Is Chechnya the same as Czech Republic?

I’m trying to get this all straightened out here.  Those two sickfucks that bombed the Boston Marathon, they were from the Czech Republic, right?  Or was it Chad?  Czechoslovakia?  Chen Tai Chi?

Seriously though, the more opinionated somebody is about international politics — the more CERTAIN this person is that he/she is RIGHT — the less this person knows about geography or the intricate relations between countries and regions.

Yesterday at Townhall.com there was an article about Eastern Europe being a hotbed of Islamic militancy.  [roll eyes]  [sigh]  It was just a video, no text, and the video took too long to load so I gave up and left.  Damn it, I was looking for a good laugh.

Several years ago, when Russia invaded Georgia — psssst!  guess which Georgia — Americans’ embarrassing ignorance was front and center.  What really happened:  The Georgian army invaded two regions of Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.  These two regions were officially part of Georgia, but most of their people were ethnic Russians, and their loyalty was towards Russia.  For awhile this seemed to be OK with the Georgian government, until it wasn’t.  When Georgia invaded Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russia sent in troops to protect the Russian people living in those two territories.

The above paragraph is a way oversimplified description of an intricate long-simmering situation.  But it’s still much too complicated for millions of Americans, who would rather just go “Ugh!  Russia Bad!  Georgia Free!  Russia Invaded Georgia!”

The “liberal” media took part in this whole charade.  There were screaming headlines about Russia invading Georgia, usually accompanied by pictures of Georgian citizens standing in the street weeping and wailing as Russian tanks rolled by.  For some odd reason we never saw any pictures of South Ossetians or Abkhazians weeping in the streets as Georgian tanks rolled by.

Americans’ knowledge of the outside world probably hasn’t improved since then.  To most Americans, there’s The Greatest Country in the History of the World, and then there’s that big glob of OTHER countries that aren’t us.

Hopefully Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will reveal some valuable information before he dies.  Were he and his brother just two fucksticks working alone?  Were they part of a terrorist cell?  There have been generations of mutual hatred between Chechnya and Russia, but what’s that got to do with us?

If Chechnya — or even just the two Tsarnaev brothers — hate the United States as well as Russia, then maybe Russia and the U.S. aren’t as far apart as we think.  “The enemy of my enemy” and all that…

Anyway, let’s hope the Boston Marathon murders don’t set off a new round of geopolitical ignorance and xenophobia.  It won’t help.