Flyboys and pigeons

Speech problems

The Diary does not have it easy.

Truth? Too much happens in the world each week. This week especially. When you discover the US may have been duped by Iran into toppling Saddam, you know the world cannot get anymore insane.

Can it?

Actually, it’s been a week for speeches. Bush made a couple. Kerry made a few. Al Gore made one. Comrade Putin delivered a call-to-arms.

First, Bush - who this week flew over the handlebars of his mountain bike during a 17-mile ride around his “ranch”. The Prez suffered “minor abrasions and scratches”, according to his doctor, only to heroically remount his bike and pedal back home. His face was bruised (again!), his chin, upper lip, both knees, and his right hand grazed.

But Dubya never let a head injury get in the way of business. He recovered sufficiently to deliver a keynote speech on the state of Iraq, 37 days before the transition to Iraqi sovereignty (not that Washington and London can agree as to what that will actually mean in practice).

“In the remainder of his speeches on Iraq, Mr Bush would be doing a service to Americans as well as to Iraqis if he lowered their expectations,” The Economist recommended this week.

How much lower can they get?

Bush clearly doesn’t read The Economist (in fact, like Rummy, he boasts how he doesn’t read anything). “The rise of a free and self-governing Iraq will deny terrorists a base of operation, discredit their narrow ideology and give momentum to reformers across the region,” he said. “This will be a decisive blow to terrorism at the heart of its power, and a victory for the security of America and the civilised world … Our agenda is freedom and independence, security and prosperity for the Iraqi people.”

All this in five easy steps.

John Kerry – who thought seriously this week about not accepting the Democratic nomination for President at the Party Convention in Boston in July, and therefore buying more time to fundraise, only to think again and confirm he will accept the nomination and not insult his Boston brethren – offered a alternative view of America’s role in the world.

Kerry accused the Bush administration of having “undermined the legacy of generations of American leadership … They looked to force before exhausting diplomacy. They bullied when they should have persuaded.”

But, in case you hadn’t figured it out yet, this veteran is no wimp. If there was a terrorist attack on the United States during his presidency, “I will respond with overwhelming and devastating force,” he said.

Al Gore, president-in-numbers, was less mealy-mouthed. Sounding not at all bitter, Gore said Bush “has created more anger and righteous indignation against us as Americans than any leader of our country in the 228 years of our existence as a nation.” Even worse, Bush “has built a durable reputation as the most dishonest president since Richard Nixon.”

Meow!

As America movingly displayed its unity, on the other side of the Iron Curtain, so to speak, Vladimir Putin addressed 800 deputies in the Marble Hall of the Kremlin in a State of the Nation speech. The New York Times, for one, was not impressed, calling the speech “chilling” in its hark back to the dark days of the Soviet.

Putin spoke of threats from outsiders to Russia’s greatness. “Far from everyone in the world wants to see an independent, strong and confident Russia,” the President said, without once smiling. He singled out independent organisations and civic groups for betraying the Motherland. “The strengthening of our statehood has sometimes intentionally been interpreted as authoritarianism,” he added.

“We were all puzzled and even shocked,” Lilia Shevtsova, a political commentator and affiliate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the NYT. “It sounds like the old Soviet songs. It sounds out of context.”

Getting crabby

Meanwhile, North Korea (the Diary’s favourite muse) stands accused by the IAEA of having provided Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya with nearly two tons of uranium in 2001.

According to the NYT “a giant cask of uranium hexafluoride” that was handed over to US by Libya earlier this year, originally thought to have come from Abdul Qadeer Khan’s Pakistan, now appears to have a “Made in North Korea” label on it.

The big question: who else has North Korea been selling this stuff to? Any terror groups among the list of clients?

Libya’s decision to open itself up to international inspection has been a Pandora’s box moment.

But Gaddafi, who crossed his legs and pointed his foot at British Prime Minister Tony Blair last month, is up to his old tricks. Last weekend, he stormed out of the Arab Summit in Tunis. “There is one agenda laid out by the Arab people another by the Arab governments,” he said.

Er, yes…

Gaddafi singled out Italy, Australia and Bulgaria as countries Arab nations should have threatened for having contributed troops in Iraq. “The Arabs are not doing anything to retaliate against these countries,” he moaned. “The Arab summit should have warned these countries to withdraw their forces from Iraq or else they should consider themselves at a state of war with the Arab countries.”

The Libyan leader was also angry that the Arab League wasn’t taking seriously his proposal that Israel and Palestine form a single state called Israteen.

As for North Korea… The Stalinist utopia held talks this week with senior military officers from the South.

The aim on both sides was to reduce the chance of clashes between the opposing forces. Pyongyang has warmed up to Seoul, and this time did not insist on dealing directly with the US military. According to the BBC “The South Korean Government is concerned about renewed naval clashes off the west coast, as the lucrative crab fishing season gets under way.”

Understandable.

Peace for Atoms

Back on the nuke trail, the US Department of Energy has unveiled a $450 million campaign to hunt down and recover all the nuclear materials the US and the Soviet Union scattered across the world for research purposes during the good ol’ days of the Cold War.

Here’s the math: 5 kilograms of uranium can make a bomb the size of that which dropped on Hiroshima; about 17,500 kilograms is missing (New York Times).

Another legacy of the 1960s. This all stems from the Atoms for Peace programme of that decade, when the US gave uranium fuel to countries that promised not to produce nukes.

Long-term planning.

What’s more, it turns out that our taste for fake designer handbags is financing terrorists. Interpol chief Ronald Noble warned this week that there was a “significant link” between counterfeit goods and Osama bin Laden & co.

These shady items are said to account for about 9% of world trade.

Is there no escape?

Al-Qaida has 18,000 potential operatives in more than 60 countries, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Coo d’etat

Still, it could be worse. We could be living in the age of the kamikaze pigeon.

That’s right. Documents released this week to the National Archives in Britain, revealed that at the end of the Second World War, British Intelligence set up a “pigeon committee” to train pigeons to fly into enemy targets on suicide missions carrying explosives or biological weapons.

“A thousand pigeons each with a two ounce explosive capsule landed at intervals on a specific target, might be a seriously inconvenient surprise,” wrote Wing Commander WDL Rayner, with the “tentative backing” of MI6 chief Sir Stewart Menzies. (BBC) “Pigeon research will not stand still,” warned the committee. “If we do not experiment, other powers will.”

Quotes of the week

“This is part of China’s propaganda exercise.”
Lee Cheuk-yan, pro-democracy lawmaker in Hong Kong, on China’s lending of the Buddha’s finger to mark celebrations of the Buddha’s birthday.

“I want them to hit everything. I want them to used the big planes, the small planes, everything they can that will help out there, and let’s start giving them a shock.”
President Nixon, speaking on the phone to Henry Kissinger on 9 December 1970. 20,000 pages of records of Kissinger’s phone conversations were released by the US National Archives this week.

“I’m honoured to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein.”
President George W. Bush

Contact the Diary: dominic.hilton@openDemocracy.net