[MineralMan]

"I could see the DOS issuing this if the fight was with the Russian army. But this is little kids now ... and when that happens, the gloves come off.
"

Indeed, but what does that mean? Do we bomb Chechnya into oblivion? Not all Chechens are terrorists. Heck, they're not all even Muslims.

Who would you attack. No doubt we should destroy the terrorists, but just as we are not destroying Iraq, we should not be destroying Chechnya. Hunt down the terrorists and kill them all. But...in the final analysis, Chechnya will still be a reality. For peace to exist there is going to require diplomacy.

[itsahoot]

For peace to exist there is going to require diplomacy.

Yep that is the way it worked when we left South Vietnam, negotiation works every time. </sarcasm>

[monday]

you said; "But...in the final analysis, Chechnya will still be a reality. For peace to exist there is going to require diplomacy."

Peace will never exist in Chechnya. This is a quote from here; http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?lng=eng&section=historyeng&row=1 which sums up the Chechen problem in a nut shell.

"Officer of the Russian Imperial Army Umalat Laudaev, a Chechen by origin, wrote in 1872 that " a Chechen tribe consisting of numerous families that had quarreled with one another from time immemorial unanimity was alien. Hence residents of Nazran were irreconcilable enemies of Chechens living on the lowlands and on the Terek River; they robbed and killed one another; residents of Shatoi attacked those of the right bank of the Terek River, who responded by kidnapping Shatoi people and selling them into slavery to west Caucasus."

Chechens will fight with anyone over anything. They have a warrior culture. A similar problem exists in Afghanistan and Albania where the tribal and Islamic culture is much the same.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

They ARE all terrorists until they quit fighting.