I refrained from posting to this thread yesterday as I felt that Mrrzy had said everything I wanted to, and form an experience wich gave him an unimpeachable right to comment. I would just like add a couple of lines however. Leaving aside the issue of reporting, which I agree is down to what media is actualy present, rather than any intrinsic bias I think this thread has moved on to some really fundamental issues.

Mankinds ability to murder others is arguably natural and excusable from an ethological point of view. What concerns me is our ability to justify this action to ourselves as a defense of our "rights" or beleifs.

Nothing is simple in this kind of situation, but the economic argument raised by McGrath is a core ingedient. Whether we consider the Crusades, morally justified as means of 'saving' Jerusalem from the infidel, the USA's history of genocide against the so called native Americans, and theirs against each other, the only so far as I know, completely sucessful genocide in Tasmania, the illegal confiscation of Moari land here in NZ and the attempted genocide by Taranaki Moari in the Chathams, all come down to attempts to gain economic ascendency.

I think it has been accepted for a long time that if you deprive a group of people of the economic ability to maintain themselves and their families, they will eventually, attempt to redress the balance, if necessary by force; and that any violent repression of this aim only leads to a more deep seated, passionate and irrational hatred.

I have no solutions to offer execept the obvious that each side in any conflict that truely wishes to end the conflict must be preapred to give up their most treasured belief or possession, not just the minimum they think they can get away with.

I would be interested in any thoughts on this particularly from Irwin.

Pete M

PS in an ultimate irony, here in NZ, farmers who have been paying what is effectively a peppercorn rent to the Moari tribes from whom there land was "leased", are now being paid compensation by the Government for having to pay a market rent, but the Moari are not being compensated for the lost revenue over the last 100 years or so!