The Tripartite Axis of Weasels is holding out in NATO, unwilling to cave in to the pressure of the other sixteen nations to prepare to defend Turkey, which has formally invoked Article Four for the first time ever. That means that all other NATO member states are required to participate in consultations. France, Belgium, Germany, the Vatican, and the EU are not going to help "the U.S. and its fifteen loyal allies", which would be Canada, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Luxembourg, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, Turkey itself, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and the UK, to protect Turkey. Admittedly, Turkey is already under American protection, and it also has the second largest military in NATO, with 700,000 troops including a 50,000-man rapid reaction force which can be ready to move in a few hours and three mobile infantry divisions (not already committed to any of Turkey's frontiers) in reserve, plenty of attack helicopters, about 1000 M-60 main battle tanks, and 164 F-16s and more than 200 other planes, mostly F-4s. Additionally, Turkish soldiers have the reputation of being tough and well-trained, unlike, say, the Belgians. The Turks could stomp Iraq on their own if they had to. The Turks, however, want reassurance that they will be supported internationally to pacify Turkish public opinion. Additional note: Turkey is friendly with Israel, and the two have been known to cooperate on international and military issues. The Economist has reported on this more than once.

Small note: Luxembourg has changed sides. They were originally going to go with the Weasels but flip-flopped. Outside the Weasels, it looks like the Dutch and Norwegians are on board with the Alliance.

An audiotape claimed to be from Osama Bin Laden appeared last night on Al-Jazeera. The Vanguardia's front-page lead headline is "Bin Laden asks for support for Iraq", and there is a quarter-page photo of Osama on page 4. I originally thought, until I read closely, that photo was new and that Osama was really alive; it's merely an old photo of Osama on a television screen saying "Al-Jazeera Exclusive". In the caption they tell you that photo is from the archives. The whole thing is intentionally misleading. First, there's not one whit of evidence that this tape is really from Osama. It's just an audiotape. So the headline is completely false because it lacks the word "Alleged". Second, the photo appears to be new. It isn't. Third, Osama is dead anyway, because if we didn't kill him his poor health did. Osama's kidneys didn't work, among other things, and he hadn't been able to get dialysis on the run. Fourth, the tape says that all Islam should defend Iraq. That's dumb. That's only going to get Iraq in worse trouble. It's like when the Ku Klux Klan endorses a candidate for election: no help.

Possibilities: 1) The tape is American disinformation aimed at showing there's a Bin Laden-Saddam connection. 2) The tape is some kind of Al Qaeda message to Osama's followers. 3) The tape is Al Qaeda disinformation aimed at sowing confusion. 4) The tape is Iraqi disinformation, a last-ditch effort at rallying worldwide radical Islam behind secular Saddam. 5) The tape really is Osama. I figure number two and number four are most likely, especially since the speaker on the tape refers to the Baath Party as Communists, but says that Islamists can nonetheless ally themselves with it. A good rule of thumb for sniffing out who's behind obvious propaganda is whether it includes a mild attack, rather beside the point, on somebody. That somebody is likely to be the source of the information, and he's included the mild attack to distract attention from himself. Saddam would never call himself a Communist, would he? Uh, yeah, he might, if there were an overriding purpose.

The French are all mad because they've been taking a bunch of flak in the American press. Le Monde is complaining about "Francophobia" in the States. The Vanguardia says that "Sectors of the (American) press and the diplomatic corps present a certain recurring vision of France as a country where anti-Semitism runs wild and synagogues burn every day." Uh, excuse me, but synagogues do occasionally burn and an awful lot of French folks voted for the anti-Semitic Le Pen in the last election. The French are concerned enough that they're sending a delegation to try to pacify American public opinion. Bet it don't take. Le Monde does say that the "virulent campaign" can be understood as "the answer of an America too frequently presented on this side of the Atlantic as a gang of trigger-happy cowboys ruled by a simplistic fundamentalist preacher." Uh, yeah. I can't get over this complaining about the United States finally speaking out, and loud, against the insults that have been continually sent our way over the last sixty years. When we finally get mad and respond, they act surprised and get mad themselves. Screw Old Europe.

Enric Juliana comments in the Vangua that "the Catholic Church has been subjected to a moral lynching in the United States". I've seen that line or something similar in several Vangua articles; the Vangua is Catholic and monarchist. No, the Catholic Church is suffering from a serious loss of credibility after too many Catholic priests were caught molesting the kiddies left in their care and too many bishops and cardinals who knew exactly what was going on were caught doing nothing to solve the problem, not punishing the guilty priests, allowing them to stay in positions where they had access to children, and generally covering up the whole thing. Anyone who thinks Richard Nixon's behavior regarding the Watergate scandal was immoral and despicable should think that this behavior is a hundred times worse, since Nixon covered up some insignificant political dirty tricks and the Catholic hierarchy covered up for repeat, pathological child-molesters. This is not a case of one poor, confused guy who once did something he shouldn't have. This is a case of MANY active pederasts with a pattern of behavior who were protected from the law, and even from punishment within the Church. Moral lynching, my ass. The American Catholic Church committed moral suicide.

There is certain resentment in Spain, and perhaps particularly in Catalonia, toward the United States on the part of Catholic intellectuals, I'm not sure why. Some of it must be because the US is majority Protestant, though the Catholics are the largest single religious group there, and because many US Protestants were openly anti-Catholic bigots until about the time of World War II. Some of the rest, though, is based on a traditionalist dislike of modernity and change, which the United States symbolizes in Spain. And there's a good part due to the liberation-theology leftism that reigns among much of the hierarchy, and there's another good part in Catalonia due to the fact that the section of the Catalan Church based at Montserrat is ultra-Catalanist and therefore anti-anythingelseist. (If you're looking for the Spanish Catholics in Catalonia, try Poblet.) Enric Juliana says, "...the unipolar new order could be a much more dangerous threat (than Communism) to Christianity in the long run: a slow but inexorable dissolution...Catholicism is the only "international movement"...capable of planting a strong moral objection to the "new order"." Gee, I thought the usual European criticism of America was that it was run by a bunch of religious nuts. But a religious European, Enric Juliana, says we're going to destroy the Catholic Church and that we're more dangerous to Christianity than the Communists. Looks like we can't win either way. Meanwhile, the Pope's emissary, French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, is "praying for peace" in Baghdad.

The Iraqis have granted entrance visas to fifty "human shields". They will spread out to various neuralgic points in Baghdad. I'm nominating these guys right now for the 2003 Darwin Awards. I vote we pay no attention to their presence or absence when selecting military targets. I also vote we don't do anything more than we have to after the war to get them home alive if they're Allied citizens, and I vote we charge them with treason if war breaks out for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. If they're not citizens of an Alliance nation, I don't see why we should care whether they get out alive. And that goes double if they're French. I suppose basic Allied moral decency will prevent us from abandoning them to their fate, though.

The opposition parties in the Spanish Parliament called a vote that, if passed, would have tied the government's hands if a war breaks out and would have aligned Spain with the Weasels. It failed 151-175, with all the parties except Aznar's conservative PP voting in favor. Convergence and Union's Xavier Trias is trying to sit on the fence. He wants "public opinion to know we're working for peace" so that if war breaks out it will be because it was inevitable, "not just a whim", and that's why they voted in favor. Meanwhile, they're making noises about the peace march on the 15th; the manifesto says "Preventive war is a threat for the peace and the security of the world" and "(This is) an attempt to guarantee the control of the oil and to reorganize the region as a function of the political and economic interests of the United States." It stinks of anti-American conspiracy theory. Cándido Mendez of the Socialist labor union UGT said, "No blood for oil". Socialist leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero said, "Let's be responsible and stop the war". José María Fidalgo of the Communist union CCOO said, "We must defend different values and interests than the Bush Administration". And Gaspar Llamazares of the Communist United Left said, "Aznar is alone in the maze of the war and the American far right". Wimpo Artur Mas of Convergence and Union is going to cut short a visit to Quebec (the Catalan nationalists are always visiting Quebec) to come home and appear in the antiwar demo.

