Another murder, this time in the working-class Poblenou district. Street fight got ugly and somebody stabbed somebody else. Dumbass Socialist mayor has stupid plan to turn Poblenou into "22nd district", high-tech area, convert warehouses to lofts, that kind of gentrification crap which only works if it isn't planned. So here's a letter to the editor from today's "20 minutos", which is a free paper they give away every morning.

Still recently shocked by the death of a youth of 17 years on my street for looking the wrong way at his girlfriend's ex, of 19 years, which led to a cold-blooded murder and then an attempt by several dozen people at a lynching, makes me wonder if the capitalist system that we have imported from the USA, which Aznar declares so much love for, isn't leading us to their errors.

If the precarious labor market and unemployment, development speculation, ultracompetition, crisis, frustration and the lack of future prospects are not leading the youths, and with them all of us (just look at the tension there is in sports stadiums, discos, and entertainment centers) to self-destruction in the forms of drugs and alcohol or, simply, the loss of values or the most primitive violence inherent in the neoliberal system itself. Is this the kind of society we aspire to? To all the political parties and government bodies who have supported the free market, welcome to the new 22nd district. Welcome to the Bronx.

Raül Landeras Alfonso
Barcelona

Looks like if some punk stabs some other punk in a brawl in a Barcelona slum and the locals try to lynch him, it's America's fault.

Looks like the strategy is all set. Powell goes to the Security Council tomorrow. He shows something resembling evidence that Saddam is a bad person. Berlusconi has put the pressure on Vladimir Putin and Vlad is in line, saying that "Everything should be decided in the Security Council. For now, a second resolution is not indispensable, but we're not ruling it out." Vlad has been convinced. Blair gets to twist Chirac's arm today in their meeting. The French will fall into line although Blair and Chirac each think the other is an arrogant prick. The Germans? They're left with two bad choices. Rotten diplomatic job by Schröder.

Socialist candidate for prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is refusing to back PP prime minister José María Aznar on his pro-alliance stance. In a meeting yesterday, Aznar asked for Zapatero's support in the name of national unity three times and Zapatero said, "No." Zapatero says, "The government has been nothing more than a follower of Bush" and "International pressure can achieve the disarmament of Iraq." Aznar called Zapatero's attitude "rancid isolationism." Motormouth Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra, Socialist party boss of Extremadura and one of the three big regional Socialist bosses, known as "party barons", said that Spain should not support an attack on Iraq even with the United Nations' agreement. Either 1) he was just shooting off his mouth again or 2) the Socialists are floating a balloon and seeing who takes a shot at it.

Last Saturday night they had the Goya Awards, Spain's Oscars. It turned into a glorious big stink. First, "Los lunes al sol" won all the big awards to the detriment of Pedro Almodóvar's "Hable con ella". "Los lunes al sol" had been previously chosen as Spain's representative to the Oscars, though the Almodóvar movie got such good press that it's being considered not just for best foreign movie but for the regular Academy Awards. Gossip is flying around wildly, mostly to the effect that the Spanish Academy has it in for Almodóvar and wouldn't award him anything without a gun at their heads. Second, virtually all the movie people involved, actors, directors, and the like, wore "No to War" badges, and several of them, especially those related with "Los lunes al sol", made fiery impassioned speeches about, like, imperialism and all. Among those who made fools out of themselves in public were Javier Bardem, Fernando León, Luis Tosar, and Alejandro Amenábar. If y'all out there want to boycott someone for openly supporting idiotarianism, look no farther than Tom Cruise's (relatively) new beard, Penélope Cruz. By the way, "Dígame", a horrendously bad Spanish scandal magazine, claims that Penélope Cruz's cousin, Mari Flor, who is a dead ringer for Penélope, is a high-euro prostitute in Madrid. Just in case you were wondering. Iberian Notes, the "Hush-Hush" of the blogs! Maybe I'll change the name to "BCN Confidential". Third, this pissed off the government and the minister of Culture. The antiwar protesters are screaming "censorship" because the film clips of the ceremony released by government TV (which was broadcasting the ceremony) didn't include any of their antiwar speeches, which were apparently the same old blather.

Powerful Barcelona lawyer Miquel Roca, ex-number two of Jordi Pujol's Catalan nationalist party, writes in today's Vanguardia,

Old Europe must learn that in the new Europe, the anti-Americanism that, more or less covered up, has characterized its policy for decades, can no longer inspire the Union's common policy.

It isn't Bush's fault, it's all of our fault, the Europeans' fault. We have been more capable of criticizing the United States than of formulating alternative, functional, and efficient policies. We don't trust American military power, but we disarmed because we trust the US to protect us or substitute for us internationally. We debated about Kosovo but we sent the Americans to pacify it; we lament what is happening in Palestine and we accuse the United States of not guaranteeing peace with its own military intervention.

New Europe has suffered the oppression of both totalitarianisms, the Nazi and the Soviet. It would be difficult for it to be anti-American, too. We're not talking about right and left; Havel's signature is right there to ally with Bush. We can't extend Europe and think that nothing is going to change. On the contrary, New Europe gives Old Europe hope for a better understanding of the world.

Europe cannot be, simply, a suburb of Paris or Berlin.

Very generous of Mr. Roca, who is a man of some mettle. He's out of politics now, has been for years, and apparently has no plans to get back in. Too bad. He's a genuine moderate. If he ran for something I'd vote for him.

Looks like the Prestige oil spill is under control. They went back to collecting shellfish along a good part of the Galician coast yesterday. In some places they still have some spilled fuel to clean up, and tiny amounts of fuel are still leaking out of the sunken ship, but the worst is over. The Left is still trying to smack the Government around the head with the Prestige incident, as if it were, like, their fault or something. One of the jokers at the Goya Awards said something like, "Tell Shorty (Aznar) that if he wants oil he doesn't need to go to Iraq, we have plenty in Galicia." Baltasar Porcel made the same alleged witticism, which confirms its lameness.

