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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Russia adopts pre-emption plan
2004-12-10
RUSSIA reserves the right to carry out preventive strikes with conventional weaponry on terror bases anywhere they are found in the world, Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov has said.
Hmmm... Is there an echo in here? ...echo in here? ...echo in here?
"We do not rule out the possibility of carrying out preventive strikes on terrorist bases at any location in the world," Mr Ivanov was quoted as saying in an address to Russian military-diplomatic officials here. "The only limit is exclusion of strikes with nuclear weapons," he said.
Carpet bombing doesn't involve nuclear weapons, keep in mind...
Mr Ivanov referred to UN Security Council resolution 1566 stipulating that any country had the right to protect itself against the threat of terrorism and said that "a legal basis for carrying out such strikes exists today."
And always has, even in La Belle France...
"Russia," he said, "is far from being the only country to announce its readiness to carry out preventive strikes on terrorist bases."
Though if it wasn't for the U.S. it's be close to the only country. But there will be more...
Without directly naming the US, he said that "precedents have already been set in Afghanistan and Iraq" for such pre-emptive military action. Washington has carried out what it described as preventive anti-terror military strikes in both countries. Mr Ivanov's comments came three months after Russia's chief of staff, General Yury Baluyevsky, made a similar announcement as he met in Moscow with NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe, General James Jones. "We will take steps to liquidate terror bases in any region" in the world, Gen Baluyevsky said on September 8.
We should use the term "liquidate" more often in English, I think. I has a ring of finality to it...
Those comments, made in the immediate aftermath of the Beslan school hostage tragedy and a string of attacks that rocked Russia just before it, raised some concern over the new direction in Russian defence policy. But British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw expressed support for the new doctrine, calling it "understandable."
Posted by:tipper

#11  WA - Anyone with a functioning brain would "fear" a loss of rights without serious just cause and due process with all of its built-in safeguards. I FEAR you are playing strawman, heh. But FEAR? Caps hurt my eyes, not to mention overstate the BULLSHIT factor, lol! As the saying goes, "Nothing to see here, move along, move along..." ;-)
Posted by: .com   2004-12-10 11:13:03 PM  

#10  No, you misunderstand me. I wasn't suggesting it WAS happening in America, i was simply saying that the right does FEAR it (the taking away of personal rights ) happening (not because of Bush, but in general).
Posted by: WingedAvenger   2004-12-10 11:06:18 PM  

#9  WA - The Right isn't as squirrelly as a $3 bill. We don't fear what isn't happening. The rest of your comment is, thus, inoperative in this case. We have freedom and it isn't being threatened by Bush, whereas Putty is transparently seeking consolidated power. There is no parallel.
Posted by: .com   2004-12-10 10:35:40 PM  

#8  Ironic how he's actually doing to fundamental rights in Russia what the left fears Bush MIGHT do here in the United States.

The right DOESN'T fear that? I thought one of the main tenents of the right was personal freedom before government intervention.
Posted by: WingedAvenger   2004-12-10 9:38:54 PM  

#7  Said it before and will say it again - watch your six, CANADA/ALCAN.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2004-12-10 9:06:30 PM  

#6  What Anonymoose said. Division of labor. Note that the Russian military, unlike their spooks, is completely incompetent, corrupt, demoralized, brutalized. We don't want or need their help. But we could use the Russians to provide arab world assets where our own incompetents, the CYA, have been unable to develop same. A pretty neat fit, actually.
Posted by: lex   2004-12-10 4:30:55 PM  

#5  Hmm, didn't think of THAT. The KGB did a great job retrieving Russian diplomatic workers in Lebanon. Right up their alley, it is.
Posted by: Ptah   2004-12-10 10:39:08 AM  

#4  Anonymoose has the right idea. Instead of a Russian ad campaign with TV, radio, newspaper, and billboards announcing preemption, go for the quiet well planned, suprise wetwork ops. And if the Russian military is not up to it, then contract it out to competant subs, along the line of what Frank said. Results speak louder than propaganda. Also keeps your enemy existentially paranoid.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2004-12-10 10:14:51 AM  

#3  the legendary Russian Assassin™ was usually Bulgarian ...
Posted by: Frank G   2004-12-10 10:08:44 AM  

#2  Russia is making a mistake in trying to attack the problem from a similar direction as the US. It should use its strengths to engage where the US has not. For example, they should attack the instigators of violence personally, with assassins. These could be any number of targets that the US refuses to attack, from Saudi princes to Pakistani Imams or radical Islamist political leaders. It is not only very cost effective, but it would give them plausible deniability: everyone would assume the US (or Israel) did it. And best of all, Russia could run hundreds of such ops simultaneously on a very tight budget. 100 such troublemakers could be elaborately terminated for the cost of a single cruise missile and to 100 times the effect, killing leaders instead of henchmen.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2004-12-10 9:59:11 AM  

#1  RUSSIA reserves the right to carry out preventive strikes with conventional weaponry on terror bases anywhere they are found in the world, Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov has said.

"We do not rule out the possibility of carrying out preventive strikes on terrorist bases at any location in the world," Mr Ivanov was quoted as saying in an address to Russian military-diplomatic officials here.

And we'll be cheering from the sidelines. Too bad we'll be cheering a resurgent dictatorship given the way Putin's been handling things after Beslan.

Ironic how he's actually doing to fundamental rights in Russia what the left fears Bush MIGHT do here in the United States.

My apologies to the prescient rantburger who pointed out the Russian bear is still yearning for tyrannical power, and just got scorned for their trouble because Putin did the right things when it came to the War on Terror. I can't remember who they were, for the life of me.
Posted by: Ptah   2004-12-10 9:33:48 AM  

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