Mariano Rajoy of the PP blasted the Socialists, accusing them of having no principles and of trying to take advantage of the Iraq crisis for short-term political profit. He pointed to the repeated Socialist flip-flops on the issue; yesterday Zapatero admitted on TV that he was against the war personally but would accept it if there were another UN resolution. That's not much different from the official government position, and is distinctly contradictory to the strident antiwar posture the Socialists have been screaming out for months. Zapatero really is a weasel; he's trying to weasel out. He'll have a good old time shouting slogans at the demo and then support the war after it's over.

The Vangua published a Jimmy Carter op-ed. I didn't read it. But Quim Monzó notifies us that there is a website called Masturbate for Peace whose mission statement is "You can't love others if you don't love yourself. Evidently, masturbation is the greatest expression of self-esteem. So it is natural that we citizens of the world should unite to masturbate for peace." One of their slogans is "War is wrong, whack your schlong". Several people have written in explaining exactly how they will onanize for peace. In great detail. It is considered acceptable to self-pleasure either collectively or individually. Quim Monzó says, "I'm telling you this because the big demonstration will be next Saturday, the 15th, and it would be nice to see, in action, on the Paseo de Gràcia, the local members of this interesting movement."

Sadly, the Iberian lynx, the world's most endangered feline, is one step closer to extinction upon the death of a male who had been captured sick more than a year ago. They have to catch another male now for the breeding-in-captivity program, and it might be good if this one were healthy. There are between 160 and 200 Iberian lynxes alive in the Sierra Morena and the Doñana swamp, not enough to guarantee the survival of the species in the wild. Poaching, being hit by cars, tuberculosis, and the lack of rabbits are all factors in the decline of the species; the dead lynx had tuberculosis. There is a female at the Barcelona zoo. It's a beautiful animal, but the poor thing is locked in a tiny pen. They keep talking about greatly expanding the zoo, which would allow them to put the big cats in more appropriately-sized enclosures. But, anyway, if you ever come here check out the lynx at the zoo.

Music Update: Check out KBON in Eunice, Louisiana, for some down-home Louisiana music ranging fron zydeco to two-step to swamp pop. This is a "people's" station that plays stuff the locals actually enjoy, so they throw in the occasional mainstream hit. This station is so cool that the DJs sometimes speak in Cajun French. Then there's an "aficionado's" station out of New Orleans called WWOZ that plays mostly jazz and blues. It's run by the New Orleans Tourist Board and is extremely professional. The blues shows rock, and the jazz shows play New Orleans jazz, not that "hard bop" stuff or whatever it is that jazz bores get off on so much. Both stations are highly recommended.

Just to piss off France, why don't American schools change their curriculum and teach Cajun French instead of Parisian French? That'd be great. Instead of "Voilà Monsieur Thibaut. Monsieur Thibaut habite la place d'Italie. Monsieur Thibaut aime beaucoup les allemands. Monsieur Thibaut n'aime pas les juifs. Le pére de Monsieur Thibaut était collaborateur. Sa mére et ses soeurs aussi, mais à la horizontale", we could learn to say, "Get away from my woman before I stab you with this broken-off whiskey bottle neck" or "Waitress, bring us three more pitchers of beer and some more crawfish and jambalaya" or "Let's get drunk and go gator huntin'." Much more patriotic, I think.

Baltasar Porcel is on a roll! He's been to New York, or maybe he's still there. All New York readers, hunt him down and slap him silly. Anyway, he's been writing about his impressions. I've excerpted his columns from Saturday, Monday, and today.

...I must return to New York, where in the United Nations the face of the world is being decided...This does not interest the United States or Bush, a man educated by and a politician paid for by Texan oil, which wants to control the Iraqi deposits, second in the world in production. And with another plan hiding behind that: the oil won't last, while the water of the great rivers that cross Iraq is eternal and even more necessary so the Middle East can develop: whoever controls it rules.

I've spoken with two personalities who do not count among those who will decide the war, but do among those who are consulted about its probability. And they think we are facing an unavoidable warlike resolution if Saddam doesn't surrender or go, which he won't do. And they explain something mediatically key: CNN, specialized in sensationalism, is suffering a serious economic crisis which can only be palliated by war, which it has been preaching for more than a year...

Porcel then tells us he doesn't like New York except for its skyscrapers, that he ate badly as usual except in an Italian restaurant full of Mafiosos, that he went to Chinatown...

...among thousands of Chinese families, without any mixed couples visible. It's not in vain that Chinatown, which goes back to 1870, is the most numerous nucleus of this race outside China. How many people are there, and how many are illegal, in these shacks, basements, shops, multiplied in the dirty alleyways, that often inside are revealed as elaborate, mysterious, and wealthy mansions. Besides, one can buy quality fish, fruit, meat, vegetables, at reasonable prices; it's the only New York market not controlled by the Mafia, or that's run by the Chinese Mafia: the real sovereignty of Chinatown is greater than that of the Catalan statutory autonomy.

I also approach, in Williamsburg, the orthodox Jewish neighborhood, another hermetic and endogamic microcosmos with a rigid exterior. But its antennas are open to the entire world: does it constitute the greatest existent concentration of economic power per square meter? New York is, besides startling for visitors, the capital of Jewish power. Saddam Hussein will have a bad time.

...in the great bookstores of New York or in the airport there are the same books, though in different quantities. And with a particularity: they've all been written by American authors, whether a historical study, a tourist guide, or a fish-factory manual. Translations are only seen in the literary section: Isabel Allende, Proust, you can conut them on the fingers of one hand. The European bookstore, full of translations from many languages, one of the most absorbing spaces that exist, is impossible here: the country lives enclosed and euphorized within itself. It's not strange, then, that Bush, when he acceded to the presidency, had not traveled nor owned a passport, that mass blind psychoses happen, and that its foreign policy is as arrogant as it is ignorant.

Comments: 1) I don't know what bookstores Baltasar went to. Good ones do exist. Even in New York. 2) Mass blind psychoses? Is this, like, say, when Americans all got mad because three thousand of us got murdered at once? 3) He certainly has a vibrant imagination. 4) It's not the oil, it's the water! You heard it from Baltasar first. 5) The war is a CNN plot. You heard it from Baltasar's informants first. 6) The Orthodox Jews who live in Williamsburg are mysteriously wealthy and powerful...hey, Baltasar, you failed to footnote the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for that one. You're busted for plagiarism.

Here's Cataloony and anti-Semite Xavier Bru de Sala on Catalonia and the war from today's Vanguardia. The article is titled "Catalan unity".

There are four days left and we can already predict that we will remember February 15 as a memorable date. The no to that war and the no to Aznar's servile position add to the effort of all our political parties (except one) to contribute to the symbolic and moral rupture of the Catalans with the position of the Spanish government. After the failure of Powell's proofs and the ridiculousness of the British secret services, the arguments offered to justify the attack on Iraq have collapsed. At the same time, the Bush Administration is pressing on the accelerator, to silence the European protests with the booming of the inevitable, calculating that once the attack has been launched we can only hope that the war will be short, that is, will go well for them and will be won soon. That's why it is crucial to raise our voices now. If the Barcelona demonstration is really massive, it will have a very notable resonance. For the first time in our democracy, Catalonia will stake its position in an international crisis in a forceful and united manner. For the first time, there will be Catalan unity against the Government and the Spanish official position on a serious matter. Possibly, slightly frightened by the importance of the demonstration, some Convergence and Union leaders will abstain from pressing on the organizational accelerator. In that case, they run the risk of being overwhelmed. You don't need much of a nose to smell the clamor.

