Brian O'Connell

10/26/2002

Russian Theater Hostage Crisis Ends

That's good news. An interesting line from Reuters: "In freezing rain, the hostages were ferried quickly out of the theater, many to hospital and away from waiting journalists." Poor Reuters.

A somewhat delicate question is the matter of the 67 hostages who died when Russian special forces stormed the theater. To my mind, this is no different from the 9/11 US decision to shoot down hijacked planes before many more people could be killed on the ground. Unfortunately, sacrifices are necessary in wartime. In the Russian case, more than 750 hostages were saved. It's very likely that many more of them would have died had the Russians not acted. The relatively quick victory of the Russians may well discourage, or at least demoralize, Al Qaeda in the short term. You've got to be behind that.

Link

10/24/2002

Headlines

The news headlines from two news agencies that are fed into my Yahoo! home page read a lot like a multi-front WWIII.

Top Stories from Reuters Oct 24 9:43pm ET
Rifle in Sniper Suspects' Car Is Murder Weapon
Sniper Suspect Was Expert Marksman Who Scared Wife
FBI Says Al Qaeda Targeting Railways
One Dead as Chechens Hold 100s in Theater Siege
Israeli Tanks Enter West Bank City of Jenin - Army

Top Stories from AP Oct 24 9:40pm ET
Tests Link Gun to Sniper Shootings
Chechens Threaten to Kill Hostages
Russia: Quick Iraq U.N. Vote Risky
FBI Warns of Possible Terror Attack
White House: 2002 Deficit Hits $159B

Every one of those headlines is about the war, even the last one. It sure seems like a clash of civilizations.

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