This is a dark day for Europe and the world

The invasion of Ukraine shows clearly that the anti democratic Putin, who suppresses human rights and assassinates opponents in Russia, to be an imperialist. The excuses given and lies told by this dictator, supported by his fellow dictator in Belarus, have so many similarities to those of the Hitlerite regime for justifying the Nazi invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland which involved portraying a brutal invasion as a war of ‘self defence’ but with the clear intention of wiping a nation or nations off the face of the Earth.

 

90% of the people of Ukraine voted in 1991 for full independence. Their wishes should be respected. Now sadly thousands of these freedom-loving peoples could die and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians will become refugees far from their homeland. 

 

My thoughts and prayers are with my Ukrainian friends and their families at this dangerous time.

I was against the invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan (both Soviet & US), Cyprus and Yemen, the decades long sanctions against Cuba as well as the ongoing occupation and colonisation of Palestine.

I have been to Russia, have great respect for the Russian peoples, their struggles against Nazi tyranny and a deep love of Russian culture particularly its traditional music. But I have no time for Putin or any autocrat. Nor do many ordinary and prominent Russians who are bravely protesting against Putin's invasion of a fellow Slavic neighbouring country even when it means arrest and probably worse.

Whilst democratic Ukraine should have every right to be part of EU if that is what its peoples want, in my humble opinion it should nevertheless have declared itself neutral as Austria did in the 1950s and remain outside both NATO and Russian military blocs.

 

There is no justification whatsoever for the brutal invasion, occupation and suppression of any independent nation. Putin is trying to roll back history and reestablish the colonial Tsarist Empire.

Friends from Conflict Zones Showing the World a Better Way.

Photo shows myself and my colleagues from Iran, Iraq, Kashmir, Libya and Yemen enjoying each other’s happy companionship at our workplace café. Though their homelands and their families are suffering from conflict-be it in the form of occupation, bombings, oppression, civil war, invasion, ethnic discrimination, religious discrimination, economic sanctions…, nevertheless here in Ireland these lovely individuals are united in friendship. This is as it should be.

It makes me feel hopeful that our species will ultimately become ‘civilised’, and that humanity will be bonded together by peace, equality and respect. Since time immemorial, too often we have allowed individuals to take control by using diversity in culture, religion, ethnicity, skin colour and gender to sow hostility and mutual distrust rather than as a strength and something that we should celebrate.

I am also proud that our university and our country (in spite of its many social and economic problems that need radical solutions) promotes tolerance and diversity. This is the view expressed by many of my present and former asylum seeker friends towards this country and city over the years. It is still at many levels an ‘Ireland of the Welcomes’, due I feel primarily to two reasons. Firstly we were until recently a nation of small farming villages portraying the friendliness of rural folk everywhere towards strangers. Secondly, as an occupied, oppressed and colonised country for 800+ years, many of us instinctively feel empathy towards other peoples that are victims of conflict.

But we have got to remember too that we are all neighbours living today in one global village and more than ever before we need to stand together against a common foe in a truly 'just' war, namely to save the planet from the ravages of human-induced Climate Chaos that we increasingly see every day. From the Arctic in the north to Australia in the south, the world is on fire.

Tony Blair: Legacy of Death & Destruction

Tony Blair, the man who co-instigated (with George W. Bush) the Iraq War that fractured the Middle East, destroyed multi religious societies, led to 500,000+ deaths, caused millions of people to become refugees, spawned ISIS & other terrorist organisations and who benefits from huge payments given to him by anti democratic elites now has the audacity to label Jeremy Corbyn a 'dangerous experiment'!

Why does the BBC and other media organisations waste viewers time and taxpayers monies to broadcast the lies and delusions of a failed politician who should be prosecuted for war crimes?  
On today's Andrew Marr Show (BBC) the ex Greek Foreign Minister Yanis Varoufakis was brilliant when he said that Blair's decision to get involved in Keep Britain in the EU would only benefit the Brexit campaign as he is a glass of poison to any campaign that he gets involved in. Varoufakis also commented that the best outcome for humanity would be for Tony Blair to be forgotten and to be treated with the contempt that he deserves. I

Global War on Women: Japan finally issues official apology & awards compensation to the Sex Slaves of its WW2 military.

