Stephen Boykewich

In early October 2007, almost three years to the day after I began my career as a journalist in Russia, a conversation with a former CIA agent brought it to an end. 

American coverage of the monstrous hostage-taking at Beslan’s School No. 1 in the Russian republic of North Ossetia and the ensuing controversy over President Vladimir Putin’s consolidation of power in ostensible response to the terrorist threat was hampered by many factors, not the least of which has been our election-season anxiety about the health of our own democracy. The superficial correspondences are everywhere: between what many consider to be Putin’s reckless and unwinnable war of choice in Chechnya and President Bush’s reckless war of choice and thus-far-unwinnable peace in Iraq; between Putin’s claims that his war is a vital part of the fight against international terrorism, while it has in fact spurred radical Islamism and been the occasion for a wave of horrific terrorist acts, and Bush’s identical claims about the war in Iraq, while jihadists from throughout the Arab world pour over Iraqi borders and the death toll mounts more steeply every month; between Putin’s use of undemocratic and arguably anticonstitutional measures in the name of making Russia safer and the Bush administration’s use of the same while obvious and easily implemented antiterrorist measures have yet to be taken; the list goes on.