Rent-A-Wreck

I'm tired of talking about Iraq and war, and cannot find the will to spill even one word on formulating an opinion about Hans Blix's report to the UN this afternoon. You know what was said and not said [Ed. Update: if you intend on using CNN as your source, please, first read this], and I think we know what to expect from all the representative voices. Maybe I'm just depressed, or frustrated, but it's just not worth writing about right now. Especially when there are other things that are far more pressing. "Such as?" you ask incredulously, you who love the bright graphics of Fox News and CNN, and secretly even the Orange banner of danger that adorns the collective consciousness of the West, because they are, if rather forboding, a little pretty too. "Such as," I reply: Liechtenstein.

Nestled snugly between Austria and Switzerland, Liechtenstein is called home by 33,000 people living within its 60 square-mile confines, and the favorite tax haven of various do-gooders like Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar, war crime suspect Slobodan Milosevic, former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and an untold number of fundamentalist Islamist organizations. There are a lot of reasons to think nothing of Liechtenstein, and I can probably safely assume that most of your thoughts about it, if you've thought of it at all, have been fleeting. Think again, I say, because, as Q-Tip might say, and as reported by today's Guardian, "If ya got the money, the Liecht is for the bookin'":

"[F]or a fee of up to £320 per person per day, a multinational can have it all: the scenic Alpine backdrop, accommodating tourist officials, and the adrenaline rush of symbolically taking over an entire state.

"At the top rate, a four-day conference for 900 delegates (the maximum that can be accommodated) would cost £1.2m. The facilities are, however, far from conventional.

"Corporate clients can 'brand' the entire state with their logo, emblazoning it on prominent buildings. Arrangements can also be made for the discerning multinational to have access to the national art gallery and theatre, the royal family's wine cellar, and at least one of Liechtenstein's fairytale castles - the 13th-century Schloss Gutenberg."

"What of those 33,000 people who live in Liechtenstein?" you ask, still incredulous (I can tell). Them? Oh, don't worry, explains Karl Schwärzler, the director of the company responsible for the idea, Xnet:

"Locals are sceptical. They worry that it will send a message that you can buy anything for money. [ed: Uh, yeah, you think?] They worry about what people will do here, and that they will interfere with their daily lives. 'Who's going to rent me? I'm not up for rent,' is the typical attitude. But we're not asking people to sell their souls, we just want to do business." (my emphasis)

Schwärzler, wiping his blood-stained lips with his Swedish-made scarf, assuages these worries by insisting that renting the country out will give the money-grubbing image of their country an overhaul, and "will allow people to see a different side of Liechtenstein."

How the perspective offered from this is really all that different from, say, Liechtenstein's reigning prince threatening to sell the country to Bill Gates and then move to Vienna if he is not given more power, is, well, a matter of perspective, isn't it?