I know practically nothing about Chechnya, but isn't it possible that both Lou and Chris are partially correct. After perhaps centuries -- I don't pretend to know the history -- of oppression, many people there retreat into a movement for fundamentalist separatism.
I think of the Kurds, whose resistance to the Turks seems heroic, but who seem less appealing when they work with the US in Iraq. I guess everybody has their good Kurds and their bad Kurds. I sympathize with the Chechen rebels when they struggled against the disgusting Yeltsin, but I doubt that I would have admired the world that they would have created had a won. I don't doubt that they did some of the things that Chris says they did. Yet I can believe the police exploded apartment buildings in Russia to win sympathy for the war in Chechnya. Once you set up a dysfunctional situation by way of tyranny, neat outcomes are likely. I was in Paris when the show was ousted. The ayatollah sounded very good before he won power. Anyway, this discussion cannot be reduced to simple good guys and bad guys. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
