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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Keith Feral who wrote (146991)	10/5/2004 9:19:17 AM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I could not agree with you more -- killing children as a political protest is beyond any limit of anything remotely civilized. Same goes for blowing up apartment buildings and many of the other things that the rebels from Chechnya have done. But when you say that Putin has turned a blind eye or in any way been "soft' on Chechnya, nothing could be further from the truth. Chechnya wants to pull out of Russia, as many of the former members of the Soviet Union did -- they do not have the same case that other former parts of the Soviet union had on their side. Notwithstanding the shakey claim to independence, the response from Moscow has been absolutely brutal, leaving cities looking like the aftermath of the end of the world. The flaw in the logic pursued by both Moscow and Washington is that brutality yields peace. It does not. Nor will it achieve independence for Chechnya. In the case of Chechnya, Russia will hang on for two reasons -- sovereignty and oil. For the US in Iraq, we stay the course for two reasons -- we created a threat where there was none and now have to deal with it, and oil. Brutal methods are being employed by terrorists in Iraq -- our response will determine whether or not we can rally the support of the Iraqi people. So far, we have failed miserably in winning hearts and minds -- and that is what this war is about.