Comments: 1) Check out that last mixed metaphor or whatever it is. 2) He sure likes that image of pressing on the accelerator. 3) He really thinks that some people outside Catalonia give a shit what the Catalans think about anything, as if you could say that the Catalans as a group think anything. 4) Like a typical obsessive nationalist, he can't look at any issue except through the lens of the relative prestige of his own group.

If there is (a clamor), Barcelona will become a moral reference for Europe. One of the few great European cities which are not capitals of states, the only one which boasts a strong democratic nationalism, demonstrates with all its leaders for peace and against the warlike posture of its country. If there is a massive attendance, this visualization of Catalonia as an entity with its own position is, besides being new, very important. The Europeans are against the attack on Iraq, with few differences despite the fact that the continent is artificially divided by the thoughtless servility of Aznar and Berlusconi.. If there's a possible echo chamber of this civil unity above its rulers, it is Barcelona. Catalonia's changing blocs and, in opposition to official Spain, but beside real Spain, moving to the European position, is much more transcendent on this occasion than having a little Foreign Ministry wandering around lost on the dance floor. The opposition to this war is ethical, because there are alternatives and it is not the last recourse. That's why, these days, it is an advantage and a motive of pride to mean nothing geopolitically. We Catalans are legitimated in going out to the street in defense of these values, becuase in our case they are not contaminated by unedifying national interests. The opportunity to be the civil capital of the ethical no is unique.

Comments: 1) He really does think non-Catalans give a crap whether there's a demo aganist the war here in Barcelona or not. 2) 57% of the citizens of the EU are in favor of an attack on Iraq if the UN approves. That figure drops to 45% in Spain. But if we assume that all of those 45% of Spaniards will vote for the PP in the next election, that's enough to pull another absolute majority in Parliament. Anyway, there is no European majority against the war, since that pro-war 57%, remember, includes only EU citizens and doesn't count the Eastern Europeans, who can be safely assumed to be even more pro-war. 3) Notice the self-congratulatory tone throughout. An American who is as nationalist as Bru de Sala would be called a chauvinistic bigot. The ethical capital of Europe, my ass. Tell that to the shortchanging taxi drivers, the con men openly working the streets, and the municipal cops drinking carajillos in the bars, not to mention the self-admittedly dishonest newspapers. 4) What lack of unsavory national interests? Your whole point in this article, dude, is that it's in Catalonia's "national interest" to unite in opposition to the war so everybody will say how moral and ethical y'all are. 5) Bru de Sala forgets, throughout his piece, that Aznar is the Prime Minister because, like, the people of Spain voted for him. And gave him a landslide victory with an absolute Parliamentary majority. It was in 2000. Remember?

Internally, it's also transcendental. A demonstration in Seville, for example, would be just as much of the opposition as one in Madrid. They would be discounted and absorbed by the political sphere. A demonstration of the Catalans, with Pujol, Maragall, Mas, and Clos at the head of a crowd, has an authentic civic and unitary character, since it represents not only the near-complete totality of the parliamentary (ideological) range but also the spirit of an advanced people that is against, due to historical suffering, unilateral impositions. There is no doubt that the Left is wholeheartedly preparing. It would be unpardonable for CiU, once its leaders have joined the manifestation with total clarity, to just go along, as if it only wanted to appear in the photos, instead of pulling along its people to join the demonstration. The civic unity would be the same, except that nationalism will also be in the game. If, for living up to its beliefs, Convergence and Union is punished by the PP, everyone will understand that, in addition to joining in a grave American error, Aznar is vengeful. If it fails us Saturday, Convergence and Union will also have failed Catalonia.

Comments: 1) What about the 15% of Catalans who vote PP? They don't count within Catalan unity, too? Or is it that they're Uncle Toms, not really Catalans? 2) You do know, Mr. Bru de Sala, that Pujol has come out in favor of the war if there's UN approval, don't you, and that Mas will do whatever Pujol tells him to? Convergence and Union's leaders have already announced that they are pro-alliance. Agreed, most Convergence voters probably aren't, and the party itself is co-sponsoring the demo on the 15th. That's CiU trying to sit on both sides of the fence on this one. They're Mugwumps--"with their mugs on one side of the fence and their wumps on the other". 3) Nice to know you've anointed the Catalans with the title of "an advanced people". All I can say is you don't know my in-laws. They're pretty primitive. My mother-in-law makes her own soap. Hell, she used to kill her own pigs. Got too old for that.

The Axis of Weasels put in their objections in writing to the US request for NATO to prepare a defense plan for NATO member Turkey in case of attack. (Remember, this NATO crisis and the UN Security Council resolutions are completely different things.) That blocks the US motion, so Turkey is going to invoke Article Four for the first time in NATO history, saying that it considers that Iraq poses a threat to Turkey's "territorial integrity, political independence, or security". This would require NATO to hold consultations on defending its member Turkey.

The Vanguardia publishes a misleading map today, showing that the people of all European countries are against "an American military intervention without formal UN approval", according to a survey. The Brits are against it 68%-29%, the French against it 86%-12%, and the Spaniards 77%-16%. However, they are honest enough to mention that the survey was taken in January, before Powell's February sppech to the UN. They are not honest enough to present the results of the question of whether people would support a UN-approved American intervention; as we said several days ago, majorities in almost all European countries would. So you can't say the Europeans are anti-war at all, though it would be fair to say that the Europeans are anti-American-unilateralism.

Bush said that he was "disappointed in France" and that he "doesn't understand" the French attitude impeding NATO from helping Turkey prepare to defend itself. Rummy said that the Weasels' attitude is "an error" and that we're all ready to fight and don't need them; their opposition "will not delay" plans for an attack, and the US and other allies will give Turkey all the protection that it needs. Powell said the Weasels were ignoring their duty toward Turkey. USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Post all called the Weasels a bunch of poopheads, and I bet they all got an earful of a leak from somebody like Paul Wolfowitz; the American press is getting mad at Paris, Brussels, and Berlin. Even Mary McGrory is for a war now. This all adds up to a full-blast diplomatic offensive aimed straight at the Weasels. Let's see if it brings them into line because time is running out. It may not because it's starting to look more and more like the Russians have sold out to the French and Germans, and that's added to their bravado. Chirac said, at the unveiling of yet another official declaration, this one with the Rooskies, "Nothing today justifies a war". Here at Iberian Notes we're sticking to our prediction of war before Feb. 18, and if the French don't think it's justified, I guess that'll be just too bad.

The PP government in Madrid has announced that it's beginning a domestic public relations campaign; the message will be that they are not enthusiastic about going to war but are interested in secure and stable peace, for which the neutralization of Saddam is necessary. Zapatero, the leader of the Socialist opposition, said, "The French and German proposals are a much more solid hope for peace and to disarm Saddam Hussein than the permanent warlike interests of the Bush Administration". He is worried because "Aznar is alone in his support for those who want a warlike attack and a war", so Aznar should change his position and align Spain with France and Germany. Finally, he said that the demonstrations called for February 15 were "a ray of hope for peace" because they will support "reasonable and effective proposals, directed by the United Nations and not by an Administration, no matter how powerful it is, like Mr. Bush's." He didn't enumerate any of those reasonable and effective proposals.

