Re: [A-List] Britain/US split: Iraq, Palestine

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Douglas Hurd:

".....The idea that in Iraq an American
general, like Douglas Macarthur in Japan in 1945, could invent and impose
new democratic institutions is a classic example of the danger of false
comparisons. The Japanese were shocked into total submission by the atom
bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki....."
(snip)

The same nasty parallel occurred to me.
Bob

-----

It's interesting how so many senior Conservatives (like, I suppose, senior
Republicans in the US) have come forward to express concern, doubt and even
opposition to current developments. Of course these guys belong to the
generation that largely put in place the present international architecture,
and so maybe feel some sort of proprietorship over what their offspring are
threatening to smash to smithereens. Funny how many of them end up in
private equity (e.g. Carlyle Group, where John Major resides), with which
Hawkpoint, Douglas's current employer, has "strong relationships."

Douglas has been a persistent "voice of reason" in the pages of the
Financial Times, where his authority as a former foreign secretary is
invoked. However, upon leaving that office he went into business with
National Westminster bank, cutting deals with the regime of Slobodan
Milosevic -- something which Tony and friends like to point out whenever
they wish remind people of just how awful the Conservatives were. Never mind
Tony's deals with Suharto and the like.

Douglas is a master of uttering the unutterable in as circumlocutory a way
as possible. For the above, read: "the Americans surely can't be serious
about using nuclear weapons in Iraq, can they?" And even then, he's right to
point out a key difference between Japan in 1945 and the Middle East now --
unlike the Japanese then, the Arabs have had long enough to become
acclimatised to systematic degradation and subjugation, and have noticed
that relatively tiny (as in "asymmetric warfare") responses to this can
wreak havoc within the imperialist bloc. In other words, unlike the Japanese
who caved in finally, the Arabs are more likely to break out, finally.

Douglas works for Hawkpoint Partners, a corporate financial advisory service
with offices in London and Paris and additional operations in Germany  and
Spain (partnering Socios Financieros). The latter two developments are part
of what Hawkpoint calls its Continental Europe development strategy,
providing some perspective on "Lord" Hurd's cautionary notes. This is a part
of the fraction of capital eagerly urging UK entry into the eurozone and
supporting the development of a single EU political identity (cf. Pehr
Gyllenhammar's European Financial Services Roundtable).

Michael Keaney