Putin Rips US Policy Toward Chechnya

Don't Negotiate With Terrorists? Well, Sometimes

Published on September 8, 2004 By Larry Kuperman In International

In the wake of the Russian school massacre, President Putin ripped what he sees as an hypocritical US policy toward terrorism.

The US has met with Chechnyan separtist leaders in the recent past. President Putin offered this comparison: "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?" the Russian leader said. "You find it possible to set some limitations in your dealings with these terrorists? So why should we talk to people who are child killers?"

If you have read my articles on the slaughter at the school in Russia, you know that I have had a pretty strong reaction to this. Perhaps the images of dead children being carried out, some the age of my own daughter, got to me. So, I have tried to stand back a bit from this.

But I think President Putin is right on this. Our talking to Chechnyan separtists is no different than, say, Russia building the nuclear facilities in Iraq and Iran, or France supporting the Palestinians. All of which are bad and just stupid. If the West loses the struggle with the Islamic extremists, it will be because of our lack of unity. Bin Laden et al will continue to exploit the chinks in our armor.

Here is the US reaction to President Putin.

Donald Rumsfeld: "There really are no free passes in this struggle, this war. No free passes for countries, no free passes for individuals."

"President Putin is making references to occasional visits, not one recently, by Chechen personalities to staff members in the State Department as part of our way of keeping informed about the situation in the region," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told reporters.

But is this true? Were we only trying to keep informed when we granted asylum to Ilyas Akhmadov, formerly foreign minister in the separatist government of Chechnya under Aslan Maskhadov, on August 9th of this year?

Comments

olikara

on Sep 08, 2004

Larry, this is classic statecraft.

America wants Russia as an ally, right as Russia still is a great power militarily and has tons of oil too. Besides it controls a good part of the tinderbox of the Caucasus.

However America does not also want the Russians to grow too big for their boots. And they will use the Chechens here as a pawn for their own ends. Chechnya does provide America a stick to beat the Russians with, when needed.

Deference

on Sep 08, 2004

Inconsistancy in Bush policy, but the media and the people give him another free pass....ugh!

Catechumen

on Sep 08, 2004

America does want to remain the most powerful nation, so I agree, America probably uses the Chechens.

Bush is hypocritical in these matters.

Just as he has been with Israel. He continues to tell Sharon to back off and use diplomacy, even before 9/11 he did. Yet when we were attacked (yes, it was a much larger scale, but still yet) We invade two countries and spend 200 billion in the process.

America wants to be the only nation that can fight and conquer. That's just all there is to it. I'll admit, I wanna be in the most powerful nation in the world!

kingbee

on Sep 08, 2004

putin was/is at least partially responsible for having created the conditions in which radical islam became part of the chechnya mix. like most aspects of the russian chechen conflict since 1991, its totally out of control now (the plan was, as nearly as im able to determine, for putin to extend his government's power using the threat of chechen islamists as a rationale) obviously we should presenting a united front...im guessing rumsfeld is trying to play the same game in reverse.

more slick politics from the guys who seem to be unwittingly expending our manpower and money to help grind down sistani's competition

Larry Kuperman

on Sep 09, 2004

Thank you all for commenting, but the intent of my post was not to create an opportunity for Bush-bashing.

Historically, Russia has a long history of supporting Islamic militants. Russian technology is responsible for the nuclear plant under construction in Iran today and Russia was involved in building the nuclear plant in Iraq. Russia (as the Soviet Union) financially and militarily supported Nasser in Egypt as far back an the 1950's.

But there is nopoint in dredging up history. Russia, like Spain and France, is under attack today. We share a common enemy. The question is will we unite to fight that enemy?

Angloesque

on Sep 09, 2004

I found this Slate article pretty helpful in understanding the relationship between the Chechens and Russians. Link

Larry, you just said, "Russia has a long history of supporting Islamic militants." I think the issue is more that Russia has a history of supporting anyone as long as it furthers their interest--and this has mostly backfired when it comes to Chechnya. I agree that we should be united with them against terrorists--and this Beslan incident is one where the word "terrorist" is certainly warranted--but Russia has not demonstrated itself as trustworthy. How exactly are we to pledge our support to them and not assume that they'll stab us in the back? And by pledging our support to them, we're just further alienating the Muslim world by allying ourselves with people they're mad at.

