Christopher Hitchens on blaming the good guys:
Another obscene video from al-Qaida, this time showing the different ways in which abducted Russian diplomatic staff can be put to death. And, as one could well expect, feeling in Russia runs high. Against the United States, that is. A resolution in parliament and statements from Russian officials place the blame on U.S. authorities for not protecting Moscow's envoys. In advance of the Group of Eight summit (the G8 supposedly being a gathering of advanced industrial democracies, even though Russia, this year's host, is neither advanced nor a democracy), Putin's ministers split the difference between the actual murderers and those who recently put an end to the noisome existence of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. As if perhaps sensing that this would not quite do, the Putinistas then issued a big-mouth statement, announcing that they had instructed their security organs to use all means to track down the murderers. The empty theatricality of the second declaration only helps to underline the petty demagoguery of the earlier ones.
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