My contempt for Rasputin really knows no bounds.
Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has launched a stinging attack on US policy, comparing it unfavourably with the British Empire. In an interview with Muslim lifestyle magazine Emel, he said the British Empire had put energy and resources into "normalising" lands it took over.
But the US had assumed a "quick burst of violent action" to "clear the decks" was it all had to do in Iraq. It thought it could then leave others to "put it back together", he said.
Dr Williams said the US, as the only "global hegemonic power", was trying to accumulate influence and control, rather than territory. But he said: "That is not working," describing the result as "the worst of all worlds". He told the magazine the US had lost the moral high ground since the 11 September attacks and needed to take steps including "generous aid" to "the societies that have been ravaged", a "check on the economic exploitation of defeated territories" and a "demilitarisation" of its presence in them in order to recover.
Now it may be that the whole interview (which is not available online) is somewhat more nuanced than the Beeb's excerpts. I hope so, because as presented it's full of lies. The US, for example, is the most generous aid donor in the world. But Rasputin, while an idiot, is not stupid. He'll be well aware of how this will be presented - as a dig at the Great Satan.
(I note that the enterview was with Sarah Joseph, editor of Emel, Catholic apostate, intelligent middle class English girl and another Brit convert. Her brother's a convert too. The twittering in the coal mine gets a little louder.)
UPDATE - The full waffle is at Ruth Gledhill's blog. Doesn't alas alter anything above. Thanks FW for the heads-up.