In World War Two, it is estimated that circa 200,000 women from Korea, China, Philippines, Indonesia and elsewhere were kidnapped and forced to work in brothels as the sex slaves of the Japanese military. The term 'comfort women' that is used to describe them is an insult to the systematic brutality, torture and rape that they suffered over many years in captivity.
Now an agreement has been reached between the South Korean and Japanese government with the latter issuing an official apology for the enslavement of the women and granting one billion yen towards the surviving 46 elderly South Korean female victims. Credit for this long overdue action must be given to the decades long campaign by Korean female activists. 

In this war the Japanese Imperial soldiery felt it was their warrior right to rape the female members of the enemy population at will. The military brothels staffed by sex slaves were only one aspect of the abhorrent treatment meted out to the women of the countries they conquered. The 'Rape of Nanking' in China was aptly named. When the city fell to the Japanese army in December 1937, tens of thousands of females of all ages were gang raped with many horribly mutilated and then murdered.
In Europe during WW2, mass rape on a huge scale was carried out by Soviet armies in Germany during 1945, as a form of 'revenge' for the barbarity of the Nazi occupation in Russia, Ukraine and Byelorussia. 



Women: The First Victims of Men's Wars
Throughout history women are always the primary victims of the wars perpetuated by men. Their bodies are treated as trophies to be used and abused by the male victors. Most of the main ancient religious texts justify or accept this fact.

Sex Slaves in 21st Century
Sadly kidnapping and sexual enslavement of women is back with a vengence and openly being perpetuated by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on the Yazidi and Christian populations as part of a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide against religious minorities, by Boko Haram in Nigeria and by Christian militias in the Central African Republic. There are countless reports issued by Amnesty and other human rights organisations about large scale sexual violence against women by Libyan people-trafficking gangs in an anarchic state ruled by crazed religious warlords.

The Boy on the Beach

In a week when parents in Ireland and elsewhere are happily bringing their children back to school after the summer holidays, it is soul-shattering to see the body of three year old Alan Kurdi washed up on the shores of Bodrum in Turkey.
He drowned, along with his five-year-old brother Galib, mother Rehan, and eight other refugees, yet more victims of money-worshipping traffickers many of whom come from the same countries of the people that they are treating as nothing more than commodities.
Galib should have been going to school this morning accompanied by his brother Alan and mom. 
Alan's family left their home in the city of Kobane as they, like millions of other Syrians and Iraqis, were forced to flee a new terrifying evil that has appeared in the Middle East, devouring and brutalising everything in its path. Islamic Caliphate (aks Daesh) and other religious fundamentalist groups such as Al Nusra are committing massacres and ethnic cleansing on a scale rarely seen for centuries.
Like apocalyptic scenes from the movie 'Mad Max', the world has been turned upside down as we daily see on our television screens, villages and towns across Syria and Iraq that only a few years ago were peaceful settlements, now witness the cancerous ISIS  crucify Christian children; gang rape and murder female lawyers and doctors; throw gays to their deaths from high rise buildings; establish slave markets populated by Yazidi girls and young women to be sold off as sex slaves; bomb schools and marketplaces; behead Shi’a soldiers, triumphantly hold aloft the heads of female Kurdish fighters; parade caged Kurdish Peshmerga through streets lined with jeering crowds and burn alive a caged Sunni Jordanian pilot.
This evil did not appear from nowhere. The US invasion of Iraq destroyed not only the state’s infrastructure, but destroyed also a tolerance between religious communities in many parts of the region providing the environment for a brutal fanaticism to flourish. Brainwashed by Imans promoting the intolerant strand of Islam known as Wahhabism that is prevalent in Saudi Arabia; funded and armed by wealthy religious fanatics amongst the Saudi and Gulf Arab elite; supported by the Israeli, American and Turkish regimes due to their common hatred of the secularist Assad state, the policy of ISIS and other similar groups is simple - eliminate the large indigenous Christian, Shia, Alawite, Druze, Bahai and Jewish populations of the Middle East many of which date their ancestry back thousands of years. In the process atheist, secularist and gay people have been butchered all in the name of a supposedly  all-merciful Supreme Being. Ancient pagan temples, Christian churches, Palmyra and Nineveh are being bulldozed and dynamited in the cradle of civilisation. The rich history and varied cultures of the peoples of the Middle East is disappearing before our eyes.
Millions of refugees have a right to return home. But that never happen whilst Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Gulf States are allowed to dismember Syria for short term political gain. They have let the Genie out of the bottle; the onus is on them to put it back.

Destruction of a multi-cultural & multi-religious Middle East by ISIS

Kurdish female fighters defending Kobane against ISIS

The killing machine known as Islamic State continues its campaign of terror against the peoples of the world, this time targeting Kurdish and Turkish youth gathering together in Suruc to plan out the rebuilding of Kobane, a Syrian town that had been destroyed by the same religious fundamentalist movement a few months previously. 

