PAGING JOHN KERRY... 
...THIS IS YOUR WAKE UP CALL...
Posted on 09/04/2004 8:16:02 AM PDT by rang1995
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Saturday, September 4, 2004 · Last updated 7:51 a.m. PT
Putin promises tougher response to terror
By JUDITH INGRAM ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin promised a tougher response to terrorism Saturday, saying in a surprising admission of weakness that the Soviet Union's collapse had left the country unable to react to attacks. "Weak people are beaten," he warned.
The former KGB spy said in a televised address to the nation that terrorists are waging an "all-out war" against Russia. He said he would enact reforms to make security services more effective, tighten border controls and establish a new system to control the situation in the war-torn Caucasus.
Earlier, Putin sealed the borders of North Ossetia, the republic where more than 340 people were killed in a hostage-taking at a school that turned violent Friday. The hostage-taking was carried out by militants seeking independence for Chechnya, where Russian troops have been battling separatists on and off for more than a decade.
Putin vowed never to give in to international terrorists, and that in order to fight them, Russians could not continue living in a "carefree" way.
He blamed police corruption and porous borders for the failure to stop attacks and called for mobilizing the nation before what he called the "common danger" of terrorism.
"In general, we need to admit that we did not show an understanding of the complexities and dangers of the processes occurring in our own country and in the world," he said.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the nation was weakened and unable to respond effectively to terrorism, Putin said.
"We stopped giving enough attention to questions of defense and security, and allowed corruption to infect our judicial and law enforcement sphere," he said.
"Moreover, our country - which used to have the strongest defense system of its external borders - instantly became unprotected from either the West or the East."
"In any case, we couldn't adequately react ... We showed weakness, and weak people are beaten," he said.
Putin made a lightning pre-dawn visit to Beslan, the town where the school is located and announced the closing of the region's borders while authorities search for the attackers' accomplices. Later Saturday, he decreed two days of mourning on Monday and Tuesday.
"I ask you to remember those who died at the hands of terrorists in recent days," he said in his address.
He said measures would be taken to strengthen Russia's unity, create a more effective crisis management system, establish a new system to control the situation in the Caucasus, and overhaul the law enforcement organs.
"We are obliged to create a much more effective security system and to demand action from our law enforcement organs that would be adequate to the level and scale of the new threats," he said.
Putin said some foes wanted to tear off parts of Russia, and others were helping them.
"They help, supposing that Russia - as one of the greatest nuclear powers - still poses a threat to them. So they have to get rid of that threat."
"Outsourcing" some MOAB test runs?
Democrats have been hoping for an attack on US soil prior to the election... I doubt they ever counted on the significance of what has happened in Russia in the past week.
Possibly a resurrection of the WW2 alliance.
President Vladimir Putin .....call Bush now!! We can and want to help.
If the was a way for the DNC or Terry McCaulife to accuse Blush of "dirty tricks" they would. I think you are right, I don't know about you guys but this has had a very profound impact on me. I have children that age. It is not a stretch to imagine that here. This will help Bush and I am sure that Kerry is pissed about that.
More--note last lines
Last update - 18:17 04/09/2004
Russia: Al-Qaida involved in school attack; at least 340 dead
By News Agencies and Haaretz Service
BESLAN, Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin called Saturday for a new approach to law enforcement in the wake of the school hostage crisis that killed more than 340 people, and pledged the reform would be in accordance with the nation's constitution.
Putin said international terrorists had declared "a full-scale war" against Russia, and that due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the nation was weakened and unable to respond as effectively as it must.
The Russian premier flew to Beslan before dawn on Saturday, as smoke was still rising from the shattered school. Russian authorities, who have tried to prove that the battle with Chechnya is part of the international war on terror, have accused Al-Qaida of involvement in the Beslan attack, Army Radio reported.
"In general, we need to admit that we did not show an understanding of the complexities and dangers of the processes occurring in our own country and in the world," he said in a grim televised address to the nation.
"In any case, we couldn't adequately react ... We showed weakness, and weak people are beaten."
He noted in particular that Russia's borders had become porous and "unprotected from either West or East," and that corruption had pervaded the law enforcement agencies.
Putin called for mobilizing the nation before what he called the "common danger" of terrorism. He said measures would be taken to strengthen Russia's territorial integrity, create a more effective crisis management system, and overhaul the law enforcement organs.
In a visit at dead of night to the hospital in the town of Beslan, the scene of the drama not far from Chechnya, Putin warned separatist sympathizers they would be viewed as "accomplices of terrorism".
The death toll after Friday's bloody climax to the two-day siege included 155 school children, many of them held inside a gym by their captors, and confirmed the episode as the grimmest hostage-taking of modern times.
Officials confirmed for the first time media reports that the separatists had taken more than 1,000 people hostage when they stormed into the school on Wednesday.
A total of 26 militants, 10 of them Arabs according to Russian officials, had staged the hostage seizure, said Deputy Prosecutor-General Sergei Fridinsky. All had been killed.
"As a result of the terrorist acts, 322 people were killed, 155 of whom were children I think the death toll will rise, but probably not very much," Fridinsky said.
Putin said he had ordered Beslan and the surrounding region of North Ossetia to be sealed off in follow-up operations by security forces.
"One of the tasks pursued by the terrorists was to stoke ethnic hatred, to blow up the whole of our North Caucasus," he told security officials.
