Article From Labour Comment, May 2003
Ireland And Iraq
“Ireland will also be rewarded for its support during the Iraq war… It is a case of payback time for Shannon… In many of these cases, we only get the crumbs but that will be enough for us.” (Jed Pierse, Chairman Pierse Construction, Irish Independent, 10.4.2003).
Occupation Of Iraq
DURING the period of the Rainbow Coalition 1994-1997, proposals were peddled suggesting the removal of history as a subject at secondary school level. A lot of people were aghast at such a proposal, like Solzhenitsyn: “No don’t: Don’t dig up the past! Dwell on the past and you’ll lose an eye. Forget the past and you’ll lost both eyes.”
However, if one is to judge the response of the Irish body politic to the occupation of Iraq, then whatever history about Ireland that is being taught is a pure waste of time—the subject might as well be abolished for all that it adds to our national outlook.
In 1993, Jack Lane wrote:
“The Civil War was by far the most important event in Independent Ireland. It shaped the structure of politics and the state profoundly. Yet it is almost universally regarded as best forgotten—and as quickly as possible. It is regarded as some terrible mistake. This attitude has a very debilitating effect on people because it really is soul destroying if a society tries to accept that it is the product of some historical error. In fact, nearly all Irish history is fast becoming to be seen as some kind of nightmare of awful events by fashionable thinkers these days.
“This pamphlet tries to rescue the Civil War from this state of affairs and shows what it was about—and what it was not about. It points out its virtues, e.g. in producing a functioning party system. If it had not happened we would probably have had 70 years of one party, Sinn Fein government. That was the only feasible alternative. The detractors of the Civil War parties might ponder on that.
“Every country worth its salt has had a civil war that helped define it in the world. The Republic is no exception, and it’s time the Irish Civil War was assessed in that context” (Introduction to Spotlights On Irish History, a collection of lectures by Brendan Clifford, 172 p.p. €10).
Dublin now finds itself intellectually and spiritually in the same situation as Germany. This publication has often highlighted the fact that thought about Germany has been dominated by British war propaganda since August 1914. Despite the reference in the 1916 Proclamation to “our gallant allies in Europe” and Ireland’s avoidance of involvement in the Second World War, the propaganda view of Germany and its history has grown in recent years.
Germany itself has succumbed to this view of itself. It has a guilt complex that paralyses it politically. Ireland is heading in a similar direction.
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“I think we are working that dreary old anti-Britishness out of our system, but it is being replaced by anti-Americanism, and I really can’t explain it” (Gay Byrne, Sunday Tribune, 23.3.2003).
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The British Sunday Times has a TV advertisement: “Ireland, and the World”. The ad. is incomplete: it should read “Ireland, and the World via Great Britain”. That sums up the world outlook of the establishment in Ireland today.
Throughout the entire debate on the invasion of Iraq, I did not hear a single Irish commentator, whether vindicating or opposing Occupation, attempt to explain it in the context of Irish history.
The 800 years of British Occupation of our own land, even the 30 years of war between the IRA and the army of Britain since 1971, still could not provoke a spark in their thought process, whether they were liberal, socialist, pacifist. Where would you get it?
Yet throughout the entire period of the war against Iraq, Lord Saville of Newdigate sat in the Central Hall, Westminster, London, proceeding with his Inquiry into the murder of 14 unarmed civil rights marchers in Derry on January 30, 1972, at the hands of the Parachute Regiment and others.
The
Parachute Regiment is now ‘fighting
and dying’ in the streets of Basra for the ‘liberation’
of the Iraqi people.
On 26th March, 2003, Colonel Derek Wilford, in charge of the first battalion
of the Parachute Regiment told the Inquiry his men acted in a professional manner
on 30th January, 1972.
“His soldiers had done nothing wrong despite shooting dead 13 unarmed civil rights demonstrators … nor did I see any shameful and disgraceful acts” (Daily Mirror, 26.3.2003).
“As he took the stand in London, his son, an officer in the Parachute Regiment was expected to face action in Iraq” (ibid.).
A former Prime Minister, Edward Heath and other cabinet ministers of the day, along with 300 ex-soldiers, continue to give evidence.
