No, you have no right to take hostages, but you might not have many other options. If you were, say, Movsar Barayev, you couldn't field a million-man army, like the Russians. You couldn't send your bombers flying to Moskva, to turn it into a crater. And you wouldn't have the US, cheering your genocidal storm troopers on. It wouldn't be a fair fight, would it? So what would you do? Roll over and wait for a Russian death squad? Sit on a mountain, shooting at helicopters, 'til they drop a bomb on you? Or would you do something desperate?

This has nothing to do with "terrorism," and if these were Lutherans from Estonia, no-one would say so. These aren't Saudi playboys, miffed at US soldiers in their holy land. These are men and women fighting for the survival of a nation, and it's an awful and cruel and dirty fight by necessity.

---Lepus Rex