Note: Derry / Londonderry is predominantly Irish nationalist, especially the cityside ( city centre ) whilst the waterside area on the other side of the river Foyle is predominantly Irish Unionists.

Pub Drunks Cheered as Shuttle Fell to Earth

US tourists walked out of a Londonderry bar when drinkers started to applaud
the space shuttle disaster.
A Londonderry man who was showing the visitors around the city said that up
until then they had described area as "wonderful".
All that changed when they went into a city centre bar for a Guinness.
One of the visitors said yesterday: "We were having a quiet drink and the
television was on.
"Suddenly, we saw these images of the shuttle breaking up as it entered the
Earth's atmosphere.
"We asked for the television to be turned up so we could hear what happened.
"All of a sudden, a group of young men sitting quite close to us started
whooping and hollering.
"They were shouting things like 'f... them, they deserve it' and 'go on
Osama'.
"We were stunned.
"We just couldn't sit there and listen to what these people were saying.
"How can people be so hurtful in the face of such tragedy? Seven people lost
their lives. Don't they care?"
Tourist sources said that the insults came from a group of "drunken
loudmouths'' and that this was not typical of the way that Americans were
treated in Londonderry.
i.starrett@lineone.net
Published: 05/02/2003

---------------------

There is definitely a hatred of the US in Irish Republican / Marxist
circles. I took a wrong turn in Belfast last week and ended up going
down the Falls road. The place is adorned with Palestinian flags and
murals of the IRA and PLO standing together with slogans like "No war
on Iraq while the US supports slaughter in Palestine" and "When peaceful
revolution is made impossible violent revolution is inevitable" and
there Newsetter carried a story a of american tourists leaving a
(republican) pub in Londonderry / Derry city centre in disgust when the
occupants proceeded to cheer on the news of the space shuttle explosion
killing the US and Israeli astronauts coming onto the TV

Belfast telegraph
*Will protesters tell the truth in US?*

**By Eric Waugh* <mailto:featureseditor@belfasttelegraph.co.uk>*

DISSENTING from American foreign policy on a single, important issue is
one thing. Rabid, open-ended anti-Americanism is another. But this last
is what we were treated to in one or two of the splenetic speeches at
last weekend's big street demonstration in Belfast.

Whether or not to go to war on Saddam was used to fan the embers of a
much older quarrel indeed; and that is the one initiated by a section of
the Irish on this side of the Atlantic against the superpower on the other.

In Ireland, north and south, this represents an anomaly of giant
proportions. More than a quarter of US investment in the EU is in the
territorially tiny Republic.

The US is its biggest source of investment, spread over more than 500
companies, generating half of its exports and keeping tens of thousands
of the Republic's citizens in the style to which recently they have
become accustomed. As for us, the UK takes the lion's share of US
European investment.

In another three weeks there will be the annual feast of manufactured
bonhomie in Washington, attended by the usual (embarrassingly swollen)
delegation from these parts.

Will its members convey a message which includes the vulgar abuse so
loudly applauded by their massed citizenry in front of the City Hall on
Saturday? Or will they excuse themselves, stressing that "Of course we
were not there". If so, they had better make their dissociation public
before they go, if they wish to hold on to any credibility.

When the first American troops crossed the Atlantic in the Second World
War, they were sent here. Churchill's advisers feared hostility among
the straitened populace in England if such large numbers of well-paid
and well-found GIs were to arrive there at once.

Yet when the first detachments disembarked in Belfast in January, 1942,
and marched off to their billets, they were pelted with rocks by
republican youths.

These dissidents had been fed tales by their elders that the troops had
come to invade neutral Eire, which of course they would have done in the
event of a German landing.

But all knew that, by 1942, that was improbable. In reality, the
Americans were here to prepare for the invasion of Europe.

Within days, though, a sentry on lone vigil by night outside a US Army
camp in Co Down was stabbed in the back by an assailant. He was never
caught.

Three months later, a bus driver, a local Orangeman who allegedly had
failed to give way, was shot dead at Ballykelly, Co. Derry, by the
trigger-happy American sergeant in a scout car, warned about the IRA and
escorting a convoy of top brass which included General George Marshall,
the US Army Chief of Staff, not to mention President Roosevelt's two top
aides, Harry Hopkins and Averell Harriman.

Even so, the Yanks, as they were universally known, soon found that,
although they might find a welcome among many nationalists, unionist
areas were safer.

Two generations later, this intricate skein of history contains clues to
current passions.

Tales of trigger-happy Yanks in Co Derry are readily transmuted into
supposedly trigger-happy Yanks camped in Kuwait.

American fury at the French ("They're always there when they need us")
is energised by the recent screenings in the US of Band of Brothers and,
before that, of the agonising first 30 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.
Each is a tour de force on the Normandy campaign of 1944.

Spielberg's "Ryan" is sometimes tasteless history; but both, excusably,
sublimate the bearers of Yankee guns into something verging on nobility.

Bush's intentions in the Gulf may alarm us. The middle-aged and older
shudder at the memory of Vietnam. The prospect of war alarms me. I dread
its effects. I wish I knew the answer to the President's dilemma.

But, unless we have one, we should pause before allowing a wise caution
to be corrupted into an unreasoning anti-Americanism.

Irish Independent 31st August
Republicans cheer 'pacifist' who wrecked US bomber at Shannon

PADDY CLANCY

THE woman accused of causing $1.5 million worth of damage to a US jet at Shannon Airport was loudly cheered yesterday by dissident Irish republicans opposed to the IRA ceasefire when she urged that Irish protests against the American presence in Iraq should continue.

