Point Number One: The Chechens have a legitimate beef against Russia. They were incorporated against their will into the Czarist empire during the 19th century. They were savagely mistreated by Lenin and Stalin, so much so that when the Nazis invaded, they collaborated. In revenge, Stalin deported the lot, along with the Ingush, to Siberia in 1944. Khrushchev allowed them to go back home, but thousands had already died. The Chechens then had to put up with more decades of Soviet misrule.

Point Number Two: This is no excuse for taking over a school and murdering four hundred people, mostly children.

Got that? I don't care how badly your people have been screwed over in the past. That was then and this is now. If you're going to go back to the days of Caucasus blood feuds, we're going to have to stop you, and "we" means the civilized world.

I am appalled by the comments of Spanish Socialists Javier Solana and Miguel Angel Moratinos, demanding explanations from Vladimir Putin and yammering on about dialogue and finding the root causes of terrorism and all that crap. Terrorists only understand one language, and that language is what comes out the muzzle end of an assault rifle.

I also believe that this is all the same war. If the Chechens aren't in league with Al Qaeda and the other Middle Eastern terrorist gangs, like the boys from Hamas who just murdered sixteen Israelis, or the Saddamites in Iraq who just murdered twelve Nepalis, not to mention seven Iraqi policemen in Kirkuk, then what were ten Arabs doing among the hit squad that took over the school in Beslan?

Finally, I'm not sure how Vladimir Putin can be blamed for this tragedy. My understanding of what happened in Beslan is that the terrorists took over the school, held more than a thousand children and other people hostage without food or water for two days, somehow caused an explosion that made many of the hostages attempt to flee, and then fired on those escaping, shooting them in the back. The Russian security forces had the place surrounded and the bombs and the gunfire started. Bodies were falling left and right. What were the security men going to do? They reacted quickly and went in shooting. I don't know who gave the order, or if there was one, but it seems safe to say it wasn't Putin because, of course, he wasn't on the scene.

It's the same enemy, folks. The civilized world has got to destroy them. Or else we're next. Remember the WTC. Remember Bali. Remember Madrid. Remember Fallujah. How short some of our memories are. Particularly those of the Spanish Socialists.