Free Stater

Duck to water

2009-05-09T22:21:00.002+01:00

FG spokesperson to RTÉ, today:

A spokesperson for Fine Gael has said there are no plans to run former PD leader and government minister Michael McDowell as a Fine Gael candidate at the next general election.

He said a newspaper story in today's Irish Daily Mail was speculative and the party would not comment on speculation.

McDowell as prospective future Fine Gael Taoiseach? Can the man's ego resist?

George Lee, Wunderkind Unleashed

2009-05-09T22:09:00.003+01:00

The one-time RTÉ economics editor and now-FG candidate for the By-election in Dublin South has unleashed his grand plan for getting the country out of a depression. Conor McCabe over at Dublin Opinion digs into what he has to say:

Apparently, housing construction is being held back by big government and its VAT rates, and not by the fundamental crisis in the Irish and international banking systems. not only that, more housing is what we need to get us back on the straight and narrow. And mortgages. fucking lots of them. Happy days again.

As if on cue, we've also now got horse expert and EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevey begging the Irish public not to eat the rich:

"But it is essential that we remain focused on the dynamic and human nature that drives risk-taking, economic activity and tax revenues forward and that we guard against policies and tax-rates that drive risk-taking, economic activity and tax revenues backwards.

"Put simply, it's not higher tax rates that generate higher tax revenues, it is higher economic activity that generates them. We can sink or swim, but if we lose sight of these simple facts, we will certainly sink," he said.

Damned right. If not for our altruistic rich class who continue to selflessly pump money into the Irish economy, where would we be?

Walter Pincus on the decline of US newspapers

2009-05-07T22:59:00.003+01:00

A similar article is crying out to be written for this jurisdiction.

There still seems no great public consciousness of what exactly occured with the destruction of the Press Group more than a decade ago, and its consequences for the national media. The power of INM (owned first by O'Reilly, and now by O'Brien) in the aftermath of this period means that it can seriously affect the course of politics and even elections, with no counterweights.

I defy anyone to argue that this has been a healthy development.

The Revolution not far off? Libertas looks to the Oireachtas

2009-04-29T22:56:00.006+01:00

Says the Irish Times (via peoplekorps)[1]:

Meanwhile, Libertas has been formally registered as a political party in Ireland, following the passage without challenge of a 21-day period for an appeal to its inclusion on the Register of Political Parties.

Libertas’s headquarters is given as Mr Ganley’s Tuam, Co Galway, home, Moyne Park, and it can contest Dáil, European and local elections, though the focus now is on the European contest, said Libertas official John McGuirk.

“We intend to be an Irish political party and play a role in Irish political life, if we are successful. But at this stage we want to contest the Europeans. We don’t want to spread ourselves too thin,” he told The Irish Times .

It's looking good for that McGuirk/Waghorne dream ticket that FIFieFoeFum always longed for. Maybe they can even - dare we hope? - bring Libertas-supporter Michael McDowell back out of ~~sulking~~ retirement from politics.

Rightwing Sunday Times columnists rejoice!.

[1] And we'd like to hear more on this "21-day period for an appeal" business. What grounds are admissible? What official notice has to be published that an application has been received, so that an appeal can be made?

Shane Brett, Dim Bulb

2009-04-27T22:16:00.006+01:00

WorldbyStorm over at the Cedar Lounge Revolution brought to the grateful attention of the online public the following letter in the Irish Times, which appeared last Friday 24th April;

Madam, – My wife and I have left Ireland and moved to London – not because I couldn’t get work (we had a good salary between us – both with degrees and in our early 30s), but because we were not prepared to struggle for the rest of our (comparative) youth under a punishing tax regime while public services collapsed and the public sector remained untouched. I am old enough to remember most of the 1980s and I do not want to bring my children up in the same horrendous economic environment.

Ireland’s economic situation is being closely watched here and no one understands why the public sector is immune. Here in the UK the public sector faces job cuts when the economy declines – just like the private sector.

I’ll be back to Ireland when the place sorts itself out, although I’m not hopeful – the basic lesson that you can’t tax your way out of a recession has simply not been learned.