One thing about Spanish politics is that it involves a lot of posturing, even more so than politics in other places. In the States, at least some of a political campaign is centered on the candidates' voting records and publicly taken positions, and at least some more of it consists of the candidates unveiling plans for what they'll do if elected. Those plans, in America, are always specific. They say, "Here's where we'll get the money and here's exactly how we plan to spend it". How many times during political campaigns have you seen stories headlined "Bush's (or Clinton's, or Gore's) numbers don't add up"? I, at least, have seen plenty. You never see those stories in Spain. Candidates normally make huge general pronouncements like "We'll create 800,000 jobs and build 150,000 housing units" without ever bothering to explain how. I think this is taken as a sign of good intentions, not as a specific promise to actually do anything, since nobody ever challenges these outlandish promises. This is why Zapatero can get away with his argumentation on the war, which is simply not realistic. He's a blowhard safely taking an easy posture, against war and for peace; he's not looking at the options that Spain actually has on the table before it. Everyone, including he himself, knows that the position he is taking is already doomed to failure. But he's posturing appropriately and that's what counts.

We suppose we'd better make clear that Zapatero's position is that of most people in Spain on this issue. Only 45% of Spaniards are in favor of the war, and that's with a UN resolution. Most of them are knee-jerk anti-American on foreign policy--well, just plain anti-American. The Aznar government is sticking its neck out on this one, taking a generally unpopular position and suffering a lot of criticism. The Spanish movie-star brigade are making lots of "No War" noises. A bunch of asshole college kids, who are as a rule intolerably snotty when they get political, booed Josep Piqué, the Catalan PP leader and cabinet minister, at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. They shouted, "Piqué, fascist, you're the terrorist". (It rhymes in Spanish; it's a variant of an ETA slogan.) I used to teach English at the Pompeu; they're all rich kids, lazy bastards who think they don't really have to do any work and think they're superior to their teacher because he can't afford the designer clothes they wear. They're all majoring in some crap like labor relations or public relations.

(The Spanish students I liked best were the engineers and computer tech guys at the Polytechnic. They were very nice, all smart, hardworking, and clear-thinking. OK, maybe kind of geeky, but I tend to get along pretty well with geeks. For some reason. And they were studying English because they actually wanted to use the language.)

Well, the Barça, in its first game under new coach Radomir Antic, tied Athletic Bilbao 2-2 here in the Camp Nou. When Antic took over he said something like this to the team, "Look, you guys are in lousy physical condition, and you're all confused because you've been watching way too many tactical videos instead of working out. I'm going to play the guys who are the most experienced because we're under pressure to win, and we're especially going to be tough on defense, work the ball down the sides and center, and practice strategy plays off corners and free kicks since more than 50% of goals are scored on them. Forget all that crap Van Gaal told you and instead look for the counterattack every time you get the ball back. And I'm going to run you guys hard in practice until two days before a game."

Anyway, in the first half Barcelona played like that's what he'd told them and it was great. Antic put in a defense of Bonano in goal, and Reiziger, Puyol, De Boer, and Sorín as the back four. Xavi and Cocu played together as a double pivot, with Overmars out on the right and Mendieta on the left and Saviola and Kluivert up front. Sorín is a pretty good player, and Reiziger looks better when he's playing in his correct position. Overmars is looking better and better; he shredded Athletic's defense through the first half, centering to Saviola's head early for the first goal and then running away with the ball on a fast break, crossing up the goalie. They had several more chances and in general looked like a very good soccer team.

Then came the second half, and right off the bat Sorín committed a penalty that Ezquerro converted for Athletic, and just a few minutes later a confused melee in the area turned into the second Athletic goal. Barça lost its confidence and began to play like usual, and there was no hope of a comeback by about minute 70 Antic put in Riquelme for Mendieta, who had another lousy game; Riquelme wasn't any better. Kluivert muffed a couple of chances as usual. But at least the Barça got a point out of it. It's been a while since we got a point. Barcelona is now in fifteenth place with 24 points, and next week comes the big crosstown derby with resurgent Español, which has begun to play quite well under coach Javier Clemente; they pulled out a 0-0 tie with league leaders Real Sociedad in San Sebastián last night. A Barça loss would be extremely demoralizing and could knock them back as far as 18th place, in the relegation zone.

Most likely the top four teams in the League will go to the Champions' League next year, and the fifth and sixth will go to the UEFA Cup. In addition, the winner of the Spanish Cup gets a UEFA slot; should Depor, the only really good team still alive in the Spanish Cup, win it, then the second-place team goes to the UEFA. Barcelona, of course, got knocked out of the Spanish Cup by some third-division squad in the first round. Real Sociedad is still holding onto first place with 44 points and Real Madrid is right behind them with 42. Valencia has 39, Deportivo 36, and Celta and Betis 33 each. Barca is nine points out of a UEFA spot with seventeen games left to go. Theoretically they could make it into UEFA territory, but they'd have to go on a serious winning streak and hope somebody ahead of them chokes.

Nobody on either side of the Atlantic is taking seriously the Franco-German proposal of tripling the number of inspectors in Iraq and sending in UN peacekeeping troops to protect them. Powell and Rice put the kibosh on it right away, calling it "a distraction, not a solution." That is, they openly accused the French and Germans of being full of shit, of not putting forward a serious plan but wasting time. Meanwhile, the Axis of Weasels has convinced the Belgians, their equivalent of Italy in the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis, to put in the necessary objection in writing to the NATO military plan to aid Turkey. Says Louis Michel, Belgian foreign minister, "We're going to block the NATO action and use our right to veto." Go right ahead and rupture NATO, guys, and while you're at it wreck the UN too. It doesn't matter much to me, but if y'all force the Americans to act outside those organizations, they both will lose what little moral authority they still have.

How many Belgians does it take to change a lightbulb?
Only one, but first he has to kiss Schröder's ass and suck Chir...oh, well, never mind.

There's a rumor out that this week either the Americans or British will put up a resolution in the Security Council that would give Saddam a 48-hour ultimatum to stop being bolshy. The Vangua got a quick interview with John McCain in Munich; he's behind the Bush Administration on Iraq. He points out that as far as sending UN "blue helmets" there, look what happened in Srebrenica. He warns the French and Germans that they stand a good chance of being diplomatically isolated and that their attitude will damage European-US relations, though the fundamental relationship will continue. Russia's holding out for more and is threatening to line up with the Weasels on the Security Council; Putin's even bragging that he's got the Chinese behind them. I bet he doesn't. Screw the Russians.

The Vatican is rather fruitlessly trying to play international politics; they've sent all-purpose envoy, French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, to Baghdad as the pope's "special agent" with a message for Saddam. Etchegaray is one of the "peace and justice" elements in the Vatican hierarchy. It's Old Latin Europe that's running the Catholic Church, folks, just like it's a bunch of academic left moral cowards running the mainstream US Protestant denominations.

Jordi Pujol is publicly criticizing his own Convergence and Union party for joining the February 15 demonstration against the war in Iraq. Oh, come on, as if Pujol didn't personally approve everything important his party does. This is just a way to get themselves on both sides of the issue: they'll look both moral for being against the war, but smart and realistic for understanding that the national interest implies supporting the United States. That's the spin they'll try to put on it, anyway. Pujol also said that his biggest regret is having opposed the 1986 referendum on whether Spain should be in NATO, which is an elegant way of defusing an issue of inconsistency that the Socialists would have loved to fling in his face.

Well, it's time for the annual State of the Blog address. That's right, Inside Europe: Iberian Notes had its first birthday on February 8. We started off on our old, unlamented Homestead site on Feb. 8, 2002, and switched over to Blogger at the beginning of November. Patrick Crozier of Transport Blog helped us with the technical details of getting the new site set up. We had around 6700 page views in December and about 8200 in January, giving us around 59,000 page views on the two sites through January 31.

