It looks like Iraq crisis news is cooling off; the lead headline on today's Vanguardia is "Alleged parking garage murderer arrested". They got him yesterday. Video cameras at a bank branch and at a subway stop identified him, his photo checked with the guy who had rented a motorbike parking place for a month, and they arrested him and compared his DNA with the hairs found in the first victim's hand. Fair cop. He's from La Mina, a crappy neighborhood in far northeast Barcelona largely populated by gypsies--there are some 16,000 there. La Mina has a bad rep partly because of them and partly because of the payos who live there. The murderer is a payo, a non-gypsy, and the gypsy community is much relieved that it wasn't one of them. La Mina is full of dirtbags--the bunch of thugs that beat a guy to death for fun last year outside the Puerto Olímpico, a complex of nightspots down by the harbor, were from La Mina. They were payos, too. Fortunately, La Mina is rather distant from downtown Barcelona and if you come as a tourist you will get nowhere near it since there's nothing worth seeing within a five-mile radius of the place. Everyone is very happy that this guy has been busted. There's a general feeling of relief. I imagine the public outcry (it never reached exactly panic stage, but people were afraid over this case--maybe something similar to the public reaction to the Washington snipers on a smaller scale) that was caused was partly because of the upscale neighborhood and the respectable nature of the victims, and partly by the general tone of concern and worry, not quite fear, prevalent here due to the international situation.

Anyway, on the front page below the fold, the Vangua's top international headline is "US manages to divide Europe", in reference to the letter from eight European leaders in support of the European-American alliance. Slovakia and Albania, of all countries, have signed onto the letter. The story behind it is that the Wall Street Journal contacted several European leaders to suggest they write an article in support of the trans-Atlantic alliance. José María Aznar wrote the first draft and circulated it. They didn't even bother sending it to France, Germany, or Greece (Greece is one of the most anti-American countries in Europe, even worse than France), and the Dutch declined to sign because they didn't want to contribute to any division within the EU.

German Chancellor Schröder has said that Germany will not vote under any circumstances, in the UN or anywhere else, in favor of military action. The German liberal / Christian Democrat opposition, which is quite strong and getting stronger, is making a big stink about Germany's possible diplomatic isolation. Schröder's party, the Social Democrats, is going to get creamed in two key state elections (Germany's federal, it has states like America, more or less, which in particular have a lot of economic power). In Hesse, one of Germany's richest states (its major city is Frankfurt), the conservative Christian Democrats, who already hold the state, will roll with an absolute majority. In Lower Saxony, northwest Germany, rather more industrial and poorer than Hesse, the Christian Democrats will sweep the current Social Democrat state government out of power; the polls are saying Christian Dems 46-48%, Social Dems 35-37%. This gives the Christian Dems control of the Bundesrat, the upper legislative house, from where they will be able to block pretty much any Social Dem proposal they want. Schröder's popularity is plummeting as unemployment increases and the economy fails to heat up. He's using the anti-war platform to try to swing these state elections to his party, and he's failing. I don't think this defeat will bring down the government, but Schröder's not far from having to resign simply because the opposition will blockade anything he tries to do--and his international posturing looks like mere bluffing when it can be seen that his own people don't support him on anything except being antiwar, and even there there's a division of opinion.

Former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe González (to whom this country really does owe a great deal despite little things like, uh, the government organizing a death squad) has been talking a lot more left since he left power--Mario Soares of Portugal has been doing the same thing. Felipe called Aznar "Bush's altar boy", and said that "The (WSJ) letter means a breaking of the European Union treaty and opens up a wound that will be difficult to repair." Oh, shut up, Felipe. If you're worried about opening up wounds and causing divisions, why don't you consider moderating your antiwar position instead of demanding that everybody else moderate their pro-alliance position and calling that "negotiation"?

Remember. We're not pro-war. We're pro-alliance. Now, if the Atlantic alliance (except for a couple of weasels) should be in favor of a war with Saddam, who are we here at Iberian Notes to say no? I think that's a pretty good label to stick on those of us who are in favor of a tough policy toward terrorists and rogue states. Pro-alliance. Hey, if the pro-abortion people can call themselves pro-choice, we can adopt some slightly misleading way to frame our position too. (Note: I'm in favor of legal abortion on demand in the first trimester of pregnancy, and afterward only in case of a threat to the mother's life, mostly for practical political reasons: restricting abortion any more than that would cause a political blowup much bigger than any the anti-abortion people have managed to cook up so far.)

Nelson Mandela is blowing whatever little credibility he has left. I believe that Mandela is a strong person but not necessarily a good person. I think messiah figures, from Gandhi to Kenyatta to Lenin to Hitler to Nkrumah to Mandela, tend to be self-aggrandizing and utterly convinced of their own rectitude and messiahhood. They can do horribly evil things--don't tell me Mandela didn't know about the murders that the ANC committed--and justify them for the Cause. Anyway, Mandela accused President Bush of wanting to "sink the world into a holocaust" and of "acting outside the United Nations". Well, accusation number two is fair in spirit but wrong in fact, because Bush is acting within the United Nations--if not, why is Colin Powell going to speak there on February 5? And accusation number one is ad hominem bullshit which can't be taken seriously by any adult.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament voted 287-209 to reject "any unilateral military action". The Parliament considers that a preventative strike against Saddam would be a violation of international law and that the violations of SC Resolution 1441 that have been exposed by the UN inspectors "do not justify the resort to military action." The Socialist, Liberal (which surprises me, these guys are supposed to be pretty moderate), Green, and European Left parliamentary groups supported the measure. The three Catalan nationalist Eurodeputies also voted in support. An amendment by the Popular group to add an amendment that would have called Saddam's violations of Resolution 1441 to be "continual and serious" was voted down 251-255. The Spanish PP leader in the Europarliament called the vote a manifestation of "a false, irresponsible pacifism". The leftist Eurodeputies had a good old time holding up "No War for Oil" signs.

The Vatican has shot off its mouth, showing extremely bad moral and political judgment. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, said, "The United States has not learned the lesson of Vietnam," and called for the Vatican to work to prevent a war against Saddam. He suggested that the Vatican send an envoy to Baghdad, and said "If this war is declared the gates to Hell will open", quoting approvingly Amer Moussa, foreign minister of Egypt and secretary of the Arab League. This is not a move calculated to win the sympathy of American Catholics, many of whom are furious at the Church because of the boy-buggering bishops in black and the craven coverup of the corruption of children. Expect defections to increase. American Catholics are often "Reagan Democrats" and fiercely pro-American. They are not gonna like this when they hear about it.