Chechen Indepedence

[Phalanx]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before, but has the war in Chechnya been covered. I think it should because it is a pretty major war. Russia has lost 12,000 soldiers so far since 1999 and the chechans 200,000 in the same period. If you would like to talk about abuses, this is the one to cover. For example, the Mideast conflict has inflicted 1,000 Israeli and 3,500 Palestinian casualties. And this conflict is only 1 year younger. The massacre committed by both sides is astonishing!

[Ele'ill]

Yes, both sides have commited attrocities. Both sides are wrong. I won't dive into the ideological crimes as they tend to lean towards the side of the larger nations (Israel and Russia). The third world is very capable of driving larger forces out. It has done so in the past. What is surprising about those numbers is the time line in which the palestinians and chechens have continued to fight. Our troops's moral is already low in iraq. Not terribly low but medium/low. That is the general understanding from what the troops have said. How long have they been in the country? Drag the empire into a long conflict away from it's home resources, things start to get tricky. Invading isn't hard, occupying is.