CHAPEL END CHARLIE

Where should you protest my dear Pap? Well I don't think 'gorgeous' George Galloway could make it this time, busy crusading for justice in the Middle East perhaps, but I see that some of your other mates decided to ransack a branch of Tesco's in Birmingham last Saturday. That seems a reasonable thing to do afterall because its a well known fact that Tesco's was founded by a bloke called Cohen (boo!) and it may have even outraged left wing sensitivities further by having some Israeli merchandise on its shelf's. Next I suppose that front for radical Zionism known as 'Marks & Spencer' better watch out ... My suspicions remain that the real motivation behind your recent contributions on here are more political in nature rather than strictly humanitarian. Indeed, to be honest about it, I don't really believe that you (and your type in general) could give a 'tinkers cuss' for the Palestinians of Gaza, or the Yazidi of Iraq for that matter, as long as they provide a useful excuse to further your outdated leftist agenda. That is what really interests you is it not? The three or four attempts it took to get you to concede - at long last - that the murder of Israeli children too might just have been morally dubious kind of confirms that suspicion. Moving on, I wonder has your ceaseless Googling provided any more 'evidence' that ISIS was created by Mossad yet? Because twenty more pages of yet another (deeply paranoid) conspiracy theory would help pass the time admirably.

I dug out a early Columbo story: 'The Most Crucial Game' this morning, and it's a cracker. The late/great Robert Culp (who would return to the series twice more) plays the Chairman of a major League Football club who desires to rid himself of the spoilt brat who owns the franchise. As usual in Columbo he shows his enemy no mercy. While it is commonplace for the protagonist in these stories to establish a near watertight alibi for themselves, the one Culp contrives here is so elaborate and convincing that if I had not already seen him bash his victims head in with a lump of ice (always a great murder weapon) then I too wouldn't doubt it! Our hero however is harder to fool ... The crimes Columbo investigates happen in a place that is far removed from the sordid reality of most real world killings. The rich and powerful tend to buy their way out of trouble rather resort to murder. But just supposing you could plan a real crime half as well as this fictional one is then I wouldn't mind betting that you'd get away with it more often than not. Not that I want to put ideas in his head, but if you ever see Ralph Krueger sneaking out of the Directors Box during the first half of a match at St Mary's disguised as a ice-cream man ... well Katharina Liebherr better watch out is all I will say.

I dug out a early Columbo story: 'The Most Crucial Game' this morning, and it's a cracker. The late/great Robert Culp (who would return to the series twice more) plays the Chairman of a major League Football club who desires to rid himself of the spoilt brat who owns the franchise. As usual in Columbo he shows his enemy no mercy. While it is commonplace for the protagonist in these stories to establish a near watertight alibi for themselves, the one Culp contrives here is so elaborate and convincing that if I had not already seen him bash his victims head in with a lump of ice (always a great murder weapon) then I too wouldn't doubt it! Our hero however is harder to fool ... The crimes Columbo investigates happen in a place that is far removed from the sordid reality of most real world killings. The rich and powerful tend to buy their way out of trouble rather resort to murder. But just supposing you could plan a real crime half as well as this fictional one is then I wouldn't mind betting that you'd get away with it more often than not. Not that I want to put ideas in his head, but if you ever see Ralph Krueger sneaking out of the Directors Box during the first half of a match at St Mary's disguised as a ice-cream man ... well Katharina Liebherr better watch out is all I will say.

As our broadcast and print media overflow yet again with further (graphic) evidence attesting to both the scale and the medieval style savagery of atrocities committed by the fighters of the new 'Islamic State' in Northern Iraq, it seems remarkable to this observer of events that those here on the left who were so very keen to parade their humanitarian credentials and condemn Israel only a few days ago, now seem to have lost their voice for some reason - I am assuming here that the risible suggestion above that this 'IS' might be a tool of Israel is not meant to be taken seriously by grown ups. To my way of thinking if your sense of empathy for your fellow Human Being's suffering is so very malleable that it can in effect be turned on or off at some politically motivated whim ... well I for one have to question just how genuine it was in the first place.