IS practice a violent form of religion that uses ethnic cleansing, rape, slavery, crucification and beheadings to brutally carve out and supposedly reestablish a mono-religious theocracy that is a fantasy and never existed in history. The Middle East was always a mix of religions, ethnicity and ideologies in spite of the mad ravings of these sadistic misogynist psychopaths.

Sunni, Shia, Christian, Jew, Yazidi, Druze, and atheist must once again live side by side in the Levant and Iraq.
But this will never happen if governments of the region continue to condone rather than confront this cancer. Typical of this attitude is the Turkish government failure to hold a day of mourning for the victims of this massacre which occurred on its own soil (it did so for the recent dead of the anti-democratic sectarian Saudi king!). In fact they have helped the rise of ISIS as it shelled and slaughtered Syrian Kurds in full view of the Turkish army positioned on its border with Syria.

Middle East becoming a Human Slaughterhouse.

Assyrian Christians demonstrating in Beirut

 The persecution of Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities in Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Israel and Lebanon is wiping out indigenous cultures that have existed for thousands of years. 
Followers of Islamic Caliphate (aka ISIS) are endeavouring to make the Middle East, once the cosmopolitan heart of the world, a mono-religious and monocultural region. They see no reason for the existence of secularism, atheism, socialism, feminism, Alawites, Yazidis, Christians, Jews, Druzes and Shi'ites. Their message is one of misogyny, hate and a glorification of death to the 'unbeliever'. They have introduced stoning to death, beheadings, crucifixion, female slavery and the covering of women in public as normal societal traits.
 

Iraqi Christians in Mosul before the arrival of ISIS

Credit must go to the Kurds for holding back this tsunami of evil. Sadly ISIS is growing in influence and power by the refusal of Turkey over and above pure tokenism to aid the Syrian Kurds in their life or death struggle against the Islamist; by Saudi Arabia's promotion of the puritanical strain of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism; by the United States destruction of Iraq and support for expansionist Israel; by Europe and the West's decade-long adherence to support the enemies of the Assad regime at any price.
But today it is not only in the Middle East that Christians are being attacked. They are now the most persecuted and discriminated against worldwide.
Check out Irish Times article from December 2014
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/christians-most-persecuted-and-discriminated-against-worldwide-1.2046934

Kurdish Women Defeat Islamic Caliphate.

So appropriate that misogynist Islamic Caliphate, who deliberately target and murder professional women in towns they capture, are being defeated in Kobane Syria by Kurdish forces containing female soldiers led by female Kurdish commanders such as Baharin Kandal, Narin Afrin and Afsin Kobane (nom de guerre).

Check out BBC News article.

Women make up one third to one half of the peshmerga secular PKK resistance. There are all female units within the YPJ of the Syrian Kurdish resistance.

Photo: AFP News

I salute these brave warriors that are standing up for humanity against a nihilist religious fundamentalist force of evil that has nothing to offer the world except genocide, beheadings, crucification, torture, rape, female slavery, forced marriage and mass public executions. 
They are showing women all across the Middle East that their sex are equal to men.
Thanks to US air strikes, the Kurds are managing to stem this tide of hateful men dressed in black, whilst the cynical Turkish military do nothing.

Check out my previous blog article on the subject of the Islamic Caliphate entitled
Islamic Caliphate must not be allowed to destroy the multi-cultural & religious diversity of the Middle East

Islamic Caliphate must not be allowed to destroy the multi-cultural & religious diversity of the Middle East

Islamic Caliphate: A Cancer that is destroying every religious, ethnic and cultural group and people that do not conform to their hate-filled ideology.
In the last few days 120,000 Syrians have fled to Turkey as Isis go on the offensive in Kurdish Syria.
In the modern world each society has to embrace diversity and promote laws that protect human rights and ban practices/traditions that deny equality to others based on sex, race or creed.

Rolling Back the Cancer that is ISIS.
May we see at last the return of Yazidis, Alawites, Druze, Sunni Kurds, Turkoman, Christians & Shiites to their ancestral homelands in Iraq and Syria.
The Middle East belongs to all faiths & those of no faiths. The attempt by ISIS to destroy thousands of years of culture must not be stopped.

