WASHINGTON - There can be little argument that many European nations have lost touch with our reality of the world. To many of them, the United States is uncivilized at best and evil much of the time.
Recently, radio and television stations -- from Britain through France and Germany to Russia -- were belligerently complaining that by conducting nuclear tests in the Sudan in 1962, the United States had caused an epidemic of cancer north of the capital of Khartoum. The next day, a Chinese news agency had the story and it was all over Asia.
Sudan, certainly not a member of George Bush's popularity club, started yet another campaign based on anti-Western paranoia. Sudan Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail demanded the presence of the U.S. charge d'affaires to provide an explanation. The foreign minister was relieved; for once he could talk to an American with moral indignation -- and without having to lie about the violence in Darfur.
Sudan's agriculture minister initiated an investigation into radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion. The Islamic media pounced on the concept as both malicious and an affront to the human rights of all those still living in the region. Sudan's U.N. team was alerted and began to draft a statement for the Security Council. The terrorist-promoting Al Jazeera television rushed on the air with the speed of a Dan Rather to accuse Washington of genocide.
The facts they were using were available in our own Congressional Record from information provided at a House Armed Services Subcommittee meeting. The April test, 43 years ago, displaced 12 million tons of earth and created a crater 320 feet deep with a diameter of about 1,000 feet. There was the usual blinding flash of the explosion and the mushroom-shaped cloud.
However, the people in the Sudan were safe. All of this fear and loathing had its genesis in a typo, a "u" replacing an "e." The test indeed took place in 1962 -- but it was at a Nevada test site, code-named "Sedan," since turned into a tourist attraction.
Investigations in Washington discovered no sinister plot. A name-checker mis-transcribed the "s"-word. The mistake was accepted by the usually impeccable Federal News Service and placed on Nexis and other news databases where it continues to excite parts of the Arab world.
Sudan's foreign minister told the media that the confusion was cleared up. Nevertheless, this was too good a story to end in just a whimper - Mustafa added that Sudan's investigation of the non-explosion in the nonexistent Sedan in Sudan would continue "so as we may be fully reassured."
At the Sudan Mission at the United Nations in New York, two diplomats were said to be on their way to Nevada to examine the crater in Sedan for connections to Sudan.
We should not mock these worried gentlemen. To them the whole world is picking on Sudan. Their diplomats are still running around European capitals complaining about the recall of products using "Sudan1" red dye.
This dye is a coloring usually included in waxes and polish. The only trouble is, it was being found in some 500 different popular food products -- mostly manufactured in India -- and sold throughout Europe.
No one appears to have been injured by Sudan1. Scientific tests indicate that if the usual unfortunate rats are given a diet of Sudan1, over a long period of time some may develop cancer.
None of this interests the Sudanese government. Their concern, brought before the European Human Rights Commission and the British Food Standards Agency, is to know how, when and why this dye in use for the past 80 years was named Sudan.
So, while the gentlemen from Sudan have their problems, even more are being created. Real problems, with hundreds dying or being killed every week.
A couple of weeks ago, President Bush gave an inspiring speech on how he planned to fight terrorism in the Middle East with democracy in the Arab world. It was built around a "Go Democratic! Arabian Challenge!" slogan.
The people in Darfur, under attack most days, have a challenge to survive. Certainly, the United Nation's Security Council won't help because China is "Mr. Big and Mr. Powerful" in Sudan. It has the money to buy the oil. It has troops in place and has built high-rise office buildings in Khartoum. To Chinese diplomats, it is "Hands off Sudan -- it's ours!"
Then, when our own State Department looks at the region, it becomes very much aware of the settlement they negotiated, after three decades, to end the civil war in the south. It believes if they become involved with Sudan, the wrath of China and the African Union -- particularly Kenya and Uganda -- will be unleashed on the United States.
Washington, however, must continue with attempts to bring not just democracy to the Middle East, but to bring the Middle East out of the Middle Ages.
Dateline D.C. is written by a Washington-based British journalist and political observer.
