Russia Moves Towards US After Terrorist Attacks
Captain Ed
Russia, reeling from a flurry of terrorist attacks that have left hundreds dead, signalled today that it intends to pursue closer ties to the US rather than Europe based on anti-terrorism priorities, according to Reuters:
Russia will revamp its security forces and seek international cooperation to hunt militants in the wake of a school siege which killed more than 300 people nine days ago, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Sunday. ...
He added that the United States was best placed to understand Russia's situation because it had also been the target of major attacks, and he said he had discussed the issue with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld twice this week.
"In this sense it seems easier to find grounds for an understanding with the United States than with some European states," Ivanov said.
France and the Netherlands angered Russia by asking for an explanation of what had happened at the school siege in the North Ossetian town of Beslan, where children, women, men and their captors died in a maelstrom of explosions and gunfire.
This move was not unexpected. In the aftermath of the terrible Beslan siege and slaughter, the Russian people have demanded more security and a forward strategy against terrorists. The Europeans, led by France and the Netherlands in this case, continue to focus on the victims as the cause of terrorism, just as they do with the US. Putin belatedly has seen that mainland Europe will wind up being nothing more than an appeasing gadfly on the issue, and the only significant partners that take terrorism seriously will be the US and the UK.
This should give an indication to the American electorate that serious people do not worry about engaging an isolationist and corrupt France on counterterrorism. Those who argue the opposite in our own country may mean well, but they lack significant understanding of France and its worth to combating Islamic terrorists. The French are simply too overwhelmed by its growing Muslim minority to help out in any way. |
