indeed! the brutal Russian actions in Chechnya stretch back to Stalin's deportation of the entire population right upto the present day. loud protests were made by western governments (but hardly a word from so called peace activists) until the recent need to sacrifice these people as the price of Russian support for the war on terror.

Over the last few years there has been an incredible, purposeful growth of Wahhabism and other such extremist sects of the Muslim religion in to Chechnya.
In my opinion, Russia is experiencing difficulties with a problem which is of the same source or same kind of source as is being experienced world over. We are all guilty of not recognizing the problem soon and feeding it during the cold war in near Eastern countries as well as in the Middle East.
I am not sure what the reason is that Russia is not expressing recognition of the real problem, but by doing so they continue to feed what we are fighting.

At least, Putin had the guts to finish the job.

Putin has gallons of blood on his hands and not only of innocent Chechen but also his own maltreated troops - check out the horrific history of Russian occupation and you'll find ample causes for the involvement of outside groups in their struggle, the enemy of my enemy etc etc.

If anyone had asked me at the start I was in favor of Chechneya. I still am. Outside Islamofascist agitators should be supressed at any cost short of nuclear contamination. If the Chechens themselves were the motivating force it would be anther matter, but the war was driven by Taliban infiltrators.

That said, this troubles me. Putin's alignment with 'Old Europe' on this matter is a mistake. Russia, if it indeed contributed to Sadaam's WMD program, could get forgivness by siding with us, especially given certain extenuating economic circumstances. Russia has nothing to gain in these events, but by siding with France they have quite a bit to lose.