Malvinas
CONTRAST the Irish position in another international crisis: that of the 1982 Malvinas (Falklands) crisis.
Charles Haughey was Taoiseach when the conflict began on 2nd April, 1982. Ireland was a member of the Security Council of the United Nations at the time. Haughey took the role seriously. If a decision had to be made, Haughey made it. Unlike Ahern and Cowan, he was not for hanging around the UN as a sort of second-class member, while the “big battalions” made the decisions and the small states nodded in approval, giving an air of authority and respectability to the power-politics of the ‘Great’ Powers.
Britain seized the Malvinas from Argentina in 1833 but now the overwhelming majority of inhabitants wished to remain British, so Britain protested against the ‘seizure’ of the islands by Argentina to the Security Council, which passed Resolution 502 calling for an immediate Argentinian withdrawal.
Being a member of the Security Council, the Irish representative voted for the resolution, but the Irish Government only reluctantly supported a British request for an EEC embargo on trade with Argentina. Haughey was personally ‘very cool’ towards the proposed sanctions, but eventually went along with the other EEC countries in unanimously implementing an embargo.
Irish trade with Argentina was comparatively small anyway. In fact, the total value in 1981 amounted to little over £15 million. While the trade balance was in Ireland’s favour, the Irish Meat Marketing Board predicted the embargo would be even more in the country’s favour, because Irish beef would be able to replace imports from Argentina on the British market.
“On May 2, 1982, the Government, issued a statement calling for further diplomatic efforts to avoid a military escalation. The statement reaffirmed Ireland’s traditional role of neutrality in relation to armed conflicts. That evening a British submarine sank the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano and a total of 368 Argentine sailors were killed” (The Haughey File, Stephen Collins, The O’Brien Press, 1992)
“What was not generally known at the time was that the British had sunk the General Belgrano even though it was well outside the exclusion zone proclaimed by Britain and had been moving further away for some hours. The sinking was apparently a deliberate attempt to provoke the actual war.” (Fallen Idol—Haughey’s Controversial Career, T. Ryle Dwyer, Mercier, 1997)
This marked the real beginning of the Malvinas War.
Fianna Fail supporters were delighted that the Government distanced itself from the British position before the conflict had escalated. Speaking at a Fianna Fail meeting in Edenderry, Co. Offaly, Minister for Defence Paddy Power accused Britain of being the aggressor in the Malvinas and said that Ireland would immediately take up a neutral stance. He got a standing ovation for his comments and the following day the Government duly announced that it would seek the withdrawal of EC sanctions against Argentina and would ask the United Nations’ Security Council to demand a cessation of hostilities.
The Irish Government announced it would be calling on the UN Security Council to bring about an immediate end to hostilities and would also be seeking the withdrawal of the EEC economic sanctions against Argentina on the grounds that those were ‘no longer appropriate’.
“We were never very enthusiastic about the imposition of sanctions,” Haughey told a press conference on May 6, 1982, “but the argument was persuasive that they could be instrumental in applying pressure to achieve the implementation of Resolution 502 and so lead to a diplomatic solution.” He was ready to accept sanctions supporting the UN resolution, but added “…sanctions complementing military action are not acceptable to a neutral country”.
The Irish announcement was bitterly resented by the British, who saw Haughey’s attitude as a blatant attempt to undermine their support within the Security Council and the EEC. “It appeared that he was going out of his way to make Britain’s position difficult”, said Jim Prior, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
What annoyed the British most, apart from having to tolerate an Irish political leader holding a view of the world independent from a British vision, was the fact that the Irish moves on the Security Council made no reference to implementing Resolution 502.
If the Irish proposal had been accepted, Argentinian forces would have been able to remain on the Malvinas, pending a diplomatic settlement.
Haughey made no apologies for his Government’s behaviour. As an elected member of the Security Council, Ireland had a particular responsibility to do what the country could to secure a peaceful settlement. “It would be easier to stay quiet and do nothing but that would be an abnegation of responsibility in this appalling situation”, he contended. “Undoubtedly, when there is an emotional situation over the Malvinas in Britain and elsewhere there will be misunderstanding. What we must do is keep our heads, act responsibly, act as a peace-loving nation.”
