ISIS - An Ideology of Hate, Death & Destruction

Followers of the Islamic Caliphate (ISIS) were responsible for the massacre of at least 128 men and women enjoying a night socialising with friends and family in Paris. In the same week these religious Nazis massacred people on a popular shopping street in Beirut, at a funeral in Baghdad and at a mosque in Yemen.
In Syria-Iraq, they are attempting to obliterate millennia-old cultures by brutally exterminating ancient peoples such as the Yazidis and  by blowing up Palmyra and Nineveh.
Their ideology is based on a belief that there is no place on Earth or in heaven for atheists, agnostics, secularists, gays, feminists, democrats, socialists, Christians, Yazidis, Druze, Bahais, Hindus, Buddists, pagans, Jews, Alawites, Shiites and other Muslims that don't follow their warped version of Islam.

ISIS is funded and spiritually inspired by a misogynist religious fundamentalist elite in the Arabian peninsula whose wealth is based on oil. From the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, governments in USA, Britain, France, Israel, Pakistan and Turkey have armed jihadis to overthrow secular or secular tolerant regimes in Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Colonial Israel and Wahhabi Saudi Arabia were supported no matter what their crimes. The illegal Iraq war led by Bush and Blair triggered the rise of jihadism in the Levant and Iraq.
If the people of the Middle East of all faiths and no faiths are to live in peace and with justice, the duplicity towards ISIS and other jihadis as well as the Israeli occupation/colonisation of the West Bank has to end.
But what must not happen is a loss of civil liberties in Europe nor an intolerance towards others. ISIS and other jihadis are trying to fan the flames of a religious war and are using terms such as crusades and infidels as part of this campaign of hate. We must not fall into this trap. Tolerance and respect must be the key words and deeds.

Tony Blair - Warmonger & War Criminal.

The arrogance of Tony Blair in denying today that the 2003 US-led invasion is responsible for the Mad Max nightmare world of today's Iraq is pathetic.
No humiliation or apology for co-leading a war that has led to millions of ordinary people being killed, maimed, forced from their homes, regions and countries. His war has fragmented countries, turned neighbour against neighbour and led to a rise of an insane, anti-female, sectarian, intolerant, brutal Islamist fundamentalism that has no respect for sanctity of human life. 
Saddam was a vicious bloody tyrant. But in Iraq just before the US invasion, it is estimated that 25% of marriages were mixed, between Sunni and Shia, Kurd and Arab. People were encouraged to attend each other's places of worship. In Baghdad up until 2003, Christians, Sunnis and Shiites mixed socially. 
Now that has changed beyond recognition.The 2,000 year old Christian communities of Syria & Iraq are close to extinction due to the actions of western neo-cons, American right-wing Christians and Sunni extremists. The map of the Middle East is being redrawn in the blood of the innocents by jihadists.

Whilst the Middle East has been ignited since the Iraqi invasion, Blair of course has done well financially, making millions on the international lecture trail. But It is unacceptable and immoral that Blair acts as an international 'peace envoy' in the Middle East for the EU, the UN and others, paid of course by our taxes. Sack him from this position, let the British Labour Party disown him and put him and Bush on trial in the Hague for war crimes.

Dying Embers of Middle Eastern Christianity

At a time when Christians across the world celebrate the birth of their founder, a dangerous cocktail mix of Christian, Islamic and Jewish fundamentalism is leading to the near extinction of native Christianity in its birthplace with a mass exodus of frightened Arab and other indigenous Christians fleeing rabid persecution.

At the beginning of the last century, Christians represented a quarter of the population of the Middle East. Their churches dotted the landscapes of what is now Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. When Islam appeared in the region in the seventh century, Arab Christianity was already six hundred years old. Its worldwide influence was profound. They practised the custom of ‘prostration’ now almost exclusively associated with Muslims, and had always used (and still does) the term ‘Allah’ to refer to ‘God’. Egypt's Coptic Christians gave to the early Irish Celtic church its tradition of monasticism. Assyrian Christian scholars translated many of the Greco-Roman and Persian scientific texts into Arabic, thereby helping in the flowering of Islamic civilisation under the Abbasid Caliphate. From the eight until the eleventh century the Nestorians, with their heartland in modern Iraq and Iran were the most influential of all Christian churches with bishoprics stretching as car as southern Arabia and eastern China.

