Up to 700 people believed to be held hostage in Moscow

[Zero]

First of all, I dont want anything bad to happen so dont take it the wrong way but..

I wonder how the authorties and public will react... and what will become of the terrorist if that happens.

If they stated so and they do not act, their credential and their control will be jeopardized.

[Sonic]

Pekka, you are right, they claimed they will start shooting people at 6:00 AM

By the way Serb, you claimed I have some kind of occupied country syndrome. Well, you can't know what it is to live in occupied country (as a native person of that country) because you never did that. It is very bad when your native people are being treated like sh*t in their own, native, land.

[Az]

However, one more thing about Sharia'h - who says that laws we have are right? Who can say what is right and what is not?

I am tired of explaining it again and again.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus
hey! leave Serb alone! when it was Sept.11th, we didn't tell all you Americans that you had it coming, did we?

That's a good question.

Mobius seems to be accusing others of doing something he does in ever Israelie/Mid East thread.

Oh and in case everyone has forgotten, it's not really about Serb.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Sonic
Baltics doesn't dislike Russians at all. This is a wrong opinion, probably you also got trolled by Serb. Neither we are dependent on foreign aid from Russia.

I think you may have misunderstood me. I was refering to the Western Aid that would come to a screeching halt if the Baltics tried to do something like this.

BTW, there was also a document movie in which it was claimed that Russian Security itself perhaps was responsible for bombings to have a pretext to invade Chechenya. I don't know how much truth there is in that film however.

Yeah...kinda like how the Mossad staged 9/11.

[Capt Dizle]

Let us all pray that Putin does not cave in. Giving in to terrorists only leads to more terrorism.

[Lord Merciless]

What Putin needs to do are the following:
1. Arrest the families of hostage takers and use them as bargain chips.
2. Threaten to kill 50 Cherchens for every hostage killed.
3. Escalate the war in Cherchnia.
4. Pressure on Georgia to finally do something against terrosits or else.
5. Work with the US on Iraq to avoid possible Western critics.

[DanS]

The thing with threats is that you have to be prepared to follow through with them--otherwise the game doesn't work. I can't believe you would actually advocate killing 50 innocent Chechens for each innocent Russian killed.

[JCG]

Let us *hope* that the hostages aren't all horribly killed needlessly, rather.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by DanS
The thing with threats is that you have to be prepared to follow through with them--otherwise the game doesn't work. I can't believe you would actually advocate killing 50 innocent Chechens for each innocent Russian killed.

I know we won't do it, but Russians might. In the days before Gorbatchev, Russians wouldn't hesitate for a moment doing those things. But that's also why nobody bothered to take hostages against Russians back then.

[Sonic]

Lord Merciless, no, he shouldn't do this, this would lead to just more terrorism seriously and destroy Russian international prestige (not even talking about it being by all means wrong). By the way:
1.Most of terrorists don't have families, Russia already killed them
2.Killing fifty for one would still end up in slaughter. I have no doubt that terrorists would still kill all hostages (and they would probably would be even more likely to do so after such threats; if for example terrorists incidentally kills 1 hostage and Russia kills 50 Chechenyans, than most likely terrorists will kill 50 hostages. If Russia will kill 2500 Chechenyans, than terrorists would kill all hostages, probably also explode theater. This is definitely not a way to safe hostages)
3.Escalating the war would just make terrorists kill more hostages
4.Georgia does everything it can about terrorists in Pankis. NATO helps Georgia with advices, etc.
5.If you don't know, Iraq condemned Chechnyan terrorists, thus there is no reason for Russia to take part in yet another war.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Sonic
Lord Merciless, no, he shouldn't do this, this would lead to just more terrorism seriously and destroy Russian international prestige (not even talking about it being by all means wrong). By the way:
1.Most of terrorists don't have families, Russia already killed them
2.Killing fifty for one would still end up in slaughter. I have no doubt that terrorists would still kill all hostages (and they would probably would be even more likely to do so after such threats; if for example terrorists incidentally kills 1 hostage and Russia kills 50 Chechenyans, than most likely terrorists will kill 50 hostages. If Russia will kill 2500 Chechenyans, than terrorists would kill all hostages, probably also explode theater. This is definitely not a way to safe hostages)
3.Escalating the war would just make terrorists kill more hostages
4.Georgia does everything it can about terrorists in Pankis. NATO helps Georgia with advices, etc.
5.If you don't know, Iraq condemned Chechnyan terrorists, thus there is no reason for Russia to take part in yet another war.

So, you are basically saying that Putin should cave in to those barbarians and let future terrorists regard hostage takings as a viable means to push through their agendas.

No, Russia has already pissed off Cherchens beyond the point of appeasement. What they need to do now is to fvck those rebels so badly that none of them would dare to rise up. Then we can talk about appeasing the masses.

I doubt that Georgia has the means nor the courage to beat up on those bandits, yet they refuse Russian interventions. Forget about NATO personnel, a dozen of these guys aren't going to root out thousands of bandits from easily defensible terrains. You need an operation in size of Anaconda to have any kind of effect.

As for Iraq, I meant that Russia should let US have its way, and in turn the US would certainly keep a blind eye on Russian "methods".

[DanS]

I am hoping that the Russians can use their ingenuity to bring this situation to a close. It doesn't seem likely that Putin is sitting on his hands just waiting this thing out.

The US has troops trained to play these kind of games, so I'm sure Russia does too.

[Sonic]

Georgia shouldn't and wouldn't let Russian army to it's territory, it could very possibly end up in annexation of a country. The exacly same thing happened in the middle of past century (WW2), when Russia said they are coming to Lithuania with troops to save it from nazi attacks, while in reality Russia just annexed Lithuania. So it is quite common practice for Russians.

You, btw, seem to be very against Islam as a religion.

[MOBIUS]

Somewhere else please boys...

Dino, Arrian, Spray, Siro and anyone I forgot to mention…

This is not the place for this – at least Boris was good enough to take it to PM, which I have duly answered. Chechnya and Palestine are two different situations in so many ways, I will start the thread I suggested seeing as so many of you here apparently can’t see past your prejudices enough to carry out that suggestion.

Anyone wishing to take this further PM me, or post in another thread.

======

Back to topic.

What makes people think that attacking obvious innocents is a good tactic? What a fundamental miscalculation.

That is the whole point, this will just further escalate the cycle of violence! If the hostages are killed, Russia will most probably throw everything short of nukes into the region – including the possibility of invading a portion of Georgia in an attempt to root out the rebels! If the rebels are allowed to escape (as they’ve done before) or the crisis is resolved peacefully in other ways – I still feel that Putin has been so badly humiliated that things will be bad for Chechnya…

It all depends on just how serious these terrorists are about dying – in the past generally they have actually shown a healthy interest in staying alive. So that is some hope at least. The other hope is that they will still gradually release hostages in order to bring more to safety.

Let’s hope they’re bluffing about dying – because the Russians absolutely cannot give in to the demands of these terrorists no matter the cost!