Greece tackling the big issues - photos on an official's website

'God's gift to the world'

The Guardian is reporting the latest US State Department cables published by WikiLeaks regarding how frustrated US officials are with the Europeans for having these 'human rights standards' which are getting in the way of the US government's 'war on terror'. Not to worry, so many other countries like China feel the same way! In their bitch on the Council of Europe's work, the Americans took it out on Thomas Hammarberg – the council's human rights commissioner – for his criticism of US counter-terrorism policy. The Guardian states that in a separate cable referring to comments made to the US by the Maltese ambassador, Hammarberg is accused of seeing himself as "God's gift to the world". Wow, before Cablegate I never realised how catty and petty these diplomats are. Of course, these US officials then turn around and applaud Hammarberg when he awards Cuban 'dissidents' awards. Hmm....

What has caught my attention though is this piece of diplomatic pettiness. US officials noted "a rather sad exchange" where Greece complained that Hammarberg had chosen photos of Turkey for his website that portrayed a positive image of the country. Big issue, no doubt. "The Greek ambassador criticised photos apparently chosen for Hammarberg's website regarding [his] recent official visit to Turkey". The cable goes on to say that "the Greek contrasted the 'vacation-like, very positive' images with those associated with the commissioner's visit to Greece." Of course, the Greeks were bitter at Hammarberg as the Council of Europe have been quite damning of Greece's treatment of refugees and its officially non-existent but very much present minorities. There's nothing that gets Greece more edgy that admitting there are indigenous ethnic groups in their country other than Greeks or whenever their arch enemy Turkey 'outshines' them. I mean, the Turks are supposed to be all evil, innit? Now, the crazy thing is that the photos of Turkey on the the commissioner's website don't look 'vacation-like' at all! Check them out here and see.

All I can say to Greece is that they need to build a bridge and get over it! We've had quite enough already.