Piss is better than war

Nope, I didn’t misspell the above headline. I meant every word of it.

Much was made in the past three days over Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad having written a letter to US President George W. Bush – the first time an Iranian President, or any Iranian leader for that matter, had directly communicated with an American President, since Tehran and Washington broke off relations in 1979 during the Islamic revolution which had the US Embassy seized and American diplomats and other US citizens taken hostage.

Hopefully observers speculated the letter, dispatched through Switzerland, contained "new solutions" to the Iranian nuclear program crisis which had brought a strong rebuke from the US and Western European countries, and the prospect of sanctions by the United Nations Security Council.

When some details surfaced, it appeared that the letter wasn’t conciliatory but was composed mostly of a lecture to Mr. Bush on the failure of "liberalism and Western-style democracy." The missive said that "today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic systems."

Mr. Ahmadi-Nejad did not exactly boast, as once the Soviet Union’s pugnacious Nikita Khrushchev had done, "We will bury you," but his message came close to that. The Iranian President added in rhetorical question: "How much longer will the blood of the innocent men, women and children be spilled on the streets, and people’s houses destroyed over their heads? Are you pleased with the current conditions of the world? Do you think present policies can continue?"

And then came the usual advertisement of the glories of Islam: "We believe a return to the teachings of the divine prophets is the only road leading to salvation. I have been told that Your Excellency follows the teachings of Jesus . . ."

Was the reference to Jesus intended to be friendly, or was it part of Ahmadi-Nejad's condemnation of Bush’s . . . well, fanaticism?

Naturally, the Iranian chief took a jab at Israel (which he months ago stated ought to be obliterated): "Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East region is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime?"

Probably that dig was meant to portray America to the Arab and Islamic world as a protector of the hated Ez-raelis.

In sum, it wasn’t exactly a Love Letter Ahmadi-Baby had sent to Dubya. While we haven’t been given the contents of the letter in toto, from the snippet’s published it sounded like a lot of horse piss. But what the heck: Piss is better than war.

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I hope Mr. Bush, who’s a cowboy from Texas (though his roots are with the elite of the Eastern Seaboard) doesn’t feel he has to prove he’s got sand in his craw and challenges the Iranian president to draw, and settle matters ala O.K. Corral. Let’s have no "Make My Day" retorts from the White House. I think that the Iranian letter, at least, is an "opening" of communication.

Not waiting for a reply, Ahmadi-Nejad zipped off to Indonesia, for a three-day visit to the world’s most populous Muslim nation. He’s now in Jakarta attempting to drum up sympathy and support, since Indonesia – with a population of over 219 million is 87 percent Muslim. He’ll find friendly ears there, of course, since many Indonesian distrust America and its Middle East policies, but they, too, are almost 99 percent Sunni Muslims – and the 69 million Iranians are almost all Shi’a Muslims. It’s no secret that Sunni Muslims and Shiite (Shi’a) Muslims are at daggers-drawn with each other, from the Mid-East to Pakistan – and much of the blood of innocent men, women and children being spilled in Iraq today is the result of attacks, through roadside-bombs, suicide-bombs, car-bombs, kidnapping and murder, inflicted by Shi’as and Sunnis fighting and killing each other in bloody sectarian strife.

Both sects perhaps hate the Americans mutually, but the escalating "civil war" in Iraq (the Kurds, also Muslims, distrust both Sunnis and Shiites) demonstrates that a united Iraq isn’t in the cards. Just like Christians being divided against each other during the Protestant versus Catholic wars of Martin Luther’s time, there seems to be more than one road leading to the Islamic "salvation" the Iranian leader talked about.

In turn, Mr. Bush’s greatest problem in dealing with the Iranian nuclear challenge is of America’s own making. Just when the United States and its European allies needed the signatures of both Russia and China on a Chapter 7 resolution condemning Iran for its nuclear program, so the UN Security Council might, in future, threaten Tehran with sanctions, even a UN-sponsored attack, US Vice President Dick Cheney attacked Russia in a speech he delivered in Vilnius (Lithuania), a former "colony" of the Soviet Union now restored to an independent Baltic state.

Cheney did state a number of things which were accurate about Moscow, but the Shotgun Kid’s timing was deplorable. The Russian government, through its Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko, angrily retorted to Cheney’s accusation that the Russians were using its energy resources (including the pipeline deliveries of natural gas through US government energy giant Gazprom) as "tools of intimidation and blackmail."

Last Saturday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also directly rebutted Cheney’s accusations, suggesting he had been badly misinformed by advisers. In his "state of the nation" address yesterday, President Vladimir Putin made a few cutting remarks, too.

Don’t they coordinate with each other within the Beltway in Washington? Mr. Bush can’t ask Putin and the Russian government to sign up against Iran in the UN Security Council when the US Veep is kicking the Russian Bear in the . . . I almost said balls, but that would be indelicate.

It seems, too often, when you say "American Diplomacy" it’s an oxymoron.

