Baffled!

Submitted by Bryan Taplits (United States), Sep 7, 2004 at 13:35

Dr. Pipes,

Many times in the past I've E-mailed you on your articles saying that, in effect, your analysis made the reportage of other journalism/newspaper Web sites more clear, ie, you explain, pellucidly, what the facts are.

But there are so many different reports on the Russian massacre of the schoolchildren, I don't know what is true and what is exaggerated (or, worse yet, mislabeled or ignored).

For instance, I've heard that the Russians caught 10 Arabs. But then the Washington Post says that that may be inaccurate. And no one reports whether the children were all Christians or were some Muslims. And, most importantly, were any of the murderers Muslims? Were all of them? Were some of them Chrisitians? The incident is terrible without a doubt; but, without identifying the facts, how can one analyze it correctly-except to say, "Hey. This is horrible", and then shrug your shoulders and move on.

Even Fox News is ignoring the story. And the only Conservative commentator I've heard analyze the situation was Laura Ingraham (From experience, I tend to trust Conservative points of view on the accuracy of the facts they base their analyses on). Even Rush (who I trust to insightfully analyze the most complicated situation), has not (to my knowledge) analyzed the massacre.

So, I'm writing to you. After having read your latest E-mail, I'm still in the dark on many of the facts. Therefore, would you please explain the salient facts of the mass murder in Russia, focusing on how, specifically it relates to the War on Terror, Al-Qaida, and the War in Iraq? PLEASE!

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