Russians Lied

In other news, the pope is Catholic.

Sometimes old habits die hard (registration required) and horribly.

MOSCOW, Sept. 5 -- The Russian government admitted Sunday that it lied to its people about the scale of the hostage crisis that ended with more than 300 children, parents and teachers dead in southern Russia, making an extraordinary admission through state television after days of intense criticism from citizens.

As the bereaved families of Beslan began to lay their loved ones to rest Sunday, the Kremlin-controlled Rossiya network aired gripping, gruesome footage it had withheld from the public for days and said government officials had deliberately deceived the world about the number of hostages inside School No. 1.

Hello? This is Russia we’re discussing here. The Kremlin and Vladimir Putin probably realized that—these days--information will get out to the world, one way or the other. If that’s the case, then the Russian government is a lot quicker on the uptake than much of our own mainstream media. Scary thought.

Comments

[David Blue]

Well they had the Kusk disaster to educate them that their lies have only a certain shelf life now. Chernobyl before that of course.

[torchy]

I don't see what the hub bub is about. The people who had to know the truth were on scene, the parents, loved ones, local administration and probably the scene commanders. I don't think they were turning to Moscow for their news and Putin didn't owe those animals any free international press anyway. It's intereseting the Moscow press has the freedom to criticize Putin or took it. Shows inklings of a free press and not just gov't organs. Free to be assholes like our press has been with Bush.

[David Blue]

No hub bub, bub. Just a sensible observation, like yours.

[torchy]

David Blue-I meant the hub bub about Russian gov't "lies". 1200 or 300 hostages, doesn't change the basics of the crisis or who it may affect that much. A little different from a damaged nuclear sub leaking into ocean currents or a major nuclear power plant spewing dangerous material for hundreds of miles.

[Mike Tyukanov]

Actually, the idea to lie deliberately about the number of hostages came from British counterterror analysts. It gives authorities a bargain chip: "you know that the world even doesn't know how many hostages are here, now, if you want to make your point, let us at least bring food to hostages".
It was not used before: both in the Moscow theater in 2002 and in the Budyonnovsk maternity ward in 1995 terrorists had good access to media and nobody tried to hide the numbers.
However, our government lied so often to us in other cases that now this rare case of condonable disinformation backfired.

[baldilocks]

Mike: Thanks.

I really value your contribution here. It has inspired me to improve on my badly degnerated Russian language skills.

[Mike Tyukanov]

Well, thank you. As I just have written on Lex's blog: reading your blogs ready helps me to keep sanity right now. Unfortunately we've started blame game too prematurely.