I used to read the JPost online, but now you need a log-in so I can’t use it no more.
BTW, Carthago was already destroyed long time ago, Jonathan 🙂 150 BC somewhere 🙂

And Arthur, the terror attacks in the eighties are still not solved here. Some voices here say it was an attempt to destabilise Belgium and form an ultra rightwing gov’t.

No,

What Americans call liberals is what we call “hippies” (pot smoking lads in California for example). If we are talking about liberals in Europe, we don’t mean conservatives because that’s another thing. I think a European liberal party would be very similar to the Democrats, while our conservatives are more Republican. There are no social democratic or green parties in the US, but there are some MP’s who could be seen as a “green” or a “socialist” fraction in the Congress or Senate.

Problem is the difference between continental and Anglo-Saxon politics. In Europe, a political party represents an ideology. In America, you have two political parties, each of them consisting of different opinions. A republican in the US can be pro-Abortian, while his colleague, who’s also republican, can be against it. In Europe, MP’s just say what their party wants them to say. While it would be normal for a republican to question Bush on his foreign policy, in Belgium, a MP of a coalition-party should actually just shut his mouth and do whatever the gov’t is asking him. Not very democratic.

I was reading an article in a magazine about life in Israel and was supprised people still go to pubs, pop-concerts, mass-events, beaches, eventhough their country is at state of war (at least that’s how we think of it). For me, it’s difficult to imagine such a rich country like Israel being in a war. I mean, if you turn on the TV at night, are you still able to watch “friends” or “jackass” instead of the news reporting the latest suicide attacks?
Starjet, can you name me some of the domestic problems Israel is working on? Just want to compare their actions to a nation during peacetime.

And Arthur, you know it’s Fukuyama without C :D. His book “the end of history and the last man” was very interresting though, and not at all comparable to the works of lets say Robert Kagan, Huntington or Robert G Kaplan. Kaplan’s last book (warrior ethos) was written by his 6-year old son I assume.

Would Israel have survived in 67 and 73 without the help of free F-4’s they got from the US? Doubt it

OK, I should say living in western-Europe. My mistake

Good question Garry. I think for a healty society peace will always be the best option, but if you want to expand your power and wealth, war could be a useful tool.