THE ROVING
EYE The
art of war, with a glass of wine By Pepe Escobar
PARIS - There it was,
magically empty, on a discreet corner, never
spotted by the tourist magma; my favorite little
table since the 1980s at the Cafe de Flore in St
Germain. I took possession, ordered a Welsh
rarebit and a glass of Chablis, and was back in
business, reading and watching the world go by for
the first time since the fall of King Sarko.
First impression; where the hell is my
bookshop? The venerable La Hune, right across from
my point of view, looked like it had been hit by a
Hellfire; thank Zeus it had moved nearby. Second,
and more auspicious impression; the Flore was
BHL-free; that is, French philosopher
Bernard-Henri Levy, aka BHL, was busy promoting
his next war somewhere else.
BHL is not
merely a philosopher/writer/film maker; he's first and
foremost the CEO of a
gigantic PR operation erected to the perennial
glory of BHL. He virtually rules the French
cultural arena, the way Christopher Hitchens
thought he ruled in the US and Britain.
May we live in tawdry times; if only
Sartre was alive to kick BHL back to his
intellectual kindergarten. BHL recently arrived at
the Cannes Film Festival carrying a smatter of
Libyan North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
rebels as pets - companions of his "liberation"
adventure such as Mustapha El-Zagizli from
Benghazi, proudly displayed as the "prince of the
shabab", and General Ramadan Zarmouth from
Misrata.
Colonel Gaddafi used to pitch
tents in Rome and have the hem of his gorgeous
gowns kissed by Western potentates. Libyan NATO
rebels, for their part, were dazed and confused by
the explosive Cannes red-carpet experience.
Crucially, alongside his pet Libyans, who
carped about the "unity of the revolution", BHL
also brought - what else - pet Syrians; two Kurds
and two shady characters in dark glasses and with
their heads covered by Syrian flags, described as
"combatants who had left Syria in hiding only a
few hours ago to discover The Oath of
Tobruk".
So here we have certified
Zionist BHL bringing his token Arab pets to watch
the world premiere of his new movie; yes, the
whole thing had to be a part of yet another
BHL-glorifying PR exercise. After winning
virtually by himself the Libyan war - according to
his own "narrative" - BHL was now stressing that
"what was done in Benghazi was not easier than
what should be done in Homs". Waiter, please bring
some regime change with my Chablis.
Le
guerre, c'est moi As for the movie, now
showing in France, and already sold to the US
market, it might aspire to qualify as a surrealist
piece worthy of Alfred Jarry. But as hyperactive
peacock, BHL totally lacks any self-deprecation
traits, what's left is BHL the film director
filming himself as the director of history in the
making. This is how a centuries-old French
literary/philosophical tradition ends: The
Intellectual as Warmonger.
The whole thing
is edited with - what else? - a non-stop BHL voice
over; a neo-Proustian monologue cataract flirting
with Sun Tzu. BHL roams the streets of Benghazi
looking for a post-modern rebel hero; and he finds
it personified by Abdul NATO Jalil.
The
stage is then set for BHL of Arabia to enact his
liberation epic, perennially clad in black jacket,
white Charvet shirt meticulously opened to show
off white skin, and satellite phone glued to one
ear, from deserts and mountains to the salons of
the Elysee Palace and - of course - the Cafe de
Flore, which reveals itself to a dazzled Libyan
delegation.
Everyone from King Sarko to
Queen Hillary "We came, we saw he died" Clinton
and David of Arabia Cameron is manipulated as
extras in a BHL-concocted liberation war. Who
cares about what really happened in Libya, as
reported for months by Asia Times Online?
BHL inevitably enacts the now infamous
phone call that allegedly converted King Sarko to
regime change. Sarko himself fed the myth, telling
French TV in March 2011 how this phone call led
him to meet the NATO rebels and start a
Franco-British offensive. This is rubbish. Regime
change had already been decided in Paris since
October 2010, when Gaddafi's chief of protocol
defected to France.
Now BHL is busy
reminding new French President Francois Hollande
whether "France will do for Houla and Homs what it
did for Benghazi and Misrata". Well, the coalition
of the willing is already in place; France,
Britain, the US, Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation
Council-controlled Arab League. They call
themselves "Friends of Syria" and will be deciding
their next regime change steps in Paris in early
July.
BHL concedes, "to save the euro is
an imperious obligation", but the Greek drama may
not prevent Hollande from making a phone call,
just like BHL did with his predecessor King Sarko,
and convince Russia and China that Syria's state
terror is history. BHL, of course, would not
recognize Israeli state terror against
Palestinians even if he were about to be smashed
by an IDF tank. Anyway, if Hollande stalls, BHL
will target David of Arabia Cameron.
BHL
insists he made The Oath of Tobruk for
Syria. In Libya, he says, there was "a real
coalition with Arab countries involved in
coalition with Emirati and Qatar forces".
This has got to have a lovely "the hills
are alive with the sound of music" ring to the
Emir of Qatar. After all, Qatar has already bought
half of the Place Vendome, a great deal of the
Champs-Elysees, and most of everything between
Madeleine and Opera.
BHL could do worse
than place a phone call himself to the Francophile
Emir and ask him to finance his next war. But wait
a minute; Qatar is already weaponizing the Syrian
rebels. Next step for BHL? Iran.
He may be reached at
pepeasia@yahoo.com (Copyright 2012 Asia Times
Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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