Here's the difference between the Right and the Left. The process of policy-making consists of collecting information, determining that some action should be taken based on it, framing choices, making a decision among them, implementing the policy, and explaining it to the constituents. The Right says, when it criticizes a policy, "You're operating on insufficient information" or "You failed to frame the most logical choice correctly and didn't even consider it" or "The decision was fine but the implementation was lousy" (which is more or less the case with the Prestige oil spill). The Left says, when it criticizes a policy, "The whole system is corrupt and evil so naturally the wrong thing was done."

When I think "diaspora", I think of the Jews and the Armenians and the Irish. This article from the Economist, which is a month old now, is definitely worth a read. It's about the influence that people from a nation who are living overseas, away from home, can have on their home countries, and gives a ton of examples of diasporas that I hadn't thought of--the Ghanaians, the Eritreans, the Balts, the Mexicans, the Chinese, the Italians, the Tamils, and more. Thinking about it, I'll bet a significant proportion of Anglo-Canadians in Ontario are part of an American Tory diaspora; others went to Britain or the West Indies. There's definitely a Gallego diaspora in the Americas, so much so that a common Latin American pejorative for "Spaniard" is "gallego".

I remember a story--seems that the Spanish ambassador in Buenos Aires came by the Casa Rosada for some reason and one of Eva Perón's parties was in full swing at nine in the morning. A somewhat exalted Evita shouted, "Get that gallego de mierda out of here!" The ambassador drew himself up to his full Castilian blue-blooded, blue-veined height, looked down his aquiline nose, and replied, "Tell Mrs. Perón the gallego will be leaving but the mierda will be staying."

Here's a link from As, one of the Madrid sports papers, to a series of articles about Dmitri Piterman, one of the Ukranian diaspora. Piterman was born in Odessa but became a millionaire businessman in America. Several years ago he bought a second-division Catalan soccer club, Palamós, for some unknown reason. He coached the team himself, but nothing particularly special happened. Anyway, he just bought himself a First Division team, Racing Santander. They're historically an "elevator" team, one that continually goes up and down between Second and First divisions. He's going to turn Racing around, he says, and his first plan is to sign Romario. He's been trying to coach the team himself but they've sued him, alleging that he doesn't have a coach's license and therefore can't be a coach. Piterman, quite reasonably, doesn't consider soccer coaching to be related in any way to brain surgery and wonders why the hell he needs a license to tell a bunch of guys in skivvies to kick the ball in the goal. This is taken as being "brash and American-style". Wait until Al Davis and Jerry Jones and that schmuck in Washington decide to invest in the Spanish soccer league and provide it with some much-needed, uh, professionalism. Actually, sports owners the world around are huge jackasses. The real Jesús Gil and our own Joan Gaspart, not to mention Ruíz Mateos's wife, are prime examples of folks who would do the NFL proud.

In case you were wondering what's at the top of the charts in the UK, it's a Russian adolescent female duo named t.A.T.u. with their new LP/CD, Pedophile Pop. Link here for all you ever wanted to know about Julia and Lena! Iberian Notes: your one-stop source for entertainment news.

Here's Sky News's take on the phenomenon, with information about Lena and Julia's hot new videos, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Check out the photo. I completely agree with one of the interviewees for this article: "It's disgusting to see record companies appealing to the dirty-old-man market."

Well, there's not a whole lot of big news on the Iraq front, according to the Vanguardia. The back-page interview today went to Pierre-Richard Prosper, who is, curiously, American. With a name like that he should be writing semiotic criticisms of class and gender roles and their dysfunction in a post-socialist society, but he's the "U.S. Ambassador to Try War Criminals", which is something I'd never heard of before. He's been trying war criminals in Rwanda, the ex-Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan. He really doesn't say too much you haven't heard before except for his explanation of what's happening in Guantánamo. "We have divided the 600 Taliban prisoners into three groups. The first group, of 11, were released because they did not represent a danger toward the world. Then there are those who are a threat but should be tried in their country of origen...(the others) are those who said under interrogation that they would attack the West as soon as they could. They, and the group who should be tried in the US because of their leadership role, must stay at Guantánamo." The other good bit is when the interviewer asks him, "And Kissinger? What do you think about Judge Garzón's attempt at interrogating him?" Prosper's answer is, "Ha, ha." Says the interviewer, "Doesn't that worry you?" Prosper answers, "Ha, ha."

The Gang of Eight's letter has had a pro-alliance effect on European opinion, especially the fact that the universally respected Vaclav Havel signed it. Here's the Vanguardia's page two lead editorial signed by Alfredo Abián. It's titled "Havel and the anti-imperialists" and is in italics below.

The Alliance of Anti-Imperialist Intellectuals, who turned the Goya awards (Spain's Oscars) into an antiwar protest, would probably condemn Vaclav Havel for his alignment with the United States. Although the Czech dramatist, who left the presidency of his country yesterday, cannot be denied his status as an honest intellectual. The problem is that Havel's personal experiences and discourse are excessively sophisticated for those who consider that capitalism is the leading world terrorist. Havel was a prisoner of the Iron Curtain: censorship, arrests, five years in prison. This is why he scorns the slogans and rhetorical flourishes that real Communism used in its day to capture so many honorable people. but he also knew how to keep the idealism that led him to call for a world in which the voice of the poets would be as powerful as that of the stockbrokers, although directly afterward he warns against those who want the planet to become a poem by the hands of pipers and troubadors. Havel understands that politics must benefit humanity and that therefore one must act consciously without paying attention to criticism or the polls. He defends attacking evil in its own lair, even through the use of force. Among other things, because he has always thought that the Second World War could have been avoided if Paris and London had not made concessions in order to appease Hitler's Berlin.

OK, I think I've calmed down enough to write about the continuing soap opera that is FC Barcelona. Hated coach Louis Van Gaal was fired last week and then they couldn't decide who they should get to replace him. For several days the Barça was without a coach as club functionary Antonio de la Cruz filled in until they finally decided who Van Gaal's replacement would be. That someone turned out to be Serb Radomir Antic, whose last two major accomplishments have been getting first Atlético de Madrid and then Oviedo sent down to Second Division. Antic takes over as coach today.

