The Horror...

It doesn't make much sense to debate issues on which the debatees, sadly, have a zero chance of a democratic influence. Even tough Israel is a democracy, this is true for most aspects of the I/P conflict and debates involving me. It is true for Kashmir. It is true for the worst conflict-related humanitarian catastrophes currently in the world, in whose top five I don't count Iraq or Palestina, but count what goes on in the Democratic Republic of Kongo (ex-Zaire), the middle of Sudan, Afghanistan - and Southern Russia, more closely Chechnya. In all cases, while outsiders might prefer to talk about 'two sides' of a conflict, those actually doing the fighting are a minority, but the fighting is done against the majority, by each and every armed 'side' in the conflict in its own way[*].

While I don't debate these or write much about them here, I do closely follow the sickening events. What is even more sickening is a consequence of the fact that while I just don't write about, most people don't care about most of this: it is when Western public outrage picks and chooses what atroticies to denounce. I won't comment further here, I just recommend "Horror and hysteria: Russia and Chechnya." over at Lenin's Tomb, with special attention to what a certain Chechenitz wrote in the comments.

[*]Note: this is not a statement about who started a specific conflict or in whose hands its solution is, and read carefully, this doesn't even say conflict parties deserve equal blame.