MP George Galloway has said that dissident republican Marian Price should be freed.
The politician was speaking last night at the Belfast Feile.
He told the West Belfast Talks Back session: “The courts freed Marian Price so she should be freed”, adding he did not support her “political line” and if she reoffended she should be charged and brought before the courts.
Mr Galloway then revealed he had just spoken to the 58-year-old prisoner, convicted of bombing the Old Bailey, while talking to her husband Jerry McGlinchey.
“I have just spoken to her on the phone for the first time and she's not a well woman,” he said. “For all the damning with faint praise, and Ruth Dudley Edwards' reference to her ‘remarkable recovery’ (after Price's 1973 hunger strike), the courts decreed she should be released and it's time to free Marian Price.”
Alongside Mr Galloway on the panel was a rainbow coalition of opinion-makers and politicians: DUP MP Gregory Campbell, author Ruth Dudley Edwards and Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly.
The first half of the debate discussed, without resolving, Syria and the Middle East question.
Opinion divided pretty much along sectarian lines, with Galloway and Kelly regarding Western inaction on Syria as hypocrisy and part of a ploy to destabilise Iran.
Gregory Campbell and Ruth Dudley Edwards, in different ways, pointed out the complexity of the situation and the fact that the situation after any Western intervention might not look better than before.
After broadening talk out to Israel and Palestine, Ms Edwards caused some hissing in the audience by suggesting the Feile might introduce an Israeli representative to “hear the other side”.
It then moved on to gay issues which led to some agonising from Mr Campbell, although his statement of concern that marriage between a man and a woman could be undermined by acceptance of the “lifestyle” of the lesbian and gay community received surprising support from George Galloway.
The Respect MP for West Bradford caused amusement by saying you couldn't promote homosexuality — “you either are or you aren't” — and adding that attendance at any number of Pride marches would not change his orientation.
The debate turned to recent trouble over July 12, with a discussion over whether the Orange Order should be banned following a band's misbehaviour and the singing of ‘The Famine Song’ outside a Catholic church.
Discussion was fierce, and intensified later between Messrs Campbell and Kelly over whether the former would ever shake hands with the latter.
You can only hope that these exchanges are in some way cathartic.
Sandy Boyer in a letter takes the North of Ireland's political boss to task over hisGuardian letter which fed disinformation on Marian Price
Owen Paterson, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, has written a letter to the editor of The Guardian (London) attempting to justify imprisoning Marian Price. I’ve included his letter below.
Paterson makes two essential points:
That Marian Price was released on “license”, parole in American terms, which he had the right to revoke.
That he does not have the legal right to release her because it can only be done by the Parole Commission.
Unfortunately for Mr. Paterson, neither is true.
He claims she received a royal pardon “the Royal Prerogative of Mercy” for a 20 year sentence related to the Old Bailey bombing but was on license for a life term for the same bombing.
If so, this would have been a strange and meaningless order. Granting a pardon for a 20 year sentence while simultaneously releasing someone on license from a life sentence would have achieved absolutely nothing.
If Mr. Paterson seriously believes the royal pardon doesn’t apply to Marian Price’s life sentence, all he has to do is produce it. Instead he states that the only copy of the pardon has been lost or shredded. Marian Price’s solicitor, Peter Corrigan, says that this is the only time in the entire history of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy that a pardon has gone missing.
Paterson also states that he can’t release Marian Price because “It would be outrageous for any secretary of state to do anything other than adhere strictly to the law.”
But the Life Sentences (NI) Order 2001 proclaimed by “Her Majesty” provides explicitly that “The Secretary of State may at any time release a life prisoner on licence if he is satisfied that exceptional circumstances exist which justify the prisoner’s release on compassionate grounds.”
There could hardly be more “compassionate grounds” for releasing Marian Price. United Nations doctors who examined her in July reported she was “unable to comprehend the allegations being made against her to sufficient degree to inform her defence” and that “she would be unable to follow the evidence in her own hearing as she lacks the ability to attend to detailed evidence”. She is presently hospitalized with pneumonia.
If Owen Paterson is serious about enforcing British law, he should release Marian Price immediately.
You refer in your editorial (Northern Ireland: keep focused, 28 July) to the case of Marian McGlinchey (nee Price). I should be grateful for the opportunity to set out the facts.
Marian McGlinchey received two life sentences in 1973 for her part in the Old Bailey bombing. She was subsequently released on licence in 1980. At the same time she was granted the royal prerogative of mercy (RPM) in respect of a separate conviction which carried a 20-year fixed term sentence. The RPM did not cover her life sentences.
