War on some terrorists?

[Glock Glockler]

It seems that the stance against terrorist has ben very selectively applied. Of course, we Americans ond't complain when president Bush says that our military will eliminate terrorists anywhere in the world but it causes a big problem when Russia says the same thing. Chechans are never referred to as terrorists but more as seperatists or freedom fighters even though there is certainly plenty of nastiness on bothy sides of that conflict.

Why did our main ally, Great Britan, give asylum to Akhmed Zakayev when we expect others to hand over Al Queda operatives?

There seems to be a current theme that Russia is a bad guy and that Islamic radicals attacking them are ok but the Al Queda attacking us are bad, even though Bin Laden constantly mentions the jihad in Chechnya? I would hope that we would take the opportunity to build bridges with Russia and work towards our common interests instead of citicizing them when they have plenty of their blood spilt by terrorists on their soil but our govt and media dont seem to be interested in that.

 

[Brett Bellmore]

Russia IS a bad guy in Chechnia. What, you think bad guys never get in fights with bad guys? They've committed war crimes in Chechnia, and there's substantial reason to suspect that at least some of the supposed Chechen terrorist attacks in Russia have been Reichstagg fire type events, intended to enrage Russians so that they'd tolerate Putin turning the country back into a totalitarian state.

If only it were always good vs evil...

 

[Old Dog]

Food for thought. And, in fact, Putin seems to be doing just that. That said, the Chechnyen's tactics of slaughtering schoolchildren and female teachers isn't going to win and hearts and minds, either.

 

[Brett Bellmore]

My personal theory, and it's just speculation, is that Al Quaeda has sent people in to heat up the situation, (It seems that some of the terrorists at that school were NOT Chechens.) and goad Russia into being more vicious in Chechnia, radicalizing the population. The end result being to make the average Chechen worse off, but to make Chechnia a better recruiting ground for Al Quaeda footsoldiers.

 

[Standing Wolf]

The end result being to make the average Chechen worse off, but to make Chechnia a better recruiting ground for Al Quaeda footsoldiers.

Bingo.

The Islamic terrorist savages are using tried and true communist strategies to achieve goals functionally identical to those of the communists. Tyrants are tyrants are tyrants.

 

[Glock Glockler]

There are a lot of people on this board that think the govt used 911 to justify expansion of powers but that does not eliminate the fact that there a lot of very bad people in Chechnya that need to be killed. Russia might very well be heavy handed in Chechnya but I dont see them murdering schoolchildren wholesale, an act which the Jihadists are claiming credit for.

It seems like the criticism flows very easily to the Russians even though we have a common enemy.

 

[Old Dog]

We certainly do have a common enemy, but the fact is, Russia does not want our aid. That is a country which is nearly in a state of total anarchy. The current government is corrupt to its core, has just an incredible number of problems to deal with, and unfortunately, we are just too busy in too many other places to do anything in Russia anyway. It's tragic, to be sure. However, it would be surprising if there was not at least a little behind the scenes action on the part of our government to reassure the Russian government that when we're able, we'll try and provide them some type of token assistance.