We need a new Thatcherite political figure to stand up to the unions and the cossetted sections of the Irish economy. The view from here is that this person is coming – and his name is the IMF. – Yours, etc,

SHANE BRETT,

Charville Court,

Trafalgar Grove,

London,

England.

Well, well, well. Doing a little digging on our free-market hero shows him to be "Assistant Vice President at Daiwa Securities", which is - surprise! - an investment bank with offices in both Dublin and London. Wouldn't it be a great disappointment if our new-found bestest friend was merely changing offices within the same firm. Alas, the sacrifices which principle calls on us to make...

Alas, though! Because that Thatcherite paradise, the UK, has just announced a new, 50% top rate of tax. As Guido Fawkes notes:

Guido isn’t going to do much on the budget, the FT is probably the best place to go for coverage. As soon as the 50% tax hike was announced emails pinged into the inbox along the lines of “That’s it, I’m off to Switzerland”. What is Labour saying to those who work hard and become successful? “We will punish you” seems to be the message.

Good news for Dublin and Dubai. They will welcome entrepreneurs with lower tax rates and open arms. Guido would not be surprised if this measure ends up reducing revenues as people flee penal tax rates.

What now for Mr. Brett and Spouse? It seems that going Galt may be the only ethical recourse left. Can the European economy possibly survive the loss of two such talented and useful individuals?

Update 28/04/09 Shane Brett has appeared in the comments to this post, and has made a number of arguments (which I've responded to therein). I am relieved to clarify that Mr. Brett is not merely moving between two branches of Daiwa, having apparently ceased working there.

You don't say?

2009-04-26T19:46:00.002+01:00

Sunday Times on Irish bank economists:

But public debate was dominated by stockbrokers and bank economists, the likes of Dan McLaughlin of Bank of Ireland (whose views are no longer in as much demand since the banking crisis).

Finfacts has more on McLaughlin's contribution to the property bubble.

And for an example of McLaughlin's other engagements in 'public debate', see this extraordinary segment featuring a discussion of the Irish Ferries dispute on Question And Answers in 2005.

Libertas - (Still not) the Irish Farmer's friend?

2009-04-23T05:32:00.026+01:00

Libertas have made a great show of claiming to be for the farming community in the European elections, and have even roped in a former IFA man (Raymond O'Malley) to run for them. However, the following is an article written and published by Libertas' chief spokesperson John McGuirk in September 2005 on the website of the Thatcher-adoring Freedom Institute, which he was a member of then (as he is of Libertas now).

My question is this: can Irish farmers trust politicians who before they went looking for their votes had these sorts of opinions?

CAP for Beginners

Bertie, that is.

His latest attempt to defend the policy is perhaps his weakest and most blatantly dishonest to date. Take this example

"Farm size is crucial to farm profitability. Here Europe was - and still is – at a major competitive disadvantage. The average size of farm in the EU 15 is only 18 hectares. The comparable figure for the US is ten times bigger, at 178 hectares. Canada is at 422 hectares, Australia at 3243 hectares and Brazil has 273,000 farms which average 916 hectares. In this situation, it is abundantly clear that if the EU eliminated, or significantly reduced, support for agriculture, then European farms on the margins of commerciality would go out of business and European agricultural production would fall. The food supply gap would be filled by imports from, for example, countries in South America and Australasia which can produce at prices below European levels. "

It does not take an economics Ph.D to point out that CAP is precisely why Europe's farms remain at the size that they are. The reason countries in South America and Australasia can produce at "prices below European levels" is that farms in those countries that are not viable are not supported by an influx of taxpayers money, as is the case in Europe. A gradual withdrawal of subsidies here would force the price of Agricultural land down, and encourage farmers to expand in order to remain economically viable.

Anyway, he moves on:

"First, it is obvious that, as soon as Europe would start to buy in quantity from the world market the basic commodities that it currently produces, world market prices would rise."

In other words, poor South American farmers might actually receive a fair price for their goods.

