Well, not quite love, but it’s closest capitalist pseudo-substitute. According to this Reuters report, a Nevada brothel has come up with a truly unusual marketing ploy.
It is offering 50 “free rides” to US military personnel with Iraq exposure – “‘We want to feel patriotic and feel we are doing something for our servicemen,’ [a brothel representative] said. ‘If we owned a Dairy Queen we would be giving away free ice cream…'”
OK, I don’t think it’s the complete Wolfowitz. But Markus of Dormouse Dreaming has assembled an impressive number of links dealing with the US Deputy Secretary of Defense’s recent “Vanity Fair” interview.
Deutsche Welle has an article about last Saturday’s call for a European Political Core with a true demos by a number of European intellectuals. I have only read the Habermas bit so far and I think it’s little confusing, and over-the-top, albeit simply restating “the obvious” in dramatic terms. More about Habermas and his critics later.
Thinking of problematic arguments, I remembered this interview with Stanford Prof. Steven Weber (and former colleague of Condi Rice) that he gave the Stanford Alumni newsletter last Autumn. Memorable quotes:
“I think the Washington elite underestimates the intelligence and maturity of the American public. I feel very strongly about this. President Bush refers to Osama bin Laden as ‘the evil one,’ and talks about something as apocalyptic as an ‘axis of evil.’ There is a tendency to put things in black and white, and I think the reason people in Washington do this is because they believe it’s an effective political strategy. But I think it’s infantilizing the American public.”
– and –
“I would guess that the mainstream of American international relations scholars, basing this on my e-mail traffic, is almost entirely opposed to an invasion of Iraq. I’d say 95 percent opposed. … It’s because it’s easier for people who are not in decision-making positions to be against high-risk strategies than to be in favor of them. It’s very easy to point out the five things that could go wrong.”
William Safire, the hawkish NY Times columnist, believes he has to justify the US administration’s decision to sell the war with arguments – WMD, Al Quaeda – that were politically useful, albeit factually questionable, if only because he was one of their prime salespersons. Boy is Wolfowitz having fun these days ;-).
Last week Condoleeza Rice rethorically asked how “France [among others] could think that American power is more dangerous than Iraq”. Well, being the brilliant international relations scholar that she was/is, she clearly knew the answer…
Now Thomas Friedman attempts to answer her question for the wider public – the readership of the NY Times, more precisely – with “A Theory Of Everything”. More about that later.
It is plainly embarrassing to see how most journalists are reporting the relationship of GWB and Gerhard Schroeder in an “oh-my-God-George-W-Bush-still-does-not-love-
his-prodigal-son” kind of way.
Tony Blair is going to face more criticism than the American administration in light of recent “revelations” regarding the “real” reasons for war in Iraq. The Guardian has some of it. Clare Short’s critical activism is certainly understandale given her performance in recent months but it’s hard to believe that she believes that Blair is part of a conspiracy against the British government.
I can very well imagine that Blair secretly agreed with Bush to go to war – but if so, I think that he did so precisely because he believed the British would be needed as a constraint of US power. Ah, the old Churchillian “Jr. Partner”-fallacy… happens again and again.
Then this could be a nice gift to your special someone. Or just the beginning of your very own navy.
Maybe you could even get a used Tomcat in addition if you can pay in cash…
