A journal of protest and dissent

Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice?
- Lillian Hellman

The war on ''terrorism" and the Irish Factor

MN Kelly
1.6.02

A lot of people think Sept 11 was a defining moment in American political history and to some extent that is true. If anything it gave the extreme right within the Bush administration the excuse they needed to crush any organisation with political agendas not suited to theirs - in other words, any political organisation not sympathetic to the big multi-national corporations, especially the big oil and gas companies that put the Bush regime in office. Although the Bush administration only mentioned Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the axis of evil one suspects that it had other countries or organisations in mind. The American Government`s callous and indifferent treatment of President Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, while giving Israel the green light to go into the Palestinian refugee camps to commit horrendous war crimes, shows a opportunistic shift in American Mid-East policy. Bush is doing this now as he thinks he can capitalise on the "anti-terrorist" feeling and fear within the USA. Most people who would normally disagree with such hard-line policies are afraid of speaking out as they do not want to be labelled ''anti-US'' or "pro-terrorist" such is the paranoia in the country similar to the McCarthy era.

This brings us now to what is going on in Ireland and the CIA`S next target.The Bush securocrats combined with MI5 believe that this is now an optimum time to crush the Republican Movement in Ireland as any pro-Irish voice within the US would be easily muffled through intimidation. The Bush administration realises that Sinn Fein and big business are on a collision course in the long term and sooner or later something has got to give. If anyone thinks the US will respect Sinn Fein`s democratic mandate they only have to look at the recent attempted coup in Venezuela where the US administration actually congratulated the military leaders and business men who temporarily overthrew the popular government of Hugo Chavez, a President who was elected twice in fair and democratic elections with overwhelming support of the people. Chavez`s crime in the US`s eyes is his aid to Cuba, a nation of 11 million people to whom he sent oil to alleviate their economic plight caused by the USA's unjust embargo.

The process of undermining Sinn Fein has already begun and will intensify until the Agreement is sunk precipitating a political vacuum leading to more violence thus giving the British carte blanche to do as they will with Republicans. The staged break-in at Castlereagh, reports of Russian Super Guns coming into the country, Republican "advisors" in Colombia, newly discovered Republican files on opposition politicians and assassinations of "anti-republican Catholics" set the stage for the coming onslaught of demonisation and deliberate mis-information from the British and American securocrats. We are about to enter a very dangerous period as the "civil servants'' gamble with the lives of all the citizens of Ireland and their future but alas they the faceless men believe they can do to Sinn Fein and the Nationalist population what has just been done to the Palestinian people. Again the Irish people will see, as they have seen countless times throughout history, that the British are not to be trusted and will seize any opportunity when the time is right to further their own agenda regardless of the will of the majority of the citizenry and their democratic rights.

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