13 December 2002

The Green Line

I feel a little fuzzy this morning, talking to the blue-haired ladies in the lobby at the Holiday party here at the building last night. The hors d'eourves were good, though, and the wine was free. They seemed to like a man in uniform.

The news this morning is the usual cascade of thematically linked cacophony, but it all had something to do with The Green Line, and I'm not talking about the Metro line to Anacostia. The President's people say they are supposed to figure out a national Smallpox strategy. The military will get doses first, then First Responders, then John and Mary Q. Citizen. I remember when the pilots were boycotting inoculation because of the side effects. Before leaving for India, I was surprised to discover that I had been inoculated in the 1970s, shortly before the disease was eliminated in the wild. The Doc said I may have some residual protection, a sort of faded Green Line separating me from biological terror. This will be an interesting drill for public health. Who will get it first? And even if the vaccine is mostly safe, what of the ones who die from the reaction?

Elsewhere, two Israeli soldiers are dead from ambush on the West Bank, on the wrong side of what used to be a Green Line and the inspectors are finishing their review of the reams of Iraqi half-truths and lies on their weapons programs. Bob Edwards and the crew at National Public Radio are fixated on Cardinal Bernard Law, and the fact that the Holy Father accepted his resignation this morning over the revelations of the protection of abusive Boston priests. The Catholic Church is said to be considering Chapter 11 protection from court action, just like United Airlines.

The BBC is preoccupied with Turkey and the question of European Union membership. Aside from the usual issues (Ottoman Empire at the gates of Vienna, why the croissant is shaped in a crescent) there is the question of Cyprus, and the Green Line that divides Greek Southern Cyprus from the Turkish north.

You can understand why the Brits care about it- the Empire ends in Cyprus, a placid island in the eastern Mediterranean sun just ninety miles west of Damascus. . When the British granted independence to Cyprus they retained two military enclaves- what they call the Sovereign Base Areas, or SBA, which are still British soil. They are separated by about seventy kilometers, one is quite large and suitable for field training exercise, and the other is smaller and has the club, housing and the airfield.

I was fascinated by Cyprus. The Brits I talked to have only three places for regular overseas posting: The Falklands, the Faeroes and Cyprus. That's it, no more. All the other places turned back, given over, walked away from. Two of the three places cloaked in fog and blasted with frigid wind. Cyprus is a sort of paradise, there are delicate Venetian bridges and Crusader castles, and the Brits and Italians have been here for centuries. There are vast number of ex-pats and tourists there, and the strand is sun-drenched. We had a beer in a side-walk cafe and watched a Turkish Patrol boat racing just off the beach with a gigantic red star-and-crescent flag flying from the stern.

The Turks invaded thirty years ago, and where the tanks stopped is today's Green Line. One of the SBA's actually is the border, a Brit Colonel walking up to a Turkish tank and standing in front of it, "I say, old chap, British soil, What?" The tanks stopped, and flowed around the border of the SBA, leaving it amoebae-like between the Greek and Turkish sectors.

There is no crossing the Green Line without leaving the country, except for a delicate maneuver through the SBA, in the front gate and over through the back gate. I did not have time to arrange it when I was there. The stalemate has turned into quite the cottage industry, with the Greek and Turkish governments subsidizing the factional leaders. There has been no incentive to fix things, not until the EU question came up. I may be a cynic, Burt I bet with the right amount of money they could fix this little misunderstanding. Bob Edwards says they have two years to figure it out, and I'll bet they do.

I'd go back there in a second. Nice place, good food, friendly people. And warm. Just the right time of the year for a trip to Cyprus. I'd stay south of the Green Line, at least for the next year or two.