As our broadcast and print media overflow yet again with further (graphic) evidence attesting to both the scale and the medieval style savagery of atrocities committed by the fighters of the new 'Islamic State' in Northern Iraq, it seems remarkable to this observer of events that those here on the left who were so very keen to parade their humanitarian credentials and condemn Israel only a few days ago, now seem to have lost their voice for some reason - I am assuming here that the risible suggestion above that this 'IS' might be a tool of Israel is not meant to be taken seriously by grown ups. To my way of thinking if your sense of empathy for your fellow Human Being's suffering is so very malleable that it can in effect be turned on or off at some politically motivated whim ... well I for one have to question just how genuine it was in the first place.

How refreshing it is to see so many of you making a special effort to avoid this forum's oh-so-familiar 'shoot the messenger' reaction to any negative press ... It seems to me that at this time no bugger knows who will win this league, and who will be relegated from it this season. So what the BBC contractually pressurise Phil Neville into saying before a ball has even been kicked amounts to nothing very much in the grand scheme to things. For what its worth, what he said strikes me as being not entirely unreasonable I'm sorry to say.

I'm not privy to all the ins and outs of each individual transfer, I don't suppose many are, but it seems clear enough that something extraordinary has happened at our club this summer - with rumours that Morgan Schneiderlin and Jack Cork might be offski too that mass exodus may not even have concluded yet. Good players want to 'better' themselves, I get that, but how often do you see other PL clubs with good players on their books, clubs such as Everton for instance, losing quite as many as we have? No, to my way of thinking the board can't escape the blame for what would seem on the outside to be a atypical level of discontent within our squad. When you come across a 'ship' as unhappy as SFC has been recently, then the blame for that situation is normally found on the bridge ... not in the engine room.

Well we'll soon find out I suppose, but right now I'd say that not only do we look weaker, we seem to be perhaps significantly weaker. I'm expecting a difficult start to the season and if that happens it seems questionable whether this hastily assembled squad (and its manager) will recover in time to prevent the season becoming a disaster. Indeed our survival may depend not upon our outright strength, but rather on us finding 3 other clubs even weaker than we are. You just can't mismanage a squad to the extent that SFC has this summer and then expect to escape the consequences. Not in this league.

I don't agree that democracy can't grow in this region because the Arab people will always remain too backward to handle it. It seems to me universally true that people everywhere yearn to have their voice heard and for their desires to count for something. I say this trend can only grow unstoppably as education and exposure to the outside world (and its media) grows. Nor am I convinced that redrawing the borders of the Middle East to create new religiously homologous (or do we mean ethnically 'pure') states in the region is really the right road to go down either - even if that were possible anyway. There is perhaps a strong case for the creation of a Kurdish state in Northern Iraq, but if you understood anything of the history of this region and how Turkey (an important NATO ally) is likely to react to that idea then you'd also know just how problematic even that limited move is. I must add that the notion that we should prepare ourselves for centuries of bloodshed while this proposed mass redrawing of borders process runs it course is a true 'council of despair' if ever I heard one. Dare I suggest that what we might loosely call 'the Arab world' really needs is not new lines on maps, but rather the wisdom to abandon its arcane Sunni/Shia divide, the pragmatism to accept the unpalatable truth that Israel is not going away anytime soon, and above all the courage to face up to modernity and all that implies. Only then might the term 'Middle East' not inevitably have to be synonymous with the term 'Middle Ages'. .... and with that I log off to await the usual suspects and yet another oh-so-predictable 'but its all the USA's fault' diatribe.

Not many are. You have chosen to make the sweeping allegation that US foreign policy is motivated by racial considerations. In reply I pointed out that the President and Command in Chief of the US armed forces is himself a 'black' man. There would seem to be a inconsistency in your argument here. But if you don't want to talk about Obama - and I can see why - please explain why this black man's deeply prejudiced administration is now actively engaged in both protecting and providing humanitarian relief to some rather 'dark skinned' people trapped on high ground in northern Iraq?

