To take a break from all of the little hair splitting piddly talk this sounds like something big to me, I'm not sure if it's a good thing or bad thing.

Russia Threatens to Strike Terror Bases
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Sep 8, 2:58 PM (ET)

By STEVE GUTTERMAN


(AP) Demonstrators gather in front of North Ossetia administration headquarters in the region's capital...
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Col.-Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, chief of the general staff of Russia's armed forces, asserted Russia's right to strike terrorists beyond its borders.

"As for carrying out preventive strikes against terrorist bases ... we will take all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world," he told reporters.

Baluyevsky made his comments alongside NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, Gen. James Jones, after talks on Russia-NATO military cooperation, including anti-terror efforts.

European Union officials reacted cautiously to Baluyevsky's statements, with spokeswoman Emma Udwin saying she could not be sure whether they represented government policy. Udwin said the 25-nation EU is against "extra-judicial killings" in form of pre-emptive strikes.

Russian leaders have previously claimed the right to attack terrorists beyond the country's borders - tacitly threatening neighboring Georgia that Moscow would pursue Chechen rebels allegedly sheltering on its territory. Two Russian agents were convicted this year for the February car bombing in Qatar that killed a Chechen rebel leader, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev. Russia denied involvement in the assassination.

(AP) People react during a meeting with President of North Ossetia Alexander Dzasokhov speaking from a...
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The Bush administration also has a policy of pre-emptive military action against terrorists.

NATO officials declined comment. The alliance released a statement with Russia stressing both sides'"determination to strengthen and intensify common efforts to fight the scourge of terrorism."

Nationalist lawmaker Dmitry Rogozin told Ekho Moskvy radio the warning appeared to be an effort to ease fears of terrorism in Russia following the crashes of two planes after explosions, a Moscow suicide bombing and the school seizure.

Anger over the school attack simmered in North Ossetia, the southern Russian region bordering Chechnya mourning the deaths of hundreds of children, parents and teachers.

Regional President Alexander Dzasokhov promised a furious crowd of 1,000 that the local government would step down within two days and said he would follow suit if he could not fulfill the protesters' demands for an independent inquiry - the first sign of officials being punished for failing to prevent the attack.

(AP) President of North Ossetia Alexander Dzasokhov, second left foreground, speaks from a balcony of...
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Russia's Federal Security Service offered a reward of $10 million - its biggest bounty ever - for information that could help "neutralize" Chechen rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov, whom officials have accused of masterminding last week's hostage crisis.

The agency said Basayev and Maskhadov have been responsible for "inhuman terrorist acts on the territory of the Russian Federation."

Maskhadov, the former president of Chechnya, had denied any involvement in the school standoff, according to aides. There has been no word from Basayev, a longtime rebel warlord who had claimed involvement in bloody raids and hostage-takings in the past.

Basayev is believed to be hiding in Chechnya; Russian officials have sometimes reported that Maskhadov has left the country.

Ustinov said 326 hostages were killed and 727 wounded in the school attack, which ended Friday in a wave of explosions and gunfire. North Ossetian Deputy Health Minister Teimuraz Revazov later said 329 were confirmed dead.

(AP) Demonstrators hold a North Ossetian flag during a meeting with regional government leaders in front...
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Ustinov said 210 bodies had been identified, and forensic workers also were trying to identify 32 body fragments.

His deputy, Sergei Fridinsky, said the bodies of 12 attackers had been identified and that some had taken part in a deadly June attack in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia, the Interfax news agency reported.

The authorities appeared to be backpedaling from their previous insistence on describing the attack as the work of international terrorists. At a meeting with visiting Western journalists and analysts Monday, Putin repeated investigators' allegations that 10 of the attackers were of Arab descent and denied that the hostage-taking was linked to Russia's policy in Chechnya.

However, Ustinov said nothing about Arabs in his briefing. Asked about the silence, a Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told The Associated Press that forensic experts were working to identify the terrorists "and until that work is finished, it's impossible to tell."

"According to preliminary data, there were Arabs," he said. "No one is denying the presence of Arabs."

(AP) President of North Ossetia Alexander Dzasokhov speaks from a balcony of a regional administration...
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Fridinsky also appeared to contradict Putin by saying the attackers' demands were tied to the war in Chechnya.

"The demands concerned chiefly political motives and were related to the anti-terrorist operation," he said, according to Interfax, using the formulation Russian authorities use instead of war.

The global issue of terrorism drew Russia closer to the United States and other Western nations following the Sept. 11 attacks, when Putin expressed support for U.S. anti-terror efforts.

But since the attack in Beslan, Putin and other top officials have turned up the volume on their accusations that Western nations apply double standards and hinder Russia's fight against terrorism by questioning its policy in Chechnya.

Responding to a statement by State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday that "we solve our internal problems ourselves and there's no need to search for an American route to political normalization in Chechnya," Interfax reported.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko also lashed out at the United States, saying talks with Chechens linked to rebel leaders are "absolutely unacceptable."

"After all, we are talking about those individuals who stand behind bloody attacks by terrorists in Russia, which have drawn the indignation of the entire civilized word," Yakovenko said in a statement.

While joining condemnation of the school attack, the State Department said Tuesday that Moscow ultimately must hold political talks with rebellious Chechen leaders.

Wednesday's TV broadcast of Ustinov's briefing was the first attempt by the government to give a formal account of the tragedy. The prosecutor said his information was based on interviews with witnesses and the one alleged attacker.

Ustinov said the approximately 30 attackers, including two women, had met in a forest early Sept. 1 before heading to School No. 1 in Beslan in a truck and two jeeps packed with weapons and ammunition.

