The Russians found out, yet again, what happens when we are complacent about terrorism.
Huh?
The Russians found out what happens when we are complacent about terrorism? I think you meant "they."
If you did, I think you are mistaken. Chechnya is a very complex thing, much more like Northern Ireland than the AQ attacks on the US. The Russians and the Chechens have been fighting with scarcely a break since the 18th Century. In a word, the Chechens have relentlessly resisted annexation.
It is as much a war for national identity as it is religious. Stalin was brutal on the Chechens, exiling hundreds of thousands of them to Kazkhstan, where they did not do well. In 1994, Grozny was flattened by the Russians. In short, the Russians have hardly been "complacent" about terrorism. They have fought the Chechens tooth-and-nail, brutally in many instances. A decent case can be made for the proposition that the Russians have made their own bed and are now sleeping in it.
I think the latest troubles are essentially a continuation of long-standing ethnic strife in the Caucasus in which the Islam-O-Wacos see an opportunity. I am not convinced that at the end of the day it is based on radical Islamism's global goals. It is mostly a local fight being fought for mostly local reasons. The non-Chechen Wacos have fought the Russians before, in Afghanistan, and still hate them. Chechen to them is simply another place in which to fight. The locals are for the most part simply fighting for independence.
Naturally, no one condones the slaughter of children. However, I would be very interested in seeing the extent to which the Wacos as opposed to the nationalists participated in the Beslan outrage. |