Ms Mary Kelly, 50, from Baltimore, Co Cork, and often described as a "peace activist", was speaking at a rally in Bundoran, Co Donegal, organised by Republican Sinn Fein - a group which is opposed to the North's peace process - to commemorate the 22nd anniversary of the H-Block hunger strike deaths in Long Kesh in 1981.

She shared a platform with relatives of some of the dead hunger-strikers and with the veteran Republican Sinn Fein brothers, Ruairi and Sean O Bradaigh.

Senior garda and Government sources say Republican Sinn Fein is a political front for the dissident republican faction, the Continuity IRA. RSF denies this.

However, members of the party have been arrested and sentenced for Continuity IRA-related offences.

The party devotes considerable energy to supporting Continuity IRA prisoners in Portlaoise and Maghaberry Prison in Northern Ireland.

Around 400 supporters of Republican Sinn Fein marched through the normally bustling seaside resort.

Holidaymakers watched silently from the doors of pubs, hotels and amusement arcades as the demonstrators marched past behind a couple of bands and a Fianna Eireann colour party in black berets and dark glasses. The colour party included a couple of boys about eight years old.

Ms Kelly is expected to know in October if she is to face a retrial on a charge of criminal damage to the US jet.

She was one of several protestors arrested for breaching the perimeter security fence around Shannon airport at the height of the build-up to the Iraqi offensive.

A court failed to reach a verdict in her first trial. However the Judge Carl Moran said, "if people are allowed to express their political views by damaging property it would not be long before there was mob rule and rioting in the streets."

She has been twice convicted of trespass at Shannon airport when American planes carrying troops and weapons were stopping over on their way to the war in Iraq.

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/index.php3?ca=9&issue_id=9732

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/fullnews.asp?DJID=8177

Tuesday, 25 September, 2001, 09:45 GMT 10:45 UK
Call for Noraid crackdown

Jeffrey Donaldson wants "strong measures" used

Hardline Ulster Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson has called on the US Government to clamp down on an American fundraising organisation which supports the IRA.
It follows a move by the by President George W Bush to freeze the US assets of Osama Bin Laden, his al-Qaeda network and other groups it suspects of involvement in terrorism.

Mr Donaldson said using strong measures against the organisation Noraid would have an impact in Northern Ireland.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Without their funding, the IRA would not have nearly the same potential for violence that it currently has."

Noraid has openly expressed its support for the IRA but says it gives money for humanitarian aid, and denies any of its donations are used for the purchase of arms.

'Change of heart'

Conservative MP Andrew Hunter told Today that while historically, the US Government had not paid too much attention to the raising of funds by the IRA in America, current events may have worked "to change their minds".

Mr Hunter said that although the US was "overwhelmingly preoccupied with Islamic fundamentalism" at the moment, there were signs that "questions were being asked" about whether it had shown a contradictory attitude to terrorism in the past.

The UK Government has said it will take urgent measures to track capital flows linked to terrorists.

"We are considering as a matter of urgency what further steps we could take," a treasury spokesman said.

Chancellor Gordon Brown said last week that a list of people suspected of having ties to Bin Laden had been distributed to financial institutions, and that a suspect account had been found at a bank in west London.

FRIDAY 21/02/2003 14:56:45 1 comment
Tanaiste accused of stirring up 'cheap publicity'

The Tanaiste is being accused of trying to stir up cheap publicity

It follows Mary Harney`s comments that the Iraqi crisis is being used by some people in the Republic as an excuse to stoke up anti-Americanism and anti-British hostilities.

In a hard hitting statement made at a Progressive Democrat function in Limerick, she expressed concern about Ireland isolating itself from America, Britain and the United Nations.

Labour`s Foreign Affairs spokesman, Deputy Michael D. Higgins, said her comments were `outrageous

Trimble Spurns Baghdad Role

ULSTER Unionist leader David Trimble is refusing to stand in the streets of Baghdad as a human shield against possible attack on Iraq from a joint US-British military initiative.

Mr Trimble has curtly spurned an invitation as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate to take a stand dodging the bombs and bullets in the centre of the Iraqi capital should war be declared.

He says he backs the George W Bush and Tony Blair line on the absolute need to remove Saddam Hussein from his seat of power in Baghdad.

The '' human shield'' invitation was sent to all Nobel peace laureates by three professors at the Free University of Berlin.

They said that globallyacclaimed peacekeepers like Mr Trimble should ''counter the United States' mad rush to war''.

The UUP leader said that he could not recognise any ''mad rush'' to war in US policy.

''This policy has unfolded slowly and deliberately, just as it did over Afghanistan,"

Mr Trimble said. "President Bush went to the United Nations and called on it to ensure compliance with its own resolutions.

"He continues to seek a solution through it. It is those who unreasonably obstruct that search through their dislike of the United States or President Bush who pose a serious threat to the United Nations and the collective security that has given peace and democracy to so much of the world.''

Mr Trimble received the Nobel prize along with then SDLP leader John Hume after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

He told professors Grottian, Narr and Roth that Saddam's totalitarian regime had caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

''In addition, he has started two wars in which hundreds of thousands of Iranian and Kuwaiti citizens have been killed."

Mr Trimble told the professors that Saddam had developed and used chemical weapons.

''Saddam Hussein possesses biological weapons and has only been prevented from developing nuclear weapons by Israeli military action in the 1980s, and American-led action in the 1990s.

''The Security Council of the United Nations has called on him to disarm in no less than 17 resolutions.

''Saddam Hussein has not co-operated fully with those inspectors and has not complied with resolution 1441. There is legitimate room for discussion and as to how much time should be allowed for compliance before those serious consequences develop, but there is no reason to believe that he will act reasonably or peacefully except under severe pressure.

