Eating Crow, Eating Dog; Diplomatic Lingo; Bush, Whiny Little Guy

Bush doesn't want to eat crow, but the truly big question is whether our captive boys and girls from the U.S. spy plane are being forced to eat dog without their knowledge. One view is that the Canadians, eager to discredit China as a host of the 2008 Olympics, have been particularly sedulous in relaying stories about the Middle Kingdom'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 at this time.

The Turks, like the Canadians, also vying to be host of the 2008 games, have been eagerly retailing the St. Bernard atrocity stories to the disadvantage of the Chinese people's Republic. In 2008, will the Olympic Committee (of whom Henry Kissinger is a member) mandate tests to see whether Chinese athletes have been fattened on the musculature of these same enchanting dogs?

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Dept. labors to define the calibrations of nuance between "apology" and "regret" and other terms to indicate an effort to clear up the whole laughable misunderstanding about the spy plane and the dead Chinese pilot, who, according to a senator on the Intelligence Committee, apparently liked to flutter his website 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" or measured contrition, 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 my 14-volume Oxford English Dictionary the element of remorse is included only in the third definition of the word. So the U.S. State Dept., headed by that peacenik Powell (whose aides are leaking the news that he recommended an apology from the outset), could issue a formal document, titled "Apology for the U.S. 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 mu-shu dog and send them home.

Many of the most entertaining passages in international relations concern detention and poor treatment of diplomats, spies or simple travelers. The 19th century is replete with incidents where local despots twisted the tail of the British imperial lion, often with impunity.

For example, one 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.

Another Bolivian caudillo, Mariano Melgarejo, wearied of the complaints of the British ambassador in La Paz, lifted his mistress' 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 Bolivia's capital to be bombarded by ships of Her Majesty's navy. Told that landlocked La Paz was out of gunshot range, they contented themselves with having Bolivia erased from British maps.

A few years earlier Britons boiled at the outrageous conduct of Nasrullah, the Emir of Bokhara, toward two British officers, Col. Charles Stoddart and Capt. Arthur Conolly. Stoddart 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 soon threw Stoddart into a rat-infested black hole, without even dog on the menu. The executioner dropped by to say that unless he embraced Islam, Stoddart's head would come off in very short order. Stoddart accepted Islam, and his conditions improved. Word of his forcible conversion reached England and the nation's 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 warning.

The Emir of Bokhara suggested he drop by for a friendly chat, and the foolish Conolly took up the invitation. The Emir was polite at first, but soon became mightily pissed off 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. That settled Conolly and Stoddart's hash. The British government took to describing the two officers as "private travelers," which probably sealed their doom.

Then matters went downhill. A British force in Kabul was massacred to the last man (a doctor who managed to 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. Stoddart denounced the Emir in his apopemptic remarks, and was promptly beheaded. The executioner then invited Conolly to convert. Citing Stoddart's futile flirtation with Islam, Conolly declined, and soon his head joined that of Stoddart's in the dust.

Diplomatic Lingo

Talking of State Dept. language, the newspapers here were a little coy in discussing the very strong language used by department spokesman Richard 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 U.S. Ambassador Martin Indyk, at his residence near Tel Aviv. U.S. diplomats had escorted the three Palestinians back to the Gaza border, at which point they transferred to their own jeeps, plus a silver Mercedes. 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 U.S. into Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the salvo represented a marked slap in the face for the U.S. The Israelis 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 Sharon... Israel 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 case... We 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 Williams quoted Boucher's use of the word "provocative" about the planned new settlements, but had nothing on his 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, or of course for those new settlements.

Whiny Little Guy

My view of Bush W., the White House incumbent, has always been that he's a mummy's boy who spent his early years monitoring Barbara's resentment under the broiling sun of Midland or Odessa as George Sr. gallivanted around the globe. Confirmation of this view comes with news that a fellow who held high position in the Cabinet of Bush Sr. put his name forward for a job in George W.'s team and waited by the phone, which failed to ring. He finally called Bush Sr. and asked him to put in a good word. "No use talking to me," Bush Sr. told him amiably. I've got no pull at all. Only thing for you to do is call Barbara."