Russia

9/10/04

Russia. The name conjures up many images. In the recent past it brought to mind the vast array of the armies of the Soviet Union and all of it's nuclear forces that were aimed at us.

Before that, it was either a backward Eurasian communist country or a Tsarist fiefdom ruled by the descendants of Ivan the Terrible and Catherine the Great.

Now, what I think of is a country that has a terrorist problem that may be even worse than ours. I grieve strongly for the families in Beslan. There is something horrible to most civilized humans about the concept of murdering children. I hope that there is a special place in Hell reserved for these people. The idea that some soul missing, mindless, "Islamic" fundamentalist loser would target children specifically is chilling and should be eye opening.

In Russia, the president, Vladimir Putin, does not seem to understand yet what is actually going on. He seems to say to the terrorist that he will not negotiate. He will stand firm. All well and good but he is missing a or perhaps the most important step.

When George Bush attempted to get support in his War On Terror (A.K.A. WWIV) he got little help from Russia and some other European nations. To some small extent, I understand why they were loath to lose all the income from weapon sales and so forth but thinking short term is not always the best idea.

It should be clear to everybody by now that the enemies of this country are the same enemies that the entire civilized world has to fight. Maybe they will join the U.S., Great Britain and the other allies in this global struggle. It is a long term fight and the sooner Russia and the other Western countries log on to the battle the sooner we can make serious progress.

This war is to the death of one of the combatants. Western Civilization or Radical Islam. President Bush has done a good job so far but without the rest of the western world joining, we are simply stomping out small flare-ups in a forest fire. It has to be done, but it would be nice to have a little more help! Mr. Putin needs to understand that the world has to stand together or we will surly not stand at all.