A religious tolerance more or less held in the Middle East for centuries until it began to be replaced about one hundred years ago by hatred and even genocide. This began in World War One when, according to many leading historians, the Ottoman Turks massacred three million Armenians, Assyrian and Pontiac Greeks in World War One because of their faith and ethnicity.

From 2001, the ‘Born-Again Christian’ George Bush unleashed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that he termed a ‘crusade’ which has led to the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Combined with the pro-Zionist views of influential right-wing American Christians, who believe that all of Palestine must become Jewish in preparation for Christ’s return to Earth for the great final battle of ‘Armageddon’ (aka the ‘Rapture’), the response across the Middle East and environs has been the unleashing of a wave of murderous religious extremism. Too often local Christian communitities became an easy and accessible target. Christians now make up less than 6% of the region's population.

Yet as with Russia and China, US foreign policy is driven by an imperial greed that has nothing to do with freedom, democracy, liberty and justice. Its key global allies are bigoted religious authoritarian regimes such as Israel with its campaign of colonisation of Arab lands by foreign Jewish settlers; Saudi Arabia where Christian worship and that of other religions is banned, where school children are taught to hate ‘infidels’ or non-believers, and where conversion from Islam to any other religion (apostasy) is punishable by death; Iraq where a campaign of ethnic cleansing has led to possibly 500,000 Christians fleeing the country since 2004; and an Egypt where religious discrimination is practiced, where churches are bombed; where reports of the kidnapping, rape and forced marriages of young Christian Coptic women to Muslim men are increasing.

The great Irish writer and Protestant cleric Jonathan Swift was correct in his analysis that “We have enough religion to make us hate each other but not enough to make us love one another”.

So surely there is an obvious case for the expulsion of these and other countries from a United Nations with its ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ that includes Article 18 which states “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance”?

Sadly the EU and the Irish government will do little of substance to end religious and other types of persecution in countries where they have vested economic interests.

America, Barack Obama & the Gaza Crisis

The following is the text of a letter of mine published recently in the 'Galway Advertiser' newspaper that I wrote in response to a series of letters from 2 writers condemning local anti-war protesters:
(Photos from a recent pro-Palestinian Demonstration in Galway City)

The letters of Messrs McDonogh and Harrison seem to view local anti-war protesters as blinkered anti-American ideologues. The former states that he has not read any articles from “the socialists, lefties and liberals” condemning Islamic terrorists.As a member of this motley crew, I for one have written often condemning Islamic fundamentalism particularly for its attacks on women and non-Muslims. Hence I deplore their recent beheading of the ‘leftie’ Iraqi Kurdish feminist Nahla Hussein for her human rights activism. Sadly similar events are a daily occurrence in a country where a US-backed government legislates that women have less rights than they had under the dictator Saddam and where one of the world’s oldest Christian communities has all but disappeared since the Americans illegally invaded to topple its secular regime and secure control of its oilfields.
So if Mr. McDonogh wants to organise a public protest against terrorism in all its forms including that of the Islamists, I for one will join him. For amongst us Galway ‘lefties’ they are those who previously campaigned on issues such as Soviet invasions, Chinese imperialism, British injustices against the Irish, South African Apartheid…

Proud of American Connections

I worked in the USA, am proud of its historical connections with Ireland, have many American heroes and daily enjoy its technological innovations. But I recognise too that it is successive US regimes and its allies that stand accused of the greatest number of civilian deaths and human rights abuses since the aftermath of WW2.

