No, Jim: no 'excuse' involved. I excuse nothing of the apartheid activities, which are otiose as well as unjust, & of the existence of which I make no denial. Simply pointing out that there may be more grounds than one for "singling-out"; you, being a political sort of guy, single out the political malefactions; but they are not the only sort which warrant the activity. I explicitly said that doesn't make anything else OK, and you are being unjustly and unintelligently disputative in pretending that you thought that I thought it did. You accused me of "defending one terrorist state by pointing to another as an excuse" - when I had stated in as many words that the states I rubricated were NOT terrorist states in any sense, in respect of the shortcomings I was enumerating, but ones with most defective legal & judicial systems; to which we turn a blind eye coz we need their oil; and anyhow, it's their cultcher innit? Can you not see that your attitude to these abuses is nothing but "Oh well, they are only ......s, so what can you expect?" Search out the implications of that for yourself, why don't you?

~M~