I was merely expanding on a analogy of your own. Now if you don't like analogies then you'd probably do well to steer clear of them in future. Now please address the issue - how can you live in the same 'house' as someone who wants to kill you?

Cards on the table. I'm not about to bore you with the details, most you will doubtless have your own problems to deal with, but the last two months in my life have been bloody awful. So I can understand from personal experience how easy it is to reach that dark place in life where the future looks so bleak that carrying on seems more trouble than it's worth. However, when those who have so much chose to kill themselves then I too am left bewildered yet again by the unfathomable mystery of the Human heart. What needful things we are. Yes I know that old devil called 'addiction problems' is the short answer, the long answer will be more subtle than that. But it seems to me that if a man so loved, so talented, and so very wealthy as Robin Williams was can take his own life then let's face it - it could happen to any of us.

But if before finding yourself in the shed you had attempted to kill this person while they were still a mere 'babe in arms' as it were, and then chosen to repeatedly assaulted him during his adolescence as well, perhaps an eviction would not seem to be an entirely unreasonable reaction? http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/terrisraelsum.html

So I take it that if only the IDF were to fail in its duty and allow Hamas to kill more Israeli citizens then you'd look upon the Israeli case more sympathetically? You are another of those you feel that war is supposed to be 'fair' then. Also, how do you square your claim that Israeli is an "illegal state" with the fact that the UN explicitly recognises Israel's right to exist? For that matter when was there ever a Palestinian state and how are you reconciling this view with the provisions of the Balfour Declaration?

You feel that Barack Obama is prejudiced against dark skinned people? Please expand on this interesting argument. The usual allegation levelled against the USA on here is that their actions are inevitably motivated by the desire to control the worlds oil supply - yet another lazy argument that doesn't seem to fit all that well with the actual situation.

It seems to me that: 'Simple to explain but difficult to solve' is an elegant enough way to summarise the problem. It is also obviously true (if inconvenient to those who choose to see the world in simplistic good v evil terms) that something akin to Jewish/Hebrew nation has existed on this land ever since the days of antiquity. Indeed I think someone has already made that point on here. I have little or no interest in outdated leftist dogma and I don't claim to understand the mindset of George Galloway and his 'fellow travellers' at last weekends demo. I do know they don't speak for me. I also suspect that many of them would demand that the outside world should punish Israel by imposing a punitive set of military/economic sanctions on it, thus weakening this state sufficiently so that eventually the balance of power in the region might shift and the world's only Jewish state be left effectively defenceless before its many implacable Arab enemies. With all due respect to the importance of maintaining good relations our many 'Muslim brothers' here in the UK, I say that type of thinking has to be rejected, both on point of principle - Israel has a right to both exist and defend itself - and because it wouldn't bloody work anyway. The recent fighting in Gaza is no accident of history, it is rather the outcome of Hamas policy to provoke Israel into military action and thus secure the sympathetic reaction seen on here and elsewhere. Yet again their own Palestinian people have paid a terrible price to secure that favourable media coverage in the west, but who really thinks that a terrorist organisation quite as fanatical as Hamas surely is would not see that as a 'price worth paying' ?

I've just seen the first episode of the BBC's new Great War series 'Our War' - a dramatised account of the British Army's first attempt to halt the German advance at the Mons–Condé Canal in Belgium. What we got here was a kind of badly misconceived 'Saving Private Ryan' style mini epic, but done on the cheap and set in a (woodland) location that failed utterly match the actual (urban) site of this bloody battle. As if those problems weren't enough to be getting on with, the director also insisted on some pretty bizaar (and very distracting) camera angles being used at every opportunity - for no obvious reason - with a equally inappropriate modern sound tract playing in the background of course. I can't help but think that teenagers obsessed with violent computer games and MTV were the target audience in mind when this programe was commissioned. It seems to me however that it is a insult to the young when patronising tripe such as this is served up for them and considered to be at 'their level' I say that had the BBC really wanted to show a proper dignified tribute to the awesome sacrifice of the BEF in 1914 then it need only have searched its own archives and rebroadcast the excellent 'War Walks' programe the late Professor Richard Holmes made on this very same subject back in 1996. A programme that unlike 'Our War' was made by someone who knew what he was talking about and chose not to insult the intelligence of his audience - whatever their age. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lahW_etCwuw