De la Cruz was the coach Saturday night as a frightened and decimated Barca squad went into the Calderón to face Atlético de Madrid before 55,000 fans waving red and white flags and scarves and howling, "Down to Second! Down to Second!", meaning Second Division. Proud Barcelona is one of only three Spanish clubs (the others are Real Madrid and At. Bilbao) which has never descended to Second since the league was founded in 1929. So far.

Cocu and Kluivert were suspended for one game for accumulating too many yellow cards, so they missed the match, as did an injured Saviola. De la Cruz threw a defense together consisting of Bonano in goal and a back-line four of, right to left, Puyol, Christianval, De Boer, and Reiziger. Bonano's confidence is shattered and he can't play with his feet; if the opposing forwards pressure him he chokes up and makes bad and dangerous passes. Cost him a goal last week and damn near cost him one this week. Steady, stalwart Puyol is definitely the team's MVP, but he can't do it all. Christianval, who has barely played this year because of a series of injuries, limped off again yesterday after twenty minutes. Oleguer from the B-team, who is like 19, was the only defenseman on the bench that could sub him, and he did a fine job. None of Atlético's goals came from the right side. They all came from the left, defended by over-the-hill Frank de Boer, whose decline has been tremendous since he left Ajax, and out-of-position and over-the-hill Reiziger, who is right-footed but was playing on the left side. These two guys were toast all night, which is why Barça got schnockered, 3-0.

There was plenty of blame to go around. Midfielder Xavi had a decent game, but his partner Rochemback was dreadful until he got himself kicked out of the game during a scuffle with Jose Mari, who had started it, but they both got sent off. And the offensive four were just awful. OK, Riquelme wasn't too bad, but right-winger Mendieta apparently has been taking suck pills, because he sure has sucked this year. As recently as two years ago he was one of the elite Spanish players. Then he went off to the Italian League, where he apparently learned how to suck. Forward Dani is through and should not be playing. And left-winger Overmars has recovered his speed but hasn't learned how to kick the ball accurately in the direction of the goal, which is his major failing.

Atlético has this season's Rookie of the Year, Fernando Torres, who is a hell of a forward and scored their first goal after burning Reiziger and De Boer. Then Contra burned Reiziger and De Boer and centered to Emerson's head for the second. Finally, with a few minutes left, former Barça player Luis García burned Reiziger and De Boer all by himself and scored number three. Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Reiziger and De Boer will be in the hospital for weeks with third-degree burns and so won't be able to play any more.. Actually, I wish the cited gentlemen no physical harm, but if that's the only way to get them out of the game, then so be it.

God help the Barça because nobody else can at this point. They're now in fifteenth place. Out of twenty teams. They are now having the absolute worst season in their history, even worse than those grim early 1940s teams of the postwar period. Imagine the Yankees losing a hundred games. That's what this is like. The Lakers this year might be an appropriate comparison, since they were supposed to make the finals again and instead may not make even the playoffs.

It's interview day in today's Vangua; they've got a three-pager with Jordi Pujol. Who's Jordi Pujol? Jordi Pujol, around here, is sort of a cross between Mayor Daley and Yoda. He sure looks a lot like Yoda. But he's a tough political boss like Mayor Daley, and his Convergence and Union Catalan nationalist party has been, up to now, a well-oiled machine that has given Pujol six (or seven? I lose track) consecutive terms as Prime Minister of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Catalan regional government. He will step down when this term runs out in nine months.

The Vangua has a two-page interview today with Romano Prodme, boss of the European Commission. Prodme is an Italian Socialist. Most of the interview is a load of wank, but there are a few little pearls here.

Interviewer: Do you belong to the old Europe that Donald Rumsfeld, the American secretary of defense, has just criticized?
Prodme: Yes, yes, yes! I belong to the wise Europe, and I've said that it isn't age, it's wisdom. This has been my answer, because countries like Germany and France, which have turned their history of doubts and tragedies around and who are now together, are wise countries.

I: ...Chirac and Schröder have defended a multilateral concept of international relations anchored on the United Nations against the unilateral tension of the U.S. Are we beginning to see the real question?
P: Yes, but it's not the first time we've seen the problem. Last summer's debates over the International Criminal Court were of the same kind, like the debates over the Kyoto protocol. In every case, I've declared myself in favor of multilateral cooperation. i think, in the long term, that it will not be possible to have a unipolar world.

I: Are relations between the UE and the US entering a crisis?
P: Yes. There are problems...these political differences are very worrying.

I: You just told European Voice that Bush should stay out of European affairs.
P: That is another problem. I have never made a speech saying that Mexico should form part of the United States. I already said it to Clinton when we were talking together about Turkey and I repeat it now: it's our business. And, from my point of view, the pressures over the subject of the International Criminal Court and the expansion (of the EU) are interference. Enough! Stop! It's clear. The rules and the size of the European Union are totally European problems, and this is why we have to open a debate about how to transmit to the Europeans the idea that we are the actors of our destiny, the protagonists of our future. We, with all due friendship with
the Americans.

So much for multilateralism, which means to Prodme, "Let us tell you what to do and then you go ahead and do it. Our business is our business and your business is our business, but our business isn't your business." So America can't encourage Europe to admit Turkey, which Prodme is against; America can't refuse to let a bunch of foreigners try its soldiers and government officials, which Prodme is for; America can't set its own environmental standards, which Prodme is against; and America can't defend itself as it sees fit, which Prodme is against. However, the EU can tell Americans that they won't let Turkey into their little club no matter what and so we should shut up (oh, I forgot, the Europeans are in favor of negotiations. For other people), that they want the right to put our country's official representatives on trial whether we think they've done anything wrong or not, that we have to live by whatever environmental standards they deem appropriate, and that we have to consult them before defending ourselves. They can also tell us to stop executing murderers, not to plant genetically-modified seeds, to give away lots of money to Third World dictatorships, to refrain from collecting money owed us, to permit anyone who wants to immigrate to do so, and that we're generally a bunch of simplistic, stupid, racist, uncultured, arrogant, ill-mannered, aggressive, fanatical shits. Should you dare to talk back, like Donald Rumsfeld did in a tone much more delicate than the typical European strident howling, buckets of scurn will be dumped on your head.

