Lots of the British newspapers had it: George was getting his cold shoulder ready for Gerry. The word was, President Bush was so brassed off with Sinn Féin's anti-war stance on Iraq, Gerry Adams would be lucky they didn't set the White House dogs on him, let alone get a handshake and a photograph at the Paddy's Day celebrations in Washington this week. Total twaddle, of course. Even small-brained President Bush knows about the 40 million US citizens claiming Irish descent.
But while Gerry Adams will have the White House door flung open to him, another bearded former revolutionary goes on suffering US disapproval. All the way back to JFK, American presidents have been not so much frosty as Arctic towards Fidel Castro. They've tried to invade his country, they've sent the CIA to kill him with everything from poisoned food to exploding cigars, they've put a crippling embargo on trade with Cuba – but still he survives. George W Bush has particular reason to be anti-Castro: a lot of anti-Castro Cuban exiles live in Florida, and Florida, you'll remember, is the state run by Dubya's brother Jeb, and also the state that, after disenfranchising thousands of black Democratic voters and doing a lot of recounting, decided that Dubya had won the 2000 presidential election.
But for many people throughout the world, Castro is a joke – a dinosaur from a past age. When the rest of us have decided that socialism and communism and the public good are worn-out concepts, Castro goes on clinging to his vision, insisting that it's better than what's offered by his capitalist neighbour to the north. Perhaps it's just as well Gerry Adams didn't pay Fidel a visit some months back – who knows what naive nonsense he could have picked up.
Here's an example of some of the silly things Castro believes in. They were contained in a speech he gave to the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Kuala Lumpur recently.
- he quoted George W Bush, who last June announced that the US army would 'strike at a moment's notice in any dark corner of the world.' Fidel said this referred to third world nations, former colonies which the great powers had plundered in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and now keep pinned in poverty in the twenty-first
- he said that these third world countries were being drained of their resources at such a rate by big powers like the US, the entire future of the planet was being put at risk
- he said that, under Bush's presidency, the UN was having its authority wrenched away, development assistance to the third world was being reduced and massive amounts were being spent on ever more sophisticated and deadly weapons
- he said that the spending on weapons was being matched by the vast sums spent on commercial advertising, the purpose of which was to sow consumerist longings that, in most cases, were never satisfied.
Now – is that yesterday talk or what? Granted, the US is clearly intent on striking at a number of dark corners in the world – Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Iran – but, ah, um, no, hang on, I know Fidel is wrong, give me a minute to think about it. And all right, it's true that the former colonies continue to be plundered one way or another today – that's the main reason Iraq is about to be invaded, after all – but oh, er, no, – there's a reason why that's rubbish too, and if you'd stop hurrying me I'd remember. And as for money spent on defence – sure if the US didn't have weapons of mass destruction, next you know places like Iraq would start developing weapons of mass ... No, stop that, you're deliberately mixing me up. And as for the adverts that make us salivate and get into debt – sure isn't it worth it? Where would you go on a Thursday night if there were no shops? We buy therefore we are.
No, we should all be grateful that Gerry and the others from Ireland will be allowed to stream in the White House door today. It'll be a polite and pleasant occasion. No- one will ask what David Trimble is doing there, since he's always insisted he isn't Irish. No-one will mention Fidel Castro's name, let alone suggest he might make some kind of sense. And no-one will even think, let alone whisper, the irony of George W Bush lecturing a group of Paddies about the need to resolve their differences peacefully, even as he puts the whistle to his lips and lets loose the dogs of war.
