[Zhang Fei]

Syria already has 36 Mi-24 Hind gunships. I guess the Russians are selling more.

The Syrians haven't made payments in years. This is a lot more like the Lend Lease program than anything else. I expect the loans for Russian weapons will eventually be forgiven in exchange for basing rights or some equally worthless trifle. This is Russia administering a beat-down to the Sunni Arabs who have been financing the jihad in the Caucasus (Chechnya, Dagestan, et al), along with the associated terrorist attacks on Russian hospitals, schools and so on. Best of all, Sunni Arabs are getting stomped without a single Russian finger on the trigger, or the associated Russian personnel losses.

[meatloaf]

You have to love it when the Russians kick the Arab’s asses. As long as our boy wonder imposter-in-chief doesn’t want to join in, we can set back and scoff at the media’s attempt to pluck our heart strings. It might be a good time to sell T shirts with the saying. Screw Saudi Arabia, Support Christians by Supporting Assad!

[ETL]

This is Russia administering a beat-down to the Sunni Arabs who have been financing the jihad in the Caucasus (Chechnya, Dagestan, et al), along with the associated terrorist attacks on Russian hospitals, schools and so on.

From Heritage.org, November 27, 2006:

The death of former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, last week from radioactive Polonium-210 poisoning is the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks on the outspoken opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed112706a.cfm
_____________________________________________________

Blowing up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror
by Alexander Litvinenko, Yuri Felshtinsky, Geoffrey Andrews and Co (Translator)

Synopsis: Blowing Up Russia contains the allegations of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko against his former spymasters in Moscow which led to his being murdered in London in November 2006. In the book he and historian Yuri Felshtinsky detail how since 1999 the Russian secret service has been hatching a plot to return to the terror that was the hallmark of the KGB. Vividly written and based on Litvinenko's 20 years of insider knowledge of Russian spy campaigns, Blowing Up Russia describes how the successor of the KGB fabricated terrorist attacks and launched a war. Writing about Litvinenko, the surviving co-author recounts how the banning of the book in Russia led to three earlier deaths.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Blowing-up-Russia/Alexander-Litvinenko/e/9781594032011
_______________________________________________________

"Appearing alongside high-profile opponents of President Putin, he has continued to make allegations about his former bosses. Perhaps most notably, he alleged that al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was trained by the FSB in Dagestan in the years before 9/11".

http://www.cicentre.com/Documents/litvinenko.html

[ETL]

From AP via FoxNews.com...

Last Living Beslan School Attacker Sentenced to Life in Prison
May 28, 2006

VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia — AP
A southern Russian court on Friday sentenced the sole surviving Beslan school attacker to life in prison, capping a yearlong trial that survivors and victims' relatives say has left the most essential questions about the tragedy unanswered.

They demand to know just who bore the most responsibility: Nur-Pashi Kulayev and his 31 fellow militants, or the officials whose negligence or even alleged complicity allowed them to seize hundreds of children and parents on the first day of school in September 2004.

Countrywatch: Russia

"I did not go to court to become convinced of Kulayev's guilt, but to reconstruct all the circumstances of the terrorist attack and find the truth," said Aneta Gadiyeva, whose daughter was killed. "But I did not learn anything new and did not get any answers." ..."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,197093,00.html