Ex-diplomat lets rip on world leaders - Dutch PM is Harry Potter...
Quote Chris Patten: ''On a lighter note on the EU stage, Patten confirms the widely-held - but not usually publicly voiced - view that Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende "really does look like Harry Potter". BBC-Url.: http://tinyurl.com/c9vec]
Ex-diplomat lets rip on world leaders
Chris Patten was the former EU external relations minister
Sunday 02 October 2005 - Jacques Chirac is ignorantly hostile to reform, Pervez Musharraf is "not a democrat", Dick Cheney's style is to stick up "two fingers" to the outside world and Vladimir Putin is a liar.
It is blunt criticism from former top diplomat Chris Patten, who has just published a new book in which he lets rip at the world's most famous politicians.
Patten, who stood down as European Union external relations chief last year, ending more than a decade on the world's public stage, pulls few punches in recounting behind-the-scenes tales of life at the top.
Not Quite the Diplomat is not only about indiscretions: The book sets out his views on everything, from Turkey's EU hopes and the Iraq war to China's rising world role and resurgent hopes for Middle East peace.
But colourful swipes and acerbic anecdotes litter the book, written from the comfort of Patten's new home in his native England, where he is chancellor of Oxford University.
CLEARING THE AIR
"It says much of what I've wanted to say, but until now couldn't say candidly, about Britain, Europe, America and our rapidly changing world," writes the 60-year-old.
The avuncular former British Tory party chairman, who left for Hong Kong in 1992 after losing his parliamentary seat at home, spends much ink on questioning the record of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"Mr Blair, a usually likeable man, has convictions to which he holds strongly - when he holds them"
Chris PattenLike many critics of Blair's obsession with media spin, he accuses the New Labour leader of changing his views to suit public opinion.
"Mr Blair, a usually likeable man, has convictions to which he holds strongly - when he holds them. His convictions change on issues ... to reflect what he believes to be prevailing, convenient opinion," he writes.
One notable exception is Iraq, where Blair defied massive public opposition to throw London's political and military muscle behind US President George Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq.
SCEPTICAL
Patten concedes this was politically courageous. But he is sceptical about the fundamental reasons for going to war, claiming that Blair had decided to go to war as early as a meeting with Bush in early 2002.
"Britain went to war because America chose to go to war," he says.
Of the Americans themselves, Patten - who held the EU post from 1999 to last October and was seen as a key Atlanticist in Brussels - singles out the neo-conservatives led by Cheney for his most withering criticism.
"Mr Cheney does not do style. He is two fingers to style," he says, calling the US vice-president "aggressively nationalist, conspiratorial, the patron of the Washington branch of the Likud party". [The US Problem - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/2xz35]
Bush comes off relatively lightly, on the personal front at least, although Patten laments the return to "gun-slinging" US policy.
UN VIEWS
He is less reserved about the new US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, saying that "for him there is no United Nations, there is only one nation that counts, America. Cooperation is for sissies".
[FPF: The US ignoring all good manners and style, tapping the UN - Guardian - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/2jlzf ]
"Mr Bolton is the Pavarotti of neo-conservatism; his views have taken the roof off chancelleries around the globe," he writes.
Patten was unimpressed with Kim Jong-Il's hairstyleThe former EU official is no less critical of the chief opponent of the Iraq conflict, French President Jacques Chirac.
Specifically he laments France's constant attempts "to turn the clock back almost whimsically to a golden age of French superior distinctiveness" in the EU.
"So long as its politicians led by President Chirac remain trapped in an ignorant and impoverishing hostility to the policies required to ... compete successfully in the world, [France] will punch significantly below its weight."
EU SNIPING
More broadly, he laments France's - and Germany's - role in the "wretched saga" of the EU's aborted plans to lift a 16-year-old arms embargo on China, pushed by Paris and Berlin as they sought to curry trade favour with Beijing but shelved this year after stiff opposition from Washington.
"In the course of this policy ramble, Europe has lost face with China, America and Asia. Europe cannot conduct its relationship with China on the basis of ill-judged commercial aspirations," he says.
China's leaders, who spent years damning Patten in Hong Kong, are spared major criticism. On the contrary, former prime minister Zhu Rongji is hailed as "formidably impressive".
Elsewhere in Asia, Pakistan's President Musharraf fares less well. "Whatever you say about General Musharraf, he is not a democrat," he says, adding that he "will not last forever".
NORTH KOREA
Patten recounts a "bizarre" trip to the reclusive Stalinist state of North Korea, where President Kim Jong-Il has "a bouffant hairstyle all his own, in which each hair seems to have been individually seeded in his scalp".
"[The book] says much of what I've wanted to say, but until now couldn't say candidly, about Britain, Europe, America and our rapidly changing world"
Chris Patten
"We banqueted with Kim and a group of grumpy old men, with faces like Christmas walnuts ... We were served much better Burgundy than we would have drunk in Brussels. Outside, the people starved."
In Moscow, meanwhile, communism may be gone but President Putin is now in power, and Patten is not impressed with a man who is "very cold-eyed, with a good line in hectoring argument".
