[USMMA_83]

Ok, this is an old article, but it only goes to point out that our State Department does no favors on the war on terrorism. Either all terrorists are terrorists or none are. You can't have "one man's terrorists is another man's freedom fighter."

[malakhi]

Akhmadov has spent the last year living in Andover, Vermont, and Cambridge, Massachusetts

He should be enjoying the hospitality of Uncle Sam in a cell in Gitmo.

[applemac_g4]

August 9, 2003 <---- = not that old an article.

What is Bush doing?

[TiaS]

I suppose Putin's over there shankin' the dust off his missiles.

[USMMA_83]

From the article: Daniel Pellathy, program director for the Washington-based American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, said granting Akhmadov asylum in the United States would "dispel the myth" that he is a terrorist. "It legitimizes him as representative of the [Chechen] opposition here in the U.S.," Pellathy said. "He can now go on the lecture circuit, meet with members of the State Department, meet with Congress, become a public and active figure."

Which one of our great memebers of the state department and congress has this terrorist met?

[USMMA_83]

ping

[ApesForEvolution]

Hey, let's talk about the State Department and the PLA Terrorists, Inc...

[walford]

This reminds me on how my sympathy for the Chechens evolved since the fall of the USSR.

At first, I was very sympathetic and wondered why other former Soviet 'republics' were allowed to form separate sovereign nations, but not Chechenya.

I knew nothing of the demographics -- irrelevant, right?

When the separatists began to abandon guerilla tactics [which are limited to military and infrastructure] and target civilians, my sympathy quickly evaporated.

It wasn't until several years later that I found out that there was a significant number of Muslims in Chechenya. Then I said, "but of course!"

[John Valentine]

Ok, this is an old article, but it only goes to point out that our State Department does no favors on the war on terrorism. Either all terrorists are terrorists or none are. You can't have "one man's terrorists is another man's freedom fighter."

You an I have reached completely opposite conclusions. To me, this is evidence that indeed, to our "State" Department one mans terrorist is indeed another man's freedom fighter.

I beleive that that this is a determination that ought to be made by Russians in Russia when it concerns their own nationals. This is not appropriate behavior for the United States. This Achmadov has no business taking shelter in the United States, and we have no business sheltering him when the Russians have unfinished business with him and the murderous Chechens in general.

We ought to be standing by the Russians if we want them to stand by us. We won't achieve that by harboring terrorists OR terrorist enablers.

[montag813]

Ilyas Akhmadov, the foreign minister in the separatist government of Chechnya under Aslan Maskhadov, has been granted asylum in the United States

The same Aslan Maskhadov for whom Russia now has a $10 million reward.

[konijn]

You would be suprised who are teh real backers of the chechen cause in the US. This is a snippet from the Chechens American friends

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1299318,00.html


This harshness towards Putin is perhaps explained by the fact that, in the US, the leading group which pleads the Chechen cause is the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC). The list of the self-styled "distinguished Americans" who are its members is a rollcall of the most prominent neoconservatives who so enthusastically support the "war on terror".

They include Richard Perle, the notorious Pentagon adviser; Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra fame; Kenneth Adelman, the former US ambassador to the UN who egged on the invasion of Iraq by predicting it would be "a cakewalk"; Midge Decter, biographer of Donald Rumsfeld and a director of the rightwing Heritage Foundation; Frank Gaffney of the militarist Centre for Security Policy; Bruce Jackson, former US military intelligence officer and one-time vice-president of Lockheed Martin, now president of the US Committee on Nato; Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, a former admirer of Italian fascism and now a leading proponent of regime change in Iran; and R James Woolsey, the former CIA director who is one of the leading cheerleaders behind George Bush's plans to re-model the Muslim world along pro-US lines.

The ACPC heavily promotes the idea that the Chechen rebellion shows the undemocratic nature of Putin's Russia, and cultivates support for the Chechen cause by emphasising the seriousness of human rights violations in the tiny Caucasian republic. It compares the Chechen crisis to those other fashionable "Muslim" causes, Bosnia and Kosovo - implying that only international intervention in the Caucasus can stabilise the situation there.

[Mockingbird For Short]

Are we (the U.S.) nuts?

[A. Pole]

Akhmadov has spent the last year living in Andover, Vermont, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the homes of Nicholas and Ruth Daniloff, former journalists who met Akhmadov in 2000 when he gave a speech at Harvard University.

Hey, they must like him more than Solzhenitsyn in 1978!

[OrioleFan]

Obviously the State Department hasn't gotten the "With US or against US message."

[SevenofNine]

Whoa I didnn't know the dude got granted aslyum in this country well what do you expect Boston Judge allow it

You know how wacky Masschutuct is

[GadareneDemoniac]

It's long since time for a complete - and I mean complete - Congressional investigation of the State Department and the INS. This should include personnel who are "career diplomats" at various embassies around the world, who are, at best, incompetent and at worst corrupt.

[MarMema]

Maskhadov sent Akhmadov and other members of his government abroad to promote the Chechen cause among foreign leaders in 1999, shortly after the return of federal forces to the region.

Hope you enjoy paying for this scum to have a job "studying chechen independence" in our country, on our taxes. We get to pay for not only his salary but his medical care as well.

[ApesForEvolution]

Clear out Foggy Bottom and start over this term, please Mr. President. And please quit giving credibility to the UN...