As other posters have said, it regularly intervenes in Turkish politics. Although this is a bad thing for Turkish democracy and civil society, it's not something to be feared - it's a stabilising influence. The army is very respected in Turkey. I've been there quite a few times, it's a wonderful country, and in political discussions the army occasionally comes up in the way that the Supreme Court might do in American discussions, or the House of Lords in British ones - "but it's OK because if they go too far the army will step in and put things right". It's held in high regard, not feared, but a lot of people deplore having to "rely" on it.

That's unconventionally casual. Or is it a Baptist thing?

The relevance of Lee Barnes' remark is hard to see in this case. Not everything a fascist says is anti-semitic, you know. The BNP has, in the past, attempted to court some extremist Zionist groups - they were rewarded with a frosty reaction to say the least, as well as an internal doctrinal row with their own "more traditional" anti-semitic elements. You appear to be under the impression that the British far right has put anti-semitism behind it - it has not. The existence of Israel is convenient to the BNP - it gives them somewhere to send the Jews. By courting Zionist groups, they are ham-fistedly attempting to triangulate what they see as growing anti-Muslim sentiment, and not getting very far. They've also been making overtures to right-wing Christian groups. And, indeed, everyone who they think will listen.

You have been physically attacked by leading members of the BNP? I urge you to pursue the case under British law.

Incidentally, unless you're working from two definitions of Zionism, how can you be both Zionist and anti-Zionist?

As for "another board", as I was telling someone else scant hours ago, you're behind the times, my account there was closed at my request several weeks ago.

"It's not anti-semitic to criticise Israel" goes the cry, and it's true. "I'm not against Jews, I'm against Zionists" goes the claim, and most mean it genuinely. And there is indeed a debate about where the dividing line between criticism of Israel and anti-semitism lies.

But here's the problem: both sides are trying to move the line. It's not one-way traffic with a bunch of hard-core pro-Israelis attempting to classify all criticism of Israel as anti-semitic, although heaven knows there are a few of them. At the same time, the hard-core anti-Israelis are pushing in the other direction because it suits their purposes to keep the line as blurred as possible. Not to fix the line - to keep it blurred. A blurred line is more useful, because it permits a maximalist interpretation of where the line might ultimately be.

So take their word for it.

As for "other sites", I assume you mean PSU. If so you're behind the times, I told them to close my account quite some time ago.

I did it without any histrionic "I'm leaving" vanity threads, as well.

On edit: You have your own posting history on other websites, ones that sponsor Michael Rivero's little hate-fest, for instance.

You should read the comments in her post, where she says that what she is talking about is nothing about the 7/7 varieties of LIHOP and MIHOP which, incidentally, she treats with total contempt. She may in fact have been referring to these arrests.

Of course SUVs are lousy for the environment - the vast majority of petroleum vehicles are. But SUVs make a handy scapegoat that allows people to feel concerned about the environment without looking at their own lifestyles.

the man in charge of the surge.

Tempting as it might be to sit back and let the Iranians dig themselves deeper into a diplomatic hole - especially after today's quite generous offer of negotiations over the waterway - the mood ofthe public seems to be really quite surprisingly hawkish.

I agree with you that this situation hands a massive propaganda victory to American Neocons, and while I don't doubt that they and Bush and Cheney et al would dearly love to be able to march into Iran and topple the mullahs, I think it's also perfectly clear that there is no way they are able to. There is nothing on the scale of the buildup that was needed to defeat Iraq presently going on, and that war was a pushover compared to Iran.

As I understand it, GPS doesn't work in a way that would let the system do what you describe, it's works through triangulation of signals. So it wouldn't be quite simple to supply the wrong coordinates, it would be terrifically difficult.

The priority is the safe return of the sailors. Air strikes would not achieve that, it might condemn them. The government knows that. I don't know why people think it has any merit as a strategy, or why so many people on DU seem certain that we'll go to war over this. We can't. As well as the 15 captive sailors in Iran itself, there are thousands of our soldiers "captive" in Iraq and Afghistan, within easy reach of reprisals by the Iranians. Aggression would be lunacy.

It's about time.

The way things are shaping up, it's a close-run thing between natural death and firing squad while mob loots presidential palace.

Sic semper tyrannis.

presence in Iraq

The Iranian hostage crisis took a sinister turn last night when Tehran withdrew an earlier offer to release one of the 15 captive sailors and marines and issued a second, strangely-worded letter in her name calling for Britain to withdraw from Iraq.

The letter, signed by Leading Seaman Faye Turney, the only woman in the naval crew seized last Friday, was addressed to "representatives of the House of Commons". Although the letter was handwritten, it was stilted and lacked the personal tone of the first letter, sent to her family the day before. The second letter appeared to have been dictated to her.

"Unfortunately during the course of our mission we entered Iranian waters. Even through our wrongdoing, they have still treated us well and humanely, which I am and always will be eternally grateful," the letter said.

"I ask representatives of the House of Commons after the government had promised this type of incident would not happen again why have they let this occur and why has the government not been questioned over this? Isn't it time for us to start withdrawing forces from Iraq and let them determine their own future?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,20...

It's interesting that UK media wording has now changed from "captives" to "hostages".