I
would never have dreamt that I would read a pro-Bush
article in any magazine that dedicated itself to
the Irish republican cause. Having just read Patrick
Hurley's invective, I plan to read no more of your
magazine.
I can understand things like this being published
in the letters section. I can understand things
like this being published with an immediate rebuttal.
What I can't understand is how you can let this
Hurley publish his propaganda and let it go unchecked,
three days before the US Presidential Election.
I can only conclude that you are deeper in debt
to the Yanks than I could have imagined before.
My republicanism is built on international solidarity
with the oppressed around the world. It doesn't
buy into the idiotic lie that we are sold that the
war against the Iraqi people is a war against terror.
It doesn't buy into the myth that Reagan is to be
thanked for ending State Capitalism in the USSR
and it most certainly doesn't buy into the myth
that the illegal invasion of the USA into Vietnam
was in anyway an honourable cause.
I have no more time for Kerry than I do for Bush,
but I will say that in my opinion, Kerry was right
to do what he could in order to end the Vietnamese
war. Hurley's warbling about the thousands that
died in communist purges after the U$A was brought
to its knees in Vietnam is risible. History shows
us that this was not the truth at all, but if we
took this amadhan at face value, the blame for those
thousands of deaths would also have to be laid at
the feet of the U$A -- the country which started
the war and which destabilised a perfectly good
government.
This disgusting Plastic Paddy writes about how US
soldiers lives are sacred and the price (to date,
mark you) of 700 yankee lives is worth it. That
an Irish republican journal sees fit to peddle this
fascistic pornography brings your cause into disrepute.
Equally sacred, Hurley, were the lives of the 100
000 Iraqis who have been murdered by your imperial
stormtroopers. Far more sacred were the lives of
the half a million under-5s that died as a direct
result of your country's policy before the war.
However, you're right to say that the 700 coffins
draped in the Stars and Stripes are fairly inconsequential
-- I, for one, lose absolutely no sleep over them
and wonder when we will begin to see them being
shipped back to the Land of the Braves in larger
batches.
The Blanket has sunk to a low previously
unthinkable. You have published this crude, ill-informed
piece of right wing drivel despite its inaccuracies,
despite the fact that it heaps praise on the UK
government for standing shoulder to shoulder with
its imperial boss and despite the fact that it glorifies
the violence of the oppressor.
I'm going back to An Phoblacht - for all
their failings, this nonsense would never have been
published. I hope you send a copy of this to Hurley.
Tell him that the 3000 dead the Yanks lost on 11
Sept were pretty inconsequential to the many millions
of dead that lie buried in mass graves as a result
of the meddling of his government in other people's
business. Tell him that Malcolm X was right when
he talked about the chickens coming home to roost.
And tell him that as long as there are people even
half as ignorant as he appears to be, the U$A can
count on burying a lot more of its dead.