The Vanguardia's focus on Friday was the split in NATO over the probable war in Iraq; the US-led alliance has sixteen countries in agreement that "time for discussion has run out and it is time to act". The three holdouts are France, Germany, and Belgium. Those three countries will not provide logistical help nor intervene in the defense of Turkey should that be necessary (remember, Turkey shares a border with Iraq and is justifiably just a bit nervous). The Paris-Brussels-Berlin Axis of Weasels is blocking a NATO resolution in support of the US-UK-Italy-Spain position; the passage of this resolution will provide NATO logistic help, as according to the process the A. of W. must object in writing before 10 AM Monday. If they don't, and doing so would mean sticking their scrawny chicken necks way far out, the resolution automatically passes.

So, basically, the Atlantic Alliance is behind the United States. France, Belgium, and Germany are the three nations in conflict with the rest. The European Union, though, headquartered in--you guessed it--Brussels, is with the Axis of Weasels. They've already taken a vote in the Europarliament and they done decided they be agin the war. Remember that the EU includes several countries that are not in NATO (Sweden, Finland, Austria, Ireland, all four of which were neutral during the Cold War), which are all signed on to the A. of W. But Javier Solana, Spanish Socialist (I repeat that this guy has nothing to do with the present government of Spain) EU foreign policy chief, came out and said that Powell's report on Wednesday to the Security Council was "very solid and very important", that it "should be taken very seriously by everyone", and that "everyone should think about" the content of what Powell had to say. Well, that's positive.

The goddamn Old Europeans are so bloody legalistic that all of this is being taken with the utmost seriousness over here. It's very important to them that something like this go through official channels. I swear that they're more annoyed about the idea of the United States throwing all the goddamn legalistic UN bureaucratic crap out the window than they are about the violation of Iraqi sovereignty or the innocent civilians who, unfortunately, are going to get killed. Well, all right, if it makes them happy, we can jump through their hoops as long as we eventually get to do what we want to do. I think that "eventually" is very soon.

The Vatican is making a lot of antiwar noise. This is taken seriously by the very traditionalist monarchist Catholic owners of the Vangua, the family of the Count of Godó. The Vangua's unwritten rule is no dissing the Church, no dissing the Army, and no dissing the King. Other than that, they don't seem to exercise censorship.

Jordi Pujol, Prime Minister of Catalonia, is in the United States; he gave a speech at Georgetown University. His political party, Convergence and Union, has gone antiwar, but guess what...he hasn't! Jordi is pro-American! Among the things he said: "The West is in danger...one of the causes is the growing European secularization. Europe has been defined as a post-God or post-Christian society" Pujol continued, "Europe is relativist and secularist while the US is religious and moralistic and this has consequences in the concept of personal responsibility and in the country's image...and values end up influencing policy." As for anti-Americanism, Pujol denounced it, and said, "Europe complains about American unilateralism, when the unilateralism is provoked by Europe's lack of response...As a European I would like for Europe to make the effort to become a world power too. This would mean accepting political, financial, and military responsibility, and at this moment we are not doing so." Well said, Mr. Pujol. Jordi is an old fox. I've criticized him for his political-boss style, for his throwing money around, and for his continual resort to the "An attack on me is an attack on Catalonia" strategy when criticized or challenged, but two things. First, Pujol is no dummy. He is the opposite of a dummy. He has held his job for the last twenty-four years. Second, Pujol has backbone. He did three years in prison and suffered physical torture back in the early Sixties under the Franco regime. He is not afraid to stand up for what he believes in, which leads to an annual foot-in-mouth outbreak when he talks before thinking and says something outrageously racist.