A helicopter carrying 14 senior Russian officials blew up (or crashed) in Chechnya, killing them all. I would say that if this were an attack by Chechen rebels, things would really get bad there, but I don’t think it’s possible for them to get a lot worse. One of the reasons Russia was so supportive of our war in Afghanistan is that they want the rest of the world to back off when it comes to Chechnya. Afghanistan, Algeria, and Somalia notwithstanding, Chechnya might be the worst place on earth. (Well, there’s also Sierra Leone, and Angola, and pretty much all of the countries in the great lakes region of Africa. It’s so hard to choose.)