Afghanistan: World's No. 1 Narcotic State

Hence unlike Mr. Harrison, I am wary of any Irish military involvement into propping up a misogynist Afghani regime supported by warlords and drug barons who have, as a result of the US-led invasion, created the world’s No.1 narcotic state that has brought untold misery to neighbourhoods across Ireland and elsewhere.

"We Serve Neither King Nor Kaiser"

Washington promotes the Afghan conflict as a war against international terror and for civilised values. But this reminds me of the WW1 Allies that tricked millions of young men from Ireland and other Imperial dominions into fighting for freedom and democracy when in actual fact they were used as cannon fodder to create a future world order that would attempt to deny Irish Independence, betray pan-Arab nationhood, secure British control over Middle Eastern oilfields and increase white colonisation of Africa.

President Eisenhower Warns Americans of the Power of the Military-Industrial Establishment

In his last address to the nation, President Eisenhower warned the American people to be vigilant of the dangers posed to their liberties by the growing power of the military-arms industrial establishment. This is truer today than it was in 1961. War is big business for corporations linked to the lobbyists, Dick Cheney and others connected to the Bush administration. Trillions of dollars have been paid to them as a result of operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel while they appear immune to the recession that is tearing the heart out of the rest of the US economy.
The wave of popular radical movements currently gaining power across Latin America are indeed anti-Washington but primarily because they know that their white, elitist, traditionally repressive regimes were kept in power for decades by the USA in return for access to cheap raw materials.

Will Barack Obama's Presidency Lead To a Benign Change
in American Foreign Policy?

I hope that Barack Obama creates a more benign America. He is to be congratulated for his opposition to the Iraq war and Guantanamo as well as for appointing the world’s greenest and most scientific-savvy administration expected to implement a pro-environmental economic programme to combat climate change and to create millions of sustainable jobs in insulating homes and expanding renewable energies.
for Jewish settlers recently arrived from Europe. In the most densely populated region on Earth, its inhabitants are being used as target testing of sophisticated high-tech US weaponry operated by Israelis. As with the Nazis ‘Iron Fist’ approach, any feeble fight-back by the Palestinians unleashes huge destructive firepower.But I fear that he will do little to tackle one of the greatest threats to world peace, namely the expansionist terrorist state of Israel that acts as the US policeman in the region. Its ongoing land, sea and land blockade of Gaza represents one of the longest sieges in modern history and conjures up images of Nazi occupied Eastern Europe. Walled-in Gaza is the world’s largest ghetto/concentration camp, the majority of its 1.5million population made up of refugee families ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homes in what is now Israel to clear the wayEx-US President Jimmy Carter last year publicly lamented the stranglehold that the Zionist lobby has on all levels of US politics. The signs are that little will change. On the day after he received the Democratic nomination, Obama spoke at the ‘American Israel Public Affairs Committee’, the most powerful of US Zionist groups, to confirm that an undivided Jerusalem will always remain Israeli while calling for the isolation of democratically-elected Hamas. His secretary of state Hilary Clinton has been a long-time fan of Israel. She calls for action against Iran over its nuclear development while deliberately ignoring Israel’s huge stockpile of illegal nuclear weapons.The response from the world to the plight of Gaza is pathetic. To equate the victim with the aggressor is disingenuous. By their unwillingness to stand up to Israel, the Arab League, the US, EU and the Irish government fail to see history repeating itself in that today’s dispossessed Palestinians were the Jews, Armenians, Irish, Amerindians, Chinese, Aborigines and Poles of yesterday. Unlike courageous Jewish and/or Israeli peace movements such as ‘Not In My Name’ and JATO, they do nothing to get to the root cause of the conflict, namely Israel’s failure to implement UN Resolution 242 that includes withdrawal to its pre-1967 borders. Without such a move, there will never be peace between an increasingly militarily aggressive West led by Israel and an increasingly angry hostile militant fundamentalist Muslim world.