At one meeting when Putin was prime minister, the Russian claimed that carnage at a Grozny market was an "own goal" by Chechen militants whose own arms were on sale at the bazaar but somehow blew up unexpectedly.
"I had never been so blatantly lied to at a meeting like this before. Normally, mendacity comes in better disguise," he writes.
More recently Patten laments the time that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi made a "toe-curling" defence of Putin's Chechen campaign, during an EU-Russia meeting under Italy's EU presidency in 2003.
On a lighter note on the EU stage, Patten confirms the widely-held - but not usually publicly voiced - view that Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende "really does look like Harry Potter".
Back at home in England, Patten is clearly enjoying the newfound freedom to do and say things he could not during all those years in the international spotlight.
But his passion for public life is clearly not exhausted. He describes his latest book as "a farewell despatch ... at least for the time being".
[enditem] - AFP _Url.: http://tinyurl.com/c775f
Jerusalem Post Quote: "After one of the suicide bombings in Israel, [EU Commissioner Chris] Patten once said, "I'm sorry for the families of the victims of the suicide bombings, as much as I'm sorry for the Palestinians who lost their members of families."
He also says the bombings must be seen in the context of the Middle East, and then he points to Israeli actions..." - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/9wqud
*Help all the troops - also the taxpaid but brainwashed "Orders are Orders!" Dutch/US/Israeli mercenaries in Afghanistan and Iraq come back from abroad! We need them - and their weapons - badly at home in many countries, to fight our so called 'governments' - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/
*Former PM Wim Kok, and other Dutch Govt's War criminals in Court - 'Christian Judas' and bad PM Balkenende/Potter is a national shame plus perverted pest for Holland, and should be next in court, with the ilk managing him and his racket, bleeding Holland financially, and to a 'death of democracy' too - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/662pp
FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/66dmo
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl
* 'The war in Iraq is illegal' - BBC video & text - interview United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v
* Never trust them, the neocon's BBC - (Broadcasting Blair's Crap) - and their warmongering - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6td3d
*Corporate News Media: Incompetent, Criminally Negligent or Complicit? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cqpfe
*Colin Powell: 'It is not anti-Semitic to criticize the policies of the state of Israel' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/22p6c - Who creates our money? - And what is 'Press Freedom' about? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/atxyk - 'American' neocons - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/b5vsb
* Brainwashed? Take the free 'Gullibility Factor' test to find out if you're really a mind slave or not: - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cbgnc
* The World Can't Wait! Drive out the Bush Regime. Mobilize for November 2, 2005! - Url.: http://www.worldcantwait.org/
FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html
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Ex-diplomat lets rip on world leaders
Chris Patten was the former EU external relations minister
Sunday 02 October 2005 - Jacques Chirac is ignorantly hostile to reform, Pervez Musharraf is "not a democrat", Dick Cheney's style is to stick up "two fingers" to the outside world and Vladimir Putin is a liar.
It is blunt criticism from former top diplomat Chris Patten, who has just published a new book in which he lets rip at the world's most famous politicians.
Patten, who stood down as European Union external relations chief last year, ending more than a decade on the world's public stage, pulls few punches in recounting behind-the-scenes tales of life at the top.
Not Quite the Diplomat is not only about indiscretions: The book sets out his views on everything, from Turkey's EU hopes and the Iraq war to China's rising world role and resurgent hopes for Middle East peace.
But colourful swipes and acerbic anecdotes litter the book, written from the comfort of Patten's new home in his native England, where he is chancellor of Oxford University.
CLEARING THE AIR
"It says much of what I've wanted to say, but until now couldn't say candidly, about Britain, Europe, America and our rapidly changing world," writes the 60-year-old.
The avuncular former British Tory party chairman, who left for Hong Kong in 1992 after losing his parliamentary seat at home, spends much ink on questioning the record of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"Mr Blair, a usually likeable man, has convictions to which he holds strongly - when he holds them"
Chris PattenLike many critics of Blair's obsession with media spin, he accuses the New Labour leader of changing his views to suit public opinion.
"Mr Blair, a usually likeable man, has convictions to which he holds strongly - when he holds them. His convictions change on issues ... to reflect what he believes to be prevailing, convenient opinion," he writes.
One notable exception is Iraq, where Blair defied massive public opposition to throw London's political and military muscle behind US President George Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq.
SCEPTICAL
Patten concedes this was politically courageous. But he is sceptical about the fundamental reasons for going to war, claiming that Blair had decided to go to war as early as a meeting with Bush in early 2002.
"Britain went to war because America chose to go to war," he says.
Of the Americans themselves, Patten - who held the EU post from 1999 to last October and was seen as a key Atlanticist in Brussels - singles out the neo-conservatives led by Cheney for his most withering criticism.
"Mr Cheney does not do style. He is two fingers to style," he says, calling the US vice-president "aggressively nationalist, conspiratorial, the patron of the Washington branch of the Likud party". [The US Problem - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/2xz35]
Bush comes off relatively lightly, on the personal front at least, although Patten laments the return to "gun-slinging" US policy.
