Pligget

Pligget
Little to say for myself

Tuesday, September 30, 2003

The Special Relationship

Interesting to hear this this morning. There are moves afoot in the US to set up an independent inquiry into suspicious circumstances surrounding the attempt to discredit someone critical of the government's reasoning for going to war with Iraq.

Sound familiar?

The person in question is Joseph Wilson, the subject of this excellent post by Iain last week, who points to a recent interview with Ambassador Wilson. This morning's BBC report doesn't go into much background detail of Wilson's qualifications to speak out on the subject, so it's well worth reading the full transcript to appreciate the weight of his opinion and why the Whitehouse might be ill-disposed towards him.

If nothing else, the interview boasts one of the best opening remarks of all time from an establishment interviewee, especially one who was until recently a career diplomat:

"Well, I think we're fucked."

Important stuff.

posted by Plig | 12:02 |

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Forget the sentimental notion that foreign policy is a struggle between virtue and vice, with virtue bound to win.
Forget the utopian notion that a brave new world without power politics will follow the unconditional surrender of wicked nations.
Forget the crusading notion that any nation, however virtuous and powerful, can have the mission to make the world in its own image.
Remember that diplomacy without power is feeble, and power without diplomacy is destructive and blind.
Remember that no nation's power is without limits, and hence that its policies must respect the power and interests of others.
Hans Morgenthau

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts
Bertrand Russell

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one
Albert Einstein

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative
Martin Luther King Jr.

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man
Bertrand Russell

I think it would be a good idea
Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization

There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun
Pablo Picasso

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others
Groucho Marx

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it
Mahatma Gandhi

Always make new mistakes
Esther Dyson