現在地 HOME > 掲示板
> 戦争４１ > 1261.html
★阿修羅♪
|
現在地 HOME > 掲示板
> 戦争４１ > 1261.html
★阿修羅♪
|
|
ガーデイアン：誰かフーン（国防相）を見掛けたかね？痛烈皮肉記事
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1076154,00.html
Anyone seen Hoon?
Richard Ingrams
Sunday November 2, 2003
The Observer
It is always gratifying when a politician gets a taste of the disastrous consequences of his actions.
Hence my pleasure on reading that Mr Paul Wolfowitz, America's Deputy Defence Secretary and number two to the famous prose poet, Donald Rumsfeld, had narrowly escaped death on his recent visit to Iraq when a rocket was fired at his hotel. Colleagues were described as having to flee from their rooms clutching their pyjamas.
No one did more to promote the ill-fated Iraqi invasion than this neo-conservative hawk, Mr Wolfowitz. It was he who was reported long ago, when the invasion was first being discussed, as saying that Iraq was 'doable'.
Since then, thousands have died and American soldiers are being killed on a daily basis. Now the thing that must worry Wolfowitz and, I presume, Blair and Straw, is whether Iraq is undoable, in other words, how and when are they going to get out of the mess they have got themselves into.
At least, to give credit to Wolfowitz, he had the courage to go to Iraq in the first place, even if he may not have expected to be made the target of a rocket attack.
Last week, I read a report that our own Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, will not now be going to Baghdad because of safety fears. If true, the news should do much to enhance his prestige with the thousands of troops he has sent out to risk their lives on our behalf.
Cross my heart
According to Bill Clinton, Mr Blair's recent heart troubles are nothing new. 'I've known about them for a long time,' the former President was reported as saying. 'He told me about it quite a few years ago.' Too little sleep and too much coffee, Clinton went on, were the causes. But his friend Blair 'has learned to live with it'.
This report was instantly denied by a Downing Street spokesman. He was, he claimed, 'mystified' by Clinton's comments and repeated that Blair had never before had cardiac problems.
It seems rather strange that the former President, for all his faults a highly intelligent man, should get it so completely wrong on a matter that does not directly concern him.
The little incident, however, highlights the credibility or otherwise of our own dear Prime Minister. Over the past few months, he has been revealed as a liar (over the death of Dr Kelly) and something of a fantasist in his insistence, against all the evidence, that those famous weapons of mass destruction definitely exist.
So when we are asked to choose between his word and that of his friend, Mr Clinton, as to whether or not his heart problem is a chronic condition, most people, like me, will simply not believe Mr Blair.
That is the sad state of affairs for our Prime Minister. And it is hard to see what he can do about it except to pack it all in.
Own up, Ann
It seems obvious that Mr Michael Howard was seriously rattled when Ann Widdecombe made her famous remark that he had 'something of the night' about him.
Various interpretations have been put on that description, but I imagine that all Miss Widdecombe was doing was to put forward Howard as a front runner for a Count Dracula lookalike contest.
Hence the report that, for his emergence as a man of the centre, Howard has had a makeover, with rimless spectacles, shorter hair and 'brighter jackets'.
As it happens, in the same period, Ann Widdecombe herself has had a rather more dramatic makeover than Howard. Her black hair has turned a golden yellow and she has undergone a strenuous dieting programme on television, losing pounds, if not stones, in the process.
The new-look Widdecombe is now, along with other Tories, prepared to revise her view of the leader-elect with his rimless specs, short hair and brighter jacket. But she may find it hard to live down her previous description, which has gone into the political quotation books.
My suggestion is that she should now, like any other politician when put on the spot, claim that she has been misquoted. What she was doing was to pay tribute to her colleague's chivalrous qualities. And what she actually said was that he had 'something of the knight' about him.
題名には必ず「阿修羅さんへ」と記述してください。