Female Suicide Bombers Strike Main Subway Line in Moscow

It's probably not news that American television news sucks. In spite of a liberal bent in their analysis of news events, the BBC can't be beat in its coverage of world events. It's true they've got the advantage of getting up six hours earlier than we do, but that doesn't explain all of it.

I had to tune BBC America this morning to get the story about the suicide bombings on the downtown Moscow subway. The U.S. coverage at 6:00 a.m. was limited to a "crawl" at the bottom of the screen. When the U.S. television stations did finally begin broadcasting the story, CNN treated the story as if it were a teaser for "American Idol." Wait until we tell you why New York City is tightening surveillance on the subways this morning!

I was disappointed in Fox News, too, but they did manage to get a blurry but direct feed with a reporter in downtown Moscow, outside the main Lubyanka station where the first suicide bomber struck. A second female suicide bomber struck at Kultura station within the hour of the first attack. The attacks occurred during the early morning rush hour when subway traffic was at its peak. The bombs, believed attached to the bombers via vests, were filled with nails and other sharp metals to maximize civilian casualties.

An estimated 37 people were killed with perhaps a hundred wounded as the result of both explosions. I expect this will be big news on American television tomorrow, but isn't broadcast supposed to beat print media to the punch? The BBC had video of the attacks posted on its website even before the smoke had cleared.

The U.S. media these days seems to be operating on a policy of "topic du jour." I wouldn't be surprised if television news directors sit in front of a bank of screens and switch feeds according to the number of "page hits" they get. What else would explain the amount of TV time CNN devotes to analyzing Sandra Bullock's philandering husband Jesse James' and his mistresses? If this is not already more important in the public mind than a terrorist attack on the Moscow subway, the constant barrage of celebrity frippery will make it so-to America's detriment, I might add.

But then again, America seems only a little concerned with terrorism in Russia. Russia deserves the criticism it gets for a variety of heavy-handed political tactics, but criticizing Russia for its tough tactics in dealing with terrorists is always easy when you're not among the captives. When Islamists captured the Moscow opera and festooned it with bombs, Russian Special Forces troops were accused of causing the majority of the casualties, and the 40 or 50 armed Islamic "separatists" who held 900 people hostages were held virtually blameless.

The Russians came in for worldwide media criticism when Islamic "separatists," under the direction of Shamil Baseyev, killed 89 civilians in September 2004in suicide bomb attacks on airlines. 2004 was the same year that the "separatists" killed 300 children of the 1200 children and teachers taken hostage at School Number one in Beslan. In another targeting of a civilian population, Basayev took more than 1600 doctors and patients hostage during an attack in the town of Budyonnovsk. Blame the Russians for those deaths, too; after all, anyone with a good measure of oratorical and negotiating skills could have just talked the terrorists out of executing those attacks.

Russian President Medvedev and Vladimir Putin went on television this morning to tell Russians that FSB (formerly KGB) investigators would root out the terrorists who coordinated the subway attacks. A BBC political analyst in Eastern Europe was asked this morning what could be expected from the Russian response to the attacks. In heavily accented English, the analyst reported that the typical Russian reaction would be "tough, tough, tough." Prime Minister Putin appeared emotionally restrained on the BBC television clip as he told Russian citizens that the terrorists would be "destroyed" but take him at his word.

The terrorist mastermind Shamil Basayev was killed in July of 2006 after 11 years on the run and a ten million dollar bounty on his head. After several failed attempts at capturing Basayev, Russian agents finally managed to lure him and some of his lieutenants with a consignment of explosives which the terrorist leader planned to use in an attack on the G8 Summit. The FSB agents exploded the consignment as Basayev sat in his car nearby.

The intelligence gathered for the final operation against Basayev was garnered from surveillance in foreign countries which were supplying the Chechen Islamists with arms. The Islamic terrorists of Chechnya admitted that their most notorious leader had indeed been killed after Russian authorities identified Basayev through DNA obtained from his prosthetic leg, his thick beard hairs, and his explosion-severed head.

I expect the world media will soon be condemning the Russian response to this latest Moscow subway attack and constructing elaborate apologias for what is reported to be Chechen terrorism. Although operating in several countries, including countries where U.S. and coalition troops are engaged, the Chechen attacks on civilians will be justified as being motivated by "desperation" as are the terrorists who attack Israel or Indonesia or Spain, or Britain, or everywhere in the known universe.

Sources: For more info on the Beslan Butcher, read:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russians-claim-killing-of-rebel-basayev-the-beslan-butcher-407462.html