"Chechens in Afghanistan" Deliberate FalsificationTo Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough,
I read your article Inside the Rings published on 1/11/2002, and in it you claimed that "significant number of Chechens" were among those captured in Afghanistan. You then proceeded further to presumably indicate that "officials" said they will most likely be turned over to the Russian government.
The problem with your claims are not only that they are untrue, but also deliberate lies aimed against discrediting the entire Chechen population. Who is the "official" that provided you with those
fabricated details? Nobody, and you two know it. Otherwise, Pentagon
would have made such serious accusations public long ago. In fact,
just after reading your article, I called the Pentagon myself, as I
have done before, at (703)697-5737 and they indicated that no such
claims have come out of the Pentagon. Therefore, you two are a fraud.
What you two are doing is playing the same tunes the Russian FSBs
have been playing against the so called Chechens in Afghanistan for a
long time. Only incompetent writers, such as yourselves, have played
along. The only difference between you two and other disgruntled
writers is that they just repeated what they heard and with no effort
to verify the integrity or authenticity of such accusations. Your
article, however, indicate your deliberate attempt to instill phony
legitimacy in your accusations (by pretending they are actually from
the Pentagon) to give readers the impression that they have the
slightest truth in them. Committing such actions are shameful and
disgraceful and they greatly undermine people's trust in any news
coming out of The Washington Times (TWT).
The Chechen population is already suffering and facing genocide on
the hands of the Russian army, and your dishonest work ethics
contribute to further worsening of their situation.
I hope you two come to terms with truth in journalism and publicly
apologize to the entire Chechen population and vow to never again
fabricate information that you know is not true. I also hope the
respected editors at TWT seriously reconsider your association with
their organization.
Regards,
Shamil Daghestani
The article Mr. Daghestani is referring to was published in The Washington Times on January 11, 2002 under the title Inside the Ring. |