All life sentence prisoners remain on licence for life. They can be recalled at any time if they breach the conditions of their licence or pose a risk of serious harm to the public. A similar system was endorsed by the previous government in the legislation to give effect to the part of the Belfast Agreement that dealt with the early release of prisoners.
Before revoking a prisoner's licence under the Life Sentences (Northern Ireland) Order 2001, however, the secretary of state must first seek a recommendation from the wholly independent parole commissioners. This is what I did in the case of Marian McGlinchey; their recommendation was that she was in breach of her life licence. Consistent with my overriding responsibility in Northern Ireland for public safety, and in accordance with the law, she was returned to prison.
The independent parole commissioners are now reviewing the case in full. If they are satisfied that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that the prisoner should be confined, then they may direct the prisoner's release. The prisoner has full legal representation and can challenge the case made against her; Marian McGlinchey has yet to do this. The decision of the parole commissioners is final and cannot be overruled by the secretary of state.
It would be outrageous for any secretary of state to do anything other than adhere strictly to the law. Yet the clear inference in your editorial is that I should discard due process and interfere politically in this case. That would fatally undermine the rule of law in Northern Ireland. That is not something I am prepared to do.
good job. They are spinning this like the NIO spin of old. They used to tell the world prisoners never got beaten! This discourse needs challenged at every turn
we had three from you of the same thing. Nothing goes up automatically so somebody needs to be online here before you can get your comment posted.
But to your point. People should not be in prison for what they thought or didn't think. What she should have thought - no matter how valid you think your point to be - is immaterial to the fact that she is being imporisoned without trial and the British government is dissembling to cover that up.
The same logic argued here by Sandy would be applied if a loyalist was in the position that Marian Price finds herself.
A Royal perogative of Mercy is a State document and as such it's unlikely it was shredded as previously stated. As it's a State document it should be now in the public domain under the Freedom of Information Act, so over to you Mr. Paterson, to shred a State document is illegal.
eireannach.when those who make the law break the law then there is no law!whats the odds that Patterson or anyone else will be charged with destruction of government property..no mission..
It is similar to Danny Morrison's arrest years ago for having in his possession a statement from the IRA. His argument was he didn't write it in fact since it was in pen it could have been copied from the original. He also explained that it could have easily been a hand written copy of a loyalist statement.
I know it does not contain the same key facts but maybe there is some legal ruling from Danny's case which could apply in this instance?
When Marian Price was a young girl of 19, she along with her young sister were taken by now wealthy politicians like Gerry Kelly to London, on the orders of Gerry Adams IRA OC, to be used as political cannon fodder in their quest for personal power and wealth. Her senior leadership betrayed her to the British and she was imprisoned. She was then force fed for 200 days. 400 times as a protesting political prisoner.
Her associates like Mr Kelly and Adams now command huge salaries on the political gravy train known as Stormont, after their surrender to the British, while administering political internment for the British, of former comrades with political conscience and other political prisoners, who refuse to collaborate with British occupation. These prisoners of political conscience suffer today, the same brutality and torture, at the hands of British sectarian thug operatives daily, that the 10 hunger strikers suffered, prior to their murders by Thatcher and the British previously.
Marian Price an icon of Irish women's resistance to British colonialism and occupation in Ireland, recently admitted her days as a militant activist are long past and over, when she said, "I cannot condemn another young person for following the same path I did." Because as a former well known member of the IRA who along with others will not accept, collaborate or inform on traditional Irish republicans who will not surrender to the British, she is being made and example and was been politically interned without trial, because of her political conscience
Yes, at a traditional annual Easter Rising ceremony she attended on April 25, 2011 which are not only legal but are simply memorials, she held up a piece of paper, which contained a prepared statement from The 32 County Sovereignty Movement, while another, unidentified person read it aloud at the City Cemetery, in Derry. The statement was not written, prepared, consented, refuted or pre-acknowledged by Marian. She simply held the paper, which contained the statement, so it could be read aloud, as it was terribly windy.
Less, than a month later, Marian was arrested, detained and charged with Promoting Terrorism for her action, on April 25, at the 2011 Easter Rising commemoration.Her actions, for which the new charge stems. amounted to nothing more than attending the rally and holding a piece of paper. The British Government devised the action to justify the charge, which cannot be substantiated. The court’s with full access to alll intelligence the British have now, decided to grant her bail on the grounds that she was not a danger to the public. The British Secretary of State to the Queen of England, Owen Patterson overruled the court and a Queen's pardon, ordering her political internment without trial, as the spokesperson for the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, and usurped the court’s decision to grant her bail along with the Queen's pardon.
