<HTML>ISHMAEL wrote:
>
> Look. Can we knock it off with the US-bashing for
> once??????
If you choose to see it as 'US-bashing' that is your issue, not mine. However, whilst I accept that you are deeply upset by Tuesday's events (as am I), I am not prepared to do an ostrich act and pretend that (recent) history didn't happen.
Without putting too fine a point on it (and this is <b>NOT</b> 'US-bashing'), one of the most disturbing aspects of this is the failure of western intelligence. Perhaps (and this is only 'perhaps' – playing 'what if' is not really a valid game) if we had taken Russian intelligence more seriously this horrible tragedy <i>might</i> have been averted. This is not an attempt to apportion blame – what is past is past, but I hope that we can at least learn from the failures of the recent past.</HTML>