''In these circumstances, to obstruct that pressure is to help Saddam Hussein,'' said Mr Trimble.

''Such obstruction will continue the oppression of the Iraqi people, maintain the threat to the region, and crucially defeat the will of the UN and render it as effective as the League of Nations was in the 1940s. It is these latter consequences that must be avoided,'' he said.

Published: 21/02/2003

SATURDAY 22/02/2003 09:16:05
Irish row over Iraq continues

Ireland's anti-Iraq war lobby hit back today at a top-level Dublin government claim that their views were prompting anti-Americanism and hostility to Tony Blair.
By:Press Association

The charge was made yesterday by deputy Irish premier Mary Harney.

She spoke of her admiration for the Prime Minister`s role and conviction and called him ``a great friend of Ireland``.

Ms Harney said she was ``very unhappy about the stoking up of hostility to Tony Blair here in Ireland``, and added: ``Mr Blair has taken risks for peace.

``He has done more for peace and improved relations between Ireland and Britain than any other British prime minister.

``He has also constructively used his moderating influence in Washington, by working with the Americans, rather than against them.``

On anti-Americanism, Ms Harney said: ``A trans-Atlantic rift does no-one any good.

``I am clear that there are some people who are working to grow anti-Americanism in Ireland and Europe. They are doing this on the back of peaceful protest and humanitarian concerns.``

Responding to Ms Harney`s comments, though, former cabinet minister Michael Higgins, a senior member of the Irish Labour Party, who has joined anti-war demonstrations at Ireland`s Shannon Airport - controversially being used at the moment by American military aircraft - said the deputy prime minister had shown herself to be ``narrow-minded and out of touch``.

He added: ``It is remarkable that the Tanaiste`s (Ms Harney) first significant intervention in the debate over Iraq should be to attack those who are desperately trying to avert a war that according to the United Nations` own figures would lead to half a million direct or indirect casualties among the Iraqi population.

``She has shown herself to be out of touch not just with public opinion, but with the views of her own supporters as expressed in a recent opinion poll.

``Her cheap attempts to smear are to be despised.`

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,887392,00.html
Mary Kelly misses dinner with friends of terrorists

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday February 2, 2003
The Observer

Mark Kelly - the peace campaigner who allegedly damaged a US Navy aircraft =
at Shannon Airport - was the absent guest of honour last night at a dinner
organised by supporters of the Continuity IRA.
Kelly was meant to have shared a platform with the convicted IRA gunrunner
George Harrison at a commemoration organised by Republican Sinn Fein in New
York.

But the founder of the Shannon peace camp was unable to attend the dinner dance: she is being held at Limerick prison after she allegedly attacked the aircraft with a hatchet.

The mention of Kelly's name provoked a standing ovation from more than 100
supporters and members of Republican Sinn Fein at the Astoria Manor in the
New York borough of Queens on Friday evening.

Limerick East TD and junior Minister Willie O'Dea contrasted her willingness to attend a function organised by republican dissidents and her opposition to a war in Iraq.

'This demonstrates the blatant hypocrisy of people who protest in the most
virulently anti-American fashion here and then are prepared to go to the Un ited States and enjoy the hospitality there.

'I want to know if the Green Party and Labour will now condemn her actions
which they so blatantly refused to do following the attack on the plane. If
there was a league table of sick jokes, this would be at the top,' he said

Although Kelly is opposed to the US bombing of Iraq, the peace campaigner was prepared to sit with a man who has shipped hundreds of guns and tonnes of ammunition to terrorist groups in Ireland. From the mid-1970s to the earl y 1980s, Harrison was the IRA's most important arms smuggler in North America. The FBI estimates that he shipped up to 300 weapons, mainly US Army Armalite assault rifles, to the Provisional IRA.

Harrison was also responsible for smuggling M-60 heavy machine-guns to the
Provos. His arms network was broken up in June 1981 by an FBI 'sting' operation.

After his arrest, the republican veteran - now in his late eighties - continued to support the 'armed struggle' in Ireland. Following a split in Sinn Fein in 1986, he sided with the hardline RSF faction. He has stated his support for the Continuity IRA and said he would willingly supply the dissident group with guns from the US.

Dublin MPs accuse Sinn Fein of hypocrisy on neutrality
By Thomas Harding, Ireland Correspondent
(Filed: 21/02/2003)

Senior politicians in the Irish Republic's parliament
have launched a stinging attack on Sinn Fein accusing the party of hypocrisy
during a debate on neutrality.

During a Private Member's Bill to preserve Irish military neutrality,
members asked how could Sinn Fein talk about neutrality when it was linked
to the IRA which still held Semtex, had purchased tons of arms from the
Libyans and collaborated with the Nazis?

Sinn Fein, which has four members in the Dail, is strongly in favour of
military neutrality for Ireland.

But the Progressive Democrat Liz O'Donnell, a former foreign affairs
minister, accused the republicans of hypocrisy after it had tried "with
great ferocity" to subvert the constitution.

"They worked actively against the policy of neutrality by collaborating with
the Nazi regime against the State and the Government of Ireland, as well as
against the democratic Allied forces," she said.

"Latterly they pursued their alleged commitment to international peace by
arms deals in the Libyan desert and in fostering Eta terrorists in a fellow
EU member-state (Spain).

"Their claimed commitment to the demilitarisation of Europe apparently
excludes the tons of Semtex in Republican hands."

She added that Sinn Fein's apparent commitment to the rule of law did not
extend to co-operating with police on the Omagh bombing atrocity.