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As for Beijing, everybody knows by now the People’s Republic of China won’t join the USA and Friends in their anti-Iranian nuclear program push.

President Hu Jintao, who’s been courting every possible source of oil and energy in the Middle East, Africa, and South America, has his own agenda.

The Chinese, for that matter, are always unpredictable. Look at Beijing’s current spat with the Vatican. Just when the Holy See was all set to abandon diplomatic ties with Taiwan (the Republic of China in the old Chiang Kai-shek diction) and open diplomatic relations with Beijing at last, the Chinese government approved the installation of two "Catholic" Bishops, and, when the Vatican reacted indignantly, went on to pick a third new Bishop for what the government has long called the official "Chinese Catholic Church", or the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church Association which has no links to the Vatican.

The clergyman concerned was identified as the Rev. Pei Junmin, and his new designation by Beijing was to be Assistant Bishop of Shenyang (the former city of Mukden), the biggest city in China’s northeast – in truth, formerly in Manchuria, which the Japanese when they controlled it called Manchukuo.

When this writer first went to Shenyang in 1964 at the head of a Filipino journalists’ group we were billeted in the former Yamato Hotel, feted with a banquet by the Mayor (where we all got soused from being made to answer repeated toasts of mao tai firewater wine), then treated as guests of honor to a movie in which the "treacherous" Indian army had attacked the unsuspecting People’s Liberation Army in Ladakh, but were defeated. In the movie, the Indian prisoners-of-war were given warm clothing – since they were shivering to death in light summer uniforms in those mountains – fed well, and treated with such tender care, that they embraced their Chinese captors with brotherly love and were "reluctant", when given their freedom, to return to India!

By golly. Chinese motion pictures in those days were more fantastic than Bollywood.

As for Asst. Bishop Pei – like the two preceding un-authorized "Bishops" he may get ex-communicated by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. In Catholic dogma, echoing the Ten Commandments, one cannot serve two masters, or have strange gods before the one true God. But I venture into dangerous terra incognito. I’m not a theologian.

This is truly a crazy world. Yet, this is what makes it interesting.

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The minor earthquake that struck Leyte province yesterday and "tripped off" electric current (an estimated loss of some 800 megawatts) plunged much of the Visayas into a few hours blackout.

Although power was restored in Cebu City, for instance, late yesterday afternoon, the brownout of several hours has gotten Cebuanos to thinking. Many Cebu officials had been opposed to the establishment of a coal-fired power plant in their province, believing such a plant would not be environmentally-friendly, and thinking they could rely on their connection to the Leyte Geothermal Power plant (at Tongonan, Leyte) which supplies, mainly by underwater cable, the Visayas Grid which includes the Cebu-Negros-Panay Sub-Grid.

I spoke with our Cebu Bureau Chief Valeriano "Bobbit" Avila who had just come back from a meeting called in Mactan by Cebu Governor Gwen Garcia. He said they were still toting up the economic damage caused to Cebu – both the city and province – by the loss of power over several hours. In the city, for example, everything had to be closed down. The shopping malls, having no air-conditioning, became too hot and stuffy for business, so everybody went home. As for Bobbit himself, he confessed, he was in no pain. He simply went off and played golf at the Country Club. The weather was surprisingly less oppressive, since Cebu (he recounted) yesterday acquired a cooling cloud cove thanks to Tropical Storm Caloy which was affecting Guian, Samar, not far away.

Storms are never welcome, of course, but this one proved beneficial to Cebu City – according to Bobbit.

By the way, our corespondent Bobbit Avila sends me two texts everyday on my cellphone, would you believe? In the morning, being a devout Christian (something of a Catholic "born again") he sends me a pious or religious message. In the afternoon, he texts me – and other friends – a naughty joke.

One of his texts last Saturday merits a wider audience. Here it goes: "Success in life can never be an accident. It is the result of right decisions at the right time. Champions are not the people who never fail, but the people who never quit."

Another one last Tuesday: "On a road you saw a small child, cold and shivering. You felt bad and asked God: "Why do you allow this? You don’t do anything!’ God replied: "I did something. I sent you.’ "

I’ve translated the two gems above, I must note, from text-speak.

But these are the Bobbitisms that inspire us to strive better and harder, and remind us of the goodness of human nature. Don’t be mistaken: Avila, who’s been with us in The STAR for almost 20 years, is a motorcycle enthusiast who’s just returned from a motorcycle trip – with his gang of bikers, including US Consul-General in Cebu John Domingo – from a swing from Manila to Baguio, Vigan and Laoag, then back to Manila to load their "bikes" on homeward-bound SuperFerry 14 from the Eva Macapagal Port terminal.

He’s an athlete through and through, from golf to mountain biking, and a fighter, not a wimp. His two-fisted columns in The STAR and Cebu’ oldest daily THE FREEMAN (which we also run, managed by our STAR President Miguel Belmonte) and his popular TV show are the weapons with which he fights.