We've been blogrolled by such heavy hitters as InstaPundit and Little Green Footballs, as well as by many other quality blogs, including (just a few) Dr. Weevil, Samizdata, Silflay Hraka, Ibidem, Cinderella Bloggerfeller, Craig Schamp, Travelling Shoes, and Buscaraons. We're so cool that Andrew Sullivan linked to us once. We also think we've been partially influential in the founding of several other European-American blogs, which we're proud of.

Enough patting ourselves on the back. What does the future hold for Iberian Notes? First, a rededication to discussing all things Spanish. We've been talking about the war almost exclusively for the past couple of weeks; we've been trying to fill you in on Spanish government actions and popular attitudes, but we've been stuck on that subject for a while. I guess that's the main thing people are thinking about now. Second, no attempts to change style or attitude. I think my stuff works best when it's just me talking instead of when I put on airs, so I'm just going to be myself and not worry about whether I'm too extremist (Me? Too extremist? You wanna see extremist, buddy, I can show you extremist) or too impolite or too opinionated. Third, I'm afraid, no Antonio for the foreseeable future. He's taking care of his mom. I saw him last week and I'll see him tomorrow, and some of the things I've written are things I discussed with him, but he'll contribute again when he's good and ready and not busy or stressed. Fourth, I have no plans to stop blogging anytime soon.

Here's a limerick we wrote for our first month's commemoration:

As bloggers we now have a chance
To go public with all of our rants
The blog doesn't feed us
The people don't read us
But at least we can make fun of France.

The Vanguardia is making a very big deal about the Pope's antiwar stance. Their lead editorial, however, points out, "What would have happened if the English and the French had listened to Pius XII and not declared war on Hitler?" Good question, that. Anyway, Tareq Aziz, of all people steeped in sin, Saddam's Ribbentrop, gets to visit the Pope next Friday. Assuming he's still alive. Aziz, by the way, is a Christian. Or claims to be one. "Member of the Christian, as opposed to Muslim, socioethnic group" might be the best description of Mr. Aziz. Let's see if the Pope can get him to see the error of his ways. Bet it don't take.

Gearhead and Jockitch are still being bolshy and Rumsfeld sentenced, "War is the last recourse, but we've tried diplomacy, sanctions, control of the no-fly zones in Iraq, and they didn't work." He also directly warned Paris and Berlin that they run the risk of isolation. The Vangua says we have 110,000 troops in the area, and the British have 1200 in the area and more than 40,000 more, including their Ark Royal aircraft carrier group, on the way. The Aussies have two carrier groups there, the Darwin and the Anzac, and 500 ground troops. The Bulgarians and Czechs are sending special bacteriological clean-up teams. We Americans damn well had better be grateful to our allies when this is all over. Confusingly, the French will commit a squadron of 40 transport planes should they line up with the rest of the alliance. Screw the French. If they line up with us it won't be because they want to, it'll be because they were too chicken not to.

No real news on the ETA killing. The town, Andoain, where the killing happened, is evidently the residence of a whole bunch of goddamn terrorist sympathizers and wannabes. A local journalist, José Luis López de Lacalle, another Socialist--the just-murdered police chief, Pagazaurtundua, held a Party card and was also a member of the UGT, the Socialist union, as well as an anti-ETA activist, a member of ¡Basta Ya! (Enough Already!)--was murdered in May 2000, and the Socialists on the City Council have had their houses attacked and their cars torched. Now, I'm no Socialist-lover, but the Socialists have enough backbone to stand up to ETA. It takes a pair of brass balls to be a Socialist activist or open sympathizer in the Basque Country, because they are targets, even Council members in tiny towns. You have to give them credit for that. Their official statement reads, "The Basque Country is the only place in Europe where people are still killed because of ideas, where ideological cleansing, and the physical elimination of all those who dare to raise their voices to denounce the situation in which we live, takes place." That's the way to talk. I wish I had that kind of guts. I really hate the ETA.

The Spanish government is leaking to the domestic press that Aznar is taking his pro-US position because he sees the US as looking to dominate the Middle East and he believes that it's smart to be on the winning side, that it's in Spain's national interest; that allying with America will bring Spain more importance in the world; and that America will owe Spain a favor should Spain ever need one. Aznar doesn't trust his European "friends", continues the leak, as he remembers French backing for Morocco in the Isla Perejíl mini-crisis during last summer. The Government considers it important to pacify public opinion, and is really hoping for a second UN resolution declaring open season on Iraq; if so, the governing PP will look like they were right all along and the Socialists will look dumb. This leak obviously comes either from Aznar personally or from somebody very high-up--Rodrigo Rato is a pretty smooth politician, for example--and is a preparation for winning back popular support on the issue of the war. It makes Aznar look like a smart guy, pulling strings to get benefits for Spain, being a realist, looking out for the national interest, and making the best deal he can get. That's an spin people around here will love--Aznar is so smart that he's outwitted the Yanquies! I hope it works, and I'm sure that it is at least partly true. The other part is Aznar's genuine ideological alignment with the Bush Administration. And a third part is probably Aznar's sheer joy at doing anything that makes the Socialists look dumb--admittedly, the Socialists aren't exactly first division competition, but he takes the pleasure out of it that he can. That's why I like the guy. He enjoys baiting Socialists.

Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, from the movie-stars-against-the-war people, is complaining that the government has censored her. Apparently, what they did was criticize her and her pals for turning the Goya movie awards show into a circus. That, you see, is censorship, at least in Aitana's Garofalo-sized brain. Perhaps we could use Garofalos as a standard of measurement for intelligence. You know, "Oh, Almodóvar's no dummy, though his movies are kind of absurd. He's at least six or seven Garofalos smart, though he's only about five feet tall." Aitana Sánchez-Gijón is about half a Garofalo smart or so. Penélope Cruz is at least two Garofalos smart, since she figured out that by covering up for Tom Cruise she could get Hollywood rich-and-famous. However, she's not smart enough to have checked with Tom about their official position on the war on Iraq, since he says he's for it and he's a big fan of Bush, while she showed up with a "No War!" sticker on her aesthetically-pleasing right boob at the Goya Awards. Oh, gee, maybe she got confused and thought Tom was saying "Yes" when he was really saying "Chess", his planned new musical foray onto the Broadway stage. Her English still isn't too good. Antonio Banderas is only about a Garofalo-and-a-half smart, since he made it over to America just fine, shacked up with the obligatory fading starlet, but then chose only absolutely horrendous roles in bomb movies. If you're still reading it can be plausibly argued either that your intelligence is at least fifteen or so Garofalos, because you are capable of absorbing my complex thought, or that your intelligence is about a fifteenth of a Garofalo, because you don't comprehend that my thought is really rather more, say, banal, than complex.

This guy is about a quarter of a Garofalo smart. He's Steve Nash, Canadian point guard for the Dallas Mavericks. He said that the war on Iraq would "be a serious mistake and would have incredible consequences, not only in the Middle East but also in the US. In the American Constitution it says that war can only be used in case of necessity or self-defense." Well, Steevo, first, I checked the Constitution and it says no such thing. Second, it can easily be argued that this is a case of both necessity and self-defense, anyway. And third, Steevo, you're a pro athlete. In Dallas. They're going to hang your Canadian ass off one of those basketball goals, Steevo. You better start running now.

