Richard Dunwoody's Blog by Richard_Dunwoody

I guess that when you are riding horses day-in, day-out, you really don’t have time to catch up on what is going on in the real world. Since my retirement, I’ve been lucky enough to experience quite a few different cities and cultures. Dresden, where I spent a couple of days last week, is a real eye-opener. I briefly touched on a few good haunts to visit in the city – which was destroyed by allied bombers in World War II – in last week’s blog, but there are a few more worth noting. The city is a testament to the atrocities of war, but also of hope. Reconstruction is all around and a case in point are two churches, the Frauenkirche and the Kreuzkirche. The Frauenkirche is the crowning jewel in Dresden and was only completed in 2005. The Kreuzkirche (or Church of the Holy Cross) seems a luckless soul, having been burnt to the ground no fewer than five times. It supposedly held a relic which was a splinter from Christ’s cross. Both these structures help to make up Dresden’s stunning skyline. It seems such a shame that these beautiful buildings have been crowded out, to a point, by communist ugliness.

All that oppression does nothing for the creative juices, with architects managing little more than grey, concrete boxes as their artistic designs. I guess post-war required buildings fast and cheap and in that respect they achieved their goals. It was interesting to be told how most people here over 40 could not speak English, just German and Russian, and old footage shows how the second language was very much encouraged with street signs and posters in both languages. I must be one of the few who have never seen the Crown Jewels in London. It will have to go on my bucket list. It will be fascinating to see if it matches the display of wealth at the Historisches Grünes Gewölbe (Historic Green Vault) in Dresden, which was largely destroyed in the Second World War, and has been returned to its former glory.

Around 3,000 masterpieces of the jewellers’ and the goldsmiths’ art, as well as precious objects made of amber and ivory, and elegant bronze statuettes are presented without showcases in front of ornate mirrored display walls. Unlike most museums, the majority of works of art in the Historisches Grünes Gewölbe are exhibited on open shelves and consoles in front of ornate mirrored display walls, without any panes of glass to separate them from the visitors. As I said last week, there are also some great cafes and bars (Cafe Combo and Bautzner Tor are also worth a visit if you want reminders of the city’s East German past), and a trip to the Sophien Keller is an interesting little experience too. It sits on the site of the old twin-spired Sophien Church and it is here that you can try a shot of liqueur out of a funnel supposedly made from the tears of Augustus’s mistress, Cosel. Dresden is a treasure trove of eclectic craziness, and although, to be honest, it was not what I expected, it was an experience that enlivened all the senses.

I have been to Afghanistan on a couple of occasions. I find it totally intriguing and I’m finalising plans to head back out there next month. According to a recent BBC report, it is more dangerous than it was two or three years ago and away from Kabul that certainly appears the case. By the end of 2014, NATO hopes the handover to Afghan security control will be complete in the war-torn country. I have my doubts. NATO says it will move out of its combat role and into a training mission by then. This will happen last where there has been the most intense fighting, places like Kandahar and Helmand, where the surge of forces has been concentrated. The first provinces – or parts of them – will be handed over to Afghan security control in the first half of 2011. It will be a gradual process. First the Afghans will take the lead in partnered operations, then NATO will progressively step back, moving from “tactical overwatch” to “strategic overwatch”. The concerns about “governance”, when it arrives, are acute, especially at the local level. What if the end result of an effective NATO military campaign is to hand parts of Afghanistan to warlords or a kind of mafia? How do you go about reconciling Afghans with wary neighbours, especially Pakistan, where many senior Taliban leaders are known to be based?

The Afghanistan of 2015 will probably remain a violent and dangerous place. You may notice in news reports that NATO generals do not talk about “victory” any more. The Taliban may not be defeated by then – they may even be part of the government. But if the violence is at a level that can be left to the Afghan security forces, NATO will consider that it has done its job – and the troops will start coming home. ‘Descent into Chaos’ by the acclaimed Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid is absorbing reading on the intricacies of the war on terror in Afghanistan and how it is being lost. I’d highly recommend it.

Lazy journalism annoys me. Yes, the end of the world is probably approaching, but I still can’t understand how journalists can write about the mass bird deaths and put it down to fireworks scaring them! It all started when residents of Beebe, in the US state of Arkansas, woke to find thousands of dead blackbirds strewn across roads on January 1. Then, in Louisiana, about 500 birds – including starlings, cowbirds and redwing blackbirds – rained down from the skies. Only days later, news outlets once again became excited by the discovery of dozens of unfortunate jackdaws who had met their fate over Falkoeping, in Sweden. Italian scientists are investigating the deaths of the 400 turtle doves, whose bodies appeared in the days after New Year.

The initial focus of the investigation was on known diseases, epidemics and viruses. Some of the most laughable excuses I’ve read have involved alcoholic poisoning, eating the wrong seeds and fireworks. Did those birds in Beebe simply go out and party on New Year’s Eve? “The die-off was most likely caused by fireworks, local experts say”, according to one article on the BBC news website. What utter rubbish. If birds succumb that easily, a good many cities would have killed off the whole of their feathered populations at New Year. Something may well be going; think what you like, UFO's, secret government testing of energy weapons? But I’m darn sure wasn’t fireworks. Still, if media organisations actually paid their staff better, perhaps intelligent investigative journalism would flourish again. Just don’t give me fireworks as an explanation!