Julio Iglesias, Greenland, and EU weakness – random thoughts #17

Hey y’all!

I hope you’re having a good week.

It’s been a while since I did one of these “random thoughts” articles, and there’s some interesting news these days. So let’s talk about some of the top stories.

First off, I don’t really have anything to say about Iran.

(Except that my wife Morena always tells me I’m pronouncing it wrong. I don’t know… I grew up hearing “eye-ran”. What can I say? “Uh-raaaan.” Whatever.)

With that out of the way, let’s get to this week’s big stories: a famous Spanish singer accused of sexual assault, and the future of Greenland.

We’ve also got the European Union’s foreign policy weakness, a quote by C.S. Lewis, and more.

Read on…

Julio Iglesias: Cancelled!

Several months ago I wrote an article about famous Spanish people.

One of the most famous Spanish people of all time, it turns out, is the singer Julio Iglesias, who until that point I’d never actually listened to.

(I feel like Iglesias was maybe a cultural reference from my dad’s era – just something he’d mention occasionally, like Li’l Abner comics and whoever was hosting The Tonight Show before Johnny Carson. I never really paid much attention. And it’s not like we had Spotify back then.)

Anyway, today I have the sad duty of informing my loyal readers that Julio Iglesias has been cancelled.

Here’s the story: a couple of women who worked for Iglesias in his mansions around the Caribbean have recently come forward with allegations of sexual assault. This was published in eldiario.es yesterday, after a long investigation by that “paper” along with the US-based TV network Univisión.

The allegations are from 2021, when Iglesias was 77, and they are pretty gross.

I don’t want to get into specifics, but the whole thing is online. You can read a less-gross version on the BBC. Or a version with all the lurid detail on The Guardian. (A lot of stuff’s paywalled these days, but those two outlets are not – also, I keep using the word “paper” to describe these large media websites. Not sure why.)

La Vanguardia here in Spain says there might be more allegations on the way, from other women.

For now, the case is under investigation by the Spanish prosecutors. Apparently the Audiencia Nacional is able to prosecute crimes that occur (or allegedly occur) outside Spanish borders. I’m no legal expert, so read up if you’re interested. Otherwise, let’s move on.

(Update, later in January 2026: Apparently the Audiencia Nacional has decided they don’t have jurisdiction in this case, so ol’ Julio is in the clear for now. That didn’t take long.)

Greenland: forgotten jewel of the Arctic

The other big story this week is Greenland.

Yes, the long-forgotten island near the North Pole is suddenly newsworthy. Of course, Greenland has been blown all out of proportion in our collective minds by the Mercator Projection maps, which make it look practically the size of South America.

It is big, in reality, but not that big.

Today, the Spanish news is about how European countries are sending troops to Greenland – a show of strength, I guess, to dissuade the Americans from trying anything silly.

The interesting thing is if you read the articles, the numbers of troops in question are ridiculously small.

According to La Vanguardia, in fact, the total for this mission is 33 – that’s thirteen Germans, two Norwegians, an unknown (but obviously tiny) number of Swedes, and some French soldiers… The BBC is calling it a “15-strong French military contingent”.

In other words, it seems like the Europeans are preparing a pretty underwhelming force here. But it’s the top story in the Spanish news today. The second story, incidentally, being that the Spanish military might also get involved. I kind of doubt they will. But they might.

Sharpening my sword for the Battle of Nuuk

I asked my friend Kris, who’s Danish, if people up there have some deeply-held feeling about Greenland.

Full disclosure: actually, I asked him if the Danes were preparing to get into their longboats and paddle off to defend their King’s lands. You know, Viking style.

I was imagining a cinematic scene in which I – an American – met Kris somewhere on the frozen Greenlandic tundra, and we looked into each others’ eyes and realized that despite our long friendship we’d now have to have an epic man-to-man sword fight to defend our respective nations’ honor.

But I guess that’s probably not going to happen. There’ll be no total war between the US and Denmark.

Kris says that “nobody gave a shit about Greenland until Trump wanted it”.

And I kind of doubt that the US is ready to dynamite the NATO treaty by attacking an ally. But you never know. One thing is certain: unless something big changes, the Spanish media is going to be really negative about everything the US does for at least the next three years.

It’s an odd situation for me to be in, what with my loyalty to both countries – I wrote about that in my last article, Life on the Wrong Side of History.

The EU’s tepid letter-writing campaign

So that’s that.

It’s been a bad few months for powerful Spanish men.

Most of the sexual harassment accusations these days are against left-wing politicians. I’ve written about some of those in my article on Spanish Sex Scandals and also in the “Fall of the Far Left” section of my 2025 wrap-up article.

And once again, we’re talking about whether the European Union is good for anything except drafting strongly-worded letters. My opinion is that they’re not. It doesn’t seem like they have much capacity for action.

As we’ve talked about on here before, the EU is apparently great at creating new layers of bureaucracy, and at regulating businesses into oblivion.

But they don’t seem to do much otherwise. In fact, the letters I’ve seen about the Greenland issue aren’t even strongly-worded. They’re tepid statements that might contain some half-hearted objection to US annexation… but I don’t think anybody really cares that much.

The Abolition of Man

The fact is, the EU doesn’t have anything in the way of a unified foreign policy. And a lot of European countries don’t have huge militaries to begin with. But more than that, I don’t think that the type of education that young people receive is preparing them to defend “Europe” as a concept.

How many young Europeans are ready to lay down their lives for Ursula von der Leyen and the EU? Probably not many.

(I’m sure some would happily die for their own countries. But not for Europe, and definitely not for Denmark’s autonomous overseas territories.)

I like to end these articles with quotes from smart people, so here’s one, from C.S. Lewis:

“We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”

– C.S. Lewis

That’s from a very short book called The Abolition of Man. In it, Lewis points out that you can get people to believe that “all values are subjective and trivial”, but you might regret it when you need someone to go out and defend your country.

He wrote the book during World War II, when this was not an abstract problem.

Since then, though, Europe has had a lot of peace. And people seem to think, these days, that peace is just how things work.

I’m no expert, but it looks like a lot of human history would say otherwise.

Diplomacy works, until it doesn’t.

And at that point – when the barbarians are at the gates, and they’ve ignored your strongly-worded letter – you’d better hope you’ve still got people on your side who believe in a cause greater than themselves.

Geopolitically yours,

Daniel AKA Mr Chorizo.

P.S. I almost used the word “pusillanimous” a moment ago, to describe the EU’s response to the whole Greenland thing. But then I talked myself out of it. I’ve always agreed with Orwell that people who use long words when a short word will do are insufferable. What do you think? Leave me a comment, right here…

P.P.S. I just went back and made sure that this is really Random Thoughts #17, as if anyone except me cared about things like that. But it reminded me of buying Nine Inch Nails CDs way back in the day, and how they all had the word “Halo” followed by a number. And how this created a sequential list of Nine Inch Nails releases that you (a young fan) felt somehow obligated to buy each and every one of, so you’d waste $14 you had earned raking the gravel of your front yard out in 115-degree Arizona heat on “Halo 09”, some collection of slowed-down remixes of otherwise good songs. I’m sure some other middle-aged person out there reading this can relate. Check out my article on 90s Music for more relatable nostalgia. Or read the other other Random Thoughts articles here. Enjoy!