Now as a result of public political pressure the British have moved the goalposts yet again. The British have now laid fresh charges on Marian on matters, she was investigated, interrogated on, several years ago. Despite no fresh evidence in the matter, the previous court's order to release her, a royal pardon ordering her immediate release, the bigoted British with new trumped up charges, have remanded her for probably several years, to await fake charges and disguised political internment.
The British Government will stop at nothing from blaming, to charging, and using Marian as a scapegoat, to justify their inappropriate use of force, injustice and violence in Ireland, involving many ordinary Irish people in the colonized Occupied Ireland. Marian as an activist for prisoners rights and in her capacity as spokesperson for 32CSM, highlighted the almost daily torture and brutality of her now fellow Irish political prisoners in her all male Maghaberry prison.
Marian has been a staunch advocate and supporter of Irish Republicans and helped in the aid and welfare of past Irish Republican Prisoners but has not committed any crime for close to 40 years. Her efforts have all been made in a peaceful and silent manner, since being released from prison in 1980 after being forced fed 400 times while on hunger strike for 200 days with her sister.Now as a long time vilified figure by the British Government and their media, they want their remaining pound of flesh, despite the Belfast Agreement, they’ve created a ruse of charges, and political internment to detain her in solitary confinement in a MEN’S PRISON for years.
This is illegal under European and international law and these current actions of the British Government are meant to send a couple of clear messages to anyone in Ireland with total disregard for human rights laws of Europe:
1.) In the eyes of the British Government, you too, can be detained for whatever reason.
2.) If you hold certain beliefs, ideas or philosophies, which go against or conflict with those of the British Government/Crown, which are expressed directly or implicitly in public, or anywhere on record, and refuse to relinquish such beliefs, ideas or philosophies, you too, maybe subjected to the British Government’s actions of internment without trial or other actions which may or may not be legal, or even remotely humane.
Because of British censorship, intranets and technical attacks on CAUSES related to Marian Price and her political interned comrades now numbering more than 9,000 members, we have been forced to start another CAUSE on Facebook;
When Marian Price was a young girl of 19, she along with her young sister were taken by now wealthy politicians like Gerry Kelly to London, on the orders of Gerry Adams IRA OC, to be used as political cannon fodder in their quest for personal power and wealth. Her senior leadership betrayed her to the British and she was imprisoned. She was then force fed for 200 days. 400 times as a protesting political prisoner.
Her associates like Mr Kelly and Adams now command huge salaries on the political gravy train known as Stormont, after their surrender to the British, while administering political internment for the British, of former comrades with political conscience and other political prisoners, who refuse to collaborate with British occupation. These prisoners of political conscience suffer today, the same brutality and torture, at the hands of British sectarian thug operatives daily, that the 10 hunger strikers suffered, prior to their murders by Thatcher and the British previously.
Marian Price an icon of Irish women's resistance to British colonialism and occupation in Ireland, recently admitted her days as a militant activist are long past and over, when she said, "I cannot condemn another young person for following the same path I did." Because as a former well known member of the IRA who along with others will not accept, collaborate or inform on traditional Irish republicans who will not surrender to the British, she is being made and example and was been politically interned without trial, because of her political conscience
Yes, at a traditional annual Easter Rising ceremony she attended on April 25, 2011 which are not only legal but are simply memorials, she held up a piece of paper, which contained a prepared statement from The 32 County Sovereignty Movement, while another, unidentified person read it aloud at the City Cemetery, in Derry. The statement was not written, prepared, consented, refuted or pre-acknowledged by Marian. She simply held the paper, which contained the statement, so it could be read aloud, as it was terribly windy.
Less, than a month later, Marian was arrested, detained and charged with Promoting Terrorism for her action, on April 25, at the 2011 Easter Rising commemoration.Her actions, for which the new charge stems. amounted to nothing more than attending the rally and holding a piece of paper. The British Government devised the action to justify the charge, which cannot be substantiated. The court’s with full access to alll intelligence the British have now, decided to grant her bail on the grounds that she was not a danger to the public. The British Secretary of State to the Queen of England, Owen Patterson overruled the court and a Queen's pardon, ordering her political internment without trial, as the spokesperson for the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, and usurped the court’s decision to grant her bail along with the Queen's pardon.
Now as a result of public political pressure the British have moved the goalposts yet again. The British have now laid fresh charges on Marian on matters, she was investigated, interrogated on, several years ago. Despite no fresh evidence in the matter, the previous court's order to release her, a royal pardon ordering her immediate release, the bigoted British with new trumped up charges, have remanded her for probably several years, to await fake charges and disguised political internment.
