April 11,
2001
Eating Crow, Eating Dog
Commander in Chief Bush doesn't want
to eat crow, but the truly big question is whether those captive
boys and girls from the US surveillance plane are being forced
to eat dog without their knowledge. The Canadians, eager to discredit
their rival, China, as a host of the 2008 Olympics, have been
putting about stories about the PRC's trade in St Bernard dogs,
which the Chinese fatten to succulence, then slaughter and prepare
in various delectable dishes too numerous for individual citation.
The Turks, also vying to host
those 2008 games, are similarly putting about St Bernard atrocity
stories discreditable to the Chinese Peoples' Republic. Will
the Olympic Committee, of which Henry Kissinger (a lobbyist for
the PRC) is a member order tests of Chinese athletes to see if
they have been strengthened by the tasty musculature of the St
Bernards?
Meanwhile, the US State Department
labors over the calibrations of nuance between "apology"
and "regret", no doubt mulling with other delicate
terms of art (such as contrition, anguish, remorse) in an effort
to clear up the whole laughable misunderstanding about the spy
plane and the dead Chinese pilot who, according to a US senator
on the Intelligence Committee, apparently liked to flutter his
email address through the canopy of his plane.
The matter of expressions of
"apology" by the White House to the Chinese government,
as opposed to "regrets" is obviously delicate, but
the notion that an apology necessarily involves remorse or contrition
is wrong. "Apology" primarily means "vindication"
or "explanation", as in Plato's well-known piece about
Socrates. In the 14-volume Oxford English Dictionary the element
of remorse is included only in the third definition of the word.
So the US State Department,
headed by that peacenik Powell (who is leaking the news that
he recommended an apology from the outset) could issue a formal
document, titled Apology for the US Surveillance Mission for
the Benefit of the Chinese Government, wave it at the Chinese
and tell them to load up our boys and girls, plump from their
mushu dog and send them home.
Many entertaining passages
in international relations concern detention and poor treatment
of diplomats, spies or simple travellers. The nineteenth century
is replete with incidents where local despots twisted the tail
of the British imperial lion, often with impunity.
The mid-nineteenth century
Bolivian caudillo, Mariano Melgarejo, wearied of the complaints
of the British ambassador in La Paz, lifted his mistress's skirts
and told the uppity envoy to kiss her bare bottom. When the diplomat
declined the honor, Melgarejo had him paraded on an ass, facing
backwards. Queen Victoria and her prime minister Palmerston ordered
landlocked Bolivia's capital to be bombarded by ships of Her
Majesty's navy. Told that La Paz, 200 miles inland from the Pacific,
was out of gunshot range, they contented themselves with having
Bolivia erased from British maps.
Another nineteenth century
president of Bolivia in the 1860s was a rough diamond called
Belzu. He was described by the snooty Brazilian diplomat Duarte
Ponte Ribeiro as "a soldier who had his home in the barracks
or the brothel, who never appeared in decent society, and who
never opened a book." Ribeiro was angered by Belzu's threat
to shoot Brazil's commercial attache in a public square in La
Paz, thus prompting the timid envoy to flee.
A few years earlier Britons
boiled out the outrageous conduct of Nasrullah, the Emir of Bokhara
towards two British officers, Colonel Charles Stoddart and Captain
Arthur Conolly. Stoddard arrived in Bokhara on a spying mission
in 1838 and, "unschooled in the sycophantic ways of oriental
diplomacy" (Peter Hopkirk's phrase in his book "The
Great Game"), didn't dismount from his horse on approaching
the Emir's palace. The Emir promptly threw Stoddard into a rat
-infested black hole, without even dog on the menu.
The executioner soon dropped
by to advise that unless he embraced Islam, Stoddard's head would
come off in very short order. Confronted with the option of betraying
the faith of his fathers, Stoddart behaved as would any honorable
fellow officer in such circumstances and swiftly perceived the
superior merits of Islam. His conditions improved markedly. Word
of his forcible conversion reached England and the national blood
boiled.
