Chechnya War
How strange! Edward Luttwak, former Cold War defense strategist, now loves Russia’s new dictator, Vladimir Putin, and his genocidal war against the Chechens (“Nothing Will Stop Putin’s War,” Commentary, Jan. 31). Perhaps it is the anti-Muslim prejudice that caused some neoconservatives to support the Serbs against the Muslim Bosnians and Kosovars.
Americans should ask themselves two questions: Why, after bombing Serbia for killing 10,000 Kosovars, do we cozy up to the Russians, who have killed 100,000 Chechens in two wars? Who are our real enemies: the Russians, who still have missiles aimed at our cities, who support our enemies Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic and whose ex-President Boris Yeltsin recently threatened us with nuclear war, or the Chechens, who threaten us not at all and want only freedom?
JON BILLIGMEIER
Northridge
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The Russians are the criminals committing genocide, not the Chechens. The Chechens have been under Russian occupation for 150 years and they are now fighting their war of independence. The Russians are the savages. The Russians massacred the Chechens under the czar and under Stalin and now under the post-Communist government with U.S. tax money.
AYOUB MISHERGHI
Fremont, Calif.
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