The British Government will stop at nothing from blaming, to charging, and using Marian as a scapegoat, to justify their inappropriate use of force, injustice and violence in Ireland, involving many ordinary Irish people in the colonized Occupied Ireland. Marian as an activist for prisoners rights and in her capacity as spokesperson for 32CSM, highlighted the almost daily torture and brutality of her now fellow Irish political prisoners in her all male Maghaberry prison.
Marian has been a staunch advocate and supporter of Irish Republicans and helped in the aid and welfare of past Irish Republican Prisoners but has not committed any crime for close to 40 years. Her efforts have all been made in a peaceful and silent manner, since being released from prison in 1980 after being forced fed 400 times while on hunger strike for 200 days with her sister.Now as a long time vilified figure by the British Government and their media, they want their remaining pound of flesh, despite the Belfast Agreement, they’ve created a ruse of charges, and political internment to detain her in solitary confinement in a MEN’S PRISON for years.
This is illegal under European and international law and these current actions of the British Government are meant to send a couple of clear messages to anyone in Ireland with total disregard for human rights laws of Europe:
1.) In the eyes of the British Government, you too, can be detained for whatever reason.
2.) If you hold certain beliefs, ideas or philosophies, which go against or conflict with those of the British Government/Crown, which are expressed directly or implicitly in public, or anywhere on record, and refuse to relinquish such beliefs, ideas or philosophies, you too, maybe subjected to the British Government’s actions of internment without trial or other actions which may or may not be legal, or even remotely humane.
Because of British censorship, intranets and technical attacks on CAUSES related to Marian Price and her political interned comrades now numbering more than 9,000 members, we have been forced to start another CAUSE on Facebook;
The borrower is slave to the lender. When you are in debt to another, you enter into a slave/master relationship with your creditor. (Proverbs 22:7) Bible
The Irish people along with their children have once again been sold into indentured slavery. General slavery to the IMF, EU and large banking institutions around the City of London. Thus the Irish repeating their censored history, are now indentured slaves of the banks and old money once again. Debt bondage is defined by the United Nations as a form of "modern day slavery" and is prohibited by international law which doesn't seem to apply to to big banks or Irish legislators.
The Irish no more than their British lords, have not learned the lessons of history and thus are repeating it. The Irish can be forgiven to a certain extent, as the history of Irish slavery was and still is censored in the Irish school curriculum, just as the British engineered holocaust that almost wiped out all of the country's population on scale even greater than Hitler, was also erased from the history books.
British control of their language, media and history is like an iron fist in a velvet glove. History they say is written by the conquerer which is particularly true in Ireland's case, who despite a certain certain independence in the non-occupied south, are very much a compliant state of the crown, in every sense of the literal word. This is still very much the case today with rampant official censorship where the story of Irish slavery, is the one that the English pirates intended would never see the light of day. Unlike African experience, the Irish slavery story along with their holocaust, utterly and completely disappeared as if it never happened.
They were shipped in the hundreds of thousands, men, women and young children as slaves, human cargo transported in tall British ships bound for the West Indies initially.The Irish slave trade began when James II sold 40,000 Irish prisoners as slaves, to the colonialists of the Americas. His Majesty's Proclamation in 1625 ordered all Irish political prisoners to be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies. By the middle of that century, the Irish were the largest number of slaves sold to both Montserrat and Antigua. Three quarters of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.
Whenever the Irish rebelled or disobeyed an order, just like back in Ireland they were tortured with cruelty. The British slave owners would hang them by their hands, while setting their hands or feet on fire, as a form of punishment that was an example to the rest. They continued to burn the Irish alive, while putting their heads on long pikes in a public place, as a warning to other Irish slaves. I will not elaborate on the torture in the interest of goodwill and peace.
Charles I continued where King James II Charles left off in a continuous effort to enslave all of the Irish. Britain’s barbaric, infamous Oliver Cromwell furthered the practice of British brutality and inhumanity to the Irish. Ireland then became the biggest source of human livestock for English colonialists. Almost all of the early slaves to the British Americas of that time were Irish.
In just ten years after 1641 half a million Irish were killed by the English and another half a million were made slaves. Ireland’s population fell to a third of what it had been in that decade alone. Families were ripped apart as the British initially did not allow Irish fathers to stay with their wives and children. This led to a whole population of starving homeless women and children. Britain then auctioned them all off as well. Later Irish children from the age of 10 to 14 were taken from their families and sold as slaves to the West Indies, New England and Virginia.Cromwell ordered over a 100,000 Irish children be taken to Barbados, Virginia and Jamaica and sold as slaves to English settlers.
