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May 9, 2004
The Russians are experiencing problems
The Russians are experiencing problems in Chechyna similar to what we're going through in Iraq.
"Nearly every day Russian soldiers are reported killed in attacks by rebels and by rebel-set explosions.
Grozny, the war-ruined Chechen capital, has a huge presence of Russian forces, but they have not been able to purge insurgents from the city."
Not to say that the Russian experience in Chechnya is exactly the same as with us in Iraq. The Russians are far more brutal in their occupation, the recent prison scandal not withstanding. We have gone out of our way to avoid civilian casualties in Iraq and are spending billions on reconstruction. We are attempting to put into place a pluralistic government. And we went to the UN at all points before and during the invasion.
The Russians have done the opposite in each case. While we selectively target enemy forces, the Russians raze the entire city. Reconstruction is not part of their vocabulary. Far from trying to set up an independent government that will represent the will of the people, they are trying to force obedience to Moscow. And far from going to the UN and soliciting international help, they treat the whole thing as an "internal affair".
This said there are erie similarities. The Chechyns are not the innocent victims that some media reports would suggest. Their resistance forces are inundated with terrorists who have been definitively linked to Al-Qaeda. The Chechyns plant bombs and kill civilians in Moscow with some regularity. And try as they might, the Russians can't quite quell the resistance.
Posted by Tom at May 9, 2004 11:52 AM
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