Haughey deplored the escalation of the war in the South Atlantic. “Inbuilt into any war is escalation of this sort,” he said. “We went along with sanctions when they were in support of diplomatic political pressure. Once it became clear that they could be seen to support military activity, we had as a neutral State, no alternative but to withdraw from the sanctions position and hope that our stand will be understood by the British Government.”
In the midst of the chauvinistic fervour that swept Britain, there was a considerable wave of anti-Irish sentiment and some virulent anti-Irish propaganda. “It is tempting to yearn for a return of the Vikings to plunder Ireland’s coastal area and rape her nuns so that we, too, can have an opportunity to declare high-minded neutrality and demand a diplomatic solution”, Auberon Waugh wrote in the Sunday Telegraph at the time.
“The British were furious and the row marked the end of Thatcher’s relationship with Haughey. She refused ever again to meet him for an Anglo-Irish summit and even when he became Taoiseach during the last years of the decade, she only agreed to meet him on the margins of EC summits, and most of those meetings were frosty in the extreme” (Fallen Idol).
“In 1982, Charles Haughey took a stand against Margaret Thatcher over the Falklands War. He opposed her in a serious act of misjudgment unparalleled by the attitudes taken by the other European Union powers, and it cost us dear. It lost him her trust, permanently and irreversibly” (Bruce Arnold, Irish Independent, 2.4.2003).
Arnold goes on:
“The Falklands was shabby war, with deeply suspect motivations, and it had terrible tragedies in it, the worst being the sinking of the Argentinian ship, the Belgrano. But it was not our war, and, once it had been engaged in, it was futile and nationally counter productive to sustain objections to it” (ibid).
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“Having learned Irish history from the English point of view, I then had to learn it all over again from the Irish one. To the Irish nationalist, Britain is a suppressor of small nations. The English see themselves as their champion. By continental standards she is a small nation herself. Ever since the sixteenth century her foreign policy has been based on maintaining a balance of power in Europe. This means opposing, and ultimately defeating, any country striving to dominate the rest.” (Commander Allen Crosbie, British Navy, Mindful Men, Editor: Daphne Dwyer, Bradshaw Books, Cork 2002).
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The
highly moral and principled Mr. Arnold: “…it
was not our war”—the man who espouses from on high about
the values of the British way of things—the Britain which for 400 years
and more made it a national virtue to ensure that every war was their war, provided
it didn’t extend to British terrain.
Arnold lauds Ahern for not making the ‘mistakes’
of Haughey:
“It has been of considerable value in recent days, when his refusal to go down the road taken so foolishly by his predecessor and former leader has been of great value to him. He is broadly right in what he is doing and more importantly in what he is not saying.”
In other words, Bertie, keep your mouth shut!
Independent Press
If the Government was neutral on the side of the US—the media was neutral on the side of the Brits.
The concept of an independent press in Ireland is now a mockery! Whatever remnants of that principal existed—the closure of the Irish Press in 1995 bought it to an end. The Irish Press itself lost direction, especially under the editorship of T.P. Coogan during the Northern War.
Even if all the Brit tabloids and Murdoch’s stable of Sunday publications ceased in the morning—it would not make a whit of difference to Irish readers—the British publishers have succeeded in setting the parameters in relation to a world view for the Irish newspaper industry.
The
News Of The World appears now
to be the main mouthpiece of new Fianna Fail. Throughout the invasion of Iraq,
the most base and jingoistic stories were appearing alongside half-page columns
written by Fianna Fail Ministers.
Murdoch is now backing Ahern provided the Progressive Democrats are guaranteed
a place at the cabinet table.
What was once the bastion of a really national, independent and spirited press—Ireland’s
provincial papers have all but disappeared—bought off mainly by British
interests at exorbitant prices!
During the war, this point was touched on by former Irish Times journalist, Michael Foley, who now lectures in journalism at the Dublin Institute of Technology.
“…why this country’s largest and most profitable media organisation, Independent News and Media, decided not to send journalists to cover the war and instead rely solely on those working for its British sister publications and other agencies.
“Within all this complexity is there any need for separate Irish journalists reporting for Irish media… Questions relating to the U.N., to our neutrality, to humanitarian aid might have a priority here in Ireland.” (Irish Times, 1.4.2003).