From what I understand, there is absolutely no trust between the Chechens and Russia, and that needs to be built from the inside. (For examples of U.S. intervention in such conflicts, just look at the Israelis and Palestinians.) I'm not a very strong isolationist, but I think that there are some people we need to examine very carefully before we pledge ourselves to them.

Good article.

Solitair

on Sep 09, 2004

I think it's very important to realise that the separtist leaders the US were talking to was the democratically elected president of the Chechnyan people. Bin Laden was not elected by any people to represent them. A very important difference.

It is also important to recognise the difference between the various Chechnyan factions. Was Mr Maskhadov directly linked to this attack? The terrified inconsistent and third party testimony of a single captured terrorist is not good enough to prove a link, this needs to be investigated independantly. If so then he should be black listed by the US. If not then he is still an elected president of Chechnya. Worth nothing that he actually released a statement saying the actions against children was deplorable. Not quite the response you'ld expect from someone the Russians claimed masterminded the attack.

Not all fractions on the same general side of a conflict agree with each other. Look at Northern Ireland for example. There is a very big difference between the IRA, the provisional IRA and the continuity IRA.

I think the world has to be on it's guard for opportunist use of the terrorist card. It's far to easy for Putin to excuse all Russian atrocities in the region as a fight against terrorism. Far to easy for him to stop legitimate US worry about Russian tactics as cohorting with terrorists.

Paul.

ShoZan

on Sep 09, 2004

One can't just step and say they support Russia against Chechnya, the U.S. can help with taking on the Chechnyan Terrorist Group responsible for Beslan, but to wade into that fray would ultimately gain the U.S. more hate from another nationality. Chechnya wanted to seperate much like Georgia and the rest, but Russia didn't like it, and so if we side with Putin and let all of his dealings in Russia, it will put us in the same situation as them. Before we can help them with Chechnya, we need to have Russia petition the U.N. (since a lot of people are complaining about Iraq we will use the U.N. before we go into Chechnya) to have some talks done either in the region or more likely on neutral ground, and we need to look at both sides, but must also not forget to go after and stop the terrorist groups responsible for Beslan. Just put the group responsible for Beslan on the United States Terrorist Shit List.

Lee1776

on Sep 09, 2004

We must remember that the terrorist group that coordinated this attack does not only want to separate from the Russia but are demanding that the country formed be an Islamic fundamentalist state. Many of the other groups have tried to distance themselves from them. These other groups have restricted themselves to attacking military targets. After the first uprising many of the groups decided to even join the government. (Hens the last Chechnya President was a Chechnya Rebel leader before becoming President.)

The biggest problem with trying to only attack this single group is that know one is going to have the chance to read a separatist affiliation card before he gets shot.

Putin is going to use this attack to wipe out all the groups. In the Moscow times (English written newspaper) this week it explains that the Reporter that got the sharp reply from Puttin was the French news agency chief. The author of the article talked with a Presidential staffer and they stated the comment was more directed at the EU then the US, because sense 9/11 the US has mostly done a hands off policy. (My wife gets an e-copy each week; I had lived in Russia for some time, her all her life)

stevendedalus

on Sep 09, 2004

"Using" Chechnya, a province of Russia for 150 years, as a US wedge is like accepting an impulsive state to secede from the union.

Solitair

on Sep 10, 2004

Not sure I agree with your comment stevendedalus.

The US should definitely NOT be using Chechnya as a wedge.

Chechnya is very different that a US state though. It has a clear and separate identity to the Russian overlords. The population have been trying to regain independence for a very long time. They have voted with a sizeable majority of the population for independence. Either you believe in democracy or not, you can't claim to believe in it and then force your will on an entire nation. This is not like an integral part of a state looking for independence, this is a separate region which Russia has conquered looking for freedom.

Paul.

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