Remora



Well, well. Limited Inc loves capitalism -- sometimes. The bottom line graphs, in its sphere, the very heartbeat of reason (though,as a proper lefty, we don't like to admit this too often). A Financial Times editorial sums up what is happening in Israel with admirable perspicacity. That means, companeros, that it adumbrates the essence of the 'wet' position, as Maggie Thatcher might have put it. Thatcher, of course, before she was the iron lady, was very much the dry lady. Dry down to the grayish bone. Acidulous, even.

Well, here is the first killer graf. This reads like something from Limited Inc.

"Ariel Sharon has embarked on a military folly that bears disturbing resemblance to his ill-fated 1982 invasion of Lebanon. The US, which was seen by many at the time to have given Israel at least an amber light to pursue its destructive Lebanon war, should not repeat the same mistake. For Israel's sake, Washington must intervene to halt Mr Sharon's widening reoccupation of territories under Palestinian control."

Now -- why is it that not a single major American paper can see that? Is it some collective blindness, some 9/11 side effect? To ram home FT's point, and our own, let's throw in the last three grafs. As FT gets going, the City's apologist for an optimal level of profit makes an unusual amount of sense. In fact, LI is a little puzzled -- is this a major financial newspaper, or Liberation?

"The inconsistencies of the US approach are owed to a merging of the Middle East crisis into the global war against terrorism. Yet the current conflict is part of a more-than-50-year dispute that, by the US's own admission, must end with the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.

Moreover, in the past 18 months of bloodshed and violence, tragic human rights violations have been perpetrated by both sides, with Palestinians bearing the brunt of the killings. Washington's friends in Europe should press for a wiser US approach and for immediate US pressure on Israel.

This is the most helpful message Tony Blair could carry to his meeting with Mr Bush in Texas later this week. The best way to help Israel today is to stop Mr Sharon from pursuing another senseless war."

Aaaahhhhhh. Precisely. How depressing that the obvious is, in these troubled times, also the subversive.