The United States and their allies Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States have over the decades destroyed much of the Middle East. 
But nobody else today is defending the ethnic minorities in Syria and Iraq. Sadly, if it was not for the US airstrikes of a few weeks ago, the Yazidis, Christians and other ancient communities millennia would have ceased to exist in northern Iraq. Likewise the same could happen in northern Syria. As I said many times over many years, the US destroyed Iraq, Palestine, Libya and Afghanistan. I have good friends that suffered death and exile over these actions. But these crimes against humanity must not mean that the world can allow itself to sit idly by and watch genocide at an enormous scale occur at the hands of ISIS. I also have good friends amongst these communities now under threat from ISIS in Syria because they are independent minded women, because of their secularism. because of their religion, because of their ethnicity.

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.

Jailed for Standing up against Warmongers!

Margaretta D'Arcy is a role model for us all. 
Politicians of all parties in the last three governments facilitated the use of Shannon Airport by US military involved in an illegal invasion and war in Iraq. The country and its peoples were destroyed by this action undertaken purely to secure oilfields for the USA. 
Today Iraq is reduced to a nightmarish Mad Max landscape, controlled by warlords and their religious fundamentalist gangs, millions dead or as refugees; its female, Christian and secular inhabitants without basic human rights. 

Margaretta goes to jail for standing up for human rights, peace and neutrality, the principles supposedly of the Irish state whilst Denis O'Brien, Michael Lowry, Irish bankers, property speculators and corrupt politicians who destroyed our country for their own private gain still walk free and enjoy the riches that they stole from us. No Justice!
President Michael D Higgins participated with Margaretta on many demonstrations against the US war in Iraq and against the American military use of Shannon. 
In the past, Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore and Minister Pat Rabbitte loudly condemned American interference in the affairs of other countries and demanded that Ireland should not be caught up supporting their aggressive imperialistic
So please Mr. President and the Irish government. Have her released now!
 

Mad Max nightmare -Solution to Syria is not more Weapons & Bombings

We are watching a country disintegrating before our eyes. We are witnessing the redrawing of the boundaries of the Middle East along religious lines that has no place for minorities or for justice and tolerance.
The Arab Spring is transforming into an Arab Winter as the dreams of the original female and male protestors of Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Libya are being lost in a tsunami of violence.

A massive population exodus, fanatical religious fundamentalism, ethnic cleansing and genocide are happening due to the actions of countries that talk loudly of peace and democracy but are in fact the warmongers, and arms merchants/manufacturers that are making huge fortunes from this war. 

An Islamist Saudi Arabia, a monarchical Qatar, a theocratic Iran, a resurgent nationalist Russia, a repressive Turkey, a profit hungry EU and a corporate-controlled US are arming the advocates of hate, torture and mass killing. They are creating a nightmare world of Mad Max that is leading to the formation of repressive warlord fiefdoms guarded by private sectarian armies. A relatively modern intact country is been bombed back to the Stone Age. This is what happened across large parts of Iraq after the US invasion. 

The only solution is a total arms embargo on all participants in the conflict and an all party peace conference involving all sides including Iran.

Click here to read my article of three years ago on the Disappearance of the Christians from the Middle East, a community that represented 25% of the region's population less than one hundred uears ago.

Joyeux Noel Film - the true message of Christmas portrayed

Click on image above to view the singing by a German soldier of 'Stille Nacht' & 'Adeste Fideles', the latter to the accompaniment of bagpipes played by Scottish soldiers

The French 2005 production 'Joyeux Noel' is one of the most emotionally captivating films that I have ever witnessed. In my humble opinion, it captures the true message of Christmas, namely 'Peace and Goodwill To All Peoples'. 

May I wish you and yours a joyful festive holiday (still a few days left!) and a progressive New Year.

Background to the film:
Along the Western Front on Christmas Eve 1914, soldiers from German, Scottish, English and French regiments organised unofficial ceasefires. Troops ventured into No Man's Land to exchange gifts, play football, sing songs together and bury their dead. 
Ordinary soldiers saw that they were one and the same, no matter what was the colour of the uniform.

Click on image above to hear Scottish soldier pipers playing "I'm Dreaming of Home"

Generals on both sides were incensed and scared that this laying down of arms and friendship across the divide would spread. So they ensured that no such large scale fraternisation ever happened again by ordering artillery barrages during subsequent Christmases. In an insane brutal war, there were already 3.5 million casualties by the end of 1914. Another 32 million would die before the war ended. 