Of course, CAP has kept prices in Europe artificially high for a generation, by subsidising excess production - if the market was completely open, prices would fall through the floor and thousands of the small farmers mentioned above would find their holdings unviable. What the Taoiseach is referring to is the fact that opening the Market would equalise world prices, - raising them for farmers in the developing world, and lowering them here. 0/10 for honesty there, Bert. Try again:

"Food security can be too easily taken for granted. Let us not forget that just over half a century ago, much of Europe was still subject to food rationing. Indeed in the late 1940s hunger stalked many European countries. It would be grossly irresponsible if the European Union with its 450 million inhabitants, the vast majority of whom live in urban areas, did not place food security at the heart of its agricultural policy"

Translation: We would be irresponsible if we did not prepare for a calamity that affected our ability to get food from overseas.

Resisting for a moment the temptation to compare our dear leader's concern for our food supply (spend millions producing food we don't need in case there's a famine) with his concern for say, the risks of a Nuclear Meltdown (down an iodine tablet, shut the windows, and pray), and also leaving aside the fact that any calamity that impeded our ability to import food would in all liklihood impede our ability to produce food as well, (like say, a war), this is, well, a bit like sending a badminton player out dressed like an ice hockey goalkeeper. Sure, he might get hit really hard by the shuttlecock and get knocked out, - but the protective gear will impede his ability to compete at any level with the opposition, and the fact that he's wearing it in the first place will make him look, well, weak.

Then again, there is the social argument for CAP:

"Vulnerability of food supplies would not be the only negative result of a significant cutback in the CAP. There would also be a serious outflow of labour from the land of Europe. This would add to pressure on non-agricultural labour markets and on urban housing markets. Farm size in the more fertile areas would increase and land in the marginal areas would be abandoned. The social and economic fabric of rural areas would be damaged, and the contribution of rural life to the cultural diversity of Europe would be weakened. The physical environment would also be adversely affected as the management of landscape features such as hedges, stone walls, wetlands and woodlands breaks down."

Bertie, not even the most militant Free-Marketeer demands that we make the farmers of Europe go cold-turkey on CAP. A ten to twenty year period of phasing the policy out would allow the issues raised by the Taoiseach regarding Urban housing infrastructure to be dealt with at a managable rate. As regards the idea that the Environment would somehow be damaged by less intensive farming, well it's somewhat baffling, frankly.

And of the social fabric of rural Europe? Well, two things. Firstly, abandoning CAP does not mean abandoning farming as an industry, - it means making sure that our agricultural output is appropriate to our needs. Logically, this means bigger, more profitable farms. In Britain, which does not benefit from CAP to a fraction of the extent of other EU States, mainly because farms there are much larger and less dependent on subsidies, the "rural way of life" is equally as vibrant as it is here. This is, simply, because farms on a large scale cannot be run by one farmer and his family alone, - it is neccessary to employ people on a significant scale. The farms will contiunue, therfore, to support significant rural communities who depend on them for an income.

Secondly, the economic support structure for the rural way of life is no longer confined exclusively to the agricultural sector and its output. Increasingly, the rural way of life is an attraction in itself, with rural tourism becoming a hugely important sector of the economy. Abolishing CAP, and encouraging less intensive farming, will not impact on this sector, - indeed it may well encourage further growth.

Finally, it is important to realise that we do now live in an industrial and services based economy. Continued migration from the rural to the urban economies is inevitable, and not something we should neccessarily worry about. Indeed, ther is increasing evidence in recent years that this migration is increasingly two-directional, with more and more families now seeing the attraction of country life, particularly in raising children.

The time to end CAP has now come. It's continued existence, in summary, promotes artifically high prices for consumers at the price of third world farmers. It consumes 50% of the EU budget, which is redistributed to 2% of the population, who account for 1% of GDP. It is unfair to the rest of us, and unfair to many developing countries, at whom we continue to throw aid while hampering their primary source of export income.

The Taoiseach should have the guts to come out and say so. Here he has an opportunity to get on the right side of history.

POSTED BY JOHN MCGUIRK AT 9:21 AM COMMENT (0) | TRACKBACK (0)

(All bolding and underlining is mine)

And before this is claimed as a once-off, here's what Daily Mail columnist Richard Waghorne (John McGuirk's comrade in the Freedom Institute then, and in Libertas now) had to say, in an article on the same website in July of that year:

IFA revealingly honest

From ireland.com:

"Irish Farmer Association (IFA) President John Dillon has called on the Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan to resist EU proposals to reform the sugar industry.

