Posted on 04/05/2010 11:27:21 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
It has been almost a year since the Kremlin announced its "counterterrorism operation" in Chechnya, the republic bordering Ingushetia. And as long ago as October 2007, Russian strongman and then President Vladimir Putin boasted that the terrorists didn't stand a chance, that their numbers were shrinking, and that there had been only 25 attacks in the previous eight months -- one-tenth as many attacks as there were in 2005.
But then, last year, the number of attacks skyrocketed to about 800. ....
About 1.3 million police officers and bureaucrats work at the Interior Ministry alone, and the number of spies and employees of the intelligence services is estimated at more than 1 million. Nevertheless, the Moscow terrorists apparently relied on a network established long before the attacks. The suicide bombers had supporters who found apartments for them, obtained explosives and helped the women from the Caucasus get their bearings in Moscow, a city of 11 million. Authorities believe that there are still several suicide bombers in the city.
The Kremlin leadership's automatic response -- tightening laws after each attack and relying on increasingly harsh measures -- has not produced more security, but it has curbed civil liberties. ....
Putin used bomb attacks on several apartment buildings in Moscow and two other cities in the fall of 1999, in which 307 people died, as an excuse to launch the second Chechen war. The 2002 tragedy at the Dubrovka Theater led to the muzzling of NTW, the country's last independent television station. And after the Beslan school hostage crisis in September 2004, Putin abolished the direct popular election of governors -- to "strengthen the unity of the nation."
The Kremlin has tightened the screws of security again and again, but to no avail.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
The U.S. and the Russians had a common enemy in the 1940s which was defeated;unfortunately not all the allies of that common enemy were defeated.
One thing, when the Russians capture a suspected terrorist, they won’t be worrying about Miranda Rights, the world’s view of water boarding or where their trials will be held. They have no qualms about shooting terrorists on sight or executing them once they have extracted information.
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Moscow has allied itself with the the terrorist regime in Iran.
SO... thats why they are under attack? They better go and bomb Tehran to solve their problems!
Medvedev says Russia's death penalty ban was not his choice - April 2, 2010 - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday that he would not have introduced the death penalty moratorium in Russia in 1996 but Moscow will stick to its international obligations. "Those who carried out terrorist attacks must be punished for them, but as for the death penalty, we have obligations," Medvedev said at talks with the leaders of parliamentary parties.
for the Russian people this may actually turn out to be a good think in the long run...sort of how the Argentine people woke up to the fact that after their Falklands butt-kicking, the Generals who ran everything in that country could not do the one thing they were supposed to do...win a war.
think = thing
(my fingers had picked up a Boris and Natasha accent apparently)
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