"We all know that their alleged belief in neutrality allowed republicans to
shoot members of our legitimate defence forces and garda."she added.

Tim O'Malley, the health minister, said when Irish politicians spoke about
"our army" they referred to the "national defence force, the Irish Army".

"But the same is not true in the case of Sinn Fein," he said. "When
delegates speak of "the army" the body they were referring to was the
Provisional IRA, a group to which it was "inextricably linked".

He said: "I, for one, have no way of knowing where one organisation begins
and where the other ends."

Martin Ferris, of Sinn Fein and a convicted IRA gunrunner, accused the
Government of "terrible blunders" over Irish neutrality following Saturday's
mass peace demonstrations against war.

The Irish fear their neutrality could be compromised by the Nice Treaty,
ratified last year, and by American use of Shannon airport as a stopover for
troops heading to the Gulf.

With the government voting against it, the Bill was defeated by 100 votes to
35.

Irish protest military use of Shannon airport

Nicola Byrne
Sunday January 19, 2003
The Observer

Almost 2,000 protesters gathered at Shannon airport yesterday afternoon to object to the US military using the facility to transport arms.

As revealed in last week's Observer, American weapons are being brought through the airport in preparation for war with Iraq. The Green Party has renewed its appeal for Gardai to be allowed to inspect military and chartered civilian aircraft ferrying troops to the Gulf.

Richard Boyd Barrett, head of the Irish anti-war campaign, said the Irish people were tired of being taken for fools. 'Our government's decision to allow the US to use this airport was taken behind the backs of the electorate,' he said. 'This protest shows that ordinary people are appalled at what is happening.'

Green Party MEP Patricia McKenna said the government's admission that it could not guarantee ammunition was not being transported through the airpor was 'laughable'. 'The government has made a mockery of our constitution and the Irish people,' she added.

Addressing the rally, her party colleague, John Gormley TD, said: 'The Minister for Foreign Affairs [Brian Cowen] has already admitted, after many denials, that guns are being carried on these aircraft, but expects us to believe that the bullets have been left behind.'

Coachloads of people from Dublin, Cork, Galway and Waterford, as well as politicians from the Green, Labour and Socialist parties, attended the event. They marched from Shannon town centre, past the airport runway, where a US army Hercules transporter was sitting, and on to the main terminal building.

Adam Conway, 24, travelled from Dublin for the rally. 'I came because I feel it's really important that the Irish people stand up to the government on this,' he said. 'What they're doing is immoral and illegal.'

Since Christmas, protesters have occupied a peace camp outside the airport, arguing that Ireland's neutrality is being breached. The camp has been supplied with food and fuel by local residents. Based on the Greenham Common model, it was originally a women's protest but has since expanded. Its supporters, many of whom slept out in below-freezing night air last week, range in age from 19 to 70.

The Shannon protest was part of a worldwide day of action which saw demonstrators taking to the streets of cities to protest against the build-up of US and British military forces in the Gulf.

In Britain, several hundred campaigners gathered at the military base on the outskirts of London which would co-ordinate a British attack on Iraq, while an estimated 2,000 marched in Bradford and a similar number in Liverpool.

The British protests were muted in comparison with those in the Middle East, Japan and the US, where tens of thousands streamed into Washington yesterday morn ing despite the bitter cold.

About 5,000 marched through Tokyo carrying toy guns filled with flowers. In Gaza City, 3,500 Palestinians marched under Iraqi flags shouting: 'Our beloved Saddam, strike Tel Aviv.'

The same anti-Israeli cry was taken up by thousands of demonstrators in the Syrian capital, Damascus. Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi said: 'The Palestinian and Iraqi people are in the same trench of resistance against the aggression and injustice.'

In Europe, 6,000 demonstrators marched through Paris, and 3,000 gathered in the former East German city of Rostock.

Tens of thousands of Americans opposed to waging war gathered for mass protests in Washington and San Francisco, the largest showing of US anti-war sentiment since George W. Bush named Iraq as part of the 'axis of evil'.

Anti-American demos do not come easy to the Irish

ANTI-British demonstrations have been a familiar feature of our political
landscape for many years. But an anti-American demonstration in Ireland?
There were protests of course during the Vietnam War; I took part in some of
them myself. But those who demonstrated then, including me, always made clear
that we were friends of America, not enemies. And we refrained from personal
attacks on American elected officials, including the President.
Last weekend's demonstrations were not entirely different from the Vietnam
demonstrations, but they were significantly different. Insults to the present
President were a regular feature of the recent demonstrations.
'Bush is a moronic warmonger' was a typical slogan and the marchers showed no
signs of finding such slogans unacceptable.

Would there have been a protest march against Clinton if he had, while
President, favoured a war against Iraq? I don't think there would. Clinton
was seen as 'a friend of Ireland', always meaning a friend of nationalist
Ireland. Irish nationalists might have been surprised, and a bit pained, if
Clinton had favoured war against Iraq, but they would not have taken to the
streets to protest against the American government, under the Clinton
Presidency.

Partly, this is due to the Irish public's asymmetrical relationship to the
two great American parties. I once heard two small boys on a New York street
discussing American political alignments. The younger boy wanted to know what
was the difference between the two great American parties? The elder boy had
his answer pat 'the Republicans', he said 'are up for the British. The
Democrats are up for the Irish.' No prizes are offered for guessing the
ethnicity of the two boys.

Another factor working on some of the demonstrators was no doubt the fact
that the British are at present the strongest allies of the Americans as
regards policy towards Iraq.