What I would like to see, when the Iraq war is over, is for George W. Bush to say, "You know, you Europeans are right. We should stay out of your business. Therefore we are withdrawing from the UN and from NATO. All UN officials and delegates will lose their diplomatic license plates and pay all back parking tickets, including a 100% fine, and will be summarily deported. We will proceed to make bilateral or multilateral agreements with the countries we see fit regarding international cooperation. All other countries are perfectly free to do the same. No, I'm sorry, Mr. Prodme, I just don't have time to talk with you now, as I have some allies to visit with. Schedule's pretty much booked up, you know. Now, Mr. Meggyesy, what were you saying about a Hungarian-American commercial agreement? Why don't we call up Mr. Blair and Mr. Howard and a few of your neighbors to see if they want to join, too? What is that, Condi? A message from who? Gearhead Schröder? Is that guy still in office? Tell his successor we'll call him."

The Space Shuttle disaster is, of course, the lead story in today's Vanguardia. The headline is "Space tragedy", and there's a large photo of the seven dead astronauts. The Vangua's lead editorial makes this generally good point: "For a minuscule but influential sector of the population, especially in the United States, the present circumstances of international tension, with a war on the way and the permanent threat of terrorism, will feed all kinds of conspiracy theories, whipped up by the presence on board of an Israeli officer. Reality, however, seems to be much simpler: the margin of safety, even in aerospace missions, is not and can never be absolute." That is, accidents can happen and one just did and there's nothing to do about it except mourn the dead and ensure that that particular accident doesn't happen again. I do have a quibble with the editorial, though; the conspiracy theorists are not especially influential in the United States (except on the far left), but rather in Europe, where they make up a major section of the population. In Greece 95% of the people think we're going into Iraq not to get rid of Saddam but to grab the oil, and this belief is almost as widespread in Spain.

There is a news analysis article, however, by someone who signs himself "Andy Robinson, New York correspondent." This guy is an American anti-globo lefty who is big on Marcuse, Fanon, and Chomsky, since every American who he agrees with is always billed as "a student of" one of these three guys. What that really means is someone who parrots the same old slogans that somebody else made up in about 1967, or 1847. Robinson's screeds show up occasionally--he's the guy who wrote the ridiculous story on the King assassination that we mentioned a few days ago. His angle is always "United States = bad: the inside story of what's really happening". The title of his little piece is "Wounded pride". Here are a couple of paragraphs.

The images of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, shocked and impotent while the technological pride of the United States went up in white smoke the morning of January 28, 1986, were almost forgotten. After the rapid bombing of Afghanistan, in 2001 even smart bombs had regained their reputation, which had been lost after the errors of the Gulf War and the embarrassing bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade...

In the military theater, Uncle Sam's technological ego suffered another hard blow after a series of evidence became known, proving that father Bush's and CNN's spectacular state-of-the-art technological weapons didn't work. The laser-guided missiles got lost in the dust storms of the Iraqi desert: of the 970 projectiles fired at nuclear and chemical factories, none hit its target, and the Patriot missiles weren't able to shoot down Saddam's old Scuds.

Nevertheless, confidence in perfect technology had been recovered in recent years. Despite the estimated 3000 civilians killed in the Afghan war, the long-distance bombs and airplanes without pilots were considered potent examples of the reaffirmation of American state-of-the-art technology. A new version of the Patriot will play a key role if there is a war in Iraq. And under pressure from the military-space lobby led by companies like Lockheed Martin, NASA has even brought back the space nuclear program. The launching of two small nuclear rockets had been planned for May. "If one of them disintegrates like the Columbia, a lot of people will die of cancer wherever it falls," says Grossman.

My impression of Mr. Robinson is that he is one of George Orwell's nationalists. A nationalist may be fiercely loyal to a country or an idea, or he may fiercely oppose one, because of his emotions rather than logic and reason. A nationalist differs from a patriot in that a patriot wants to see his unit become stronger but does not wish ill on other units, while a nationalist's goal is to subjugate other units to his. ("Buy American" is patriotic, though stupid. "Don't Buy Japanese" was a fairly common bit of American nationalism in the early eighties. See what I mean? A patriotic sports fan wants to see his team win. A nationalist sports fan wants to see his team's rival humiliated. He doesn't care if his team comes in next-to-last if the rival comes in last.) The most important thing for a nationalist is the comparative prestige of his chosen country or idea. Orwell says that one may be a positive or a negative nationalist--one may decide, for example, that one hates Communism, and then will think about nothing else except destroying Communism's prestige. I think Mr. Robinson is something not all that uncommon on the American left, someone from the teacher / journalist / bureaucrat class who feels alienated from the American society that he has not been especially successful in and therefore resents those who have been successful within the system. He wants to do a hit job on what he almost certainly sees as American pride and arrogance, so he brings up not only the Challenger, which makes perfect sense, but the only partial efficacy of high-tech weapons during the Gulf War, which has nothing to do with the subject.

You almost certainly already know this, but just in case you don't, the Space Shuttle Columbia blew up today on re-entry. All seven astronauts were killed. Terrorism has been ruled out. An investigation, of course, will take place. This is the top story on both Catalan and Spanish TV this evening..

It's time for today's European diplomacy update. Slovenia and Latvia have joined the countries who signed the pro-alliance letter that the Wall Street Journal commissioned, Aznar drafted, Blair rewrote, and eight other European leaders agreed to. Brussels is royally pissed off; the Eurocrats consider the letter to have been a rupture in the EU's common foreign policy, as if such a thing existed. They're whining about both the message of the letter and the way it was publicized; they're whining because they're beaten. Whipped. They've lost. They know it. They are not going to get anything resembling what they want and this is not the last tantrum they're going to throw, since emotionally Old Europe is about as mature as a toddler, thinking of nothing but itself and its own comparative prestige and unwilling to admit it didn't have much to start with and now has a lot less.

Javier Solana was made to look like a moron because the day before the Gang of Eight's letter came out he'd said that any decision on Iraq would have to be made by the UN. So what's the problem? Solana is a moron. He must be if he'd say something as obviously false as that. I've hated him ever since he did a human interest interview that I read and he started telling funny, rather sympathetic stories about Kim Jong Il. It seemed about as appropriate as, I don't know, reeling off a skein of light-hearted Hitler anecdotes. Meanwhile, I can't think of a single productive thing he's been responsible for as director of EU foreign policy.

The right-wing German press is baying for Schröder's defenestration, saying that the French are going to sign on with the alliance leaving Germany in the cold thanks to Ger-hardhead. He's trying to use the anti-American plank to pull out a decent showing for his Social Democrat party in the upcoming state elections in Hesse and Lower Saxony, but the Social Dems are going to get their asses kicked no matter what happens. Schröder's weeks as Chancellor are numbered. The French press is in a monumental snit. The Socialist organ, Libération, kicked off with the headline "Bush and his eight mercenaries". Boy, they're mad. Good. It pleases me to see frustrated left-wing Frenchmen. Libé called the eight states "vassals" and said, "The leaders in Washington dream of torpedoing the emergence of a powerful Europe that could contest its leadership." Yeah, my ass they do. Libé is so arrogant and self-absorbed that it thinks the Americans are actually worried about the EU becoming a rival.

They did a survey in the 15 EU countries; to the question, "Do you think your country should be involved in a military attack on Iraq if the UN decides in favor of one?" The percentage of respondents saying yes were: UK 79%, Denmark 71%, Holland 68%, France 67%, Italy 66%, Luxembourg 63%, Belgium 56%, Portugal 56%, Ireland 51%, Germany 45%, Spain 45%, Sweden 39%, Finland 31%, Greece 25%, Austria 19%, and the EU average was 57%. It seems to me that this is evidence of solid support for an Alliance attack on the part of the peoples of both new Europe and Old Europe: 67% of the people in France answered responsibly, for example. It sounds to me like the French government is out of sync with its voters, but then we knew that anyway, since fewer than 20% of them voted for the current president in the first round of the most recent elections, nearly the same percentage voted for racist reactionary Jean-Marie Le Pen, and about the same percentage voted for a melange of assorted Commies and Trots.

Here in Spain the Socialists are completely lost; they're in well over their heads and have no idea what to do. Socialist leader Zapatero is not taking a clear position; what it sounds like is that he's against the Iraq war unless France decides for it, which they will do after Feb. 5's Security Council Showdown. Mariano Rajoy, a PP heavy hitter, blasted the Socialists for their 1986 campaign against joining NATO and then their about-face and their support for joining up, for forgetting that the Socialist government under Felipe González had participated in Gulf War I, for not listening to Felipe when he said that it's not a good plan to get into a position where you'll have to change sides halfway through, and for not defending Spain's interests through an active consensus foreign policy. He didn't have to mention that the Socialists were responsible for the organization of an anti-ETA death squad under Felipe and that they therefore should perhaps abstain from making moral judgments about others who feel the need to defend themselves in an open, aboveboard way.

The Catalan nationalist party, Convergence and Union, has also come out against the war. Loudmouth Convergence deputy Ignasi Guardans, who is a self-satisfied little prick, accused Foreign Minister Ana Palacio of lying on the floor of Parliament and refused to retract his statement; he later told Miss Palacio, who is pro-alliance, that "You don't support the United States, you support their most reactionary right wing," after blaming the United States for the existence of the Franco dictatorship. This is the sort of behavior that one would expect from the Communists or the Basque wackos but not from a respectable, moderate political party. Convergence party boss Jordi Pujol, who is an old fox and should never be underestimated, needs to call Mr. Guardans on the carpet and remind him that bugs don't fly into closed mouths. Meanwhile, Convergence spokesman Felip Puig compared Aznar to Le Pen. People who say ridiculous things like that often regret it later. I suspect that Mr. Aznar will personally assure Mr. Puig's regrettance at some future date.

Spain is preparing for war. A hospital is being set up at the Rota naval base for wounded alliance soldiers. Rota is also preparing to handle a large number of Allied soldiers as an intermediate transit point. The Spanish fleet will patrol in the Med, the Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean as part of an Allied fleet, and Spanish AWACS planes will be used. There will also be Spanish participation in the post-war peacekeeping force.

Well, the Iraq situation is still rather on the back burner; the big news is the huge winter storm that has hit all of northern Spain, including interior Catalonia. Here in Barcelona it's about 7ºC and windy, a rather chill winter's day, but temperatures have fallen to -15ºC in the Pyrenees with snowfalls of up to 2 1/2 meters and winds as high as 200 km/h. The north winds (in northern Catalonia it comes straight out of the north and is called the tramuntana; in southern Catalonia it comes out of the northwest and is called the mistral) are one of the more unpleasant aspects of the Catalan winter, since they blow hard every day and never let up. Waves were four meters high at Roses, when the normal Mediterranean waves are like a foot high. The winds were so high that there was a major forest fire up in Santa Cristina that burned up 300 hectares--a soccer field is about half a hectare. 400 people had to be evacuated. The Valle de Arán up in the Pyrenees (nice place, worth a visit) is cut off since both the Vielha tunnel and the Bonaigua mountain pass are blocked off by the snow and the only way in and out is through France. Most of the high-altitude ski resorts have had to close down, both because the storm makes it impossible to ski and because no one could get there to ski anyway. (People in Barcelona love skiing. Good slopes are three hours or so by car from BCN. Some people go every weekend.)

I remember once taking a geography class that dealt partially with people's perceptions of geography. I had a good idea for a term paper, that of looking at the radio networks of various sports teams to see how far a city's influence extended. For example, if you look at a map of Missouri, the St. Louis Cardinals dominate most of the state; the Kansas City Royals have followers who care enough to listen to the games on radio only in the northwestern quarter of Missouri, the area that's more influenced by KC than by St. Louis. I just got the idea of looking at the cities listed in La Vanguardia's international weather report; the hypothesis is that the places listed are those of most importance for the Barcelonese. I've classified the cities:

European capitals: Andorra la Vella, Amsterdam, Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Budapest, Copenhagen, Dublin, Stockholm, Helsinki, Lisbon, London, Moscow, Oslo, Paris, Prague, Rome, Warsaw, Vienna.
European non-capitals: France: Chamonix, Lyon, Montpellier, Nice, Perpignan. Germany: Frankfurt, Munich. Switzerland: Geneva, Zurich. Italy: Milan, Naples, Turin.
North American cities: Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Montreal, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington.
Latin American cities: Buenos Aires, Caracas, Havana, Managua, Mexico City, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, Santo Domingo, Sao Paulo.
Middle East / North Africa: Cairo, Istanbul, Rabat, Tunis.
Rest of world: Hong Kong, Manila, Nairobi, New Delhi, Tokyo.

It looks to me, then, as the Barcelona vision of the relative importance of places is, first, Catalonia, with weather reports for about 30 cities listed; then the rest of Spain, with about 50 cities on the list; then Europe, and especially France, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany--the Balkans are not significant in Barcelona's eyes, with no city listed between Budapest and Athens, and neither is the former Soviet Union except for Moscow; then North America and Latin America--Latin America, with nine cities listed, is clearly important in the Barcelona view of the world, more so than it is to most people in most other European countries; then North Africa, close to Spain, with three cities listed. The rest of the world, Asia, Oceania, and especially sub-Saharan Africa, count little in the Barcelona worldview.

Here's a link from Front Page; it's some real red-meat Nelson Mandela-bashing. It has some good Mandela quotes. It is by Lowell Ponte and therefore is just a bit hysterical in tone.

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.

Crime update: The cops claim to have identified the parking garage murderer and they are now looking for him. As for the Tarragona doctor's boyfriend, he's definitely run off to Holland and the case is in the hands of Europol. If you're in Holland and you see a blondish balding well-built 30-ish Spanish guy, rat him out to the nearest cop.

OK. I've been putting this off all week. Our city's beloved FC Barcelona, "more than a club", the most important civic institution in the city with the possible exception of giant savings bank La Caixa, is having the worst season of its history. The glorious Barça, symbol of Catalonia, is in twelfth place (out of 20 teams) with a record of 6 wins, 5 ties, and 8 losses for a total of 23 points at the exact halfway point of the season. Real Sociedad is in first with 12 wins, 7 ties, and 0 losses for 43 points.

Except for a couple of seasons in the postwar era in Spain (the World War II era in Europe), Barcelona has never played so poorly. Nobody can remember a Barça this bad. I can't remember the Barça ever finishing lower than fourth. The last bad season they had was 87-88, and even that year the Barça qualified for European competition. This year they won't. It will be the first time since European competitions began that Barça will not qualify, which I believe is a European record. They need to come in at least fourth to qualify for the Champions League; currently in fourth place is Betis with 33 points. No chance. They need to come in at least seventh to qualify for the now fairly pathetic UEFA Cup, which is considered much more of a minor-league competition now that it takes the 5th, 6th, and 7th teams from the major European leagues rather than the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th teams that it used to take. In seventh place is Mallorca with 27 points, which I guess is surmountable. They may make the UEFA after all.

Anyway, despised coach Louis Van Gaal has been canned. After his firing, he agreed to renounce €2.5 million of his €6 million three-year contract. This is less than most of us expected him to be making and adds to the suspicion that Dracula, Mr. Burns himself, despised team president Joan Gaspart, only hired Van Gaal because he was available cheap after being fired by the Dutch national team when he failed to qualify them for last year's World Cup. Gaspart is a mama's boy. You know how some poor kids get picked on and bullied at school because they're small and weak? I hate that. If I ever catch any kid picking on any other in my class I blast him verbally until I've got him frightened and then I send him to the director's office. (That's not really a plan. It's just what I do because I get so angry. This is one reason why I cannot teach children any more. Somebody would get hurt and I'd go to jail.) But you know how there are a few kids who are little weasels who provoke everyone else and deserve every ass-kicking they get because of all the trouble they stir up? That's Gaspart all over. He whines and whimpers and is just a huge crybaby in general.

And he's incompetent. Barcelona is one of the richest clubs in football, or at least it was, and they banked something like sixty million dollars for Luis Figo straight of Real Madrid's pocket. So what does Gaspart do with the money? Overpays for overrated over-the-hill players (Petit, Overmars, Andersson) or overpays for overrated young guys who do well in South American leagues. From what I've seen of Saviola and Riquelme, they're competent players, but they're not big stars. They looked great back in the Argentinian league, but most of the really good Argentinian players are in Europe, so they weren't facing top-quality competition back home. Rochemback, usually on the bench, and Geovanni, who has already been loaned out to Benfica for what's left of the season, also both cost way too much money. So did Gerard, when they bought him back from Valencia, where he had played well, to the Barça, where he hasn't. And Gaspart gave Rivaldo away for free to save six million euros.

Anyway, last weekend Barcelona lost 2-0 in Vigo to Celta and that was it for Louis Van Gaal. A short recent history of FC Barcelona: Johan Cruyff as coach: 90-91 won Spanish League, 91-92 won League, Champions Cup, 92-93 won League, 93-94 won League, lost final of Champions Cup 4-0 to Milan, team broken up, 94-95 nothing, 95-96 nothing. Bobby Robson as coach: 96-97 UEFA Cup. Louis Van Gaal: 97-98 League, 98-99 League, 99-00 nothing. Llorenç Serra Ferrer as coach: 00-01 nothing. Charly Rexach as coach: 01-02 nothing. Louis Van Gaal as coach: 02-03 nothing. The fans are fed up waiting for a winning team and Van Gaal is not providing it. He has been booted and it looks like Charly Rexach, Barcelona's jack-of-all-trades, will finish out the season as coach, mostly because they don't have any money to spend on anyone else.

