Lando 
Posted on 09/04/2004 7:38:11 AM PDT by Lando Lincoln
It's Nord Ost all over again, but a whole lot worse. Not just because there are children among the hostages being held in the school in Beslan, North Ossetia. And not just because the school building, unlike the Dubrovka Theater, isn't a concrete cube that can be stormed following a gas attack. Gas would simply disperse in the school. And the hostage-takers will have learned the lessons of Nord Ost, making sure that the explosives strapped to the female suicide bombers in their ranks go off if and when the building is stormed. But also because the ongoing hostage crisis is not an isolated, nightmarish incident, but the latest in a whole string of terrorist strikes that have been allowed to happen recently all across the country.
On Aug. 24, an explosion at a southern Moscow bus stop injured four people. That night two passenger jets were blown up in midair, killing all 90 people on board. On Tuesday a female suicide bomber killed 10 people and injured more than 50 near Moscow's Rizhskaya metro station. On Aug. 22, just over a week before Chechnya's "democratic" presidential election, clashes between security forces and rebels in Grozny left at least 30 people dead. In late June, fighters staged a series of raids in Ingushetia that claimed some 60 lives.
We don't know when or where the next strike will occur, but we know that it is all but inevitable.
Politicians have been coming out with all sorts of proposals for stepping up the war on terrorism, from introducing the death penalty (as if this would scare off a suicide bomber) to seeking a political solution to the Chechen conflict (as if a peace agreement with Shamil Basayev would be any more reliable than the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). They can say whatever they like, because they don't have to decide whether or not to storm a building packed with children. They don't have to give the order.
President Vladimir Putin is now facing the most difficult decision of his presidency. As you read these lines, he may have already made it. God willing, a miracle will have taken place and the hostage-takers will have been convinced to release the children and leave peacefully. Then the president would not have to make this terrible choice.
As Putin ponders his course of action, he will weigh the experience of previous large-scale hostage-takings at Budyonnovsk in 1995, and at Kizlyar and Pervomaiskoye in 1996. In both cases, the terrorists were allowed to go free in exchange for releasing their hostages, though there were casualties in both cases nonetheless.
Though Putin has never said so, for him Budyonnovsk and Pervomaiskoye are shameful parts of an even greater shame, the negotiations that led to the signing of the Khasavyurt treaty in August 1996. In his view, the treaty resulted from the weak executive chain of command under Boris Yeltsin and Viktor Chernomyrdin and the equal weakness of the security services. This was the same process that in 1999 led to Basayev's raid into Dagestan and the bombing of apartment buildings in Moscow and other cities. This was the beginning of Putin's rise to power. From that moment to the present, overcoming Khasavyurt and restoring the ideal and power of the state have been the driving ideas of his presidency. To let the hostage-takers go this time would require Putin to go back on too much.
The president will also weigh the experience of Nord Ost. The public as a whole didn't regard the siege as a defeat for the regime, even though a total of 129 people died -- most from the effects of a gas pumped in to immobilize the hostage-takers -- when special forces stormed the Dubrovka Theater in October 2002. Rather lax investigations were subsequently held to determine why local hospitals were unprepared and why gas was "improperly" used. Relatives of the victims filed a series of lawsuits, raising the issue of the authorities' responsibility for what happened. But no substantive investigations were conducted. The public didn't demand them. The authorities were opposed to them and saw no compelling reason why they should bother.
Today the truth is far more obvious. The main threat to Putin's presidency as a way of running the country is posed not by the economy or by widespread discontent over housing issues and pension reform. Terrorism is the real threat.
Only Western observers could still express surprise at how the "carefree Russian people" carry on riding the metro and flying on airplanes. In the United States, 9/11 threw the entire aviation industry into crisis. Here you'd be lucky to find someone returning his plane ticket. This doesn't mean that a huge wave of protest isn't building up that sooner or later will spill out into the streets, first as pogroms against people from the Caucasus, and then as anti-government protests. No presidential job approval numbers will stem that tide.
The terrorists who seized a school full of children in Beslan were intent on not repeating past "mistakes." This crisis comes not just after Nord Ost, but also after the cynical assassination of Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov. After terror descended into the Moscow metro and invaded a rock concert. After the two planes downed last week. After the terrorists had shown the world that, four years after Putin had vowed to "waste terrorists in the outhouse," they are still capable of organizing large-scale raids deep into enemy territory.