When the French and Germans engage together in an exercise in Brit-bashing,
many Irish nationalists feel an atavistic urge to join the Brit-bashing.
For reasons of their own, Sinn Fein-IRA support and encourage this tendency.
Their basic anti-Americanism, usually discreetly camouflaged, can find a safe
and popular outlet in 'Hands off Iraq'. It is probable that, had it not been
for the American factor, Ireland would still be part of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, as it was when I was born, in 1917. The turning
point, where the British departure from the Catholic parts of Ireland began
to become probable, occurred in the mid 1880's.

On 24 December 1885, Sir William Harcourt explained why it would be
impossible to suppress the Land League, which had then become the effective
government in large parts of Ireland. Harcourt, with behind him his years of
experience as Home Secretary told his colleague Lord Hartington:
"In former rebellions the Irish were in Ireland. We could reach their forces,
cut off their resources in men and money, and then subjugation was
comparatively easy. Now there is an Irish nation in the United States,
equally hostile, with plenty of money, absolutely beyond our reach and yet
within ten days of our shores."

Those were the basic factors that undermined the old United Kingdom. And the
factors remorsely increased in weight in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. The 'ten days' shrank to five and then to three. The First World
War saw the impoverishment and weakening of Britain, and the emergence of the
United States as the greatest power on earth, which it still remains.
Irish rebels henceforward always knew that they could count on significant
American support whenever the British tried to repress them. After the Rising
of 1916 and the executions of the leaders, American pressure induced the
British to release the surviving republican prisoners who then - after great
electoral success in Catholic Ireland - started and sustained a more
formidable insurrection.

American pressure prevented the British from ruthlessly mounting a no
holds-barred repression. The only alternative was to concede the rebels'
demands within the area they controlled: the area of the present Irish State.
After the Second World War, the IRA in launching a powerful offensive in
Northern Ireland knew that international factors - and especially the pattern
of Irish-American-British relationship - would favour the IRA by tying the
hands of those who tried to repress it. Internment without trial was tried,
but quickly abandoned under American pressure.

Rebel atrocities were virtually ignored internationally, while British
atrocities in the course of the attempted repression always produced a
frightful hullabaloo which then could be indefinitely sustained, as in the
present case of the new set of investigations into events in Derry of more
than a quarter-century ago.

The IRA showed that they could strike with impunity at targets in mainland
Britain, and then extort further concessions through the threat of further
attacks.

Things seemed to be going all the IRA's way up to the murderous attacks by
Arab terrorists on targets in the eastern United States on September 11.
An Phoblacht: Republican News originally chortled over the attacks finding
them justified by American imperialism.
The IRA leadership, fearing American reprisals, immediately repudiated An
Phoblacht's line, and made more seemly noises. But then there were the
arrests of the three republicans, using faked passports, and charged with
complicity in FARC terrorism. American officials have already indicated that
they believe the charges to be well-founded.
The trials drag on and are not likely to be completed until the Iraq crisis
is over, probably with the defeat of the Iraq forces by America, with British
aid.

Until the Iraq crisis is out of the way, the Americans will not wish to
embarrass their British ally, which is still busy appeasing the IRA through
further concessions to Sinn Fein.But once the Iraq crisis is over, and
provided no further international crises arise, making further British
support desirable, it seems probable that the Americans will bring pressure
to bear on the British concerning their relation to Sinn Fein. They will
point out, gently enough at first, that the IRA are now known to have been
engaged in activities hostile to the United States.
Now that that is known, the United States will expect the British to break
off relations with Sinn Fein. The Americans know that if that is done, the
IRA may resume hostilities against Britain. In that case, the British can
expect massive American support: political, economic and if necessary
military.

Once those things happen Sinn Fein-IRA will soon cease to be a significant
factor in the life of these islands. And anti-American demonstrations are
unlikely to be sustained on our streets, under the new conditions.

Conor Cruise O'Brien

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=36&si=924474&

Sinn Fein/IRA whip up anti American sentiment.

(Filed: by Ulster correspondent)

Funny how the Green Party-Sinn Fein/IRA clique are now peace lovers yet the killing of men women and children never seemed to worry them before. Funny how Mary Kelly never saw fit to smash up a Sinn Fein/IRA Office with a hammer instead of a US plane. I suppose these so called 'peace' protestors nly pick one or two causes that suit them. Amazing that terrorism and killings in their very own country doesn't seem to concern them.

They should have parked their peace caravan in the Square at Crossmaglen and condemned the IRA killers. Or may be put up their tents up in Enniskillen where Sinn Fein/IRA blew 11 innocent people to bits. Then we might start to respect them and take them seriously. But as it is the entire Green Party peace movement here has been hijacked by the terrorists of Sinn Fein/IRA. No wonder so little actually took part, most right thinking people don't have any time for them.

The peace protesters at Shannon in Southern Ireland were previously perceived as fluffy, young and idealistic. Not any more. The Annual Michael Flannery Testimonial Awards and Dinner is a fundraiser for the National Irish Freedom Committee (NIFC), "The Voice of the Republican Movement in America". The NIFC is a hard-line Republican group with republican principles and values like those of the Provisional Sinn Fein/IRA. The NIFC is involved in fundraising through its "Cabhair" offshoot. Amazingly Mary Kelly very own so called pacifist was this year's recipient of said organization's Michael Flannery Award. Now forgive me if I'm wrong but it appears to me that Mary Kelly is against all murder except if its a Protestant from Ulster, in which case its fine to murder them.

