Putin And The Bush Doctrine
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney repeatedly insist that it's impossible to negotiate with terrorists, that the only option is to destroy them.
After the 1993 WTC bombing, the Khobar Towers bombing, the American embassy bombings in Africa, the USS Cole bombing, the September 11 attacks, the Bali resort bombing, numerous kidnappings and beheadings, the failed ricin attack in Iraq, the foiled chemical attack in Jordan, and now the systematic slaughter of children and their teachers in Beslan, Russia, how could anyone disagree?
In the wake of the Beslan massacre, Vladimir Putin--who strongly opposed the Iraqi phase of America's war on terror--has apparently adopted the Bush-Cheney strategy.
To suggestions that he make political overtures to Islamic terrorists, Putin
snapped, "Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace? Why should we talk to people who are child-killers?"
Putin's government then announced its own version of the Bush Doctrine, as reported by the
Chicago Tribune on September 9:
Russia is prepared to unleash pre-emptive strikes against terrorist bases in "any region," its top general said Wednesday in an ominous declaration that reflected Moscow's resolve to fight terrorism after last week's bloody seizure of a school in North Ossetia.
"As for carrying out preventive strikes against terrorist bases, we will take all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region," Col. Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the Russian military's chief of staff, said after talks with top NATO officials about cooperation in the war against terrorism.
In a September 8 editorial, the New York Post noted that the U.S. State Department had the mindboggling gall to urge Putin to seek a political solution to Islamic terrorism in Russia. President Bush should get the jelly-spined State Department bureaucrats on the same page or shitcan them.
