You misunderstand.
I was talking from the perspective of the Russians, not that of the Chechen Terrorists.
How do you think it made Putin feel to have the American State Department dismiss the Chechen elections as "invalid", thereby lending American support to at least one of the claims of the Terrorists, just days after the Terrorists took two of their airplanes down and blew up a metro station?
How do you feel knowing that our State Department may have emboldened the Terrorists with the validation of one of their silly claims?
How is that any better than that Euro-Peon Union weenie Bernard Bot demanding an "explanation" from the Russians for the Commando raid into the school?
I, for one, am ASHAMED of the U.S. State Department, just as any Dutchman should be ASHAMED of the putrid bureaucrat Bernhard Bot.
The State Department is NOT synchronized with President Bush, or even with reality.
I hope the President demands some resignations over the stupid pro-forma, cold-war, old-world, bumbling-mumbling, anti-Russian, pro-Terrorist droolings emanating out of our State Department.