Previously viewed as fluffy, young and idealistic, after the other Wednesday morning's vandalism and her connections to Sinn Fein/IRA, the peace movement has come to be seen in a more sinister light by us all apart from the puppets Alliance Party who preformed beautifully for them on Saturday. Gerry Adams says "Sinn Fein is to the fore in the campaign against this war" so in real terms what has being to the fore actually done? Well the attack on the US plane, will cost the Irish Republics taxpayerE500,000, and has also highlight the casual disregard of the peace movementtowards accuracy, in their words or in their actions. Its also now exposedthe connection between this movement and SinnFein/IRA. The attack was hailedby Sinn Fein/IRA and the peace movement as the "disarming" of an American"deathplane".

In fact, the plane that Kelly vandalized, "The City of Dallas" was a transport plane on the way to an Italian airbase at Sigonella near Naples, a NATO logistics base. It was carrying 23 men from a fleet logistics support squadron who provide support on the movement of men and cargo, a squadron that has been passing through Ireland en route to Europe for years.

They have also jeopardized what is a huge source of legitimate income for Shannon Airport. The US Navy and Air National Guard have been flying planes through Shannon for donkey's years. They pay the same fees as anyone else, they buy lots of fuel and when there are overnight stops, as in the case of the VR 59th last Tuesday night, they provide valuable income for local hotels in the off-season. World Airlines have been using Shannon since the company started. There is now a real concern in Southerrn Ireland that theymay take all their stopover business to Frankfurt, which already hosts much of it. American Transair or ATA has been another valuable customer at Shannon for 15 years. Recently, crews on ATA charter flights that have brought troops through Shannon have been harassed and doorstepped by protesters. ATA also could decide to reroute all their business through Frankfurt.

It was sickening to say the least to watch a mob of Sinn Fein/IRA supportersand a few nutters parading through Dungiven Co.Londonderry on Saturday while they chanted "Butcher Bush" I simply could believe the naked hypocrisy of it all, murders and thugs calling President Bush a Butcher. While I'm sure there are a few fine principled people in this peace movement, I must say that, in general, I have never saw a more narrow-minded, self-righteous bunch of hypocritical, sectarian bigots in my life. When they reached Belfast on Saturday they then committed a travesty of the worst kind, "insulting the dead"

After Sinn Fein/IRA and the rest of these eejits lambasted the American and British government to a few hindered on lookers, they then proceeded to write the names of the 3,672 people killed in Northern Ireland`s 30-years of violence, yes so warped is the mentality of these Anti American Britishb vbigots that they decided to use and abuse the names of our dead and set about chalking them onto the city center curbstones. Well I have something to say to the, "Not in our name. Don't dare disgrace the memory of our loved ones with your hate filled bigotry"

This farcical peace movement is now imploding, their icon is in prison with little public support apart strangely from that of Trevor Sargent and extreme republicans in the US and it has ben found to be full of the murders and terrorist of Sinn Fein/IRA. The moral high ground is crumbling and the veneer of youthful idealism and sloganeering is being stripped away to reveal a petulant, immature, sectarian, manipulative core that is cavalier with the truth and which will be incensed when they read this.

http://www.nuzhound.com/articles/irish_news/arts2003/feb4_Irish_a_puzzle__ROHanlon.php
Irish remain a puzzle in times of conflict

(Ray O'Hanlon, Irish News)

Is the Republic of Ireland part of Donald Rumsfeld’s old Europe or new Europe? It’s an interesting question when studied from this side of the Atlantic.

Ireland – forgetting the border for a minute – has always been a bit of a puzzle to Americans in times of conflict. Britain, by contrast, is a simpler study – an old enemy now a staunch ally.

The Irish and the Americans have never fought a war. Indeed, the cause of both was virtually identical when the colonies struck for freedom in 1776. The colonial power was the same too of course. And it was that same colonial power that would complicate the Irish view of the world and its military affairs for generations after Lexington and Concord set the United States on course for its independence.

De Valera’s Second World War neutrality brought southern Irish neutrality into stark relief. The American-born De Valera objected to American troops using the Six Counties as a jumping off point for the invasion of Europe. That sort of blunt assertiveness could be understood at another level. There was a war going on and the Free State risked being attacked if it openly sided with either the allies or axis.

The Republic won’t be invaded on land or bombed from the air if it takes sides in the matter of Saddam Hussein. But the absence of any adverse military consequence is not making ‘traditional’ Irish neutrality any wider a tightrope to walk.

Given its geographic location, the Republic would appear to be a natural for membership of Nato or any European defence pact. Yet, it wobbles back and forth between habitual antipathy and reluctant participation in secondary structures such as the Nato-inspired Partnership for Peace.

The fact that the Republic is not formally tied at the hip in military terms to Britain is still quite easily understood by most Americans, certainly Irish-Americans. Ireland’s difficulties in dealing with Uncle Sam as a separate military entity, one that stands – indeed towers – above Britain and all the rest, is a little more difficult for Americans and again Irish-Americans in particular, to properly digest.

The public questioning in Ireland of American motives in the current build up to likely war against Iraq is not surprising in itself. After all, many Americans are voicing similar concerns. Many are opposed outright to the idea of war, if not against al-Qaida and the Taliban, then at least against Baghdad. What puzzles those Americans who take an interest in Ireland is the evident degree of anti-Americanism that is manifesting itself in protests and debate over the present US build-up, an operation that has embraced Shannon airport and the less tangible arena that is ‘neutral’ Irish airspace.

Nobody really minds an anti-war protest. They are as American as apple pie and the M-16 rifle. But there are moments when it would appear that a significant number of Irish people seem to regard America as the cause of all ills, a latter day imperial power whose soldiers might just as well be wearing redcoats.