Irish people even today in foolish pride and shame avoid calling their own Irish slaves, as they really were and still are. They’ll come up with modern terms like “Indentured Servants” to describe Irish slavery as their British masters, historians and embedded media agents, shame them into denial and compliance to this very day. Almost without exception from the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish slaves were regarded really as human cattle.When the African slave trade started during the late 1600s they cost 50 Sterling, while the Irish slaves came cheap at 5 Sterling. If a colonialist whipped or beat an Irish slave to death, it was not regarded as a crime. A death was a monetary setback, but far cheaper than killing a more expensive African.
The English masters quickly began breeding the Irish women for both personal pleasure and profit. Children of slaves were also slaves, which increased the size of the free workforce. The English colonialists used these women and girls as young as 12 to breed. Sometimes they bred Irish women and girls with Africans to produce slaves with distinct characteristics. These “mulatto” slaves brought in more money than Irish livestock and it enabled them to save money instead of buying fresh African slaves.
This practice of interbreeding Irish women with Africans went on for decades and was so common that legislation was passed “forbidding the practice of mating Irish slave women to African slave men for the purpose of producing slaves for sale.” It was stopped only because it reduced the profits of a large slave companies.England continued to ship hundreds of thousands of Irish slaves for over a century. Records show after the 1798 Irish Rebellion, thousands of Irish slaves were sold to colonialists in both America and Australia.
There inhumane abuses of Irish slaves. One particular British ship dumped 1,302 Irish slaves in the Atlantic so that the crew would have extra food to eat.The Irish experienced all the horrors of slavery just like their African brothers and sisters. Those beautiful brown, tanned faces in the West Indies are usually of African and Irish ancestors. Irish slavery is important to remember for many reasons, instead of erasing it from history or collective memory.
As a result of not learning the lessons of history the Irish are once again slaves. Formal slavery was ended as a result of the slave owners realizing that housing, food and medical treatment sot more for slaves rather than paying them a menial salary and making profits from them as moneylenders. Hence you modern Irish slave in denial. However the public and private schools, do not teach about slavery in their history books and it is hardly discussed because of the same and psychological scars it has left on the Irish psyche.
The memory of millions upon millions of Irish victims of both British slavery and holocaust have generally been erased from history by victorius British historians and media, along with their west Brit collaborators. None of the Irish victims of slavery and certainly not victims of holocaust ever made it back to to describe their horrific nightmare. These are the lost souls and slaves that time, lying history books and contemporary media, conveniently forget but the aching Irish spirit, manifested in constant rebellion and revolution will never forget, until the interfering British are gone from Irish shores once and for all and justice prevails in Ireland.
Nobody craves peace in Ireland more than this writer but I can categorically say without any doubt what so ever, from a lifetime's experience, that talk of a Peace Process, reconciliation without truth, apologies without amends that there will never be lasting peace in Ireland without justice, which is only possible with the departure of British occupation and interference. I know from personal experience, that sometimes we can never make amends for certain wrongs done, in the case of Ireland British withdrawal is the only possible way of making amends and ensuring this terrible history is never repeated again. A noble Irish patriot Padraigh Pearse, best summed it up, with his oration at the grave of O'Donnovan Rossa.
"They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything, think that they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools! - they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace."
My sincere gratitude to John Martin who inspired and shaped this article.
A blog from the term "web log" is a sort of a website or part of. Blogs are usually maintained with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events with material such as graphics or video a bit like a diary on the the net. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, etc.,. The ability of readers to leave comments interactively is important. Most blogs are textual, although some focus on art photographs, videos, music. Microblogging is a type of blogging with very short posts.
Urban Dick ;
bogtrotter
A mildly insulting epithet for an Irishman.
My uncle Mick was in the Paras,
best job he ever had, shooting bogtrotters AND getting paid for it!
bogtrotter
Bawg-trau-ter
Origianlly a very derogatory word for an Irishman not always used as an insult nowadays.
in the 1700s-1800s, the English often referred to the Irish they oppressed as "uncivilized bogtrotters", as the English have historically had the habit of calling anyone of a different nationality "uncivilized".
I believe anyone who has lived the last forty years of the troubles of
occupied Ireland, has been politicized to the point, of where they are
well aware deep down, that beneath the many layers of denial, our
political leaders, administrators and opinion makers rather than being
genuine, are providing political theatre to distract. Given an
exclusive platform from the military establishment's control of the
media, their script of self interest to their corporate masters and
their own politically survival, where they all follow a set pattern of
talking tough while actually walking an illusionary easier softer way.
This has been honed over decades, interrupted occasionally by
imperialist wars of power, that includes occupied Ireland being used
in experiments of counter-insurgency and population control.