The difference between Russia in 1999 (the raid into Dagestan), 2002 (Nord Ost) and 2004 is that, however the authorities decide to resolve the crisis in Beslan, it is obvious that the state must review and reform its anti-terrorist strategy in Chechnya, its system for combatting terrorism nationwide and the way the security services operate. The crisis has now reached a new level, requiring a qualitatively new approach.
We need to face facts: We're not conducting an anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya. We're at war with terror and terrorists. And special forces units don't win wars, the people do. But before the people can rise to this occasion, they must be involved in forming the plan of attack.
If people in the privacy of their own homes are talking about Alexei Yermolov's strategy for waging war in the Caucasus -- clans as a whole were held responsible for the actions of individual members -- the authorities should at least stop acting as though such ideas are not in the air. If the regime fails to take a stand, these ideas will spill into the streets on their own.
We must also face the fact that in their current form, the security services are in no shape to combat terrorism effectively. And they aren't capable of drawing society into this battle. It's unclear which of the two is worse. Firing the latest incompetent bureaucrat is no longer a solution. We need to change the way law enforcement and the security services operate. Throwing money at the problem won't help. These agencies must be held publicly accountable for their performance.
The tragedy of the Budyonnovsk/Nord Ost paradigm is that by making concessions to the terrorists, by failing to bring them to justice, the authorities provoked them to attempt even more daring attacks. Not calling the security services to account for their failures during the Nord Ost crisis -- not during the seige of the building, but in failing to prevent a massive hostage-taking from occurring in the capital in the first place -- has led to fresh attacks in Grozny and the loss of two planes filled with passengers, the first terrorist attack of its kind since Sept. 11, 2001.
To extricate us from this fatal paradigm, which is leading us into an endless succession of terrorist attacks, the authorities could even release the terrorists in Beslan in exchange for freeing the hostages. But this would only be justified if, after hunting down the terrorists and executing them one by one without trial, the state proceeded to launch a total war on terror in Chechnya and across the country using new methods that would require the mobilization of the entire nation.
This is the main difficulty involved in Putin's choice.
Georgy Bovt is managing editor of Izvestia. This comment first appeared in the newspaper's Thursday edition
Lando
The Russians should just let the Chechans go and let them start their own third world sewer country. They are not worth the price of holding on. There is nothing there.
They should just cut their losses now and get outta Dodge.
Fox just reported 355 dead, at least 122 of them children. Bodies of 20 terrorists lying in the courtyard and at least 8 others killed. Majority of injuries were from explosions, but many children were shot in the back.
Check history. It is necessary to de-humanize your enemy so when you begin killing them with reckless abandon, it’s just like shooting beer cans off a fence post. Muslims, islamofacists, anyone that even looks toward Mecca once during the day have a toe over the line. The west won’t have to fire up the propaganda machine to accomplish the necessary de-humanizing. They are doing it for us.
Just makes you wonder how much more the west will take before we start shooting those beer cans off the fence.
What? This atrocity is not about Chechnya. This atrocity is just another battle in the global war being waged by islamo-fascists. We better wage back.
Good article...and it does explain some things...
The Chechans do not want freedom , they want to start an Islamic state to attack other states.
If Russia retreats from these butchers she will never have peace on her borders.
These weren't freedom fighters..they were Islamofascist terrorists attacking children in a region with many Orthodox Christians..There were arabs in the mix of terrorists....They are allied with Al Queda.
The atrocity ISN'T about 155 children dead? I thought it was.
Oh well, I guess you and I view the world with two very different spectacles.
These attacks on Russia are just a prerequisite to attacking the U.S.
If Russia gives in to these terrorists then it will just prove that their tactics are successful in bringing down a once 'super power' and will enable them to carry out more attacks on the U.S.
Appeasement will never work when you are dealing with a terrorist who's only real purpose is to topple the 'non-muslim' societies.
The politically correct politicians are going to get us all killed......just hide and watch if you don't believe it.
No, I don't think that is an option right now we don't need to give these SCUM a new place to hide.
Agreed.
155 children dead? I dunno. I can't get past that. Sorry. I will foam at the mouth later, after I can past the 155 dead children. But then, I would mourn even 15 dead children...even five, even one.