Irish hostility towards American intent in Iraq and elsewhere has been evident enough to get unionists excited. David Trimble for one has lost little opportunity in having a go at Sinn Féin over that party’s seemingly faithful adherence to a De Valera-level Irish neutrality. He did so in a recent Washington Post opinion article and again in a recent letter to the Irish Times in response to an op-ed by Trina Vargo, president of the US-Ireland Alliance, the group that presents the annual Mitchell Scholarships.

Trimble’s line of attack was relatively narrow. He accused Sinn Féin of being hostile to the western alliance. But it’s not too much of a leap to the idea that the Republic of Ireland, in its totality, is not as friendly as it should be to the alliance, even though it is about as west as you can get before hitting Boston.

The reality is of course that the official Irish position vis-a-vis neutrality is going through a shift of potentially historical proportions.

The De Valera version of neutrality had the 26-county state in the role of an Atlantic Yugoslavia or Albania – ideologically at one with its neighbours but militarily distanced from them. But with Shannon looking at times like a Vietnam-era Da Nang, the Albania comparison has gone the way of the Berlin Wall. Still, the Republic’s evident discomfort with its role as jumping-off point for the invasion of Iraq gives unionists like Trimble something to talk up when they visit Capitol Hill in search of tea and sympathy.

The same might not be said for Bertie Ahern. The presentation of the bowl of Shamrock to George W Bush might be a bit of a bust this St Patrick’s Day if the war goes ahead without United Nations sanction, thus forcing the Dublin government into a showdown with the Americans over Shannon.

It’s a fair bet that both Ahern and foreign minister Brian Cowen would be quite happy if the entire neutrality/Shannon issue was engulfed by bigger headlines elsewhere. But with peace camps, street marches and opposition TDs up in arms in the Dail over the warmongering Yanks, that isn’t going to happen.

Either way, there’s a sense that ‘traditional’ Irish neutrality economy is heading for a demarche in the face of new realities, not least the ever-growing economic ties between the Republic and the US. But regardless of what Ireland’s official policy ends up as, it is certain that an intrinsic Irish mistrust of great military power and ambition – and its accompanying inclination towards backing the underdog – will survive any official policy change.

Back in 1838 Daniel O’Connell took aim with his impressive moral and intellectual arsenal against America’s annexation of Texas. It wasn’t that O’Connell was anti-American.

He was, however, being true to his belief in the evils of forced political union stemming from military supremacy. Irish-Americans were mightily upset with ‘the Liberator’ over the Texas issue.

Should Shannon be closed to US military flights, Irish-Americans will vent their frustrations with their transatlantic kindred once again. Few will take much heed of the fact that the descendants of O’Connell are simply marching in step with a rambunctious Irish neutrality that was taking shape long before anyone ever heard of a western alliance.

February 5, 2003

http://lark.phoblacht.net/sfintlpersp.html
Sinn Féin's International Perspective:
From Conservative to Radical in the Blink of an Eye

Deaglán Ó Donghaile
On Saturday, January 25th, Martin McGuinness told listeners to the BBC
Radio Ulster Inside Politics programme that he is opposed to the forthcoming
war on Iraq. "I am opposed to war in Iraq," he said. "I do not believe that the
situation that is before us is a healthy situation. My concern about a war in
Iraq centres around the concern that people will be killed in that war -
whether they be Iraqi civilians, or American soldiers or even a British
soldier." As we say in Derry, all of this concern for civilians and British
soldiers is "a quare change" from McGuinness's earlier vintage, such as when he
promised "a continuation of the struggle and the certain deaths of British
soldiers" at Bodenstown in 1973. His recent embarrassment on US radio, when
another 1970s gaff, this time stating that nosey bystanders had their injuries
coming to them when caught up in explosions, also springs to mind.

But McGuinness's humanitarian imaginings stretched further than the
oncoming conflict as he expressed his misgivings for the future: "the big
difficulty about war in Iraq given the state of play between East and West in
the world is the concern that I have that we could conceivably be facing into a
situation where the world could be at war for the next five decades."

The irony of Martin McGuinness' concern over a potentially decades-long
conflict barely requires explanation. After all, Irish people don't need to
look as far away as the Middle East to see what a war, characterised by its
lack of objectives, might look like. Indeed, the IRA is fond of reminding its
supporters that it's war hasn't ended after three decades, even if it did take
seats in Stormont. Martin McGuinness could teach George W. Bush a thing or two
about hoodwinking people into believing that even phoney wars can last a long
time.

"I'm not talking about a war on the scale of the First or Second World
War," he said, " but I do think that there could be huge conflict in the world
for the next five decades if this issue is not dealt with sensibly. the view of
Sinn Fein is one of total opposition to war in Iraq." So, for McGuinness, a
future of self-perpetuating low-intensity conflict would be immoral. Unless
bus-drivers from Derry happen to be on the receiving end of it, of course.

As McGuinness's words hit the airwaves, another burst of party
double-speak was unleashed, this time via the internet. The Sinn Féin e mail
service, RM Distribution, which delivers party blah straight into subscribers'
inboxes, this weekend celebrated the recent manifestation of anti-war
sentiment. Under the title "Worldwide Anti-War Protests". The statement
described the previous weeks rallies across the globe in protest at any
possible attack on Iraq. It described how speakers at anti-war rallies in the
United States claimed that " Bush was killing the American way of life in this
war for oil," stating that

"the marches amounted to colourful opposition to the US government's
drive to war with Iraq."

