[yonif]

Ping.

[GOP_1900AD]

I love simplicity. Simply put, Russia arms Syria and Iran. The Russians are backstabbers. Russia is Israel's enemy. All other claims, appearances and seeming contradictions to this are a smokescreen.

[DWPittelli]

If Putin were smart (or is smarter next time), when terrorists take hostages, demanding the release of their comrades, I'd say:

1) Tell them you'll kill one of their comrades for every hostage killed.

2) Put barbed wire around the school. Security permitting, make a separate barbed-wire compound for the terrorists' comrades, visible from the school.

3) Hire Israel to fly in 200 of their special forces for standyby and/or attack on the school.

4) Afterwords, kill the requisite number of terrorists' comrades.

Obviously we couldn't do this in the US (and we wouldn't need to do step #3, what with Delta Force et al). But Russia is already a brutal, lawless place, and Putin is supposed to be ruthless. Why the heck not?

[kimosabe31]

In his words, "I don't think they [military attacks on terrorists in training] are helpful. Retaliation is not a solution to the problems that we face in the region."

Colin Powell is and always has been an asshole. I wish I knew how we (the US) could rid our foreign service of these people.