A poor performance from SFC today I thought and while that is far from being unusual for this type of low key preseason friendly it doesn't exactly inspire much confidence that this hurriedly assembled team is ready for the trials that lay ahead either. None of the new players stood out to be frank about it although our new LB (Bertrand) did okay I thought. After a first half so forgettable the large number of fans left queuing up for tickets outside really didn't miss anything we improved somewhat when Gaston Ramirez came on, indeed after a shambolic goal conceded we might have equalised had his developing partnership with Steve Davis not been broken by the substitution of the latter player soon afterwards. Fonte was strong and it looks to me that he'll shoulder the burden of captaincy with some aplomb. As for his partner in the centre of our defence (Yoshida) however ... well this player looks as worryingly accident prone as ever. Wanyama did his thing and keeping him fit will doubtless be important. Early days yet admittedly but at first glance it seems to me that this Pelle lad doesn't look up to filling that (Lambert sized) hole in the middle of our attack. Mayuka seems destined to be little more than another marginal 'bit part' player here so where the goals are coming from (till JayRod recovers anyway) seems a open question right now. Therefore before the transfer window slams shut in our face this fan thinks our squad still needs a decent centre forward and a CB to replace Lovren signed as a minimum, or else this season may become a pretty grim one.

I've been watching this old Star Trek TOS adventure on YouTube this morning - and it's one of my personal favourites 'The Doomsday Machine': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnhcrZ_RFqo Anyone at all familiar with their 60's Trek will soon recognise that this version is a curious hybrid of original studio performances fused together with (dramatically) improved modern special effects sequences. Part of me thinks that you shouldn't really mess with classic TV productions like this because you debase the originality of the work, are you listening George Lucas - but the modern SFX is so skilfully worked in here that I feel only the most puritan of Trekie's would really object to it.

But I have already pointed (at least twice) that Hamas is no match militarily for the IDF and this is bound to lead to a extremely disproportionate casualty rate when the two go to war - as we have seen been recently alas. I have no idea why you feel the need to labour this point when it is both obvious and accepted. I say Israel has a right to defend itself, but I'm sure everyone on here would rather the IDF showed a greater degree of concern for Palestinian civilian casualties when is conducting its military operations in the Gaza Strip. But ask any soldier and he will tell you that even with all the benefits of modern intel and targeting technology the practical difficulties of doing that are formidable during intense combat operations. These practical problems should not be underestimated by those who - like you and me - fight their battles from the safety of a armchair. It is not deniable that Hamas launches its rocket attacks on Israel from civilian areas. TV pictures also prove that the 30+ tunnels the IDF has recently destroyed are also intermingled with residential districts - indeed for all practical purposes there is no 'front line' in this war and the entire Gaza Strip is in effect one large densely populated war zone. All that indicates that civilians casualties are inevitable I'm afraid. A miserable truth, but a undeniable one. If the objection to Israeli policy is that their overwhelming military superiority makes the conflict 'unfair' then the obvious reply to that is to question when exactly was war ever supposed to be 'fair' in the first place? The age of chivalry is long gone (it was largely mythical anyway) and the fundamental error you make young man is that you just can't see that war is not a game run to the rules of 'may the best team win'. The brutal truth is that if you attack Israel this state will defend itself vigorously. That is how Israel fights its wars, and that is why it 'wins' so many of them. As the IDF withdraws from the Gaza I suppose it has succeed in achieving the limited mission it was given - to destroy the infiltration tunnels and reduce (for now) the threat to Israel's border areas from Hamas rocket attracts. But Hamas will soon be back and this is just another battle in a long war - a war that has no end in sight. The longer term solution to the problem will therefore doubtless be a political one. The sooner that happens the better I say.