The Irish Independent took umbrage to this and sent Sam Smyth into bat. He told us that Robert Fisk who is employed by the Independent in London, which is also owned by Sir Anthony O’Reilly, “has a home in Dalkey, Co. Dublin, which he visits regularly and has a deep knowledge of Ireland and the Irish” (Irish Independent, 2.4.2003).
Smyth stated that: “…it would be a foul calumny to distrust the work of reputable journalists simply because they are not Irish”.
Smyth is correct, but neither Foley or himself get to the core of the argument—even if Irish journalists were in Iraq, it would make no difference, for they have not the ability to see the world through independent Irish political eyes, only via Wapping, and Fox and their proprietors will ensure that it remains that way.
The
Irish Independent is a disgrace.
It’s the country’s largest selling paper. Under the title mast,
for years, it described itself as “Ireland’s
National Newspaper”. It has since dropped that claim. The term
‘national’ would be a source of embarrassment
for its proprietor, Sir Anthony O’Reilly.
Israel’s Black And Tan War
CORK Workers’ Party representative, Ted Tynan got up the noses of a lot of intellectual and academic types in the city last year when he distributed a leaflet headed: Spot The Difference—Cork 1920; Nablus 2002. Stop Israel’s Black And Tans.
His pamphlet contained pictures of both burnt-out communities:
“The actions of the Israeli Defence Forces in their incursions in Palestine are comparable to the outrages carried out by the Black and Tans in Cork in the 1920s.
“Cork Workers’ Party representative Ted Tynan said that there was a strong similarity between the two situations with brutal killings, night curfews, disregard for medical and rescue services, the wholesale destruction of cities and the brutalisation of the civilian population. Nablus and Jenin 2002 are a mirror image of Cork and Mallow in 1920, except the killing spree and body count is considerably greater in the current Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people”, he said.
“There is, however”, said Mr. Tynan, “one area where things are different. In 1920-1921 world public opinion forced the British to withdraw their dogs of war—the Black and Tans, and sit down at the negotiating table. Much of that public outrage came from the United States which unfortunately has thrown its weight behind the Israeli aggressors on this occasion”.
“The people of Cork have not forgotten that our city was razed to the ground in December, 1920 by Crown Forces. It is part of our folk memory. There is clearly outrage among the majority of Cork people that the same thing is being done today to cities in Palestine—historic cities like Bethlehem, Nablus and Jenin.”
Unlike like some on the left and the political establishment, here is a man who looks at the world through the perspective of the Irish Independence struggle. He finds common cause with other peoples in similar situations and like Michael Davitt during the Boer War when he resigned his South Mayo seat in Westminster in 1899 saying: “I would not purchase liberty for Ireland at the price of giving one vote against the liberty of the Republics of South Africa”.
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“But now there has been an astonishing role reversal. England is regarded benignly. Indeed, Ireland has become remarkably Anglicised in recent years: the Irish shop at Tesco’s and Marks and Spencer, and many people seem to care more about Manchester United than almost any native Irish institution.“The big baddie in Irish life is now America. Contrary to the McCourt vision, America now represents imperialist aggression—an “evil empire”—repression, authoritarianism, and all the arrogance of power” (Mary Kenny, Irish Catholic, 3.4.2003).
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“Right
proudly high in Dublin Town
they flung out the flag of war,
“Twas better to die ‘neath an Irish sky
than at Suvla or Sud El Bar”
The Ballyfermot British Soldier
THERE was no holding the Dublin media back, they got what they wanted: a dead hero; a ‘Ballyfermot’ British Army soldier and on the very days that Bush and Blair occupied Hillsborough Castle.
Ian
Malone is a hero, he’s a hero in a sense he could never have realised—embraced
by the most wretched and sour of souls, the West Brits, the Harris and Myers
mob, who detest and hate all that is free and noble in the Irish spirit. They
pervert this young man’s death because it is dressed in British costume,
draped by a Union Jack, so they can disparage the lives of hundreds of young
republicans who gave their lives for national freedom in the 30 Year War.