The Vanguardia's headline today, which seems a bit sensationalistic to me, is "Bush begins countdown to war". Well, I suppose it's true. The Vanguardia is taking for granted that there will be an Iraq war and that it will begin soon. There's a lot of replay of Bush's State of the Union speech, including a full page with the most newsworthy sections. The general take is that it was a good speech, well-done, and that it accomplished the important purpose of laying out clearly when and where damning evidence against Saddam will be presented.

A letter signed by eight European leaders, President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic, and prime ministers Aznar of Spain, Blair of the UK, Berlusconi of Italy, Barroso of Portugal, Medgyessy of Hungary, Miller of Poland, and Rasmussen of Denmark expressed solidarity with President Bush and asked that the EU show unified support for the United States.

The letter says, "The true link that unites the United States and Europe is represented by the values we share: democracy, individual freedoms and human and legal rights."

"The attacks of September 11th showed how far the terrorists--those enemies of these common values--are capable of going in order to destroy them...Today more than ever the trans-Atlantic link is a guarantee of our freedom."

"The relationship between we Europeans and the United States has stood the test of time...thanks to the continual cooperation between Europe and the United States we have been able to guarantee peace and freedom on our continent. The trans-Atlantic relationship should not become a victim of the persistent attempts by the Iraqi regime to threaten world security."

"We should remain united insisting on the disarmament of the Iraqi regime. The solidarity, cohesion, and determination of the international community constitute our best hope of achieving it peacefully. Our strength is in unity."

"Saddam continues to maintan the same line as always: deception, rejection and failure to fulfill the resolutions of the United Nations. Our governments share one responsibility: standing up to this threat. If we do not, we will be negligent toward our own citizens and the world."

"We can not tolerate that a dictator should violate systematically these resolutions. If he does not fulfill them, the credibility of the Security Council will disappear and world peace will be affected."

That's pretty strong language. I'd sign that letter. "Eight European leaders and Iberian Notes agree on declaration of principles and intentions." Terrific stuff. This ought to show that Europe is behind the United States despite what the French and Germans would have you think. The Axis of Weasels has signed up Belgium and Luxembourg on their side in NATO; they are blocking any NATO response to the United States' request for logistic help in case of war. That's it. That's all the support they've got. They have NOBODY ELSE behind them. They are risking being left out in the cold diplomatically, not to mention the other foreseeable consequences of backing the wrong side in a war. That is why I think Chirac will allow himself to be persuaded to, at the very least, change his NATO vote and support UN Resolution #2. I'm not so sure about Schröder. Even he may come over, though it may cost him the next election.

This is mind-boggling. The second edition of the huge TV hit "Operación Triunfo" (a sort of Pop Stars / Big Brother thing--contestants all live together, learn to be pop singers, play concerts, and the winner represents Spain at the hallunicinatorily bad Eurovision Song Festival next summer) closed out Monday night with the victory of Ainhoa Cantalapiedra--great Castilian surname, her family must be from Soria or Burgos originally. Arnaldo Otegi, who is most likely a paranoid schizophrenic from what I've observed, and I'm pretty good at these diagnoses, since I have some experience in the field of mental illness, said that Ainhoa's win was a setup, see, because Ainhoa is a Spanish-speaking Basque girl. "There are people who have an interest in, at the next Eurovision Festival, seeing all us nice little Basques there all rooting for Ainhoa, which is just like rooting for Spain," said Otegi, spokesman for whatever Herri Batasuna, the political branch of ETA, is calling itself these days. Otegi then took his pills and soon after drifted into a catatonic state from which he was not aroused for the next fourteen hours.

The only conspiracy theory I've got about "Operación Triunfo" is that the fat chick automatically wins because she is the one the majority female audience sympathizes with most. This is the second year in a row, and the program is only two years old, in both of which the fat chick has won. People identify with her more than with the hotter babes.

Speaking of which, my pal Clark, with whom I am entangled in a couple of arguments down in the Comments section (hey, people, keep those comments coming, that's what they're there for), is the Most Famous English Teacher in the World, because he's in charge of the English-class part of the program. About 7,500,000 people watched the finale Monday night, and all of them follow the show so they all know who he is. It looks like ratings are down by about a fourth since last year, but what they got is still pretty good, solid hit-show numbers. No longer runaway-success numbers, but good enough so that they're casting OT III for next year. OT comment: OT contestants had 6 of the top 10 LP/CDs in Spain in 2002. The Spanish music industry is really pissed because these OT punks are getting their sales and gigs.

Hey, Clark, why don't you come over after work Thursday, or failing that, Murph and I have tentative plans to go to Miguel's on Friday night. You in? I haven't seen you for a while.

A few days ago we mentioned the "parking garage murders". Two women were murdered in the same parking garage within twelve days in the middle-class neighborhood of El Putxet, right next to our neighborhood of Gràcia. The garage was a private one, open only to the owners or renters of the parking spaces located in the basement of a large apartmemt building. The only way in is if you have the key or the remote control that open the door, unless you somehow manage to sneak in directly behind an entering car and not get noticed. It is held as a condominium by the owners of the parking spaces, most of whom live or work very close by. The murdered women, coincidentally, both held parking place number 15 but on different floors. Everybody associated with the parking garage has apparently been checked out.

The most interesting lead is a guy who telephoned the first woman's husband asking for €2000 in exchange for the identity of the murderer; they set up a meet with him but he didn't show. The cops definitely suspect him. They're passing around photos of known criminals who meet the following description: 30-ish, white, well-built. The killer, assuming it's the same guy, is known to have stolen the first victim's bank card and to have withdrawn €300 from her account from a cash machine without a videocamera, but the motive is thought to have been murder rather than robbery. The most interesting speculation that I've heard is that the second victim's husband hired a hit man to kill her. He screwed up the first time and killed the wrong woman on the wrong floor of the garage but in the right space. So he went back after the heat was off and killed the right woman. The reasons I like this hypothesis are that it provides a motive for both actions. Also, whoever did it was a pro as he left few clues behind him. This would also provide a reason for the different methods of the two murders; the first one was stabbed and the second woman was beaten to death. The pro did it that way because he knows that normally a killer uses only one technique no matter how many people he kills, and in this way he throws off the cops.