I guess I'm just a sentimental old fool. I mourn with the parents now. And will THUMBS UP whatever retaliation, pay-back, retribution and revenge Putin comes forth with.
Reminds me of Northern Ireland too much I think.
The islamists have created the genesis of their own destruction. They are now "fair game."
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Saturday, September 4, 2004 · Last updated 7:51 a.m. PT
Putin promises tougher response to terror
By JUDITH INGRAM
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin promised a tougher response to terrorism Saturday, saying in a surprising admission of weakness that the Soviet Union's collapse had left the country unable to react to attacks. "Weak people are beaten," he warned.
The former KGB spy said in a televised address to the nation that terrorists are waging an "all-out war" against Russia. He said he would enact reforms to make security services more effective, tighten border controls and establish a new system to control the situation in the war-torn Caucasus.
Earlier, Putin sealed the borders of North Ossetia, the republic where more than 340 people were killed in a hostage-taking at a school that turned violent Friday. The hostage-taking was carried out by militants seeking independence for Chechnya, where Russian troops have been battling separatists on and off for more than a decade.
Putin vowed never to give in to international terrorists, and that in order to fight them, Russians could not continue living in a "carefree" way.
He blamed police corruption and porous borders for the failure to stop attacks and called for mobilizing the nation before what he called the "common danger" of terrorism.
"In general, we need to admit that we did not show an understanding of the complexities and dangers of the processes occurring in our own country and in the world," he said.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the nation was weakened and unable to respond effectively to terrorism, Putin said.
"We stopped giving enough attention to questions of defense and security, and allowed corruption to infect our judicial and law enforcement sphere," he said.
"Moreover, our country - which used to have the strongest defense system of its external borders - instantly became unprotected from either the West or the East."
"In any case, we couldn't adequately react ... We showed weakness, and weak people are beaten," he said.
Putin made a lightning pre-dawn visit to Beslan, the town where the school is located and announced the closing of the region's borders while authorities search for the attackers' accomplices. Later Saturday, he decreed two days of mourning on Monday and Tuesday.
"I ask you to remember those who died at the hands of terrorists in recent days," he said in his address.
He said measures would be taken to strengthen Russia's unity, create a more effective crisis management system, establish a new system to control the situation in the Caucasus, and overhaul the law enforcement organs.
"We are obliged to create a much more effective security system and to demand action from our law enforcement organs that would be adequate to the level and scale of the new threats," he said.
Putin said some foes wanted to tear off parts of Russia, and others were helping them.
"They help, supposing that Russia - as one of the greatest nuclear powers - still poses a threat to them. So they have to get rid of that threat."
Better late than never I guess.
Russia didn't believe it wouldn't be attacked because it didn't support the U.S. in Iraq.
Big Mistake.
France too.
Getting out of Dodge is worth it if "Dodge" is a useless piece of shit not worth having.
The Russians finally cut their losses by bailing outta Afghanistan. I can't see them staying in Chechnya. It's a wasteland of ignorance and violence with NO visible resources at all. Why keep a shithole?
Perhaps you are right, however. Bailing isn't an option now. Maybe Putin will wait a while, kick some Chechan butt, THEN bail.
Afghanistan redux.
They tried getting out of Chechnya already by giving them de facto independence in the '90's. The Chechen Islamics used it to foment jihad in neighboring provinces. That is why Grozny ended up as rubble and they will never have independence.
I noticed also that this article never mentioned Islam.
The Russians need, I believe, to shed the shithole and continue their recovery from the l-o-n-g 80 years of disanstrous, soul-killing Soviet communism.
They will recover. This fight won't make recovery any faster or easier. In fact, if they let it go, just watch the more ambitious Chechans flock to Russia for jobs. (cynicism)
This needs repetition. A "sensitive" war on terror will result in Chechnya, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Eygpt, Lybia, Algeria, Sudan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemmin, Georgia, and most of central Asia firmly in Islamist hands. They will have the "bomb", they will use it and destroy the infidel world (not just the West). Does anyone think that people who will behave this way against children will hesitate or hold off due to compassion?
The Russian military is in such a shambles that meaningful retaliation will be difficult for Putin. However, he must curb his distrust of the USA and make common cause. His military will resist strongly and the outcome cannot be predicted. We are cursed to be living in "interesting times".
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