Christmas time in Galway- Santa Claus & Christians in Iraq

A snapshot of Galway during Christmas time would not be complete without making reference to the oldest church in the city which is dedicated to St. Nicholas or 'Santa Claus' as he is affectionally known today.
It is an imposing medieval structure that dates from 1320. Like many churches located the seaports of medieval Europe it was named after St. Nicholas, the patron saints of sailors.
According to legend, Christopher Columbus visited the church in 1477. This is not as far-fetched as it might seem as the city had a long maritime trade link with Spain.
Walking around the church, I came across this Celtic Cross memorial dedicated to Galwegians killed fighting in the British military during 1916. A wreath had recently been laid at its base.
This is not unusual as St. Nicholas was a Protestant Church of the ruling establishment and served as a garrison church of the local British Army regiment- the Connaught Rangers. Hence its interior is festooned with battle banners and memorials from the colonial wars of the British Empire.
On closer inspection, I noticed that one name in the roll of honour was that of an Edward Berry son of the local parish rector who was killed in a place called 'Bait Aiesa' in Mesopotamia. The latter is known now as Iraq with the Arabic placename of 'Bait Aiesa' meaning the 'town of Jesus' in English .
At that very moment, I conjurred up in my mind the image of St. Nicholas and the colour 'red' . But not the red of Santa's clothing; rather the colour of blood and associations with enslaved women, religious wars, intolerant fundamentalism and today's conflict in the Middle East.
Why?

Shock!-Santa was born in the hot climate of Turkey, not the frozen Arctic!
The original St. Nicholas was a Christian living in the Greco-Roman city of Myra in what is now Turkey which was, until the 12th century, the heartland of world Christianity. The Muslim Turks only settled in these lands that now bear their name after 1071 when they defeated the Eastern Roman Greek-speaking Empire known as Byzantium.
Nicholas was a kindly man who carried out many charitable acts. According to one famous story, he secretively delivered 3 bags of coin to a poor father that allowed him to provide marriage dowries for his three daughters thus saving them from a life of as prostitution in the city's brothels. Shades of today's enforced slavery of poverty-stricken women primarily from Eastern Europe in the brothels of France, Italy, Germany, Britain etc which to me is one of the greatest crimes of the 21st century and a stain on the hearts of the continent's political leaders.

St. Nicholas' Body Stolen by Christian Pirates
After his death, he was honoured as a saint and his tomb became a famous shrine with a repuation for miraculous cures. But as the Byzantine lands fell to the Turkish invaders in the late 11th century, Italian piractical sailors attacked Myra and stole the saint's bones. They brought the relics to the church in their home port of Norman-controlled Bari allowing the latter to reap the economic benefits of being an imporant centre of Christian pilgrimage. These were the same Normans whose invasion of Celtic Ireland a hundred years later was sanctioned by the Pope and who later founded the city of Galway.

The Death of Christian Communities in Iraq & in the Middle East
Interestingly it was the Turkish invasion of Byzantium that led to the birth of the Crusades when Christians from Western Europe set out on their blood-drench march to liberate Jerusalem from the 'infidel'. As with Israel and Iraq today, there was a temporary Western victory and occupation. But the arrogant Westerners never won the hearts and minds of the local inhabitatants and, within a few years, they were on the defensive. Their greatest protagonist was 'Saledin' born in what is now present-day Iraq and a historical hero of Saddam Hussein.
Unfortunately, the long term legacy from the Crusades was a dramatic reduction in the native Christians populations of the Middle and Near East who suffered increased persecutions from Muslims that associated them with the European invaders purely because of their religion. Sadly this mirrors what is happening today in Palestine and Iraq thanks to the disasterous belligerent policies of Bush and Blair. There is now, particularly in the case of Iraq, a mass exodus of Christian communities that have existed since the dawn of Christianity as they become the targets of Islamic fundamentalists. It is hard to believe that Iraq was once a vibrant centre of Christian religion from where missionaries ventured further east to spead the gospel. Today all this heritage is under threat. Bush talks much of changing the face of the Middle East. His madcap imperialist adventure may indeed do so for we are now witnessing the disappearance from the region of a religion that survived persecution for nearly two thousand years.