The neighborhood is in terror. Some people are parking in the street because they're afraid to go into parking garages. Husbands are picking up wives who work in the neighborhood. They're setting up impromptu watch organizations though there are "more police than at the Moncloa". The Vanguardia reporter says that the tension in the neighborhood is growing rather than shrinking because of the lack of progress made in the investigation and that "no one talks about anything else (in the cafés), not even Van Gaal (Barcelona's much-hated just-fired soccer coach)."

Also, a young woman doctor from Tarragona disappeared eleven days ago and there's no trace of her. The cops are looking for her boyfriend, who disappeared the day after the woman. He took money out of a bank machine near the airport and is suspected to have taken a flight to Holland. A blanket from the woman's bedroom, stained with blood, and fingerprints were found inside her car. He is known to have quarreled with her recently because he told her a stack of lies about himself, including that he was a teacher of English, when he was really a taxi driver. However, their wedding was still on for the upcoming autumn. The cops are waiting for some DNA results to come back before they put out a warrant for him.

Everybody in town seems to be talking about only three things, and that's pretty much what you see on the TV news too: Iraq, the Barça, and the "parking garage" murders.

The Vanguardia's lead story is on Bush's State of the Union speech; they call it "one of the most transcendental speeches of his term." Bush accused Saddam of lying and specifically said that Saddam holds 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulism toxin, 500 tons of sarin gas, mustard gas, and VX nerve gas, and 30,000 warheads capable of carrying chemical weapons. That sounds to me like a solid, direct, specific accusation of a "smoking gun" that Bush will now have to back up. Bush also said that there is evidence linking Iraq and terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, obtained through espionage, secret information, and the statements of arrested prisoners. Colin Powell will present this evidence, which includes photographs, to the UN Security Council on February 5. The Vangua has reported that the British will have a draft resolution ready by then.

The Vangua pays comparatively little attention to the rest of the content of Bush's speech, though they do resume the key points: a $674 billion tax cut over ten years (good move, George!), the necessity to extend health care protection to more of the uninsured (Important problem! Let's hear some specifics. This is a public quality-of-life issue, and it's perfectly justifiable to spend tax money for everybody's benefit to control contagious diseases like TB and AIDS and hepatitis C--they said on today's news that one million Spaniards may have hep C and most don't know it--and to improve the general level of health of the population. How about my plan for a National Preventative Health?), and federal subsidies for religious groups that rehabilitate drug addicts and alcoholics (Bad move, George! The government shouldn't subsidize any religious institution except for, of course, giving it a tax exemption as a charity. Exception: education vouchers "spent" at religious schools. You could argue that the subsidy is not being given to the school, but to the parent, who has the option of choosing one of a number of schools, some public, some private, and some religious.

Back to Iraq. The Vangua has a good report on the diplomatic maneuvering going on right now in Europe. It looks like Blair, Aznar, and Berlusconi, the Gang of Three, the Triple Alliance, the Troika, the Third Triumvirate, are on board with Bush despite a few quibbles. Australia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary are also listed as being on board. In addition, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are behind the US. Anyway, Berlusconi is meeting with Blair today and will meet with Bush tomorrow, after which he will go to Russia and get Putin on board; Putin will need to have his palm greased but will almost certainly go along. Berlusconi and Putin are known for being simpáticos. They're both crooks, so that might have something to do with it. Tomorrow Aznar is meeting with Blair in Madrid. Bush and Blair are meeting at Camp David on Friday, and Blair is then going to France where he will meet with Chirac on Monday and get him on board. Bush, meanwhile will meet with Leszek Miller, prime minister of Poland (remember that name, you'll be seeing it a lot in the weeks to come) on Monday. Miller is already on board so this is probably a pep talk.

All of this makes me think that there will be a showdown in the UN Security Council on February 5 and that the British will propose a second resolution authorizing the use of armed force against Iraq. The US, UK, Spain, France, and Russia will vote yes. China and Germany will abstain. The resolution will pass and the war will begin very soon, within a few days. It will end very soon with a complete collapse of the Iraqi regime. Fewer than 1000 Iraqi civilians will be killed in the fighting, but there will be some gruesome scenes when rough justice is meted out by the people against Saddam's thugs. Very unpleasant stories will come out and many former anti-war people will be convinced of the war's justice after all of Saddam's atrocities are revealed. We then will have to occupy Iraq for at least five years. Since they can produce three million barrels of oil a day, the income from that ought to be more than sufficient to rebuild the country.

Spain has announced that it will not send troops, but will authorize United States use of its bases here. Spain will take charge of logistics in the Mediterranean, and will prepare to back up the Turks if that should be needed. It will provide hospitals and, after the war, a specially trained Guardia Civil unit with experience in Kosovo will form part of the occupation and peacekeeping force in Iraq. That sounds like cooperation pretty much to the limit of Spain's abilities. They really haven't got much of a military.

The Socialists have been challenging Aznar to go to the Congress of Deputies (Parliament) and state his case on the Iraq war. He will do so on February 5, the same day that Powell goes to the UN. Gee, you think Aznar might know something about what Saddam's got up his sleeve that they're not telling us yet? The Socialists are puffing out their chests and bragging that Aznar is only going to speak to the Parliament because they pressured him into it. The Socialists these days are really a bunch of jerks. Felipe González is not my idol, but he did preside over Spain's climb to real First World status during his administration between 1982 and 1996. The guys they've got now, though, are small-minded and petty; they have no plans or ideas except that of opposing Aznar and his governing PP, and so they whine, whimper, and complain every time Aznar announces he's thinking of getting someone to mow the lawn at the Moncloa.

Also, the Americans shot a bunch of Talibans in Afghanistan, eighteen says the Vanguardia, and captured another dozen. These guys were hiding out in the mountains near Pakistan, from where what's left of the Taliban are obviously being supplied. This is the biggest anti-Taliban operation since last March's Anaconda. Anaconda was, of course, much bigger.