You know you're an Old European...

if you see no contradiction between your Socialist Party card and your new BMW.
if you put on high heels and a skirt to go down to the corner and buy bread.
if there's a strange receptacle nobody uses in your bathroom.
if you call a burger and fries steak haché avec pommes frites and then slather it with mayonnaise and sugary ketchup.
if you're not racist. Except for gypsies. And Arabs. And Turks. And Jews.
if you own black bikini underwear. And you're a man.
if you wear cologne because you shower every third day.
if, when visiting New York, you go on a bus tour of Harlem and then tell everyone back home about how authentic it was.
if you complain about "American health puritanism" when they ban smoking in the subway.
if you believe in multiculturalism and diversity except in your own arrondissement, which simply wouldn't do.
if you think drinking Orangina rather than Coke is somehow a protest against imperialism.
if you cross the street rather than pass in front of a McDonald's just so nobody will think you're entering or leaving.
if you brag about your country's millenarian artistic treasures, none of which you have ever seen.
if you make a big deal about rooting for a Third World team in the World Cup.
if dogs are welcome in the local café, bistro, or estaminet, but Arabs aren't.
if you own a T-shirt that says, "100% AMERICAN BOYS BASBALL FINEST QALITY PRODUCT."
if you place your cell phone on the table beside your silverware when you sit down in a restaurant.
if you're proud of your country's immensely long history but can't name more than three of its kings or queens.
if you've ever discussed the postmodern metasthesis of the semiotics of bike racing.
if you actually like anise liqueur, especially at five o'clock in the morning before mucking out the pig shed.
if you drive your rattletrap Renault eighty miles an hour down one-lane roads but won't visit the US because it's "dangerous".
if you spent a week visiting Tuzla in '94 and have used it to pick up on impressionable chicks ever since.
if you claim that you were in Paris in May '68, even if you were minus three years old.
if all your clothes are black. Or gray.
if you actually like tripe, paté, and blood sausage--for breakfast.
if you call getting hammered in the same bar every night "pub culture".
if you think that war is historically unjust unless your country won, in which case it's hard to see how they could have done anything else.
if you're still giving America crap about Vietnam when your country started the whole thing.
if you ever thought David Hasselhoff was a big star, or if you still think Pamela Anderson is one.
if you don't put tomato sauce on pizza, but do put fried eggs on top.
if you're still a virgin at twenty-three because you live with your parents and don't have a car.
if you pretend to enjoy street exhibitions of people wearing ugly old-fashioned clothes hopping around in an ungainly manner.
if you think Johnny Hallyday plays good rock'n'roll.
if you don't know how to swim.
if you spent two thousand bucks for breast / hair implants but won't spend two hundred bucks to get your teeth fixed.
if you don't see what's tasteless about painting yourself up in blackface.

For years I have been nagged by this doubt. I attended both J.J. Pearce High School in Richardson, Texas, and Shawnee Mission South High School in Overland Park, Kansas. At Pearce, members of the school band were called "B.Q.s", which was the abbreviation for "Band Queers", while at South they were called "B.F.s", which stood for "Band Fags". Which usage is correct? Or is this a question of regional dialectology?

Breaking News

ETA has killed again. A gunman murdered the chief of the municipal police in Andoain, near San Sebastián. The victim, Joseba Pagazaurtundia, was shot three times this morning in a café. Andoain is governed by a Batasuna mayor; Batasuna or whatever it's calling itself now is the political arm of ETA. The town has the reputation of being a refuge for etarras and such undesirables, and it is one of the centers of the kale borroka, vandalism and street-fighting carried out by pro-ETA youth gangs. They bravely held a demonstration in Andoain this afternoon with the slogan "ETA ez--ETA no." Not nearly enough people showed up and some of those who did looked a bit scared, as if they were in enemy territory. They had an anti-ETA demo at one of the universities and some people showed up in ski-masks. The gunman is thought to be a member of a refounded commando Donosti, Donostia cell. These cells have had the pattern, recently, of pulling off a couple of jobs before being caught within about two weeks. The police chief's murder was the first of a string of two or three that we will see before these scumballs get busted or, hopefully, killed. "Basque Homeland and Liberty", my ass.

I really hate the ETA.

Well, the Russians are flip-flopping again on the war after a phone conference between Chirac and Putin. I vote we've made enough concessions to Russia and that they make up their minds whether they're in or they're out. As for Chirac, he's threatening to use France's veto. If he does so, he's breaking up the alliance as far as I'm concerned. Allies and friends do not have to fanatically follow every American whim. They may abstain, as Britain did in Vietnam, or even verbally oppose, as most European countries did in Nam, but they can't impede, as a French (or Russian) Security Council veto would do. That would be the action of an unfriendly state. Looks like Putin's going to get some more persuading, though, since Monday he's going to Germany and France in another round of the diplomatic whirl.

The Germans have received Donald Rumsfeld "coldly" in Munich, where Rumsfeld is now after meeting with Berlusconi in Italy, where he said, "Diplomacy has failed...Not reacting now would have much more serious and devastating consequences than doing so." This, combined with Bush's "The game is over", the mobilizing of the 101st Airborne, and the embarking of the Kitty Hawk carrier group for the Indian Ocean, make me think the war is on and that it will begin soon, within ten days, before Feb. 18. The German defense minister is mad, since Rumsfeld compared Germany with Cuba and Libya in his list of countries that reject US military action (gee, I thought a leftist would be pleased to be compared with Fidel Castro). He's promised that he'll "ask for explanations". Sounds to me like he's bragging that he's going to call Rumsfeld on the carpet. If I were him I'd watch it, because Rummy is likely to chew him up and spit him out.

Gearhead Schröder and Jockitch Fischer have played their hand and they've got a pair of deuces. Gearhead has solemnly sworn that he will not vote yes on a second Security Council resolution. This means he can either abstain, which wouldn't be a horribly unfriendly act and is probably Germany's best move now, or vote no, which would put Germany on the double-secret probation shit list and create a rift that Schröder's successor will have some trouble patching over.

Jockitch Fischer visited the Pope and his minions and they had a nice little talk about how the war is bad. The Pope, poor old man--well, he's had a long, fulfilling life in the service of humanity, and I respect him and his moral status though I disagree with him on many things. He's done a lot more to further peace in the world than anyone else who's won the Nobel Peace Prize lately--is functionally a vegetable. The people who seem to be running things in the Vatican are Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano, Foreign Minister Jean-Louis Tauran, and spokesman and press secretary Joaquín Navarro-Valls, an Italian, a Frenchman, and a Spaniard, Latin Europeans all. Is there anything more Old Europe than the Catholic Church? Latin Europeans are probably about one-sixth of Catholics worldwide, but they certainly exercise a disproportionate influence over the Church, which badly needs a strong dose of democratization.

Giscard "d'Estaing" is accusing the Gang of Eight of violating the Treaty of Maastricht by a) not abstaining from actions which contravene EU foreign policy and b) not coordinating their actions within other international organizations. So if Britain or France or Italy, or the Eastern European countries after they join the Union, want to exercise their own foreign policy without having to submit to the writ of Brussels--well, they can't, says Giscard. Hey, all you Brits out there, what do you think of this? You like the idea that the Eurocrats can tell you how to behave toward other countries or when you can use your army--would they have let you take back the Falklands if it had been their decision?--or vote however you want in the UN and in NATO? Do you want to give Brussels and Paris and Berlin a veto over what you can do? I thought we fought two world wars and the Cold War in the last century mostly because neither you nor we thought that would be a good idea, and I don't know how many times you fought to stay outside the orbit of Paris during the whole last millenium. Now if that's what you want to do, take orders from Brussels and Paris and Berlin, that's fine, it's your decision, but that's not what I would want if I were you.

It makes sense for Spain to follow EU dictates because a) they give us a lot of money and b) an active foreign policy is not one of the most productive ways Spain could spend its energies. Economic development is still so important here that it would be presuming above our station if we tried to throw our weight around. You wouldn't have seen Aznar signing up with the US-led alliance if at least Britain hadn't been with him; Spain is just not strong enough to oppose the four biggest European powers all by itself.

