Mary, I think you need to understand that there's a difference between being a top regional concrete producer, mixing the sand, silica and whatever else and shipping THAT on barges all over the region....and then having the expertise to ferry in the wet cement product the way cement mixers are constantly doing in the USA.
And re the 'totally not prehistoric' situation which you're sure
post-war post-Al Q'aeda-terror-struck Iraq is in....um, we're talking about a country which always during it's MOST 'civilised' most technologically advanced days during Sodom's reign had near constant power outages....and pockmarked horrible streets and highways. Their infrastructure has SUCKED for years.
And these engineers available to them....well how about during the pre-US-attack exodus, didn't the best and brightest find ways to just up and get the fuck OUT of there?
And sufficient numbers have come back then to equal any and all expertise Western nations' construction companies may offer? I very much doubt that...
~
That Ossetia/Russia terror scenario is simply UNbelievable....
You've got the Chechens with an absolutely legit beef that Russia should have just left them the fuck alone after the rest of their bullshit 'Empire' sank to oblivion.
Though....
You'd think that the Chechens would be able to build a bit of support for their cause in some sort of non-violent way....among the other ex-'Republics'...and ex-satellites who went through the identical struggle to free themselves from the Russian 'experiment'....but no, they haven't.
Could it be that nobody actually likes the Chechens?
And that perhaps they've got reasons for disliking them...to the point where they can't be bothered to support someone who's national character is, to them distasteful in many many ways?
My brother-in-law's experiences while in the Soviet army was that the Chechens were hot-headed completely aculturated clannish and violent slobs....pretty much invariably.
Then later, as the Chechen-Russian conflicts were escalating, in the early-to-mid 90s, the rich(er) Chechen chiefs and captains-of-industry there(most of whom had gotten THEIR 'influence' as loyal party members, ironically)chose to send their sons and daughters to 'safer' places which yet remained close-to-home to 'attend school/university' and keep them out of harm's way.
Elements of this group were responsible for running totally roughshod through the University cities of Lithuania, sometimes packing goddamned swords as though they were still back in the hills of home. Stabbings, shootings, thefts simply followed this group around....and Mommy and Daddy back home would send along a barrel of money and the police chiefs, bought off as is the way of MUCH police 'work' in Lithuania, had little choice but to release them...
You've got 2 quite extensively PROVEN hot-headed nations pounding their heads against one another....one of them small, with legitimate grievances regarding their 'rights' to ALSO have their own nation free of the other's influence, but ALSO one which somehow has not garnered support in the region. Nor much world-wide either...with Russia getting very little censure, not even in the way which China forinstance is lambasted for its human rights shortcomings.
Well, EXCEPT for the Beijing/Peking Olympics....
Then the other is the huge(and economically
SHOT), eternally acquistive, eternal coat-tail riders of the Russian republic...very likely grabbing for what little they have left over from their 'glory days'...since they figure no-one truly will want to help these other ill-mannered, ill-behaved people.
Who, of course are also sitting on oil fields.
I mean the Russians COULD fucking
BUY the Chechen oil companies the way that they have in Lithuania(which was another really stupid economic blunder there), but no-o-o-OOOO....old habits die hard, especially in Russia's case, you've got to suppose.
NOW you've got 10 of the 24 dead hostage-takers labelled as 'Arabic'....so now WTF??
Al Q'aeda's stock-in-trade to stir the shit to a totally unreasoning fever-pitch...just as they are in Iraq.
The Chechens themselves are to become Al Q'aeda's brain-washed Islamist lap-dogs to simply fight to the death in the face of an increasingly stubborn Russian republic otherwise already reeling from so many OTHER humiliating slaps in the face since 1989....
How can they imagine that by escalating their savagery, Al Q'aeda-style, that the Russians are going to capitulate and appease?
Idiots. Fucking idiots I swear.
Russia's being put in the exact same position as Israel, but I can guarantee that they will be more ruthless, savage and pissed-off than Israel will EVER be capable of being...
Tho perhaps Putin will go soft and 'pull a Gorbachev'....d'ya think?
)