| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"r-u-safer-with-Bush" |
| Date: |
04 Sep 2004 04:49:13 PM |
| Object: |
What happens over there affects us here (duh!) |
To all those who say what happens overseas doesn't matter here, I give
you global warming :-p
To all of you who say the U.N. doesn't matter & the U.S. should just
do what it wants to do on its own, I give you the war on terror & the
debacle in Iraq :-p
Here's what A Deadly Stalemate in Chechnya gives you :-p
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Deadly Stalemate in Chechnya
Published: September 4, 2004
A staggering series of recent terrorist attacks rooted in the Chechen
conflict have been both horrific and remote to most Americans. It's
hard to imagine what the public reaction would have been here if
terrorists had seized a school full of children, blown up two
passenger planes and set off a deadly suicide bomb outside a subway
station in Western Europe or Canada. But the Chechen conflict has
always seemed to be an internal problem in a rather remote part of
Russia that has little impact on the rest of the world. The Russian
government, which is both suspicious of external interference and
proud, has encouraged that attitude. Unfortunately, it's wrong.
Terrorism in the 21st century flows across national borders. Chechen
extremists learn the techniques of suicide bombing from experts in
Afghanistan and the Middle East, and groups like Al Qaeda have been
using the suffering of Chechen Muslims as a rallying cry to win new
recruits for a global terrorist jihad.
Money and explosives are transferred across the middle of the great
Eurasian land mass in ways that Islamist terrorists see as a riposte
to the medieval Crusades. It is only a matter of time until the
killing itself leaches out of Russia and into the rest of the world.
Chechen hostility to Russia goes back centuries, to the days of
tsarist conquest and subjugation. The quarrel turned even more
venomous after Stalin deported the entire Chechen population at
gunpoint to Central Asia in 1944. Hundreds of thousands of deportees
died of cold and hunger. Those who tried to stay behind were executed.
History is no excuse for today's terrorists to now treat other
innocents as inhumanely as Stalin treated that earlier generation of
Chechens. What is more understandable and negotiable is the desire of
many Chechens to loosen the yoke of Russian rule.
But the terrorists' tactics harden the feelings of the Russian public,
diminish international sympathy for them and make innocent Chechens
the target of suspicion and fear.
Yesterday's botched rescue attempt by Russian forces at the Beslan
middle school left at least 200 hostages dead and raised serious
questions about President Vladimir Putin's handling of the crisis.
Moscow has responded to the Chechen issue mainly with force and
intransigence. That has been politically popular among a majority of
Russians, and it has undoubtedly been satisfying for Mr. Putin to
present himself as a resolute, tough leader. The practical
consequence, however, has been that an already dreadful problem is now
very much worse.
Ten years have passed and thousands on both sides have died since
Boris Yeltsin invaded the restive republic, which is largely Muslim,
to force it to remain within the Russian Federation. Mr. Putin resumed
the war and made it his own. Moscow was sure that its larger armed
forces would deliver a quick and decisive victory. Instead, the
contest has evolved into a military and political stalemate without
any obvious resolution. A bold Russian reach for compromise is now the
least bad option, but it is the one Mr. Putin is least likely to
employ.
Mr. Putin has successfully routed mainstream Chechen separatists under
the republic's last freely elected president, Aslan Maskhadov, on the
conventional battlefield. But that just created an opening for the
murderous extremists who have been slaughtering innocent bystanders in
recent days.
President Putin has never been strong on diplomatic nuance. But unless
he now opens a serious negotiating channel with legitimate Chechen
leaders outside the Moscow-backed puppet government, things can only
get worse. And if they do, Russia will not be the only nation that
pays the price.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/04/opinion/04sat1.html?hp
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