Russia Joins the War on Terror (At Last)
Over at the Shrine of the Holy Whapping, they're worried about the Russian announcement that she's prepared to launch "preemptive" strikes on terrorist bases worldwide (note my neat inversion of Agence France-Presse's scare quotes) and seem to think it a result of our preemptive war against Iraq. I'm not and I don't.
The Russians aren't claiming the right to attack a nation-state that hasn't attacked them on the theory that it's a long term threat. They're claiming the right to go after international terrorists wherever they reside. They claim this right after having been hit by international terrorists (the makeup of the villains of Beslan is strong evidence that the Russians are no longer just facing a local Chechen problem). In this regard, they are following the example of the United States, but they're doing as we did after September 11th, not in the lead-up to the Iraq War. They've finally taken to heart what I took to be the central lesson of 9/11: that you can't fight terrorism by going after only the specific people involved in plotting and executing the attack against your country, but that the entire network of support, logistics and operations has to be taken down. The Russians have, at last, joined the War on Terrorism.
It's just a shame it took the massacre of hundreds of schoolchildren to get them to do it.
I don't think the Russians had to wait to be attacked, any more than our allies the British had to wait to be attacked to join us in rooting out international terrorism after September 11th. Terrorists are the 21st Century equivalent of pirates - the enemies of the civilized world (broadly defined so as to include the United States), which every civilized nation has not only the right but the obligation to hunt down and destroy.
So I'm glad the Russians have finally decided to join us in this war. I'm not naive: I know from their ten-year war in Chechnya that the Russian military can be brutal and ham-handed. I pray that they're not so going forward, and that, if they are it doesn't set back our efforts too far. But this is a desperate struggle, with enormous stakes. I'll take any allies we can get.
The Russians aren't claiming the right to attack a nation-state that hasn't attacked them on the theory that it's a long term threat. They're claiming the right to go after international terrorists wherever they reside. They claim this right after having been hit by international terrorists (the makeup of the villains of Beslan is strong evidence that the Russians are no longer just facing a local Chechen problem). In this regard, they are following the example of the United States, but they're doing as we did after September 11th, not in the lead-up to the Iraq War. They've finally taken to heart what I took to be the central lesson of 9/11: that you can't fight terrorism by going after only the specific people involved in plotting and executing the attack against your country, but that the entire network of support, logistics and operations has to be taken down. The Russians have, at last, joined the War on Terrorism.
It's just a shame it took the massacre of hundreds of schoolchildren to get them to do it.
I don't think the Russians had to wait to be attacked, any more than our allies the British had to wait to be attacked to join us in rooting out international terrorism after September 11th. Terrorists are the 21st Century equivalent of pirates - the enemies of the civilized world (broadly defined so as to include the United States), which every civilized nation has not only the right but the obligation to hunt down and destroy.
So I'm glad the Russians have finally decided to join us in this war. I'm not naive: I know from their ten-year war in Chechnya that the Russian military can be brutal and ham-handed. I pray that they're not so going forward, and that, if they are it doesn't set back our efforts too far. But this is a desperate struggle, with enormous stakes. I'll take any allies we can get.
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