Tsk, tsk! Look at Putin! He really doesn't know what he's doing, does he? These Chechen separatists are out of control and all he does is use more and more force. Can't he see that's a recipe for disaster? Surely he can see that it's time for dialogue and a peaceful political solution? Why doesn't he just let them have control of their own land, like Russia did with the other "breakaway republics"?
Oh, but wait! These are "terrorists", aren't they? So then, um... sure, I mean... Look, just make sure the children don't get hurt, OK?
How many US newspapers today will dare to run a story like this one:
Fighting injustice, oppression only way to defeat terrorism
... not only are there no front lines in Washington's war on terrorism, but there is no single war against it because there are few common causes, no common enemies and no common strategies for fighting it.
Instead, events show the so-called war is really a series of mostly unconnected clashes over political, social and religious matters that military might has failed to resolve.
"People don't like to hear this, but here goes: the military may be needed to help, but most of all it's about education and economics," says Tim Garden, a senior fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.
The article notes that the insurgency in Iraq "did not hit its stride until about last September, a full five months after US forces entered Baghdad." In fact, as Molly Ivins noted in her column last week, more US soldiers have been killed so far this year than in the corresponding time last year, a time when the invasion was in full swing.
The attacks of 9/11 were a brutal, horrid crime against humanity, but they were also - let's admit it - payback for years of US-supported repression in the Middle East. The threat of terrorism will not diminish unless that repression is acknowledged, addressed, arrested and abandoned altogether. What sort of world do we want to live in?
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