[jaguar]

To be in a position to espouse an opinion about this which has any worth whatsoever, one needs far more information that almost anyone has, there are complex geopolitical games in action here, Russian politics, chechen rebel politics, islamic radicals are tied up and there is careful strategy in play by both sides. There are plenty of interesting personalities involved as well. The targeting of a school isn't accidental. First thing is you can't blow experimental Russian nerve agents over a bunch of kids and expect even the majority to survive, that rules out the way they ended the theatre siege. A direct assault would be very high risk and almost certainly end in the deaths of a number of hostages - kids, very effective media tool. Now they've released a bunch of them, awww, how nice.

The thing is, most of you are approaching this with a fair degree of if not extreme moral absolutism, sadly, the real world exists in shades of grey, not black and white. There is no space for moral absolutism in the modern world and certainly not in dirty little wars in the ex-buffer states of the Soviet Union. I challenge anyone (sadly impossible to prove) who can't see this being done to take a long hard look at themselves and try to say that whatever happened to them, their families, their friends and their communities they couldn't imagine themselves doing this. Lets face it, we all live (as far as I'm aware) in relative wealth )by utilising the poverty of the 3rd world), safe, comfortable, without the fear of a stray mortar going though the roof tonight or watching our wives and daughters raped by gangs of drunk conscripts, what kind of position is that to moralise to people from?

Both sides are dirty as hell here, most of you have at best displayed a very faint understanding of the history of this conflict and the groups involved. I mean the group who did this probably did to the great annoyance of the majority of rebels and when it comes to the islamic angle things get really messy.

It certainly explains why the US elected a president who espouses a similar position to mask a government full of people that make chechen rebels look like peaceful protesters in their extreme ideology. The trick worked the first time, we'll see if after watching the result of such ideologies in action it works a second time.