While the political actors have changed from the SDLP to Sinn Fein and
from Official Unionists to the DUP, the current leadership may be
perceived as more working class in origin but neither the policies or
the act has changed. They pander to the interests of a middle class,
scrambling over the crumbs from their wealthy powerful corporate
sponsors.As some keen observer has remarked, "the performers change,
the performance does not. The script changes, the story does not. How
many times can you trod the beaten path? How many times can you listen
to the same joke? How many times can you applaud being taken for a
joke or a ride? How many times can you appreciate being the clown at
the grotesque Halloween party?"
One of the potential attributes and possibilities of a blog like this
I believe, is that at this particular point in time in occupied
Ireland, a wealth of experience exists that can be shared, which was
condensed over the last forty years of struggle in the theatre of
insurgency, known as the North of Ireland. In a few more decades, the
bulk of the participants and combatants will, be replaced by a new set
of actors, on the evolving political stage but with different
experiences and without the political experiences that should have be
learned from this struggle, to evolve progressively rather than suffer
another oppressive regime. The ruling classes have always recorded
history and the lessons therein in such a way to protect their own
interests prevent a repetition of the same mistakes, recorded in a
way, that mercenary historians please their political masters, while
the dumbed down working class repeat the same old vicious circle of
division and betrayal..So the evolutionary lessons being learned and
applied in the struggle, generally tend to benefit the establishment.
If we are not to continue this same futile pattern of a dog chasing
its tail or enabling the process of electing leaders from working
class backgrounds, only to find they perform the same performance
again, we need to indentify correctly the problems and solutions, in a
more precise manner than we have in the past in Ireland. While the
Irish tradition has a rich heritage in this respect, we have in this
communication age, the resources, to both learn from international
progressive struggles and to record the experiences. Knowledge is a
very powerful tool but without the experiences to understand this
knowledge, it is of little benefit. Truly successful people tell us
"That the most valuable thing in life is experience." I agree and it
often is much more simple, than it appears but the critical factor, is
a correct analysis and interpretation of the facts and events. The
output depends on our input and unfortunately the history of the last
century up to the present day of revolution in Ireland, with much
sacrifice, has delivered the same reactionary forces and
administrators, who serve the interests of Imperialism, not the people
of no property, impoverished by the gaelic, corporate, vuvulela,
Gombeens now being found in Croke Park and their bowler hatted Grand
Masters found at Down Royal.
I have come across a very interesting article that rings very true to
me from my own political experiences in Ireland and with the broad
left in England over the last forty years. This article principally
concerns the other Imperialist partner in the US and the puppet
masters of military intelligence in the Pentagon. I would be most
interested in other comrades experiences, analysis and interpretation
as they relate to the following article and how much of it is true as
it relates to the Brits and their Irish puppets. Perhaps James might
consider a format so that it can be discussed as it relates to others
experience.
Truth Through a Soda Straw By John Grant
The truth about American politics is this: disguised by the theatrics
of squabbling Democrats and Republicans, Washington governs according
to limits prescribed by a fixed and narrow consensus. The two main
parties collaborate in preserving that consensus. Doing so requires
declaring out-of-bounds anything even remotely resembling a
fundamental critique of how power gets exercised or wealth
distributed.
-Andrew Bacevich
June 18, 2010 "This Can't Be Happening. " -- Barack Obama has two
serious leak problems.
One is a real leak -- of oil from the bowels of the Earth into the
Gulf of Mexico and onto the shores of the Gulf States. The other is a
metaphoric leak -- of information from the vast reservoir of secrecy
our military and its wars have become.
Dishonesty, the notion of “too big to fail” and Bacevich’s consensus
are at the core of both leak problems.
In the case of British Petroleum and the Deepwater Horizon explosion,
we know how a back-slapping, good ol’ boy network has led to a lack of
oversight and regulation. As we learned from the financial disaster,
the arrogant single-focus drive for profit leads to corners being cut
and, in the case of BP, the absence of any kind of Plan B to deal with
great gobs of uncontrollable orange goo gushing from a hole over a
mile beneath the sea’s surface.
The secrecy leak is different. In this case, President Obama is trying
to stop leaks that tap into the too-big-to-fail corruption and
dishonesty within a huge enterprise directly under his control: The
Pentagon.
The United States Military is the largest self-contained,
self-aggrandizing enterprise in the world. As militaries everywhere
tend to do, it protects itself as an institution and uses its power to
co-opt whatever elements of the culture it feels it needs or can
benefit from.
