“We will carry out all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world,” Gen Yuri Baluevsky was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

“However, this does not mean that we will launch nuclear strikes.”

Thats nice to know.

I am also highly dubious about the latter, but US support for the KLA/UCK was widely reported in respected sources (see links below). It was apparently viewed as a substitute for own ground troops (a triple error, considering the post-war situation, and Milosevic’s final backing down only when NATO ground invasion was threatened), while Rugova’s peaceful movement was dropped. The KLA got training, weapons & money, satellite phones, and gave intel & guidance for special forces units in return. (Read this Newsweek article: http://www.gsoa.ch/zivil/kosov@/kosov@_nato/199905/19990531.0.html on the training in planning stage during the war; this Sunday Times article: http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/march00/hed02.shtml on more issues, or the full transscript of the BBC2 documentary it refers to: http://ben.aubg.bg/Courses/spring2002/pos222/BBC%20transcript.htm.)

It was also widely reported (at least in the European press, f.e. Der Spiegel) that a main post-war problem was (is) that while the UN authority’s police wanted to arrest ex-KLA drug-and-woman trafficers who also were behind political violence, US troops (who are there under their own command) prevented their arrest, because those same militia leaders were still considered valuable local allies.

I’ve always had some questions on just how it is that the Kosovo business
started. True for years there’d been items in the newspaper about
serbian atrocities in the former Yugoslovia. What’s also true is that
the american consensus seemed to be that this was europe’s problem to
solve.

Then one day I wake up to discover that we were at war and that there
had been absolutely, no, as in zero, discussion of the subject before
hand. I remember reading a Washington Post article claiming that three
people had made this decision: President Clinton, Secretary of State Albright,
and a third person whose name eludes me, and that absolutely no one
else knew.

Very strange. Very bizarre. If we hadn’t had a near 100 percent blatently
partisan, suddenly war-mongering media, I would imagine there would
have been a big discussion of just how strange it was. But there wasn’t.

The strangeness wasn’t just in Washington, it goes all the way across
the atlantic. Because it wasn’t the U.S. that effectively declared war
but NATO, twenty-four countries, any one of which could have said no, or
at least delayed things long enough to have a discussion.

I’m sorry but I don’t believe it. This wasn’t an american policy; this
was a european policy. The decision had already been made. The U.S. had
already been asked and the U.S. had already said no.

I agree with you that the Taliban did not exist at the time of the Russian occupation. The then mujaheddin were supported by the US. But after the mujaheddin fell apart in several faction in the 90s, the US/Pakistan clearly supported the Taliban, that fought the pro-Russian and pro-Iranian factions. The Taliban were financed by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, I agree with that. And who supports these regimes?
Okay, I cannot show you any documents about e.g. Chechnya. But who are the allies of the US in the Caucasus: Georgia and Azerbaijan. A little further Turkey and Saudi Arabia. All Chechen supporters.
About the Albanians: you can be right that they are not directly financed. But I see a clear preoccupation for dismantling Slav states in favour of the Albanians, while in the rest of the world, the US defends territorial integrity.

As to why it has such a big effect, I think that terrorists are looking for
easy targets. Teachers with weapons make planning such an operation more
difficult and make the likely outcome much more uncertain.

It might be countered that the same thing could be accomplished by putting
security guards in schools. This is not the same. The problem being that
there are many, many schools and relatively few societies can afford that
many security guards. Second there will always be more teachers than guards.
Third schools everywhere lack money (or think they lack money) and the
tendency would always be to shed the guards.

There was no Taliban during the war against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.
The Taliban came several years later and in fact made war against many of the
muljeedan who had fought the Russians. The Taliban was primarily a creation
of Pakistan with up to two thirds of its membership in Afghanistan being Pakistani.
Saudi Arabia was the primary financer and pakistani intelligence agencies were heavily
involved.

I am likewise dubious of your assertion that the U.S. financed Kosovars and
Chechans but have no detailed knowledge as I do of the Taliban.

I note of course that you offer no evidence of any of your assertions, just as
I have offered none about the origin and relationship between the Taliban and
Pakistan. Although if there is real interest I can dig it all up.

I would also like to emphasize a point Hector hinted at, that Putin used attacks by the fundamentalists to crack down on Maskhadov?s forces, that is Putin is making the fundies stronger within the resistance. And he did this from the very beginning: the 1999 war that hit the elected Maskhadov government?s forces hardest was justified with the chaos of the very warlords Maskhadov was fighting at the time.

This is a point. My thanks for bringing it to my attention, and correcting me on this. Russia’s historical record isn’t good. To put things very mildly. It shouldn’t get underestimated.

Even so, I can’t help but wonder: If the radicals were bad in the 1996-1999 period, what would they be like now?