Sunday, 22 October 2006 - 11:24 PM BST

Arguments about Israeli wage differentials may continue here.

DY

Monday, 23 October 2006 - 12:42 AM BST

Changing the subject for a moment ...

How the hell did 6 out of 16 people find the following comment useful -

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083433/ 

The reviewer is quite clearly mad.

DY

Monday, 23 October 2006 - 8:43 AM BST

David,

That review is helpful on multiple levels. What a great find.

Dom

Monday, 23 October 2006 - 9:42 AM BST

Just looked at it again and saw a different review on the main page. The one I was talking about was titled

'A Chachi in the hand is worth 2 Fonzis in the bush!, 25 June 2001'

DY

Monday, 23 October 2006 - 2:37 PM BST

Tuesday, 24 October 2006 - 12:02 AM BST

Tuesday, 24 October 2006 - 2:12 AM BST

Flea,

I wrote that before the bombing of the Golden Shrine of Samarra in February this year. That has been the catalyst for massive sectarian fighting. I don't think it's civil war quite yet, but it's not a million miles away. Before that bombing it was possible for relatively moderate Shia to have some restraining influence. Since then though, the more extreme Shia have gained influence, as they are seen as more effective in retaliating to Sunni extremists.

The blame for the current crisis really must rest with the Sunni Arab insurgents, who haven't been able to get used to the idea they can't continue to control the whole country politically or economically when they are only 20 per cent of the population. For decades they had their boot on the necks of the Shia and the Kurds. When it was taken off, violence was bound to follow. I really don't think that the West can be blamed for this. I think it would have happened at some point eventually, with or without foreign intervention. In my life (I'm only 37), I've seen Lebanon (75), Rwanda (94), Algeria (93), Somalia (93) and Yugoslavia (90s) all erupt into civil war, without any of it being caused by foreign invasion. At some stage the contradictions can't be ignored any more. Yugoslavia has since split into six pieces. The others are still in existence. I don't know which way Iraq will or even should go.

I will elaborate on this. It deserves a separate post.

DY

Tuesday, 24 October 2006 - 10:23 AM BST

They say,

"Freedom without firepower is like a pleasant, abstract concept without the attendant mechanisms of violence which may actually undermine it."

If that is so then,

"Is freedom at the point of a gun really freedom?"

Let's not force our faltering lifestyle on the rest of the world. 

Tuesday, 24 October 2006 - 11:15 AM BST

Freedom at the point of a gun? Well suppose the Ku Klux Klan, National Front or BNP went around harassing people from ethnic minorities. Would you not think it right that the police turned up and if necessary pointed guns at them to protect the freedom of the non-whites? I think it would be right. I would expect their freedom to be protected at the point of a gun. That's the point - a free society always has enemies, such as white supremacists for example, people who want to oppress others. They do not have that right. Sometimes force must be used to remind them of it.

As far as forcing our faltering lifestyle on the rest of the world is concerned, I am inclined to wonder whether you've noticed that there are people from the rest of the world hiding in container ships, running through the Channel Tunnel, paying to be packed in lorries and clinging to rafts to move to the west and experience our 'faltering lifestyle'. The tide of human traffic has only moved in one direction. From the unfree world to the free world.

Apart from Deen Reed that is - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Reed

Meanwhile, has anyone else noticed the extraordinary turnaround in recent years? It used to be the crusty right-wingers who argued for maintaining stability in unfree countries. That 'Mussolini made the trains run on time' line of thinking always made me feel sick. Like when older people tell you that Spain was a much better place to visit when Franco was in charge, as though political freedom was less important than whether British holiday makers had a good time in Puerto Banus.

Now it's the right that is being radical, while it's the left who complain about the instability that the right has caused. What would a veteran of the Spanish Civil War make of that? It was the British left who fought against fascism then.

DY

Tuesday, 24 October 2006 - 2:12 PM BST

I'm not so sure. The left contains a small pro-interventionist streak still: witness the Euston Manifesto, Harry's Place, David Aaronovitch et al. After all it was a Labour government that actually went into Iraq.

And the right still sometimes has a tendency to consider efforts like the "war on terror" as a frightful yankee imposition on a world that we've already sorted out once thanks very much. And they're either only a bunch of treacherous arabs anyway, or a sensuous, proud race who've got exactly the right idea about women and queers.