"As for carrying out preventive strikes against terrorist bases, we will take all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world," Col.-Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, chief of the Russian General Staff, told reporters.
"It does not mean that we are planning nuclear strikes," he said. "The forms and methods will depend on the circumstances."
The threat comes as Russian officials offered a $13-million reward for information that helps "neutralize" two Chechen rebel leaders believed to be behind the Beslan school siege.
As well, the president of North Ossetia, the region in which Beslan is located, has promised that the government will step down within two days because its security forces failed to prevent the tragedy.
Facing a crowd of more than 1,000 people chanting "Resign!", Alexander Dzasokhov said "many problems have piled up that need to be solved better."
In offering the reward for information leading to the arrest of Shamil Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov, Russia's Federal Security Service, successor to the Soviet KGB, said the two had been responsible for "inhuman terrorist acts on the territory of the Russian Federation."
Maskhadov, the former president of Chechnya, has denied any involvement in planning the hostage standoff that killed at least 326 people.
"We condemn this monstrous act by these hostage-takers," Maskhadov's envoy Akhmed Zakayev said previously.
Basayev has not commented on the siege.
News of the bounty came as Russian officials confirmed for the first time the number of hostages taken during the school siege.
Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov said Wednesday that more than 1,200 people were taken hostage. During the crisis, officials said around 350 people were being held.
Note: CbC Link
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So many are so ready to jump on the 'kill em all' bandwagon. The Nazis used to call that crowd - useful idiots.
BTW I can be a huge fan of the US as many have observed on Vive, but I am no fan of Bush/Cheney. I will stand up to our own Toxic Left just as blind to their ideologies and sometimes just as hateful under their do-gooder veil.
Finally make sure you read Margaret Atwood "Letter to America" and you will better understand this blame thing: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... /COATWOOD/
Do the populations of Iraq and Afganistan have a better chance to begin govern themselves now or five years ago? Is Khadaffi more or less likely to bankroll a terrorist incident?
The truth is that we see events are viewed through the prism our own ideologies. What you see is not what I see.
Would it be better if these countries had their own revolutions and if they won their own freedom? Yes it would. The problem I see is that the days when there was a relative equality of force between the citizenry and the government are long gone. During the American Revolutionary war it was muskets and cannon versus rifles and cannon. The British were better organized and fed but the American marksmen and their rifled more accurate long guns weren't overmatched and their committment was the difference.
Today the government, wherever it may be, most likely has machine guns, Tanks, Artillery, rockets, Jet bombers and fighters and choppers. Insurgents have RPGs AK47s and AK74s, maybe some hand held missiles. Not exactly a fair fight. So world powers provide weaponry and support through the back door to countries and insurgents to try and even things out and/or help the side they think mirrors their own ideology.
Some want to have a hands off world where each country has a right to determine its own fate and what happens inside its own borders. The way I think of it is like this. The world is like a neighborhood. Countries are families. There is acceptable and unacceptable behavior in the neighborhood. We'd like you to keep your yard picked up and that you not assault other people who live in the neighborhood. We don't want you to steal from your neighbors either.
Now a problem begins. Over at the Smith's house we notice that Joe is beating his kids and he's cutting off his kids fingers. He keeps one of his daughters in the closet and doesn't let her eat or leave the closet to attend school. She's 12 years old and weighs 35 pounds.
Then Mark Selznik goes over to your house and he takes your lawnmower and burns down your shed.
Joe Smith is brutalizing his own family and hasn't hurt anyone but his own people in his own house. We better leave him alone. After all if his kids, aged 5,7,9 and 12 want to change things they can overthrow Joe, never mind that he's 6'-2" and weighs 250 pounds.
Now Mark he's stepped over the line, lets have the neighborhood association write him a letter asking him to rebuild your shed and give you back your lawnmower. Yeah right!
You don't call the United Nations, I mean the neighborhood association, you call the cops. You don't expect the kids to take over from their father you call the cops. The United Nations aren't the cops. I wish they were. They are a bunch of politicians just like the politicians you have in Canada. There is graft and corruption and people getting rich off of "humanitarian" programs.
So when you know something is rotten do you try to change things? Do you try even though you know that to act is fraught with peril and the chance for mistakes? Do you do nothing and justify it by saying it's none of your business and they really aren't hurting me? Do you stand back in safety and nitpick the efforts of the guy who's trying to do what's right? Do you join in and help find solutions and put yourself out there where the action is? I don't know what you do? I know what I hope I'd do.
Have Bush and the US made mistakes in their pursuit of the terrorist cabal? Yes they have. Is the world safer? Up for interpretation, too soon to tell. Do changes need to be made in the world? Yes without a doubt. Is the world's economy subject to the effects of US policies. Duh? Is the global economy affected by terrorist activites? Duh again.
I'd rather see the US try and do something right and partially succeed than to see the US sit on the sidelines and do nothing.
By the way have you seen the stories where the French government allowed French companies to sell French armaments to Sadaam during the time leading up to the US intervention. This was during the time the UN had prohibited the French from supplying weapons to Iraq. Iraq owed France billions in loan repayments. Whoops there it is. Another conspiracy but this time it's not the US. France didn't support Sadaam because they supported his sovereignty they did so because they wanted to get paid.