Central America is the perfect small-scale model. In Guatemala, the
military is an institution that always trumps elected civilian
leadership. In El Salvador, military officers are deeply involved in
banks and business ventures. In Honduras, the general who mounted the
2009 coup has been appointed to run the lucrative Hondutel phone
system. In fact, the much-ballyhooed one-term limit for presidents in
Honduras exists precisely to limit a civilian politician’s power
vis-Ã -vis the more stable military institution.
Since the Iraq debacle circa 2007, General David Petraeus has taken
over the US military by storm. He is clearly a very brilliant man. His
highly-touted counterinsurgency doctrine saved the war in Iraq from
disaster and, then, made continuing the war politically possible.
Disciples of the COIN Doctrine assure readers of Newsweek, in one
preposterous example, that, had it been employed in Vietnam, we could
have won that war. It is a doctrine based on seeing the military, not
as Karl von Clausewitz saw it – “a continuation of political activity
by other means" – but rather as politics itself, with a special focus
on humanitarian outreach and “nation-building.”
In Clausewitz’s day, there was politics and there was war. War was a
decisive step beyond politics. In Petraeus’ Pentagon, the distinctions
between politics and war are diminished or lost completely.
Thus, our military, which does not operate on a two, four or six-year
political cycle, has incrementally moved deeper and deeper into the US
policy decision-making realm. The 9/11 attacks and the feelings of
fear and revenge that followed have accelerated this dynamic.
Politicians from both parties now defer to Pentagon leaders for
decisions on war and peace -- something the founding fathers precisely
tried to avoid.
A man like Barack Obama with no military experience is forced to dance
to their tune or be seen as taking them on. So he dances.
In this sense, the true brilliance of General Petraeus and his COIN
Doctrine is less evident on the ground in Afghanistan – where the
situation is a disaster – than it is in the halls of power in
Washington DC. Petraeus is the prime reason our two disastrous wars
are so invulnerable to criticism.
Sustaining this Olympian image as the man on whose shoulders our war
policies rest must be incredibly stressful for General Petraeus, who,
after all, is just a human being. When he passed out in a Senate
hearing on Tuesday, it may have been dehydration, as Petraeus said,
but it also may have been due to the stress.
He had just been grilled by Senator Levin on sticking to the July 2011
withdrawal date publicly declared by President Obama and, then, was
being asked by Senator McCain for assurances he would not hesitate, if
necessary, to keep our soldiers in Afghanistan beyond the July 2011
date. At that point, kerplunk!, his head hit the table.
Clausewitz wrote a lot about confidence and doubt – or as Senator
McCain put it in the hearings, sounding “an uncertain trumpet.” Here’s
a good example:
After we have thought out everything carefully in advance and have
sought and found without prejudice the most plausible plan, we must
not be ready to abandon it at the slightest provocation. Should this
certainty be lacking, we must tell ourselves that nothing is
accomplished in warfare without daring; that the nature of war
certainly does not let us see at all times where we are going; that
what is probable will always be probable though at the moment it may
not seem so; and finally, that we cannot be readily ruined by a single
error, if we have made reasonable preparations.
Mere civilians can only imagine the vast, hidden reservoir of secrets
a man like David Petraeus carries within him: All manner of black
budget research projects and operations, a host of global special
operations missions, surveillance into everyday lives, hidden
detention centers and probably the largest element in that vast
reservoir, the record of screw-ups, the evidence of bad decisions and
embarrassing outcomes and, finally, the hypocrisies and outright lies.
And, of course, there’s the fact many of these matters are illegal or
unconstitutional and that the visual ugliness of war makes it hard to
sell.
His job, despite the setbacks in Afghanistan and Iraq, is to put a
good face on it and sell it to Congress, which still holds the purse
strings on our wars.
The New York Times reported that Petraeus’ goal before the Senate
hearing was to show that the military now has “the inputs right” in
the war in Afghanistan and that these promising inputs will lead to
positive “outputs” down the road. This as the war in Afghanistan
becomes the longest war in US history.
The seductive logic of the Petraeus COIN Doctrine is, while we may be
having a rough time now, if we only adhere to Clausewitz and persist
with the plan to keep sending young soldiers and our money into the
maw, we will someday come out smelling like a rose.
Forty years ago, it was called “the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Tapping into the reservoir of US secrecy
Julian Assange is the Australian who founded WikiLeaks, the web-based
entity created to leak military secrets. Assange may be about to
release critically embarrassing Pentagon video of a May 2009 US air
strike on the Afghan village of Garani that killed over 100 civilians
with a one-ton airburst bomb. At the time, General Petraeus said the
video would show the attack was justified. It was never released.
