Putin's War on Terror sucks--ochen' plokho!

[BurtWorm]

Very bad. I'm sure there are a lot of wingers who think it's okay to waste 120 innocent lives to say you've "beat the terrorists." This was the same tack the Russian's took against the terrorists in the theater last year (or the year before?), when they gassed the place and killed scores of hostages to get a handful of terrorists. On Usenet, wingers were raving over pootie poot, wishing the Bush boy would take a lesson from him. Gods help us if anyone anywhere does.


Link to Times story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/03/international/europe/03CND-RUSS.html?hp

[russian33]

1. The hostages weren't killed by the troops...the whole place was..

..booby trapped with bombs, and they started going off, causing the roof collapse. Now I'm sure some were shot once the gun-fire broke out, but to imply that all hostages were killed by the troops, that's just stupid.

Nord-Ost was a botched operation, I couldn't agree more...but this is different.

[BurtWorm]

2. I don't know if I implied it or you inferred it, but I never said

all the hostages were killed by the troops. I meant to imply that the way the Russians deal with terrorists contributes to the high body counts in their confrontations. I don't trust what their officials say, but if their statements about the "bandits shooting fleeing hostages in the back" is true, it's sickening. The whole situation is certainly sickening. I don't want to "blame Russia first." The terrorists should certainly be condemned for picking on *children!* But Putin's Chechnya policy is hardly any better than Bush's Middle East policy, is it?