The big news in the Vanguardia today is Joan Gaspart's announced resignation as president of FC Barcelona. That's the only thing they were talking about this morning down at the café. As you know, the Barça (possibly excepting La Caixa, the huge savings bank) is the most important civic institution in Barcelona, with at least 100,000 dues-paying members. Several important members of the board of directors, who are also influential citizens, have resigned because of their displeasure with the fortunes of the club, and Gaspart was under tremendous pressure, even from the governing Convergence and Union Catalan nationalist party. Threatened by a possible vote of no confidence, he chucked it up yesterday and announced that he's resigning as of March 1. Enric Reyna will take over as temporary president of the club until new elections are held after the football season.

Since Gaspart took over at the beginning of the 2000-2001 season, Barça has finished fourth twice and is currently in fifteenth place in the League, has been knocked out of the Cup in the first round by second-division teams twice, and has, at least, made it to the semifinals in the Champions' League twice in a row. They are, for some ungodly reason, probably because they've played only mediocre teams except AS Roma and Newcastle, undefeated and untied in this year's Champions' League. This is inexplicable. Because they suck.

First, figure that a real star player should cost €20 million and up. Also figure that if you can sign young promises for a fraction of that cash, a couple of million or so, you're betting that one or two of them will mature into good players. Both approaches are justifiable and a wise team does both things. So, anyway, Gaspart has purchased the following players for the following amount of money (figure a euro is about a dollar): 2000-01 Overmars €39.6 million, Gerard €21.6m, Alfonso €14.8m, Petit €12.6 m. Alfonso and Petit are no longer with the team, Gerard sits on the bench, and Overmars is playing like someone who cost €3.96 rather than €39.6 million. In 2001-02 he bought Saviola for €29.8m, Geovanni for €20.6m, Christianval for €16.8m, Rochemback for €14.6m, Andersson for €8m, and the loan of Coco for €2.4m. Coco and Geovanni are already gone, Andersson and Christianval have barely played because of injuries, and Saviola and Rochemback have been disappointing so far. They ran out of money this year and only bought Riquelme for €11.5m and the loan of Sorín for €0.6m. Riquelme has been disappointing and Sorín looks like a competent, journeyman defender and not a bad deal. That's a total of 194.9 million euros, almost all pissed away. For less than that amount of money Madrid bought Zidane, Figo, and Ronaldo. Gaspart's management of the team is the most incompetent I have ever seen, even worse than the Kansas City Royals, and the Royals have the excuse that they don't have any money to spend and never did. Gaspart has got the Barça in a hole they won't get out of for at least two years while they rebuild from the youth squad and hope that at least one of these expensive guys turns it around and starts playing like he's worth the money they spent on him.

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.

This Dallas "hard country" station, KHYI "The Range", is pretty cool. It plays real redneck country stuff, and real rednecks listen to it; you can tell by all the people who call in. I highly recommend it. As the DJ says, "If you want your country music to sound like the Bee Gees, just move on down the dial". For you foreigners, it might be an interesting experience to tune in. This is l'Amerique profonde here. Another station I like a lot is Bluegrass Country Dot Org. They're a little more oriented toward the NPR listener than the Evan Williams-chugging folks in the trailer park, in the sense that they don't pay any attention to the hits (are there bluegrass hit songs?); they record eight or nine bluegrass shows from different stations around the world and then play them back. Each show is repeated several times during the week.

I know I sound like a broken record, but I am thoroughly convinced of the evil of the conspiracy theory and its destructive effect both on the leaders and the general public of a society. Look at the Terror during the French Revolution, in which faction after faction was sent to the guillotine, accused of treason. Or the stab in the back theory of why Germany lost the Great War, which combined with always latent European anti-Semitism (itself, of course, the most murderous conspiracy theory of all time) added up to produce the Third Reich, World War II, and the Holocaust. Or, closer to home, the Communist accusation that the POUM and the Anarchists were conspiring with Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Or such disgraceful episodes in American history as the Catholic-bashing of the pre-Civil War era, the Red Scare of 1919, and the McCarthy smear campaign of the early Fifties.

Anyway, through the Internet Public Library I found a book called The Day of the Confederacy: A Chronicle of the Embattled South by one Nathaniel Wright Stephenson. It's about the internal political and economic history of the Confederacy and is highly interesting, at least to me. So, in 1864 it's obvious that the South is going to lose because the North has bigger and better-supplied armies. Jeff Davis, who had authoritarian tendencies and a number of blind spots, blamed...you guessed it...

Davis urged Congress to revive the statute
permitting martial law and the suspension of the writ of habeas
corpus. The President told Congress that in parts of the
Confederacy "public meetings have been held, in some of which a
treasonable design is masked by a pretense of devotion of state
sovereignty, and in others is openly avowed...a strong
suspicion is entertained that secret leagues and associations are
being formed. In certain localities men of no mean position do
not hesitate to avow their disloyalty and hostility to our cause,
and their advocacy of peace on the terms of submission and the
abolition of slavery."

This suspicion on the part of the Confederate Government that it
was being opposed by organized secret societies takes us back to
debatable land and to the previous year. The Bureau of
Conscription submitted to the Secretary of War a report from its
Alabama branch relative to "a sworn secret organization known to
exist and believed to have for its object the encouragement of
desertion, the protection of deserters from arrest, resistance to
conscription, and perhaps other designs of a still more dangerous
character." To the operations of this insidious foe were
attributed the shifting of the vote in the Alabama elections, the
defeat of certain candidates favored by the Government, and the
return in their stead of new men "not publicly known." The
suspicions of the Government were destined to further
verification in the course of 1864 by the unearthing of a
treasonable secret society in southwestern Virginia, the members
of which were "bound to each other for the prosecution of their
nefarious designs by the most solemn oaths. They were under
obligation to encourage desertions from the army, and to pass and
harbor all deserters, escaped prisoners, or spies; to give
information to the enemy of the movements of our troops, of
exposed or weakened positions, of inviting opportunities of
attack, and to guide and assist the enemy either in advance or
retreat." This society bore the grandiloquent name "Heroes of
America" and had extended its operations into Tennessee and North
Carolina.

In the course of the year further evidence was collected which
satisfied the secret service of the existence of a mysterious and
nameless society which had ramifications throughout Tennessee,
Alabama, and Georgia. A detective who joined this "Peace
Society," as it was called, for the purpose of betraying its
secrets, had marvelous tales to tell of confidential information
given to him by members, of how Missionary Ridge had been lost
and Vicksburg had surrendered through the machinations of this
society.*

* What classes were represented in these organizations it is
difficult if not impossible to determine. They seem to have been
involved in the singular "peace movement" which is yet to be
considered. This fact gives a possible clue to the problem of
their membership. A suspiciously large number of the "peace" men
were original anti-secessionists, and though many, perhaps most,
of these who opposed secession became loyal servants of the
Confederacy, historians may have jumped too quickly to the
assumption that the sincerity of all of these men was above
reproach.

The general Spanish reaction to Colin Powell's performance at the UN has been something along the lines of: they have pretty good evidence of Iraq's weapons programs and signs that point to a Saddam-Al Qaeda connection. However, none of this is irrefutable proof. The Spanish government says it is. All the other political parties disagree with them.

On the Security Council it looks like the US, UK, Spain, and Bulgaria want action now and everybody else wants to give the inspectors more time. I do not think giving the inspectors more time is going to turn up anything new and I think Powell's presentation demonstrated sufficiently that Saddam Hussein deserves to be overthrown, as if anybody doubted it.

