They should have invited John Kerry

Kerry has given Genghis Khan more publicity than anyone in my liftime and the Mongolians are trying to celebrate their old hero without him and it is not going well. The Independent reports:

They were supposed to be the celebrations that would attract 400,000 visitors and put independent Mongolia on the world map, but instead a public relations disaster is in the offing.

Plans to commemorate Mongolia's greatest hero, Genghis Khan, are running into major delays and political rows. This summer marks the 800th anniversary of the warlord's unification of the marauding Mongol tribes, at whose head he swept across Asia and created the world's largest land empire, but nearly every construction project in his name is way behind schedule.

Even round-the-clock shift work is unlikely to see a new national museum in Ulaanbaatar's main square finished in time for the all-important Naadam festival in July. Nor will a gigantic £300,000 statue of Khan be ready for the grand unveiling, which the Duke of York is scheduled to attend on behalf of Britain.

Critics say the Mongolian government should have stumped up the money for a new film about its 13th-century warrior. Instead the project has gone to the Japanese, although the local actors have demanded an extra £550 because, they argue, the foreign film-makers are exploiting a Mongolian legend for their own ends.

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No they should have invited John Kerry to tell of his exploits that he found comparable to the old raider in his famous testimony before the US Senate when he was working for the defeat of the US in South Vietnam. Lately he has been trying to do for Iraq what he did for South Vietnam.