good hard look at themselves, and there's

foreign policy to consider. All that must be done, but maybe I'm not

cut out for that kind of thing, because I can't stop thinking about

the kids right now.

I keep thinking back to the last time we watched this macabre

production - when Chechen militants stormed Moscow's Dubrovka theater,

taking 700+ hostages. Remember how that ended? Remember how the

security services sent a nerve gas into the theater that was meant to

incapacitate the militants, but killed scores of hostages? I know they

won't make the same mistake again, but the inkling of a chance that we

might have to see photos of dozens of children's bodies piled up


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