The leaders of the main warring nations dressed up the conflict as a 'War To End Wars', a struggle for peace and liberty when in reality they were only concerned about expanding their empires. Whilst the ‘Allies’ promoted the war as a struggle to free small nations (e.g. Belgium) from German, Austrian and Turkish tyranny, World War One actually resulted in the victorious French and British dividing up the Middle East between them against the wishes of the local populations. 
The horrible legacy of this imperial carve up and the promises made to financiers and oilmen during and soon after WW1 are the conflicts in Iraq, Libya and Palestine that we have today. 

John Lennon and Yoko Ono recognised that throughout the ages, war and conflict were used by those in power to kill, butcher and maim peoples and the planet in order to maintain and expand their control. Their 1971 classic, Happy Christmas, War is Over (below) perfectly encapsulates this message

Peace, Justice and Equality to All Men and Women! 

Click on image above  to hear John, Yoko & Plastic Ono Band sing their 1971 anti-war song 'Happy Christmas, War is Over'

Merry Christmas

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.

I hope British People kick arrogant & anti-people Brown & Labour from Government

I really hope that the British Labour Party is given a trouncing at the general elections. They long ago betrayed so many of their fundamental principles & are now the embodiment of the saying that "power corrupts".

Brown/Blair presided over a corrupt Parliament where many Labour MPs became paid lobbyists for vested interests, fiddled their expenses, refused to scrap the outdated Trident nuclear submarines missile service costing the taxpayers billions of euro, backed an illegal colonial war that killed hundreds of thousands of innocents. Britain has huge debts, manufacturing has all but disappeared & endemic poverty has only increased. Endemic employment has worsened. Brown's two-face approach to Gillian Duffy in Rochdale portrayed his arrogance & contempt for the public, particularly core Labour supporters. She made clear that she was a veteran Labour supporter & asked him perfectly reasonable questions about the economy, jobs & emigration. He smilingly praised her for her community ethos & but was caught angrily demeaning her off camera. Brown is an arch-hypocrite. Then he brings in war criminal Tony Blair to shore up his campaign. The sun-tanned Blair is supposed to be EU & International Peace Envoy to the Middle East. Is he ever there? He has done nothing constructive that helps the downtrodden Palestinian people. He seems to spend his time on the lucrative US lecture tour circuit or undertaking paid consultancy work across Asia. I am writing to the Irish Foreign Minister asking for his sacking.

Galway Businesses Glorify Terrorist Bombers

99 Red Balloons Over Galway BayForsaking morality & in order to make a 'fast buck', certain prominent Salthill businesses once again decided to promote the only air force in the world that is killing civilians on a weekly basis. Amazingly these people see no conflict in attending Church services on Sunday morning-to honour a peace-preaching Christ that abhored violence- and then a few hours later officiating at a military dominated air show extravaganza in the skies over Galway Bay where the top act is the US Air Force's latest state-of-the-art killing machinesThe media said over 80,000 (exaggerated) watched the military airplanes in action while only a few hundred took part in the anti-war demonstration at the famous Spanish Arch. The latter event though had some prominent speakers including the new Galway City Mayor (Councillor Tom Costello) and an ex-commandant of the Irish Army (Ed Horgan). But though small in number, the anti-war participants proudly stood up for the principles of neutrality and anti-imperialism that inspired the founders of our state to take up arms against our British occupiers who were then engaged in a world power struggle where millions of ordinary people needlessly died serving in a war that was portrayed as a gallant war for peace and democracy against tyranny ("...a war to end all wars..."). Shades of today's 'Global War Against Terrorism'.

Anyway, I was proud to attend the demo with my young son Dáire. I also had the following letter published in the weekly 'Galway Independent' in the days before the air-show:

End the Support of Terrorist Bombers

Dear Editor,

Over the last few years, American airplanes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia have killed thousands of civilians including children and old people in their homes, at weddings, in hospitals, in market places, in vehicles and at places of worship. Whole villages have been flattened as a result of carpet-bombing. Yet while this barbarity continues, certain Salthill business people have deemed it suitable ‘family entertainment’ for the US Air Force to show off their weapons of mass destruction in the skies above Galway. They are calling on us all to adulate a killing machine that has even been condemned by the present US-supported Afghani government for its indiscriminate air bombing of civilian areas that has only led to an upsurge in recruitment to those forces fighting the Americans. Tactics such as ‘Shock and Awe’ with their accompanying obliteration of residential neighbourhoods and infrastructure has resulted in the victims undertaking armed retribution against the perpetrators of this madness. To compound the misery of those that survive the initial onslaughts, the US Air Force has no hesitation in dropping anti-personnel cluster bombs containing hundreds of bomblets that transform the targetted farms and villages into massive mine-fields thereby increasing the death toll for years to come. The US regime believes that their aerial strategy will force the acquiescence of the populations being bombed. Yet they have learnt nothing from their own recent history. The 9/11 bombings caused the majority of Americans to support a ‘revenge’ war on Afghanistan. The US Air force’s blanket-bombing of North Vietnam, though it led to the killing of over 200,000 people and the virtual wipe-out of urban life south of Hanoi, only stiffened the resolve of the survivors to fight on and to ultimately win their war against the USA. The ‘gung-ho’ attitude and incompetence of many American pilots has been widely condemned recently as a result of the large number of incidents where Allied soldiers were killed by ‘friendly-fire’. It is reprehensible that the Salthill Air Show organisers glorify these evil terrorist bombers who commit such atrocities against innocent people. As someone that enjoys with my family the many delights of our local seaside resort most weekends, I fail to understand why their business leaders promote weaponry that continues to kill and to maim so many families.Check out an article that I wrote regarding last year's Salthill Airshow, the content of which formed the basis for a letter to the 'Galway Independent' newspaper.
Sights & Sounds of US Warplanes Reawakens Fear in Galway

Hollywood Ignores the Brilliant 'Wind that Shakes the Barley'

It was a travesty of Justice that the winner of the 2006 Golden Global at the Cannes Film Festival was not nominated for an Oscar this week. 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley' was one of the best films that I have ever watched. Of course being Irish and being republican means that I am bias in its favour anyway! But not for nothing did it receive top honours at Cannes.
Directed by the left-wing British director Ken Loach, it brillantly encapsulated the harsh realities of the Irish War of Independence and the subsequent Civil War as experienced by rural Cork.
Nor surprisingly, considering Ken's politics, it made strong associations with present day Iraq and showed vividly the similarities of terror tactics and racism that all armies of occupation employ in order to subjugate native populations. It also portrayed the contradictions and incompatiblity of the final war aims of different factions within liberation movements that often come to the surface in open warfare once the common enemy has been defeated.
See my previous article on the Wind that Shakes the Barley for a more in-depth analysis.

Journalist Integrity and Independence undermined by the Sunday Times & the letter that it never published

The Sunday Times can be one of the best newspapers around. It comes nowwhere close to the British daily 'Independent' in terms of political and environmental commentary . But the paper is a fascinating library of specialised magazines and supplements on travel, technology, world affairs, music... Of course, there are some right-wing columnists which one would expect from a Rupert Murdoch paper. But these writers are more than offset by the often excellent perceptive articles produced by reporters such as Christina Lamb and Marie Colvin.
So I was shocked to see that the Sunday Times of two weeks past devoted most of its front page to a totally false account of the hanging of Saddam.
Of course, the former Iraqi ruler was a tyrant that orchestrated many bloody campaigns against his people and his neighbours who deserved to face justice for his crimes. Just as Blair and Bush deserve to be charged for their war crimes against the same people.
But the Sunday Times article was propaganda of a form more symptomatic of a Stalinist or Nazi regime. For the article with its blaring headline (something along the lines of 'I was there at Saddam's Hanging!') was based around the account of an Iraqi government official.
It seems now that the Sunday Times has reduced itself to the level of another Murdoch organ - the pathetic voice channel of the Bush administration, namely 'Fox News'.
So I wrote a letter to the editor condemning this undermining of an independent critical media.
The newspaper never published my letter. Considering though the subsequent publicity generated worldwide about the happenings that accompanied Saddam's execution, the editor had no choice but to print some letters that condemned the insults and chants thrown at Saddam as he went to his death. But was the Sunday Times going to publish a letter that condemned the lies its front page and its failure to uphold the standards of 'free world' journalism? Was it going to apologise for this mistake?
Sadly, the editor failed the litmus test and proved his lack of journalist integrity.

So here is my letter that was never published by the Sunday Times
"Dear Editor,
You owe a big apology to your readership for the content of the front page of last week's Sunday Times regarding Saddam Hussein's hanging.
The article was full of lies and inaccuracies regarding the manner of his execution. Your main source, Iraqi government spokesperson Mowaffak al-Rubaie, was quoted as saying, "He was respected throughout before and after the execution. We followed rigorously international and Islamic standards". No mention of the vicious verbal abuse that took place. Thank God for mobile phones and the Internet as another official line about the Iraqi war was exposed as pure propaganda. The integrity and truthfulness of media journalism was sadly once again called into question."

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.