chicot

Hi Harriet I'll send you a pm later.

"This makes it a lot easier for Queria or Abbas to emerge." Highly unlikely. Neither of them have much grassroots support. If Barghouti was to run from his jail cell, he'd walk it.

That was down to the conflict between Zionism and emergent Arab nationalism rather than ancestral hatred. For centuries, Arabs and Jews lived together in the middle east in relative peace, certainly far more peaceably than did the Christians and Jews in Europe. Do you honestly believe that if the Israelis said "Ok, you can have your land back. We give up." and left Israel that Palestinians would attack Jews all around the world out of a desire to kill every Jew that walks the earth?

"This could be a huge oppertunty to get things right in that region of the world if the palestinian people choose someone who will not have as his main policy the destruction of Isreal and the killing of every Jew who walks the earth." That simply is not true. Even in it's most extremist days the PLO regarded Jews resident in Palestine prior to the creation of Israel as "Palestinians" and recognised that they should have equal rights with any other Palestinians. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation, the fact is that thousands of Palestinians lost their homes and their land when Israel was created. While that certainly does not excuse terrorism, it is that that generates the hatred towards Israel and it's inhabitants and not some mythological ancestral hatred towards "every Jew that walks the earth".

The only way a middle east peace deal will come about is if Bush puts pressure on Sharon to give up the idea of Greater Israel. Acquiesing to Sharon's plan to permanently annexe parts of the West Bank, in complete defiance of International law, sabotages any remote prospect of a peace deal.

But the population is spread over a far larger area than the UK. I'm not sure that the places that had problems are significantly more densely populated than London, for example.

Kerry certainly won't be back - he's had his chance and failed to take it, but I think Edwards may have another go at getting the Democratic nomination.

Maybe. Certainly Edwards didn't manage to bring anything to the table in the South. Perhaps the Democrats were still buying into the myth that they had to win at least one Southern state to win the election, when, as it turns out, I think (though I'm not sure) that they didn't pick up one state in the South but would still have won had they picked up Ohio. I'm not sure Gephardt would have made that much of a difference though. Are there any indications that Kerry did not pick up the majority of union votes? Would Gephardt really have been able to swing enough votes in these states to carry them?

One thing that slightly puzzles me about this election is the way that some people had to queue for hours before getting to vote. Why is this the case? Is it that lots of people were trying to vote at the same time instead of there being a reasonable spread of numbers throughout the voting period or is it just that there was inadequate capacity for such a turnout? Surely there should be enough places to vote that people should be able to make their vote in a reasonable amount of time whatever the turnout. Having to wait hours before being able to cast your vote seems unreasonable to me.

I think the House of Representatives elects the President and the Senate the Vice-President? I saw one wacky scenario in which Bush ends up as President with Edwards as Vice-President!

It's too late for me to attempt the maths (5.30 am over here!) but surely that's wrong. Don't the totals have to add up to 538 - the votes have to go to someone?

? Still too early to call. Looks like Ohio will probably decide it.

I saw Luntz on BBC TV a few minutes ago, saying much the same thing. He's been a guest on news programs a few times over here and his assessments always seem to be honest with little partisan bs, even if he is a "republican pollster".

Kerry - 52%, Bush - 47%. Kerry wins Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania and that should do it. Turnout will be high.

Eh, you've chosen a somewhat unfortunate title for the link

Exactly. If this is as close as most of the polls say it is, this might be decided in the courts and be far from over by Wednesday.

There was a video from a couple of months or so ago when an Iraqi group said exactly that.

As I said, most of the goodwill felt towards the US has gone and there is a probably a majority of Iraqis that resents their continued presence. I very much doubt that many Iraqis are going to risk their lives talking to the US and that has nothing to do with how "moderate" they are.

