THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN 30s SPAIN
AND SYRIA/IRAQ
Comparisons are
made between the “volunteers” who go to fight in Iraq and Syria (often for IS)
and those who, in the 1930s, went to fight for the Republican government in the
Spanish Civil War ( we tend to forget the less numerous European and American
volunteers who joined the forces of Franco). Specifically, commentators
criticise the laws brought in or proposed to curtail Middle Eastern armed
adventurism on the grounds that they would have prevented people joining the
International Brigade in Spain (although
apparently there was technically a law against that even then).
