■"Russia Hounds Human Rights Group That Gets U.S. Help," by Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, 18 September 2005, p. A13.

Word that Putin's government is targeting a pro-democracy group for harassment, one that receives U.S. government aid. Sounds friendly enough: the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society. Hell, it sounds like something the old Sovs would gin up.

Putin is pissed on two levels: 1) he doesn't like foreign funding (fair enough, as the U.S. usually has a hissy fit whenever we've found foreign governments trying the same here; and 2) the group highlights civil rights abuses by Russian forces in Chechnya.

On the latter one, there you have to go with the group, although it would be better if money didn't come directly from the USG.

Again, it looks like Putin is getting all his ducks lined up in a row as he looks ahead to the 2008 election.

There's no doubt that Putin aims to make Russia a de facto single-party state, keeping him in line with most of Asia and with most of the former Soviet republics.

How much can we do to prevent it? Not much. No one in the West really wants to own any security issues inside Russia, and America is frankly happy enough that Putin acquiesces to our military bases in Russia's "near abroad." Getting Russia to give up Chechnya is extremely unlikely, simply because Russia considers the region part of Russia proper. You can say, "Hey! Russia's only been there for about 150 years!" To which the Kremlin might rightfully reply, "And how long have you been in some of your Western states?" Or, "How about giving Alaska back which you bought from us when we were weak?"

You know, it's funny, but between the Louisiana Purchase and the Alaska Purchase, we actually ended up buying a major portion of our country. I mean, which other country can claim they acquired that much of the their territory in real estate deals?

Anyway, expect Russia to hold firm like China holds firm on Taiwan. I wouldn't ever expect to negotiate anything on either score, anymore than we'll be offering Florida back to the Spanish.