They had a Parliamentary debate on the war yesterday at the Congreso de los Diputados in Madrid. José María Aznar defended his current course of strong support for the Alliance. Zapatero, the Socialist leader in Parliament and probable 2004 candidate, came out yesterday against an attack on Iraq even if there's a second Security Council resolution. He said, "War without proof would be disproportionate and unjust." Said Llamazares of the United Left, "This war is illegitimate and unjust." Anasagasti of the PNV said "The war is an imperative of the economic growth of the United States." Puigcercós of the Republican Left said, "The Government has broken up European consensus," and Saura of Initiative said, "Don't trade blood for oil." All of these people are going to look extremely stupid after the war when the evidence of Saddam's weapons programs and links to terrorism all comes out, not to mention the horrific violations of human rights. As I've said before, Saddam has done to death tens of thousands of innocent people in the basement cells of Baghdad and hundreds of thousands more on battlefields and in areas of repression since he effectively took power in 1969. When it's all thrown in people's faces at once the Belsen effect will make everyone forget all about whether one UN resolution or two was necessary to overthrow the murderous son-of-a-bitch, and those who said the war was unjust will have some serious explaining to do.

Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and Intermón-Oxfam have shown their real colors. Gee, I thought they were supposed to, respectively, give health care to poor people, work to free political prisoners (USA = 0, Iraq = thousands, by the way), lie about the environment, and feed hungry people, respectively. Well, they're all working agianst the war. They've jointly set up a website, www.antelaguerraactua.org, should you want to check it out. I don't, personally, so there's no link, but you can look at it if you want. None of those people are getting any of my money ever again, and I gave just a little to Doctors Without Borders at Christmas. They will never see one more duro of my cash. I don't care whether they do good work or not, which Oxfam and DWB are at least occasionally known to do; Amnesty and Greenpeace are just assholes, in my opinion. Do the people who support these supposedly humanitarian organizations understand that they have stridently leftist and anti-American political agendas, that they're the same old pinkos dressed up in different costumes?

Here's another side of the story in Spanish: this is the committee of artists or whatever organized against an Allied attack on Iraq. I'm not going to translate what they say since it's the same load of Stalinist bullshit that you'd expect. What is fascinating, though, is their deep and bitter hate for the United States and everything about it.

These people are among those calling for a large antiwar demonstration for February 15 in Madrid and Barcelona. Mainstream political groups like the Socialist Party, the UGT (Socialist labor union), and even Convergence and Union are co-sponsors of this event, along with rather more leftist groups like Initiative for Catalonia and the Republican Left, and then the hard-core Communists in CCOO, the Communist labor union, the CGT, the Trotskyist labor union, the Greens, and the Stalinist United and Alternative Left. ATTAC is a sponsor, as are "La Torna", the squatters' headquarters in Gràcia, and such folks as the Antimilitarist Assembly of Catalonia and the Collective for an Alternative Left. Then, somehow, the Gracia Fiesta Commission has wound up as one of the sponsors. I thought they were in charge of shaking down shopkeepers to pay for hanging up bunting and hiring disco DJs and gadinga-dinga bands.

Then you might check out this organization called "En lluita" (In Struggle), which may not consist of more than one local wacko, but is another of the sponsors. One of their articles (here, in poorly spelled Catalan) consists of a justification and apology for violent terrorism. The guy who wrote it was in the slam, presumably for blowing something up. Ironically, these wannabe murderers are sponsoring a demonstration for peace. Or there are a bunch of anarchoindependentista wankers called Batzac who are also sponsoring the big peace march; they justify ETA terrorism as part of their incredibly boring declaration of Bakuninista principles. For the record, here's the link, but please don't read it unless you want to become seriously comatose and can't get any good pills.

Want more sides of the story? Here's the Iraqi news agency's home page featuring a spiffy official biography of Saddam Hussein, which includes this sentence in which every word is a lie except for "the", "and", and "on".

(Saddam) Led the Iraqi people an army wisely and bravely against the aggression initiated and launched against Iraq by Khomeini' s regime on September 4, 1980, which ended in Iraq 's great victory on August 8, 1988.

Or check out this one, which manages to avoid using the word "Kuwait".

Led his country in confrontation the aggression launched by 33 countries led by US. which waged war against Iraq, the Iraqis' confrontation of which is called by Arabs and Iraqis as the Battle of Battles (Um Al-Ma' arik) , where Iraq stood fast against the invasion, maintaining its sovereignty and political system.

We've recently been accused of peddling propaganda here at Iberian Notes. We've been told that we're not paying enough attention to all sides of the story. You want all sides of the story? Check out the North Koreans' side of the story. Here's the best article up today. Note the sophisticated argumentation.

U.S. imperialists' ambition to dominate Korea under fire

Pyongyang, February 5 (KCNA) -- The U.S. imperialists should drop their moves to stifle the DPRK by force of arms, mindful that their bid is a daydream that can not be realized any time, says Rodong Sinmun today in a signed article. It goes on:
It is by the U.S. that the DPRK was compelled to withdraw from the NPT.
Since the emergence of the Bush administration, the U.S. imperialists have been more frenzied in the moves to stifle the DPRK. They designated it as part of an "axis of evil" and a target of preemptive nuclear attacks. Recently they clamoured for "tailored containment" and "military sanctions" upon the DPRK under the pretext of the "nuclear issue."
But it is a big miscalculation to think that the DPRK may be frightened by some military threat or pressure, "blockade" or "sanctions."
The U.S. imperialists should not run amuck, mindful of who is their opponent.
The DPRK Government's decision to withdraw from the NPT is revelation of the firm faith and will of its army and people to smash the U.S. imperialists' anti-DPRK campaign with the toughest stance and safeguard the sovereignty and security of the country.
We have invincible might enough to defeat any formidable enemy who encroaches upon our sovereignty and security.

You'll note that farther down the page we are informed that North Korean scientists have developed new antiseptics and paints. "Well, we haven't had anything to eat for two years except rice and bugs, but we've got a new antiseptic to treat the famine boils that are breaking out all over our bodies! Thank you, Dear Leader!"

Just came across this sort of by accident through Fox News. It's a White House document called "What Does Disarmament Look Like?" It's basically a grievance list; the White House first says what real disarmament looks like, using South Africa, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan as examples, and then shows how Saddam's behavior contrasts with honest disarmament. It's clear, concise, and straightforward, and calls to mind images of sinister Saddam goons sneaking around in the middle of the night hiding barrels of nerve gas under the banks of the Euphrates. Check it out if you haven't seen it yet. It's a PDF file.

I found the Alliance of Anti-Imperialist Intellectuals and their manifesto, which you can find here translated by Google to English. I couldn't be bothered to translate this load of wank correctly, sorry, but it's actually rather better in the Google version than I could ever do. The signers are the same old bunch of jokers, but some have oddly poetic names; how about Laura Dwells Hair of Dawn? Or Loving Irene? That could be a movie title. Mountain Juana must be a big eater. Cross García Maple sounds like a Mexican Catholic brand of syrup. We've got animals too, including Francisco Fernández Ox and Quintín Goatherd. And some of the signers are obviously violent folks; what is Striking Rosary doing signing peacenik manifestoes? Or how about To Pound Bardem, which actually sounds like a good idea. I'd sure like to pound on that whole family. The most inappropriate name, though, is Juan Kills Anaya. Why isn't he in jail instead of signing crap like this? Then, of course, there is the ineffable Car It Frabetti. And the guy we like the best, though he seems to be missing an eye, is Juan Francisco Dry Martin. The perfect way to wind down after a long day demonstrating against like war and stuff.

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.