Recognize Putin as ally against terror

`A war has been declared against us,'' proclaimed Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov after Chechen terrorists downed two Russian planes and murdered 600 innocents at a Russian school in Ossetia. A ''full-scale war,'' said President Vladimir Putin. Yes, it's war, and tonight's presidential debate here in Miami provides a platinum opportunity for the presidential candidates to cease rehashing the Vietnam War and focus on surviving the present one.

Putin has proffered a more encompassing alliance. We should accept it -- as Israel recently did -- providing Russia ceases aid to the Iranian mullahs, secretly producing nuclear weapons. Rather than denounce Putin's war in Chechnya, we should support him. While the abysmal mistreatment of the Chechens under the czarist and Soviet empires fomented their separatist longings, the spillover of global holy war (jihad) has sadly highjacked their liberation movement.

In 1996, Osama bin Laden himself proclaimed the Chechen resistance an integral part of global jihad. Adopting Islamist cant and Taliban dress, the Chechen jihadists espouse the philosophy of Egypt's late Sayyid Qutb, earlier adopted by al Qaeda. It espouses martyrdom in the global war against ``crusading Christians and Zionists.''

Chechen leader Shamil Basayev, who masterminded the Beslan school carnage, is hardly a heroic figure like his namesake, 19th century Sufi warrior Imam Shamil, who battled Russian soldiers, not children. Like Yasser Arafat earlier, Basayev launched his career as a brutal, Soviet-backed commander in Abkhazia. After the fall of communism, he trained in Afghanistan, shaved his head, grew a Taliban beard and reincarnated as Abdullah Shamil Abu Idris -- a general of the Islamic Brigade of Martyrs.

Islamic verses in his headband replaced Che Guevara's sacred picture. Saudi Arabia's Haramein Islamic Foundation helped to establish his Chechen training camps. While bin Laden became the White House's bogey man, Basayev emerged as the nemesis of the Kremlin.

Prior to our 9/11, Putin furnished a warning about al Qaeda. A pox on both the houses of Clinton and Bush for their inadequacies in heeding it. In 1996, Egyptian-born Ayman al Zawahri made his Chechen connections while detained in a Russian jail. A closer alliance with Russia then might have prevented 9/11.

Sadly, the 9/11 Commission failed to highlight America's disregard of Putin's warning, Nor will the commission's proposed national intelligence chief suffice to defend the homeland. We must confront Islamist fanaticism abroad, as we did belatedly in Afghanistan. Eventually, Chechnya requires a political solution.

Now is not the time, as we can ill afford to inspire emerging Taliban-like, gangster states in the arc of jihad terrorism -- from Central Asia to the Muslim Caucasus.

After Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's pact with the devil (Josef Stalin) was crucial to our World War II triumph. Despite his recent authoritarian relapse, Putin is no Stalin. A product of the KGB culture, his turn represents the typical Muscovy ruler's embrace of centralized rule, whenever Russia is threatened with a ``time of trouble.''

Putin is also a byproduct of the democratic revolution of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. Hence, our deeper engagement with Russia may serve to reverse Putin's present drift.

As the strategic nexus between two continents and the Middle East, Russia, having returned to the camp of Western civilization, is crucial in our battle against a new Dark Ages.

• We must not only share intelligence with the Russians but invest far more into helping to guard their nuclear stockpile, recently scouted by Chechen terrorists.

• We must pool our training in anti-terrorist warfare and consider Russia's inclusion into NATO. As in our previous wars against fascism and communism, there is no substitute for victory.

Jiri and Leni Valenta have authored books and articles on U.S-Russian relations.

We've got too many cold-war laggards here on this forum as well as in DC who keep that cold-war mindset and are anti-Russia and anti-India.

The enemy of my enemy may not be my friend, but he can be an ally. Doesn't mean we shouldn't watch our backs at the same time.

Russia is an ally, but PUTIN IS NOT!
He spreads rumors about US, just read his speeches, he hints that US and NATO are fueling terrorist attacks!

Read info here..

http://www.future-of-russia.org/

Ive been saying that we need a closer alliance with Russia for a few years now. We need them for the WOT, and we need them on our side over China.

Here's a shocker for you . . .

Do some research on a group called the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, an organization that recently criticized the Putin government for its heavy-handed tactics in dealing with the problems in Chechnya.

Check out a list of the committee's members, and get ready to barf when you see how many of them have been the most hawkish supporters here in the U.S. of the war in Iraq -- including Elliott Abrams, Alexander Haig, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Michael Ledeen, Robert McFarlane, Richard Perle, James Woolsey, etc.

"War on terror," my @ss.

6 posted on 09/30/2004 10:47:42 AM PDT by Alberta's Child (I made enough money to buy Miami -- but I pissed it away on the Alternative Minimum Tax.)

I agree that Putin might be construed as an ally by being tough on terror, but he bears close watching. With his apparent bid for more and more power, he may be on the road to being a more powerful antagonist than the old U.S.S.R. was. He is an opportunist in a position of power and not to be implicitly trusted. I still can't figure out what the heck he thinks he's doing with the Kyoto biz, but I bet it ends up being used to our (U.S.) overall detriment.

many of them have been the most hawkish supporters here in the U.S. of the war in Iraq -- including Elliott Abrams, Alexander Haig, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Michael Ledeen, Robert McFarlane, Richard Perle, James Woolsey, etc.

Yes it's true there are many hipocrits when it comes to Russia or Israel WOT. But the ACPC is also about 50% leftists and outright communists as well as a bunch of "neocons". One of the current chairmen is Zbigniew Brzeznsky! There are some Russian leftists and mafiya in the ACPC also. The main thing is they all hate Bush as much as they hate Putin! The Bush admin. recently threw out Richard Perle for corruption.

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