Information wars

On chechnya-sl, Norbert Strade has some interesting reflections on Basayev's earlier statement (17 September 2004), and on the nature of the Kavkaz Center website in general. On the 17 September statement:

With regard to the "Basayev statement" on KC, in which he takes responsibility for Beslan, things look somewhat different. I've previously said here that I'm not sure if it is authentic. I'm still not sure. It contains many inconsistencies and strange variations in the language used. Some parts of it don't sound like Basayev, others do. Additionally, it contains information which only someone who was on the spot during the assault could be in possession of. This again implies that either this info was added by someone else, or that Basayev was in cellular phone connection with the kidnappers until the end of the drama. The latter would again raise certain questions, like: "How come the Russian authorities allowed the perpetrators to keep up their cell-phone contacts with their accomplices, against all rules in such cases? How was it possible that they didn't track the receivers of these calls?", and so on. I'm not yet ready to have a 100% sure opinion about this whole text, as long as there's still new information coming in from Beslan, and while the Russian authorities and the KGB-controlled media are continuing to pour out tons of self-contradicting disinformation every day, in order to totally confuse any attempt at analyzing the material. Right now, it looks to me as if the mentioned statement is partially Basayev, partially doctored. But let's wait and see.

And on Kavkaz Center:

With regard to Kavkaz-Center, I can only repeat what I have said here any times: One has to invoke Soviet terminology to describe its role. It's playing the part of an "objective agent". I.e., whatever the motives of Udugov and his journalists, the objective role plaid by this publication is to deliver material which is warmly welcomed by the Russian propaganda and used by it in order to describe the Chechen Resistance as "Muslim terrorists". Each time some Russian atrocity exceptionally makes it to the international headlines, KC would not wait long and publish some threat against civilians, Western states or interests, anti-Semitic pamphlets, cheers to Mr. OBL, and so on. In this way it has done better work for the Russian Fascists than their own, usually clumsy propaganda. I think one should give KC the benefit of doubt and assume that they are just writing according to their convictions, but their activity has been an objective catastrophe for the Chechen cause. Even more so, because it is the only Chechen website taken seriously by Western media. On the other hand, not everything on KC is bad. In between the provocative stuff, they've always had interesting and useful analyses, and especially the best coverage of the military events, compared with other Chechen sites, including Chechenpress.

Read the whole post here.