Now mildly amusing as post 73 certainly is, those who have read it may well have come to the conclusion that Pap's lack of any real historical knowledge or understanding places him at a severe disadvantage when discussing historical subjects - indeed its brave of him to even take on this type of challenge with such a grave shortage of factual ammunition at his disposal. I don't claim to be a expert - far from it - but some of us on here have read more that one history book in our life's ... oh and by the way 44% is a veritable 'landslide' in most multi party systems and war was inevitable regardless of Danzig's fate. I am reminded of the old saying that a little learning is a dangerous thing. That 'little learning' is exposed yet again with stunning clarity here: I'm don't know you well enough to say whether you are truly anti-Semitic in nature or just someone so immersed in dull leftist anti-US/anti-Israel dogma that that your powers of independent thought have become restricted. Be that as it may, the older lad involved in this key incident being 19 may (or he may not) have been conscripted into the Israeli military I suppose. In any case the other two were I understand still just 16 years old at the time of their (horrific) deaths and therefore presumably not members of the IDF as you claim above. Or if that is not right then prove it. The broader point I want to make is that all the Jewish and Palestinian deaths this terribly complex and intractable situation generates should be a matter of profound regret to all right thinking people. I suspect that most forum members reading this would agree with that. How depressing it is however when one person among us has obviously become so very obsessive in his pathological need to dominate and 'win' every argument on here that he can't even bring himself to condemn the murder of children anymore - lest he be seen to be conceding some sort of 'point'. Worse still he's dragging me down to his level again.

Well I'm sorry to disappoint - but to be frank about it I too was more than a little disappointed to see lazy comparisons drawn between a regime as inherently evil and pernicious as Nazi Germany certainly was and modern day Israel. But I'm more than happy to let others decided which analogy - Ulster or the Nazi's - they find to be the more persuasive one. But if you want to ignore your 'Godwin's Internet Law of Nazi Analogies' so blatantly and pursue the Nazi matter further, do you feel that Israel's occupation of the West Bank, the Golan Heights or the Sinai Desert post 'Yom Kippur' for instance equates readily to Hitler's invasion of Poland or France in 1939/40? Were not the German invasions attempts to semi permanently conquer (or annex) territory while those Israeli occupations limited measures taken to directly improve the territorial security of their state? For that matter how often did Hitler agree to remove his forces from territory they had occupied by force of arms as Israel has on more than one occasion? 'Not often' is the answer. I take not even as vehement a critic of Israel as you are would dare to suggest that Israel is engaging in a policy of mass genocide against the Palestinian people as the Nazi's did against the Jews? Terrible as there fate is millions of innocent Palestinians are today the fact is they are not being herded into gas chambers en masse as you well know. That's why your comparison is so deeply offensive. Given that we are where we are I'm not at all sure how you expect Israel to respond to Hamas rockets attacks and their (surprisingly sophisticated) tunnelling campaign against Israel - do nothing perhaps? As for the great divide you draw between Hamas and the Palestinian people, I will concede you do have some sort of point here. It's true governments seldom perfectly represent the views of their electorates. But Hamas was of course elected into power by a substantial (44%) share of the vote in Gaza. Just as a (minority) of the 1933 Weimar electorate must bare at least some responsibility for the many crimes of Nazi Germany that ensued, it follows therefore that the Palestinian people are culpable (to some extent) for the Hamas administration that so many of them have chosen to represent them. I would not be too hard on them however because their circumstances are dire and that often polarises this type of situation. Finally, despite another long and exhaustive multi quote reply you forgot for some reason to condemn the murder of those three Israeli children that initiated this round of bloodshed. This awful incident seems germane to the question. Feel free to remedy that surprising oversight or you may run the risk of others - less charitably inclined than I am - drawing their own conclusions from your silence. That conclusion they might draw would not be one I personalty would want to be associated with ...

