Sunday, March 30, 2003

Here's a piece from The Wall Street Journal's editorial page by Ana Palacio, Spain's foreign minister. It's an eminently respectable article that doesn't say anything particularly new but pretty well sums up the official position of the Spanish government, which, y'all should remember, has stuck its neck out big-time for the United States, democracy, and just plain decency and against Saddam and the international rogue states and terrorists.

I don't feel like translating or commenting on anything from the Vanguardia over the last couple of days. You're reading it all in America: the Yanks' and Brits' military plans have failed, the Allies are massacring the Iraqi civilians, Israel is the main beneficiary of the war, there's a moral equivalence between Bush and Saddam, the arms manufacturers are the ones behind the war, and for the real truth you need to read Robert Fisk and the Vangua's Fiskimitator, Tomás Alcoverro, as they tell you how the streets of Baghdad are strewn with the dying bodies of Iraqi babies.

I remind all Americans that Catalonia, despite its charms, is the most anti-American place in Europe. It's not merely that the press and popular conversation is anti-American; it's that there are about three pro-American voices who are not getting heard these days. Everybody's anti. Nobody's pro. Even in France there are a good few pro-American voices, not to mention in Germany. Remember this when planning foreign travel. They're nice people, the Catalans, and I love them dearly, but they hate the United States. Not much question of that. So it's your decision whether you want to give them any of your money or not.

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