Addressing thousands of sugar beet farmers at a protest rally in Brussels today, Mr Dillon said the Irish industry "cannot survive" if the commission's proposals are adopted."

In other words, the IFA and critics of current European agricultural arrangements agree: the industry is inefficient and incapable of standing on its own feet.

Let's be clear about what agricultural subsidies mean. Whereas typical calls for subsidies or bail-outs work off the spurious idea that if the state provides temporary financial assistance the industry will survive and later prosper, agriculture has long ago given up on the idea that it's own activities make any economic sense.

The IFA added that reforms would wipe out the "last remaining 3,500" beet growers. Presuming that they mean the jobs and not the workers themselves (though the IFA have been know to make odd claims before), it would be a first for economic history if a comparatively small number of workers were unable to reskill in a growing economy with almost non-existent unemployment.

Indeed, though it's hardly original to point it out, candlemakers and their associated support industries handled the transition to new professions without any noticeable trouble. But agriculture itself is the model. The sector in the US declined from 60% of the economy, as a proportion of jobs, to 2% today. Even with the current US hesistancy towards free trade, nobody is suggesting that reversing that change would make sense. Just think of the cost to the US economy if they'd tried to maintain proportion of the labour force in agriculture at that level. It's the same story in Ireland. The economic pressure is clear; the costs of resisting are massive; the gain from the common sense solution - abolition of the subsidies - enormous.

There is no need for the state to fund agriculture. If the appearance of the countryside is the issue, hire landscapers. It would cost of fraction of the current burden.

So, both Mr. McGuirk and Mr. Waghorne seem to agree that farming isn't that important, and that we can instead "hire landscapers".

What do Libertas really think of farmers? Are they simply trying to pull the wool over the eyes of Irish farming communities? At a time when farmers are under greater threat than ever, can they really afford to vote for a political party that no-one knows?

Update 24/04/09 As reminded by Keith Martin and Paddy Matthews in the comments to this post, there are yet more opinions from 'Libertas' activists that may be of interest for the ordinary farmers who are the backbone of rural areas. The first is Constantin Gurdgiev, a Russian economist lecturing in Trinity College, who continues with McGuirk's "the countryside as recreational parkland for the urban middle class" theme. The second is the words in 2003 of the Libertas/Rivada chairman himself, Englishman Declan Ganley:

If the laudable goal of preventing human tragedy is their focus, then Messers Schroeder and Chirac would do well to carry out an inspection of one of the biggest weapons of mass destruction being detonated in these times, our very own European Common Agricultural Policy, which, because of its trade barriers and subsidization, will result in thousands of deaths around the world in 2003.

Now, it may very well be that I would be doing the Chairman an injustice by not providing the context of where he was leading to next with this, which is not as widely quoted:

Personally, I do not know what the Americans, Brits, Spanish, Aussies and others will do to the Iraqis, but I would bet that the average citizen in Iraq will be a hell of a lot better off in three years time than they are today, or than they would be if some of Europe’s leaders had their way by sending off a few thousand UN blue helmets backing up gangs of inspectors on Saddam’s home turf. One would think they would have recent memory of European “blue helmets” being tied to trees in the Balkans, disempowered and standing by as the fathers and sons of Sebrenica were murdered under their very noses. They should also add further thought to how inspectors who are not given total cooperation could ever find anything hidden in the vastness of Iraq.

There you have it - Ganley's enthusiasm for the same distortions and exaggerations that the Bush administration peddled to justify their invading Iraq. And does Ganley regret this cheerleading for George W. Bush's illegal and bloody wars, six years on and with 100,000 innocent Iraqis dead? I'll leave the company that he keeps these days to speak for itself.

Update 26/04/09 PeopleKorps has more, via Finfacts.

Cowen Derangement Syndrome

2009-02-25T23:23:00.005Z

Sarah, Sarah: please calm down, and take a deep breath. I know that certain parts of FG are hyperventilating at the thought of finally having a shot at doing in Fianna Fáil, but the result of that would be a Fine Gael in power which seems more likely (judging from my own observations in the past few years of the younger Blueshirts) to be far to the right of even the most PD-friendly elements of FF.

