Posted 2:10 PM by Paul
So I got back from Pamplona (gave up bull running in the mid 80s) in one piece and spent a good deal of time with American friends.

On the night of the 4th of July we were in Biarritz on a pre-fiesta rendevous to meet up with a friend of mine called Ray Mouton. Ray is a Louisanna radical democratic and writer (as in someone who gets his work published and is read by people ) who made a considerable pile of money in the law. Ray worked for the Catholic Church. He has now retired in his mid 50s. It is just as well Ray made some cash because the champagne he ordered in the Hotel Du Palais cost $200 a bottle. Ray picked up the tab which was especially kind of him because he is a recovering alcoholic who lives off coca-cola, french (not freedom) fries and cigarettes. He gave up the booze in the late 80s and has never touched a drop since. People still ask him the inevitable stupid question, " But can't you have just one glass of wine?"

So, sat in the ballroom of the Hotel du Palais admiring the view of the sun setting over the Atlantic we notice a stream of elderly French people in ball gowns and tuxedos streaming into the dining area. They are attending a 4th of July banquet in honour of the USA, and a huge Stars and Stripes is hung against one of the windows.

The house band strikes up "Star Spangled Banner" and the whole room rises - except Ray's 25 year old daughter who stays resolutely in her seat. His step son, a stong lad who looks like he plays American Football, is one his feet, stood to attention - right hand clasped against his left breast. We stood up to show our repsect for the USA even if we do thing that the present incumbent of the White House is a bully and a dimwit. The band then segways into La Marsellaise and after the applause we all sit down whilst my friend Chris reminds us that roughly translated one of the lines means " we will water the land with our enemies blood". And who said the French were effete?

So neatly the night's interlude had challenged the widespread misconception that the French hate the Americans, and also my assumption that an American woman sitting down during her national anthem would have been disowned by her compatriots. No one even mentioned it. We all went out for dinner at a great Spanish restaurant and drank and sang (badly) into the small hours. Long live Democracy.

So what did the Americans think about their Government and the war? Basically there were two reactions.

1. Don't talk about the war - I am here to enjoy myself
2. Acute unease and embarrasment amongst those people who remember that Vietnam began with a few deaths and the flying in of special advisers.

So a few weeks later Blair flew to Washington in a bid to boost Bush's chances of re-election, improve his own image as a world statesman and give the world a banal high school lecture about Liberty and why we must "Stand by America". But Blair is not standing by America at all. He is lying down in front of a section of American society who have Bush as their cheerleader who believe the Vietnam War was lost because of a biassed liberal media and lack of political will at home to use "decisive military force" [ code for tactical nuclar warheads). Blair has abandoned millions of progressive Americans who are quite simply horrified and ashamed of the actions of their Government, not just in Iraq but on the home front where taxes are cut for billionaires and schools fall apart.

The news has just come in that another two US soldiers have been killed in an ambush in Northern Iraq, a region bitterly opposed to Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party. This is on top of the young man who was picked off yesterday by a sniper whilst he was guarding a bank. It just goes on. In his speeech the foolish Blair said that we lived in an era where History could not give us a guide on how to we should act now.

He was obviously not paying attention at school during History when they covered the Boer War, the Mao Mao insurrection, the Irish Troubles or the Boxer rebellion. How one man can be so clever and yet so very foolish is just beyond me. If pressure were not building up for him to "In the Name of God Go!" I would despair.

But I do not despair. The dustbin of history beckons.