We were climbing one of the seemingly interminable flights of limestone steps when Speer observed an enormous ragweed, an accursed thing the size of a sequoia, sprouting from a crack in the limestone cladding covering the reinforced concrete understructure. Speer hated that particular weed. The Zeppelinfeld was hairy with them, but that was his weed, his emblem of the decay of a utopian idea, and he would not let it survive. After much tugging, during which the former Generalbauinspektor of the Third Reich went nearly purple with effort, the ragweed gave way, and Speer stood there, panting, the earth crumbling from its defeated roots. "The Führer," he said, slowly, to no one in particular, "would have been very mad at me for this poor stone quality."

After all these years still thinks of AH as "The Führer", imaginary conversations etc!

I love his Jack Straw piece below, btw, best they can do "permissive environment" - that's just beautiful! There is absolutely no knowledge of any connection between the two - straightforward intuition (secular leader versus fanatical islamist group) suggests such a connection isn't even prima facie plausible nevermind the lack of evidence - but that said a leaked intelligence doc this week suggested that there had been some contact between the two but this had quickly fizzled out since there agendas where incompatible. this points to the whopping mendacity of herr straw with his half baked "permissive environment" which is demonstrably both ideologically ludicrous and factually fiction.

Even the army don't fancy it and recognise the charade of justification;

'Serious concerns were reflected yesterday by several well-placed sources close to the Ministry of Defence who, because of the sensitivity of the issue, insisted on remaining anonymous. "There is general disquiet not just about the issue of UN resolutions but about the ethical dimension," one said. "There is a feeling that in order to attack there has to be some kind of aggression in the opposite direction. This would be a first". '