Then another British officer,
Conolly, turned up in the Bokhara region. Other emirs warned
him not to trifle with Bokhara's erratic boss but Conolly, distraught
after being dumped by his fiancee, failed to heed their counsel.
The Emir of Bokhara suggested
he drop by for a friendly chat and the foolish Conolly took up
this invitation. The Emir was polite at first, but soon changed
tack and Conolly was hurled into the rat-infested hole. The Emir
had become mightily affronted at the slight of receiving no personal
reply to his letter to Queen Victoria. Worse, Palmerston dropped
him a note saying the letter had been forwarded to Calcutta for
consideration by local British colonial officials. The British
government took to describing the two officers as "private
travellers", which probably sealed their doom.
Then matters went down hill.
A British force in Kabul was massacred to the last man (a doctor
who managed an amazing escape) and Britain's reputation sank
throughout the region. The two British officers were made to
dig their own graves in the main square in Bokhara. Stoddard
denounced the emir in his apopemptic remarks and was promptly
beheaded. The executioner then invited Conolly to convert. Citing
Stoddard's unprofitable flirtation with Islam, Conolly declined
and his head instantly joined that of Stoddard in the dust.
Israel
Without Apologies
Talking of State Department
language, the US newspapers were a little coy in discussing the
very strong language used by State Department spokesman Boucher
about some recent events in Israel, including announced new settlements
and the Israeli military's salvoes directed at Palestinian security
officials returning from a meeting with Israeli government people,
convened under the supervision of a CIA man in the residence
of the US Ambassador Martin Indyk near Tel Aviv. US diplomats
had escorted the three Palestinians back to the Gaza borner,
at which point they transferred to their own jkeeps, plus a silver
Mercdes.
Then Israeli bullets and shrapnel hit the convoy. As
the jeeps sped away, one flipped over and two bodyguards suffered
broken limbs.
Since this encounter marked
the reentry of the US into Israeli-Palestinian engotations, the
salvo represented a marked slap in the face for the US. The Israellis
claimed without any great conviction that their forces had been
fired upon by the Palestinian convoy.
Here's how bits of the briefing
on April 5 went. Note the use of the word "ingenious"
in the opening question from an unidentified journalist. If a
CIA man was blown up in a phone booth, I don't think we'd be
bending over backwards to praise the clever tactics of his killers.
Question: "Do you have
any remarks on Israeli plans to auction off more West Bank land
to build more houses? And also, any comment on the latest political
assassination, which was particularly ingenious -- this exploding
phone one.
BOUCHER: The stories of exploding
phones, we don't know anything beyond what's in the press reports.
As far as the new permits that have been issued for construction
activity, I would say that continuing settlement activity by
Israel does risk further inflaming an already volatile situation
in the region. This is provocative, and we have consistently
encouraged both sides to refrain from provocative acts. As far
as the crossing point, the firing at the [Palestinian] convoy
last night we see as a very serious incident. When he heard about
it, the Secretary immediately telephoned Prime Minister SharonIsrael
does have a responsibility to provide for the safety and security
of Palestinian officials traveling to and from the security
meetings. Prior to these meetings, we had been assured by Israeli
officials that this would be the caseWe hope there will be a
thorough investigation of the incident so that these kinds of
incidents can be prevented in the future."
For Boucher to use the phrase
"a very serious incident" is fairly heavy diplomatic
lingo. The Washington Post's Daniel William's quoted Boucher's
use of the word "provocative" about the planned new
settlements, but had nothing on reaction to the firing on the
Palestinian envoys. The New York Times' Deborah Sontag did quote
the "very serious incident" phrase.
Yesterday the Israeli government
did express "regret" in a report on the incident to
Palestinian security forces but
Zalman Shoval, an aide to Sharon and a former ambassador to the
United States, said Israel would not issue an official apology.
"I think it's really too much to demand (an apology) when
every day we are being shot at,'' Shoval said. ``We didn't try
to justify this (shooting). We said it was a mistake and we are
sorry about that."
Not even regrets for the phone
bomb and (of course) for those new settlements. CP
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