Oscar Wilde observed that the only thing worse than being talked about was not being talked about. The dictum holds true today in the United States of George Bush, just as it did in the England of Edward VII. Many individuals and, worse yet, governments, will go to any lengths to secure favorable press releases and cocktail party approbation, to the point of making public commitments that they have absolutely no power to, or intention of, keeping.

Consider the behavior of the U.S. delegation at this session of the International Whaling Commission. Its members have piously co-sponsored Agenda Item 4 "Strengthening the Conservation Agenda of the International Whaling Commission", all the while knowing that, back in Washington D.C., the Bush Administration has absolutely no intention of implementing any such whaling conservation agenda and, to the contrary, the United States Government has every intention of moving away, quite radically, from cetacean conservation.

Even as the IWC sits and considers Agenda Item 4, the White House and the Pentagon, together, are actively, and successfully, lobbying the U.S. Congress to exempt all of the U.S. Armed Forces from a host of environmental legislation, including the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), the primary U.S. statute law designed to protect endangered cetaceans.

As several environmental groups and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) have pointed out, this is no minor loophole. The United States has 3.3 million people serving as active duty, reserve and civilian personnel, disbursing an annual budget of $400 billion and rising – a sum considerably in excess of the GDP of many IWC member countries.

The House of Representatives already has acceded to all the Pentagon’s requests, incorporating the Armed Forces’ exemption from MMPA in the Department of Defense Authorization Bill. The Senate has proved less eager but that recalcitrance will likely be resolved in the House-Senate Conference on that same bill, where virtually all Senate participants will be members of the pro-military Armed Services Committee, men and women who are more than ready to lend a sympathetic ear to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.

So the IWC can debate and amend, applaud or condemn, Agenda Item 4 as long and as loudly as it wishes but it will make no difference – the organization’s largest and most potent member has no intention of being bound by it. The U.S. Navy will continue to tow its low frequency active sonar across the world’s oceans and whales will continue to die. In the past, federal judges have asserted that this activity violated MMPA. In future, they will be informed that the U.S. Navy is not bound by MMPA. Any member of the U.S. delegation who protests their national intention to act in conformity with Agenda Item 4 should be asked exactly when and where they intend to confront George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld.