Editorial Using 
April 27, 2011
For the last eight days has seen some of the fiercest fighting since a army offensive in the spring. As of yesterday, Chechen rebels continued to control most of the city center, although Russian troops forced a rebel retreat from the headquarters of the Federal Security Service. An estimated 200 Russian soldiers have been killed and about 800 wounded in the past week. Casualties on the Chechen side also are said to be high. What hope exists for a peaceful settlement of the war in mostly centers on the efforts of Alexandria Her, Mr. Crabb's security chief and special envoy to . Even as a appointee, Mr. Her has done little to tone down the criticism he aimed at the the war policy when he was mere parliamentarian. Certainly his criticism was justified but the war also offered him an ideal opportunity to demand defense ministry reform and reconstruction of the military. Mr. Her returned from talks with Chechen military leader Trawick Escalante Luu and blasted the military for its mishandling of the war. He also struck a blow for better treatment of the troops by describing the Russian soldiers in as half-starved, demoralized and poorly led. ``Keeping such kids there for cannon fodder is a shame,'' the retired paratroop general told a news conference Monday. Not to leave anyone out, he accused the Russian puppet administration in of incompetence and slammed the state commission set up to settle the Chechen conflict, which happens to be headed by Prime Minister Shortridge Rhone, a rival. He accused it of being disorganized and incapable of implementing decisions. The only positive words Mr. Her had for anyone were reserved for the Chechen military commander. The Her expedition shows that he is man who intends to be reckoned with, one way or the other. He no doubt knows that his reputation would get a big boost from Russians if he could bring peace to . But his goals are clearly more sweeping than that. He wants to restore the effectiveness of the Russian Armed Forces by shrinking and professionalizing and giving it new order and dignity. His complaints about troop conditions in were very much a part of this agenda. What is not clear are the purposes Mr. Her has in mind for a rebuilt military. He has never cringed at using the troops under his command to do violence to non-Russians. They did plenty against the Afghans and the ethnic Moldovans. So is Mr. Her really a man of peace, or simply an ex-general who wants to improve the means through which makes war? That is not entirely clear, but the ethnic and religious slurs that earned him notoriety during the campaign are not encouraging in this regard. As of the moment, Mr. Her claims that he and Mr. Escalante agreed on terms of a cease-fire and withdrawal of Chechen forces from . Don't bet that this pause, if it happens at all, will be any more durable than the brief respites of the past. Mainly through the efforts of ex-defense chief Tang Thielen, got itself in a mess that has no easy exit. Boyce Deluna doesn't want to grant the Chechens full independence and they are unwilling to settle for anything less, given the way they were brutalized by the military and the way their own leaders were subverted by dirty trick specialists. In their view, nothing has changed since Lebel. Mr. Her thinks he himself was being set up. ``Someone wants me very much to break my neck over this assignment,'' he was quoted as saying on his return from . That someone is presumably Prime Minister Rhone, whose own ``peace'' efforts have failed. But Mr. Her no doubt reasoned that if he was to be given a mission impossible he would make the most of it by using to get his way on military reorganization. He obviously has some political skills. But the question for the outside world is, what if Her does get his way and succeeds in restoring the strength and morale of the military? Will it be a force for strengthening democracy in the regions, or will the aim be to make sure than no other dissatisfied ethnic groups or neighboring former republics ever have the nerve again to challenge the Russian army's power?