That still doesn't mean that every Sunni muslim wants to see the Shias downtrodden, which seems to be what you were implying with your crack about my relatives. The real irony of all this is that if the US really wanted an Iraq that was an ally of the US, it may well have been achievable if the US hadn't gone in for the control-freakery approach in post-war Iraq. The more you try to force people into something, the more likely they are to resist. There was a considerable amout of goodwill towards the US immediately following the fall of Saddam. That has all but evapourated. The Bush administration seems to have had the viewpoint that they could do whatever they wish in post-war Iraq without any regard for what the Iraqi people thought, after all they had got rid of Saddam -that was enough. Get rid of the army - put 400,000 well-trained and well-armed people out of work? - no problem, we got rid of Saddam. Sack doctors, teachers, administrators simply because they were members of the Baath party (for many people, there was no other way to get a job) - no problem, we got rid of Saddam. Leave ammunition dumps unattended for weeks (and no, I'm not going on media reports - I know that people from my relatives' village were pleading for the Americans to do something about this, but they weren't interested - no problem, we got rid of Saddam. Privatise virtually everything and try to sell it off to foreign investors - no problem, we got rid of Saddam.

What? How many Iraqi Sunni muslims have you known? The picture some Americans seems to have of Iraq (Sunnis = evil undemocratic muslims who were living the life of Riley under Saddam, Shiites = better, but still a bit dodgy, Kurds = great) is absolutely laughable. Actually my relatives would like nothing better than to have a fully democratic Iraq. Nothing like making assumptions based on stereotypes, is there? Also, you yourself have said that this war is about "territory". If that is indeed the case, why the hell should they stop shooting?

So the only possibilities were either starving the Iraqi people to death or bombing them to death? Some choice.

This idea that Iraqis did nothing to try and get rid of Saddam is just plain wrong. Probably over 100,000 died in the 1991 uprising, Uday was crippled in an assassination attempt and there were numerous other coup attempts. There were undoubtedly other attempts that were snuffed out in the planning stages that we never got to hear about. I'm not sure that you understand just how strong Saddam's hold was on the country. The secret police were everywhere - they could be your neighbour, your friend, even your relative. In such circumstances, trying to coordinate anything is impossible - one word out of place and you are dead, no questions asked. Saddam even had a team of doubles - men chosen for their resemblance to him, who were then surgically altered so that they resembled him in virtually every detail. Even if someone managed to bump off "Saddam", chances are that it wouldn't be him but one of his doppelgangers. Back to the subject of the poor guardsmen, Iraqis are allowed one AK-47 per household to defend their home but they are not allowed to take these out of their homes. They are allowed to carry pistols for self-defence, so long as they have a permit. From what I understand, these recruits were very poor Shiite muslims from the South - they may not have been able to afford handguns.

Yeah, all Iraqis are cowards just as all Jews are tight with their money and all blacks are muggers. Racial stereotypes are great. But wait a minute, didn't the Mehdi Army (who I believe are Iraqi) actually take on the might of the US army armed with little more than RPGs and AK-47s in Najaf and Sadr City and (according to US estimates) were slaughtered by the hundred. Doesn't seem all that cowardly to me. It might also interest you to know that a relative of mine (who happens to be a member of this race of cowards) was almost kidnapped a month or so ago. While he was supervising the rebuilding of a house, someone put a gun to his head and told him to get into a car where other members of his gang, similarly masked and armed, were waiting. However, he refused, struggled and managed to escape, though not without taking a bullet through his arm and another through his leg. Doesn't seem like the actions of a coward to me, which is strange when you consider his nationality. As for these Iraqi recruits, it seems somewhat early to be passing judgement. Do you know for a fact that none of them struggled? In any event, it is easy to pontificate on these matters from your armchair. We all like to believe we would be heroes and go out in a blaze of glory, but, in reality, unless you have actually been in a similar situation (and survived to tell the tale) there is no way of knowing how you would actually react.

Here's the response from the Guardian: Guardian response I don't really want to get involved in all this, but I will say that this article appeared in the Guide which is basically the weekly TV guide that comes with Saturday's edition. Brookers column (which I don't normally bother to read which is why I couldn't remember who he was) is normally a sarcastic review of the week's tv and the tone of the article is fairly typical of the column.

That wasn't actually an editorial. It was an opinion piece by Charlie Brooker (whoever he is?).