People who had gathered to mark the first day of school were herded into the gym by the militants, some of whom voiced objections to seizing a school. Detainee Nur-Pashi Kulayev said the group's leader, who went by the name Colonel, shot one of the militants and said he would do the same to any other militants or hostages who did not show "unconditional obedience."

Later that day, he detonated the explosives worn by two female attackers, killing them to enforce the lesson, Ustinov said.

One of the militants was stationed with his foot on a button that would set off the explosives, Ustinov said; if he lifted his foot, the bombs strung up around the school gymnasium would detonate, he said.

On Friday, the militants decided to change the arrangement of the explosives, and they appear to have set off one bomb by mistake, Ustinov said. That sparked panic as hostages tried to flee and the attackers opened fire.

Yeah, dude, you may have figured something out. The Russians are fixing to strike Al-queda in Pakistan, something we have been totally unable and unwilling to do. He is furious with Bush. In some kind of Cold War stupidity, we have been siding with the child-killing sons of *****es. we have given their leaders political asylym in the US, and have demanded that Russia negotiate with them, which would be like Russia demanding we negotiate with Delaware. You tel; me why we have been siding with the Chechens who are in league with al-Queda? WTF is up with that?

This is what is actually happening in the world: We have this thing we call "The War on Terror" in which we make war on a noun. Doing so allows us to group things like Iraq, which has nothing to do with terrorism, with things that do, like war in Afganistan, and it is done for politcal cover so the oil bidness can get what it wants done in Iraq under this cover story.

The Russians, on the other hand, have known what a lot of us in this country have known as well, that what we are really in is a war against Islamic Fundamentalism, something , believe it or not, Saddam for all his badness was actually on our side on. They direct their war from Saudi Arabia, Afganistan and especially Pakistan. The army that is in Iraq, belongs there. As John Kerry just said, it is the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the Breslan thing is our wake up call for whats coming if we don't smarten up.

http://www2.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/09/07/putin.us/index.html

http://www2.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/09/07/russia.school/

Ever made war on a verb?

At the same time, do you think we'll be seeing a special investigation by the Duma into the attacks and perhaps, at last, an answer to the charges of human rights abuse by the Russian army and special federal police that inevitably spawned the terrorist groups? Don't hold your breath.

I read somewhere that the Russians and Chechens have been murdering each other for around 400 years. Its just playing-out with the Islamofascists this time. We don't have a dog in that hunt.

But if Russia scares some that break cover our way, I don't have any problem with taking a shot at them. I'd guess the Russians feel about the same concerning our interest in Osama's band of merry men.

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The Russians have been really bad actors in Chechnya, no doubt. But if al-Queda is supporting the people the Russians are fighting, then their enemy is our enemy. It is simply something out of Catch-22 when we support people who are in league with al-Queda. This is just more evidence that Bush has no real idea how to fight the war on Islamic Fundamentalism. He just doesn't get the picture

First off I never said I completly agreed with the way the Admin has, is or will handle the war.

I don't want to do more squabbling over little BS but read this statement closely.

KERRY: Today marks a tragic milestone in the war in Iraq. More than one thousand of America's sons and daughters have now given their lives on behalf of their country, on behalf of freedom in the war on terror. And I think that the first thing that every American wants to say today is how deeply we each feel the loss.

You have got to be kidding me. You cannot possibly be that uninformed, The Russians have been fighting al-Queda since the Afganistan War, and they know al-Queda has no greater desire, other than our destruction, to radicalize the Muslims of Russia. This is a world-wide movement, which we have ignored as we sit with our thumbs up our ass in Iraq.

If Russia gets into this there are two outcomes....really good or inconceivably bad for US or maybe it’s just lip service. Either way the bad guys are getting mixed outcomes.. fright flight and fight. This sort of chit leads me to sincerely believe were not even close to the finish line.

They (the Russians) have an amateur military not trained for this business but every now and then torque is better than horsepower.

"You cannot possibly be that uninformed, ...".

Well, smart boy, you cannot be so naive as to think that closely alligning ourselves with a kleptocracy run by a former KGB officer who'se running a terribly brutal war against civilians is going to help us against Al Queda, do you?

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If you don't agree with them, then feel free to join those of us who feel that agreeing with him may cost us our kid's lives, and help to vote the misguided stooge out. The way this man is waging this war somply does not fit what we are up against. We are expending vast resources fighting non-terrorists while these guys grow stronger. We need to change our priorities.

My Dad said something I am sure you might agree with. This whole thing changes the day a single terrorist can smuggle a bag full of sawed-off 12 ga autoloaders into a school gymnasium. The people who want to do just that are not being addressed with the magnitude of resources it will require to prevent just that.

Well, look at the logistics. Russia has nukes. So does Pakistan. Nearby is a small American army. Russia is strongly allied with India. Pakistan is strongly allied with China. Because we didn't nip this in the bud, we have sown the wind, and will now reap the whirlwind. We got some heavy **** coming. The Russians are totally freaked.

I was going to post something similar some time ago but for some reason I felt like being sassy about something else..... I do agree with the statement and have a heart felt fear of something like that happening again..anywhere but I don't think their will be a political fallout like you predict. Americans will be overwhelmed with exterminating the perps and anything that remotely resembles them, it'll be the Indian wars all over again.

If something like that were to happen I would be going through a ton of lead and molten hot barrels and I'm sure most Americans would.

From the end of the Cold War onward, we should have strived to ally ourselves as closely with the Russians as possible - a process begun under Clinton, and reversed as the old commie-under-my-bed crowd Republicans can back into to power. Our policy towards the Russians for the last four years has been as dumb as anything else. Given the acounting scandals that just wracked this country, we ought to know a kleptocracy when we see one. I am sure we could deal with it.