Word: russiaã
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
With the death of Aslan Maskhadov, gunned down by Russian Special Forces on last Tuesday, the world is witness to the moral bankruptcy and tactical failure of Russia??s war on Chechnya. After six years of unrestrained warfare, Russia has failed to “pacify” the Chechens, as the recent Moscow theater and Beslan incidents show, and all that President Putin has to show for his savage war is a leveled Grozny, countless body bags, and, now, the assassination of a moderate Chechen leader...
...dramatic—dramatically horrific—failure. With the confidence of a cowboy and the sophistication of a schoolyard bully, Putin favors using a tank to crush a cockroach. Throughout the war, calls for moderation and respect for basic human rights have been dismissed as unreasonable restraints on Russia??s ability to achieve a long-term solution...
...even to open the door to a negotiated solution, Putin persists in his approach. He may well feel locked into a strong stance on Chechnya because it was his original political platform and the basis of his popularity. He hailed the war as a rallying point for reviving Russia??s territorial unity and national pride and as a clear signal of Russia??s military will to Western nations and to Russia??s other ethnically-based would-be separatist regions...
...consider the President’s decision, in August 2001, to cut funding for the effort to secure Russia??s nuclear materials. It seems pretty dumb now, but they’ve learned their lesson since then, right? Well… not really. Even today—despite Cheney’s ceaseless apocalyptic warnings about terrorists smuggling nuclear bombs into American cities—the administration has still not provided enough funds to finish securing Russian nukes before...
With leader of the free world unable to challenge Putin and keep morally consistent, it looks like the West may have to sit by and watch Russia??s already weak democratic institutions crumble even faster than they had before...