Daniel Darling has an excellent piece with the background on the Chechnyan situation and the attacks on Beslan. Chechnya has become a home for al-Qaeda-backed militants, arms dealers, drug traffickers, and other groups that have radically destablized the region. Like many places that have become havens for jihadis, the local populations have often been themselves the victims of Islamist terrorism. The mainly Sufi Chechens do have a more or less legitimate and secular nationalism, but it has been corrupted by the Qaeda-linked jihadis such as Amir ibn al-Khattab and other Saudi Wahhabists.
The Russian government is far from blameless. Their brutal attack on Grozny during the Chechen War killed thousands of innocents and did little damage to the jihadis. However, nothing excuses or explains what happened at Beslan.
Neutrality in this war is not an option. Either all states stand together against terrorism and accept no compromises with murderers. The fact that Putin has cynically chosen to blame the West for terrorism only shows that Putin himself fails to understand the reality of the situation. Appeasement of terrorism leads to more attacks. Only by eradicating terrorist groups while fundamentally altering the failed states that support them can this war be won. Those who labor under the false assumption that Islamist terror can be negotiated away or bought off threaten even greater atrocities in the future.
It really is quite simple conceptually.
There is such a thing as human evil. I remember many years ago reading the psychiatrist M. Scott Peck’s book, “People of the Lie” and how he came through his practice to go from the standard liberal view of no evil to accepting the concept that yes, there really are evil people out there.
The Islamofascists are evil…they are determined to destroy us…nothing will change that…our choice is whether to fight to win or not…
The liberals are indulging their fantasies of utopia the same way they did during the 1930’s…thinking they could appease Hitler, thinking they could somehow ignore this source of evil and get away with it. Keep in mind there were many who defended Hitler’s actions in the 1930’s as perfectly understandable given what Germany had been through. And these same people warned that confronting Hilter would only lead to another war. Sound familiar?
But just like ignoring a cancer only allows it to grow, ignoring evil only makes it worse. The liberal way is the way of immaturity and denial of hard truths.
There is such a thing as human evil.
Sure. It’s when people hold to a conviction so dearly that they’ll rationalize any action to accomplish their ends.
A few terrorists thought that 600 dead children were not too steep a price to pay for Chechnyan freedom. Jay Reding thinks that 10,000 dead Iraqis is not too steep a price to pay for American safety.
I don’t see a difference. Intent does not excuse consequence.
“Appeasement of terrorism leads to more attacks”
How do you know, you’ve never tried it!?!
just like a Frenchmen, to surrender and give up with out a fight.
Hey Chris, what do you know about History? The last 50 years? Don’t get me started with France and the military, you’d be crying after 5 minutes on Lafayette’s courage and devotion for america’s freedom…France has been surrendering ONCE in History! Wanna compare with how many times you did over only 200 years? You’re a clown or what?
I take your insult as a “badge of honor”! What some americans think about frenchmen, I honestly don’t care. I’m french and my education made me understand how fighting is useless and even dangerous in some occasion.
Apparently, the only thing you can undersatnd is: “Boom, boom, got you!”.
Good for you! This is not helping peace in the world. People like you should be locked in together in a real Doom 3 arena until silence and peace comes back.
Chris, why don’t you try answering the question instaed of bullying around? Have you try to understand terrorists and the reasons for them to act in such an inhumane way? How do you know appeasment will lead to more attacks? When in History did we experience this strategy?
The fact that your leaders just want to sell more weapons and take control over a country in the middle-east, and that this country coincidently is the second largest reserve of oil has nothing to do with how the crisis should be solved.