It also reported how the anti-war march in San Francisco included a
radical component:

"Later in the afternoon, one thousand people joined a radical
anti-capitalist breakaway march and militantly marched through the financial
centre, smashing windows and graffitting the San Francisco Chronicle building,
the British Consulate, CitiCorp, the Immigration & Naturalization Service
building, Starbucks and Victoria's Secret."

Doubtless, should any similar protest occur in Ireland, Sinn Féin will
make sure that the anti-capitalist element won't break too many windows. After
all, during the numerous anti-British riots that have occurred in Derry since
1996, Sinn Féiners, including Martin McGuinness, worked hard to protect
corporate property, preventing protestors from venting their anger on banks,
bars and buses.

The statement also reports that "in the Netherlands, about one hundred
civil inspectors gained access to the grounds of Volkel military air base in
the southeast of the country. They cut through the perimeter fence in several
places at once."

The implied message in the statement is more interesting than what it
appears to say at face value, and the hidden meaning is that is that it is okay
to be radical in the United States, where breaking windows and writing slogans
on news paper offices is acceptable. So is breaking into Dutch air force bases.
After all, such bases do contain "weapons of mass destruction". Of course, the
moral objection in this case would be against mass-produced,
factory-manufactured weapons of mass destruction. We can only presume that
Provisional IRA exports, such as mortars and ANFO car bombs, aren't included
under this descriptive title.

Now that Sinn Féin has been kicked out of Stormont, the party lacks
direction, and this is revealed in the party's uncomfortable relationship with
the Bush administration. This has resulted in the transformation of its
"foreign policy", which has almost overnight mutated from confident
conservatism into a facile and uncertain radicalism, as expressed in these
recent attempts to hang on the coat-tails of the global anti-war movement.
While Sinn Féin goes cap in hand to its corporate allies in the US, party hacks
and apparatchiks like Aengus Ó Snódaigh take advantage of growing anti-war
sentiment in the 26 counties.

Ó Snódaigh is opposed "to the Irish government decision to allow US
planes to over flight and refuel on Irish soil." At a rally in Shannon, the
Sinn Féin spokesperson on International Affairs and TD stated the party's
opposition to the use of the airport as an "immoral, unconstitutional an
illegal" staging post in advance of a war on Iraq."

He declared: "One of the main reasons why successive generations of
Irish people fought for independence was so that we would no longer be
embroiled in Britain's imperial wars. Now an Irish government seeks to embroil
us in the new imperialism as represented by the drive to war by the US and
British governments."

But now that Sinn Féin is reasserting its opposition to "US imperialism",
it's worthwhile recalling how the then Sinn Féin mayor of the city, Cathal
Crumley, shared a platform in Derry City with ex-US President Bill Clinton IN
May 2001 (Gerry Adams sat right behind Clinton at the event). That morning,
"militants", as Sinn Féin would describe them, pelted Clinton with eggs as he
visited Magee College. That afternoon, Mayor Crumley saluted Clinton, and then
glared at the same "militant" protestors as they voiced their opposition to the
arms trade and sanctions against Iraq.

Now that Clinton's power is gone Sinn Féin's is diminishing as well and,
from Colombia to Shannon, the party is finding itself at odds with the world's
sole super-power. Nowadays the political wheels aren't being greased as
generously as they had been before under Clinton's Democrats. But the party's
sudden turn toward insincere radicalism points to a more substantial problem -
that, in matters of policy of any description, it cannot appear consistent.

We can only wonder what Sinn Féin's position would be had the Democrats
won the narrowly-contested presidential election of 2000. The September 11
atrocities would certainly still have occurred, no matter which party was in
power, and, given the Democrats' record, they wouldn't have had much difficulty
in overcoming the moral qualms that they are now expressing about the war on
Iraq. And Sinn Féin might still be in Stormont, had their Democrat friends been
able to swing the political balance in their favour. But they weren't. They
lost that election, and the political gravity changed for Sinn Féin and the
IRA. And their contradictory, hypocritical attitude toward the present US
government, and toward the rest of us, is proof that they are unable to regain
their balance.

US Planes Welcome in Ulster - DUP

Mar 25 2003

THE US administration has been asked to explore the option of using
Aldergrove as a stop-off for its military planes bound for the Gulf.

With opinion in the Republic divided on the use of Shannon Airport as a
pit-stop for American aircraft, the DUP has met with the US Consul in
Belfast.

Party leader Ian Paisley discussed in detail the proposal with Consul
Barbara Stephenson at the weekend.

During the meeting, Mr Paisley also drew Sinn Fein's stance on the war
in Iraq to the attention of the US administration - noting that party
leader Gerry Adams had called on the Irish government to stop the use of
Shannon by the Americans.

Last week, the Irish parliament narrowly agreed to continue to let the
US military use the facilities at the airport, despite public disquiet
and attacks on planes.

Dr Paisley said: "We have suggested relocating US war planes away from
Shannon, where they were attacked.

"I asked the US Consul to explore the option of, instead, moving the
planes north to Aldergrove and a country that is in the coalition of the
willing, rather than opposed to the war effort.

"The associated jobs and business at Aldergrove would be most welcome."

On the issue of Sinn Fein's attitude to war in Iraq, Mr Paisley said he
thought it was important to draw the party's "anti-American" stance to
the attention of the US.

"It is time for the US administration to recognise just how contemptible
Sinn Fein/IRA is.

"One day they are falling over themselves to be at the White House, the
next they are condemning the US administration.

"The American authorities have spent a lot of effort appeasing Sinn
Fein/IRA and this is how republicans repay Americans.

"They prefer siding with those in world terrorism rather than those
fighting to preserve democracy."

# Sinn Fein is to table a motion at Lisburn City Council calling on the
authority to oppose the war on Iraq.