--- Yoshie Furuhashi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: If Kurds, Kashmiris, Chechens, etc. exercised the right to self-determination, would that necessarily result in the breakup of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, India, and Russia? Presumably, they could very well choose to remain part of the countries in which they currently reside -- especially if most of the armed militants in Kashmir and Chechnya were indeed foreigners as you and Chris have suggested (on this point I am myself agnostic). ---
I don't think the _majority_ of fighters in Chechnya are foreigners. Most of them are 15- to 20-year-old Chechen men who have grown up thinking this way of life is normal. But the presence of the international mujaheedin and their ideology is foreign, and it is that ideology and international muj fighters themselves that were decisive in starting the current war. I think it should be pretty obvious that a secular region in an atheist country does not mutate into a fundamentalist Islamic state in four years without foreign influence. Actually the Islamic Code of Chechnya was copied from the Sudanese one. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