Lance Corporal Ian Keith Malone, the Ballyfermot British Army soldier joined
in 1997, one of a 100 young men currently serving in the ‘Irish’
Guards, ‘the Micks’,
born and brought up in the Republic.
We have no doubt Malone was a fine young man, but it is surely a reflection of how low national self-esteem and patriotism have plummeted in this partitionist state when a young Irishman sees no contradiction in joining an army which includes people who shot down 14 fellow countrymen in cold blood on the streets of Derry in January, 1972 and conspired in the bombing of his own city in May, 1974, when 25 innocent citizens were blown to ‘Kingdom Come’.
He was accorded a half page obituary in The Irish Times on April 12, 2003:
“This first Irish fatality in the Iraq war tragically dramatises a centuries-old but largely unacknowledged tradition of service by Irish people in the British armed services.”
“Professor Tom Bartlett of UCD sees Malone as ‘emblematic of a tradition that had endured since the State was set up’. For the President to send her aide-de-camp to the funeral would not be ‘an endorsement of the military adventure in Iraq’ but would be appropriate in the context of a wider, mysterious but real Anglo-Irish tradition.
“Irish service in British forces, ‘shows up the paradoxes of sister islands’ and is ‘a product of a relationship that cannot be denied’, he said. Nor was it incompatible with a strong republican outlook, he added.”
In November, 2002, Malone appeared on an RTE television programme on Irish mercenaries in foreign armies but particularly the British Army:
“At the end of the day I am just abroad doing a job. People go on about Irishmen dying for freedom and all that. That’s a fair one. They did. But they died to give men like me the freedom to choose what to do.”
Perplexed are you—but it is little wonder when we see the Irish Government’s response to the funeral.
The Irish Times described an expatriate Iraqi caller to RTE radio this week describing Malone as ‘a hero’. We know how the Irish Times and the Professor Bartletts of this State described the young men and women who went out to fight in the 30 Year War—and it wasn’t heroes they called them!
You would wait a long time before you would ever see an “Irish Times” obituary dedicate the same space they devote to the Ballyfermot British soldier to an Irish Army Lance Corporal. The truth is that the West Brits look on the Irish Army with derision and contempt—useful only to protect Securicor vans!
Irish Army
“Not discussed in the book is Tony Blair’s stance in the present crisis yet it is known Kagan admires him greatly. Is it that the memory of past possessions gives this courageous politician a realpolitik that combines America and Europe. He is certainly the one who has the qualities necessary to heal those rifts. (Desmond Travers is a former Army officer with wide experience on military missions abroad, including the Balkans.” (Irish Catholic, 3.4.2003).
If this is an example of the political outlook of the Irish Army leadership, no wonder we’re going round in circles.
‘Lesser Breeds’
The invasion and occupation of Iraq is about power, with oil a subsidiary consideration. It is about putting a ‘lesser breed’ in its place, of all people, the Irish should understand this; it is about instability and continuing to ensure that instability is maintained when the interests of globalisation are challenged. The US ‘Coalition’ Powers hold that he single criteria for normal civilisation in the Arab states is an utter and unequivocal acceptance that the state of Israel is primary to anything else that happens in the Middle East.
Notes On The War
“FIVE Irish soldiers were due to fly home from Kuwait last night as war with Iraq loomed.
“The officers had been part of a UN observer mission which has been axed.
“Ireland’s forces have been part of the border operation for 12 years. There are no other Irish soldiers left in Iraq or Kuwait.
“But our top soldier Lt. Gen. Colm Mangan is currently touring the Middle East, visiting Irish officers.
“Ireland has four officers in Israel, four in Syria and 11 in Lebanon.
“Three women and five children, relatives of soldiers were evacuated from Israel last week” (The Sun, London, 20.3.2003).
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"We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy."
Supreme Court Justice Robert L. Jackson, U.S. Representative to the International Conference on Military Trials, August 12, 1945.
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LONG-TERM partners of British soldiers, sailors or airmen killed in action will be entitled to pension payouts for the first time ever.
Until now, the Brits paid pensions to the wives and husbands of those who died in active service.
Those successful will get an immediate tax-free lump sum followed by regular pension payments.
The decision also applies to Homosexuals serving in the Armed Forces, according to The Sun, 20.3.2003.
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