Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pledged this response to the Moscow subway blombings: “The measures to fight terrorism should be expanded, they should be more effective, more harsh, more cruel, if you please.” Conceding, I believe, that in challenging state repression, it is the insurgent-variety terrorist who defines appropriate and just.

What Russian law enforcement measures hadn’t proven sufficient against the Chechen rebels and their present leader Dokku Umarov? Quoth Medvedev: “We have torn off the heads of the most odious bandits, but clearly this was not enough.”