It appears Russia’s response to the crisis was morally barren, too, as they took innocents hostage:

ZNAMENSKOYE, Russia — It was 6 a.m. when Russian soldiers hoisted themselves over the wall, crashed through the window and broke down the front door. Their quarries were still asleep.

Shouting, shoving and kicking, the soldiers pushed 67-year-old Khavazh Semiyev and his wife into a truck waiting outside, then went back for the others — his two sons and two nephews, his son’s wife, his 52-year-old sister. Then — and Semiyev couldn’t believe his eyes — they went back for his grandchildren: Mansur, 11 years old. Malkhazni, 9. And Mamed, 7.

They were driven in their nightclothes and socks through the empty early morning streets of Chechnya (news - web sites) to the Russian army’s command center at Khankala. There, the men were forced onto their knees with their heads on the ground. Sacks were pulled over their heads, and their hands were tied behind their backs. For the next 24 hours, anyone who moved from that position got kicked.

One day into the seizure of more than 1,000 hostages by suspected Chechen separatists in the town of Beslan, Russia now had its own hostages. Altogether, an estimated 40 family members of senior Chechen rebel leaders were assembled at Khankala from Thursday, a day after the hostage seizure in Beslan, until Saturday, the day after it ended.

Semiyev’s daughter, Kusama, is the wife of Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov. Around Semiyev were suddenly assembled the entire extended families of Maskhadov, the former Chechen president, and of Chechen warlords Shamil Basayev and Doku Umarov. Maskhadov’s brother was in the tent where the men were kept, and his elderly sister was in a nearby building with the women and children. A 5-month-old baby proved to be a distant relative of one of the rebel leaders.

“We figured they wanted to exchange us for the hostages in Beslan,” Semiyev said in an interview at his home in this small town in northern Chechnya.

The Russian claim that they took these captives to protect them doesn’t square with the account that the soldiers kicked them any time they moved while being held. Yet as one interviewee notes, things could get worse if the Soviets left.

The centuries-old separation movement is likely to continue, no matter what. But it looks clearer and clearer that the problem isn’t Russian weakness, as Putin suggested. The problem is aggravated by the brutalities perpetrated by Putin. Voting him out won’t fix everything. But it provides a better starting point than what either side possesses now.

Addendum: Of course, some see bigger geopolitical stakes here, suggesting nations like ours have a stake in weakening Russia. If true, that means our tax dollars are being spent… on things like the massacre at Belsan.

If true, it wouldn’t be the first time we played both sides of the terrorism coin. And if true, God should send a thunderbolt to destroy us. Central Asian oil isn’t worth our souls.