UN VIEWS
He is less reserved about the new US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, saying that "for him there is no United Nations, there is only one nation that counts, America. Cooperation is for sissies".
[FPF: The US ignoring all good manners and style, tapping the UN - Guardian - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/2jlzf ]
"Mr Bolton is the Pavarotti of neo-conservatism; his views have taken the roof off chancelleries around the globe," he writes.
Patten was unimpressed with Kim Jong-Il's hairstyleThe former EU official is no less critical of the chief opponent of the Iraq conflict, French President Jacques Chirac.
Specifically he laments France's constant attempts "to turn the clock back almost whimsically to a golden age of French superior distinctiveness" in the EU.
"So long as its politicians led by President Chirac remain trapped in an ignorant and impoverishing hostility to the policies required to ... compete successfully in the world, [France] will punch significantly below its weight."
EU SNIPING
More broadly, he laments France's - and Germany's - role in the "wretched saga" of the EU's aborted plans to lift a 16-year-old arms embargo on China, pushed by Paris and Berlin as they sought to curry trade favour with Beijing but shelved this year after stiff opposition from Washington.
"In the course of this policy ramble, Europe has lost face with China, America and Asia. Europe cannot conduct its relationship with China on the basis of ill-judged commercial aspirations," he says.
China's leaders, who spent years damning Patten in Hong Kong, are spared major criticism. On the contrary, former prime minister Zhu Rongji is hailed as "formidably impressive".
Elsewhere in Asia, Pakistan's President Musharraf fares less well. "Whatever you say about General Musharraf, he is not a democrat," he says, adding that he "will not last forever".
NORTH KOREA
Patten recounts a "bizarre" trip to the reclusive Stalinist state of North Korea, where President Kim Jong-Il has "a bouffant hairstyle all his own, in which each hair seems to have been individually seeded in his scalp".
"[The book] says much of what I've wanted to say, but until now couldn't say candidly, about Britain, Europe, America and our rapidly changing world"
Chris Patten
"We banqueted with Kim and a group of grumpy old men, with faces like Christmas walnuts ... We were served much better Burgundy than we would have drunk in Brussels. Outside, the people starved."
In Moscow, meanwhile, communism may be gone but President Putin is now in power, and Patten is not impressed with a man who is "very cold-eyed, with a good line in hectoring argument".
At one meeting when Putin was prime minister, the Russian claimed that carnage at a Grozny market was an "own goal" by Chechen militants whose own arms were on sale at the bazaar but somehow blew up unexpectedly.
"I had never been so blatantly lied to at a meeting like this before. Normally, mendacity comes in better disguise," he writes.
More recently Patten laments the time that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi made a "toe-curling" defence of Putin's Chechen campaign, during an EU-Russia meeting under Italy's EU presidency in 2003.
On a lighter note on the EU stage, Patten confirms the widely-held - but not usually publicly voiced - view that Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende "really does look like Harry Potter".
Back at home in England, Patten is clearly enjoying the newfound freedom to do and say things he could not during all those years in the international spotlight.
But his passion for public life is clearly not exhausted. He describes his latest book as "a farewell despatch ... at least for the time being".
[enditem] - AFP _Url.: http://tinyurl.com/c775f
Jerusalem Post Quote: "After one of the suicide bombings in Israel, [EU Commissioner Chris] Patten once said, "I'm sorry for the families of the victims of the suicide bombings, as much as I'm sorry for the Palestinians who lost their members of families."
He also says the bombings must be seen in the context of the Middle East, and then he points to Israeli actions..." - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/9wqud
*Help all the troops - also the taxpaid but brainwashed "Orders are Orders!" Dutch/US/Israeli mercenaries in Afghanistan and Iraq come back from abroad! We need them - and their weapons - badly at home in many countries, to fight our so called 'governments' - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/
*Former PM Wim Kok, and other Dutch Govt's War criminals in Court - 'Christian Judas' and bad PM Balkenende/Potter is a national shame plus perverted pest for Holland, and should be next in court, with the ilk managing him and his racket, bleeding Holland financially, and to a 'death of democracy' too - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/662pp
FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/66dmo
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl
* 'The war in Iraq is illegal' - BBC video & text - interview United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v
* Never trust them, the neocon's BBC - (Broadcasting Blair's Crap) - and their warmongering - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6td3d
*Corporate News Media: Incompetent, Criminally Negligent or Complicit? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cqpfe
*Colin Powell: 'It is not anti-Semitic to criticize the policies of the state of Israel' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/22p6c - Who creates our money? - And what is 'Press Freedom' about? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/atxyk - 'American' neocons - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/b5vsb
* Brainwashed? Take the free 'Gullibility Factor' test to find out if you're really a mind slave or not: - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cbgnc
* The World Can't Wait! Drive out the Bush Regime. Mobilize for November 2, 2005! - Url.: http://www.worldcantwait.org/
FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html
-0-
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