The US military is now reportedly hunting for Assange, who spends a
lot of time in Iceland, a nation very friendly to journalists and
leakers.
For interesting video comments on Assange by Pentagon Papers leaker
Daniel Ellsberg, go to: Michael Moore.com.
In May the military arrested SP4 Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old
intelligence analyst in Iraq, for allegedly releasing to WikiLeaks
video from the nose of an Apache gunship as its pilots gleefully gun
down two Reuters cameramen and a number of Iraqis. In the incident,
the aerial gunmen seriously wound two children in a van.
As the two kids are removed from the van by US soldiers, the pilots
are heard commenting that they shouldn’t have brought kids to a
firefight. The fact the gunship is far enough away that the people on
the ground seem not to be aware of it and that the van seems to have
stopped to give assistance to the wounded from the first volley, makes
the pilots’ remarks seem sadistic and delusional.
Beyond the issue of “war crimes,” the Apache video is devastating as a
window into how US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are fought, how
one-sided they are technologically and how hi-tech war tends to debase
soldiers to the point of expressing glee at killing people – in this
case, people defending their own neighborhood.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates was quick to condemn the video leak. He
said it was like looking at war “through a soda straw.”
It’s hard to disagree with Gates’ soda straw metaphor. (I’ll leave for
another day the question why the Bush appointee Gates is still running
the Defense Department.)
Gene Roberts, the famous editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer during
the 1980s when the paper was a crusading magnet for Pulitzer Prizes,
liked to describe his business this way: A city newspaper was a
lighthouse in the center of a darkened city, sending out a pencil-thin
line of light to illuminate tiny pockets in the life of the city.
Soda straw. Searchlight. It’s all the same. The only way to bring the
light of truth to a vast area of darkness is to illuminate small
pieces of that darkness. This is exactly what WikiLeaks is attempting
to do using the internet -- and it seems to scare the Hell out of the
US military and the Obama administration.
They are so scared, the man who campaigned for transparent government
is more dogged than George Bush in stanching journalistic leaks and
shutting down court hearings that might tap into the military’s
reservoir of secrecy.
Currently, the Obama administration is seeking to send whistleblower
Thomas Drake to jail under The Espionage Act for leaking material on a
National Security Agency program to a Baltimore Sun reporter. His
purpose was efficiency and the discouragement of waste. The intention
is clearly to make an example and intimidate future leakers.
Then, there’s the courts. All now agree Canadian Maher Arar was 100%
innocent when the US rendered him to Syria for a full year of
detention and torture. Still, the Obama administration argued the
Supreme Court should not hear his case.
Why? According to Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal, it might raise
questions about “the motives and sincerity of the United States
officials who concluded that petitioner could be removed to Syria.”
Leaking is an honorable enterprise
In order to prevent the release of material damning or embarrassing to
them, the Pentagon and the Obama administration are criminalizing
good, honorable people whose instincts are to be open and fair.
There is no reason why Americans should not see what US soldiers in
Iraq and Afghanistan are doing in their name and with their tax
resources. In a free society, the fact something may discredit the
military is the military’s problem. Using the power of courts, prisons
or worse to quash the truth is, as a Times editorial put it,
disgraceful.
In a Department of Defense Anti-Terrorism Awareness Training course,
the following question is asked:
Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism activity?
A. Attacking the Pentagon.
B. IEDs.
C. Hate crimes against racial groups.
D. Protests.
The correct answer is D. Protests.
If at the center of your government you have a huge, closed,
untouchable military institution that trains its personnel to see
legitimate civilian opposition as the enemy, you are in trouble. The
arbitrary rule of secret government becomes inevitable.
Decent, red-blooded Americans need to support courageous entities like
WikiLeaks and prevent the US government from making truth-seeking a
criminal act.
I steal a lot of my information from Information Clearing House over
the years. They need your support in whatever way you can , they have
been a great teacher for myself, below is their link.
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8 comments:
good job. They are spinning this like the NIO spin of old. They used to tell the world prisoners never got beaten! This discourse needs challenged at every turn
we had three from you of the same thing. Nothing goes up automatically so somebody needs to be online here before you can get your comment posted.
But to your point. People should not be in prison for what they thought or didn't think. What she should have thought - no matter how valid you think your point to be - is immaterial to the fact that she is being imporisoned without trial and the British government is dissembling to cover that up.
The same logic argued here by Sandy would be applied if a loyalist was in the position that Marian Price finds herself.
I know it does not contain the same key facts but maybe there is some legal ruling from Danny's case which could apply in this instance?
So he agrees that his interference in the court's proceedings regarding Martin Corey is "outrageous" ?