"Anyone who feels sympathetic towards such provocations will be viewed as accomplices of terrorists and terrorism."
Many Western countries conveyed their condolences to Putin.
Moscow bridled quickly at a more querulous statement by the European Union's Dutch presidency demanding an explanation for the bloodshed. It said this was out of keeping with solidarity shown by other countries and denounced it as "blasphemous."
Some EU ministers later appeared to back away from the statement.
The large number of dead left barely a family untouched in Beslan. Normally a backwater of the Caucasus with a population of 30,000, the town was a swirl of grief, anger and uncertainty.
Some people vented their anger against Putin, unusual given his popularity. "Putin came here at four this morning," said Boris, whose neighbor and all her family disappeared.
"He saw no one and talked to no one. He just wanted to show the world how young and handsome he is but he hasn't helped and he won't help and he can't stop this happening again."
Ruslan, a young man, was searching for his wife: "I've been searching all day and I can't find her. Where are our people ? No one tells us anything. No one is protecting us."
Most of the dead had been in the school's gym, officials said. They were killed either by explosions that brought down the roof, mined by the hostage-takers, or by the fire and the battles between soldiers and captors that followed.
Putin's harsh tone in his quick visit to Beslan suggested he had no plan to relax his determination to crush mainly Muslim Chechnya's rebellion and keep it within Russia, using tactics long criticized by human rights activists.
The storming of the school by Russian forces, after explosions inside, unleashed pandemonium. Pupils, parents and teachers, many drenched in blood, were carried out on stretchers or in the arms of local men as bullets flew overhead.
The authorities said they had been forced to send in troops when the gunmen opened fire on fleeing children.
Some 25 bodies were laid out in the yard of Middle School No. 1 on Saturday morning, most in body bags, but some, men without shirts, lay uncovered just outside a school window.
Four of the dozen or so mass hostage sieges in the past 30 years have been in Russia. All four have been linked to the war in Chechnya and all ended in huge loss of life.
Explosives and arms used by the gunmen had been smuggled into the school well in advance during summer building work, Interfax quoted an unnamed regional security source as saying.
Freed hostages described Friday's mayhem. "Bombs were strung all over the gym," one teenage girl told state television. "Tape came unstuck on one and it blew up."
North Ossetia is the only predominantly Orthodox province in the otherwise mostly Muslim North Caucasus. But the whole region is a tinderbox of small national groups and any crackdown carries a risk of disrupting further a delicate ethnic balance.
Last check, the french journalists have still not been released.
Sadly, I don't think so. Look at the last two lines of the article.
Putin said some foes wanted to tear off parts of Russia, and others were helping them.
"They help, supposing that Russia - as one of the greatest nuclear powers - still poses a threat to them. So they have to get rid of that threat."
Since it's the US who has military units all over former Soviet Republics in the south, I believe that he's referring to the US here. Putin just can't get past his Soviet KGB past. So he'll continue to play footsie with the old Soviet client states in return for cash (he's one to talk about corruption) and a chance to annoy the US. One of these days, a Russian city will die from a nuke, most likely a nuke built by the Russian/Soviet military and later resold to a Middle Eastern client.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the nation was weakened and unable to respond effectively to terrorism, Putin said.
Anybody get the feeling he'd like to go back to the communitst ways?
PAGING JOHN KERRY... ...THIS IS YOUR WAKE UP CALL...
Hopefully, this incident will hit home with Putin that if your going to lie down with snakes, you are going to get bitten.
Me, too. All three of my kids are that age. I truly believe that if that happened here, the country would rally around the President and elect him by unheard of margins. Seeing those pics from the scene was shocking. The world saw them and one can only hope they have learned that appeasement and the UN is not the way to go when it comes to terror. The fact that these animals were Islamic terrorists first and Chechnyans second needs to be hammered..
Putin, they got the idea that you were soft on terror because you wouldn't stand solidly behind the coalition that went into Iraq. Of course, they were stupid to think that... but what does it matter? They've come after you, and now you are reacting... Exactly like we predicted you would have to if you did not join with us.
Putin scares me... he enjoys his power entirely too much. I just wonder how much of a russian patriot he is, and how much of a mafia thug he is.
DING DING DING DING DING!!! Very good phraseology there coconutt! I so heartily agree.
RESPONSE! WHO WANTS TO RESPOND TO TERRORISM! DEFEAT THEM BEFORE THEY ATTACK!
This is the fundemental, absolute difference between Kerry and Bush; Kerry will respond, Bush will attack them first.
This is the easiest way to explain to anyone who plans to vote for Kerry why they simply cannot.
I anticipate that Bush will shortly journey to Russia to cement an alliance against terrorism. It will be both a brilliant strategic and political move.
Welcome to the 21st Century, Putty-Poot.
And, Godspeed to you and your hurting nation.
Good insight on your blog. The Al-Qerrys will scream bloody murder, but when Bush returns with a Russo-American alliance, he will have more egg on his face and have to hammer the tired old jobs mantra..
Obviously they're angry about all of those troops that Russia sent to Iraq.
If that would happen Bush attending a memorial in russia and coming home with a cemented alliance with russia stopping aid to IRAN etc..it would be game set match for the elction
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Sir, we too have been somewhat lax in owning our own ammendment, but we recognize the importance of what was intended, not so very long ago.
Arm your people and let the fools weed themselves out and the rest of the world tremble in fear.
You may not believe as we do, but I pray,
God be with you, sir.
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