Re Pap's regulation leftist anti Israel stance: I don't believe attempting to draw a comparison between Nazi Germany and modern day Israel serves any good purpose because these two states are so fundamentally different in character that the exercise possess no real validity. Indeed I find this comparison to be unnecessary offensive. A better comparison might be our so called 'troubles' in Northern Ireland - a conflict that only resolved itself (as far as it has) when the British Army fought the IRA into a stalemate and a political settlement thus became attractive. Perhaps only when the Israeli military has effectively neutralised Hamas as a miltary threat will a negotiated settlement become possible there. It remains my opinion that aside from the fact that the casualty rates are very unbalanced (because of Israel's clear military superiority) I see no fundamental moral difference between a Israeli killed by a Hamas rocket ... or a Palestinian killed by a Israeli one. For the record did this particular bout of bloodshed not originate when a group of Israeli school boys were murdered on the West Bank a few weeks ago - a crime which in turn brought about the equally vile 'tit for tat' killing of a innocent Arab boy? That sounds just like a incident from Northern Ireland's recent past if you ask me rather than something akin to a latter day Auschwitz in the Mediterranean. While we are on this subject this old 'equalist' can see two crimes here, but if you feel that the first murders can be justified in some sense then by all means please take this opportunity to explain your reasoning to the forum. But if Israel is a 'rogue' state then presumably the military wing of Hamas must be accredited with the same epitaph too - indeed the record shows that this country, the United Sates, Egypt and the EU formally classify Hamas as a terrorist organisation. The record also shows that the founding charter (or covenant) of Hamas states that this organisation is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state in its place. I see a few (welcome) signs that elements among the current Hamas leadership may be attempting to backtrack on that point of principle, but please try to imagine just how difficult it is for Israel to enter into meaningful negotiations with a organisation with that Jihadist ethos still entrenched at its very heart. The state of Israel may be a comparatively recent development in historical terms but it should go without saying that the history of Jewish inhabitation in the area is a (very) ancient one indeed. Israel exists, it considers itself to be a legitimate entity, it is recognised as such by the UN. So with little or no chance of the military balance of power shifting in the foreseeable future (or ever) the Realpolitik of the situation is that the onus falls on Hamas - or perhaps on some more progressive alternate Palestinian movement that may replace it one day - to come to some sort of accommodation with their powerful Jewish neighbours. If not their unfortunate people will surely continue to suffer the terrible consequences they are experiencing today.

And you feel that Hamas is inherently less barbaric? Is it not true that this organisation is dedicated to the utter destruction of the Israeli state without compromise? The obvious financial and military might of Israel, when compared to the comparative poverty and feebleness of the Palestinians, reads like a old school Hollywood 'the little guy fights back' script and our sympathies naturally tend towards underdog - but only perhaps if you don't consider the full complexity of the underlying situation deeply enough. 'Might' may not always be 'Right' of course, but that is not to say that the more powerful side in any conflict must invariably be wrong either. Okay the Israeli state may not be the perfect model of a tolerant liberal democracy some on here seem to expect it to be, but please remember Israel has been under attack from it's very inception almost and any state attempting to survive in that type of unremittingly hostile environment is bound to develop in a militaristic manner to some degree. Indeed, were Israel not prepared to defend itself then this state would surely have been destroyed long ago. For all its failings I say Israel remains the closest example the region has to a truly modern progressive state. The loss of life we are seeing in and around the Gaza Strip (on all sides) is appalling, but while the Middle East continues its long await for all parties to reach a satisfactory political settlement to this seemingly intractable problem Israel will continue to defend its people. That is afterall the first purpose of any state is it not? The 'brutal' truth is that no one here has a monopoly ownership of being in the 'right' and only the dead have seen the end of war.

This is a very good post, but I hope you understand when I say that I sincerely hope you are wrong. A lifetime spent supporting this club and observing the wider game however forces me to the unwelcome conclusion that you may well be right. As for those who complacently assume we'll be fine despite what can only be described as the virtual destruction of the squad ... well the expression 'I'll have some of what they're drinking' comes to mind. The power of positive thinking may go down well in some godforsaken management seminar, unfortunately that BS won't make a jot of difference once the season starts and hard facts of football life strike home yet again I'm afraid. Indeed, it's as plain as the nose on your face is it not? This old club of ours is in deep trouble before a ball has even been kicked this season.