Am I wrong in thinking that in six months time a cruel-looking German in a pin-striped suit will board a plane in Frankfurt bound for Dublin?

Or a rather inoffensive bureaucrat with a lovely wife, three children and a hobby in collecting porcelain dogs who was here as a back-packing student thirty years ago. Take your pick.

Am I wrong in thinking that Cowen hates him so much, he would rather see international intervention than Enda Kenny as taoiseach?

Can we expect to see a crazed Brian Cowen, high on angel dust, give both barrels of a shotgun to Nice Guy Enda during Taoiseach's questions in the Dáil chamber, in a brutal gang-related killing broadcast live to a horrified nation?

er, no.

Is his belief in Fianna Fáil’s divine right to rule so ingrained that he would rather the country hand over sovereignty to the fund or the ECB rather than the Opposition?

Whatever one may think of FF, they did actually emerge the victors of the last election and (with the help of a few friends) have - for better or much, much worse - formed what is termed a 'government', based on a 'parliamentary majority'. It's up to a majority of our elected representatives to decide to throw the bums out, and not the more ambitious parts of Fine Gael.

Is that why, no matter how much the Sunday Independent demands a national government, we won’t get one, not because Enda or Eamon won’t say yes, but because Brian can’t bring himself to ask?

Funny, how everyone else in the country (who's paying attention to such things) sees the versatile Eoghan Harris as rather more of a Fianna Fáil mouthpiece. All, that is, but the latest talent signing in The Irish Times.

Oh. My. God.

2007-04-15T23:35:00.000+01:00

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It's like Christmas come early for long-time fans (this blog included) of a certain former "Director" of the failed Freedom Institute and Daily IRISH Mail ~~correspondent~~ columnist. Expect this new manifestation of the Evil One to be pimped mercilessly by Mulley for the next week (at least).

No word as yet, alas, on what the email policies at Dickie's new digs are. Stay tuned!

Sony Ericsson for Mac

2007-03-03T20:26:00.000Z

On my trusty Sony Ericsson K750i I use Opera Mini for Web access; Salling's Remote Basics for using my phone as an iTunes, VLC, Keynote and DVD Player Bluetooth controller for my Macs; and iTuneMyWalkman for syncing with a Smart Folder in iTunes every morning for podcasts (such as Battlestar Galactica). I use iSquint with custom settings on my desktop machine to output compatible video for viewing saved TV.

It plays AAC, MP3 and MPEG 4. I can listen to the radio on it with comfort, via the hands-free kit I bought at the same time. I can take pictures with the two-megapixel camera for import into iPhoto.

The cost of all this? 200 euros on an 02 contract upgrade from my previous phone, 20 euros for the 3.5mm hands-free plus about 30 euros for a 1GB Memory Stick Duo. The rest was free. The Sony Ericsson does everything I want, and more, and has replaced my old 3rd generation iPod last year. (the installed Media Player does suck as a GUI, though)

The iPhone costs at least 500 euros (guessing) for the lowest configuration and won't be here until Christmas. I might get one in a few years, when the price has come down and the built-in memory capacity gone up. Until then, and despite being enthusiastic about Apple's great kit, I don't think so.

(I may give a different answer once I hold an iPhone in my hand for the first time. Watch this space.)

Freedom "Institute" - gone, but not forgotten

2007-03-03T15:32:00.001Z

The latest edition (February 23rd) of The Phoenix brings an obituary to our notice:

"IT IS with much sadness that Goldhawk reports the disbandment of the Freedom Institute, the right-wing, sorry, liberal think-tank that brought much amusement to Dublin media circles around 2003/04. The Institute has now liquidated itself but its members still push their world view in academia and in the media."

Needless to say, the untimely demise of a fellow think-tank has been received with glumness here at the Dublin Institute of Culture and Knowledge. After all, who could not shed a tear at the demise of an intrepid group of ~~students~~ young capitalist warriors who could claim the following as their mission statement:

About The Freedom Institute
Founded in 2003, The Freedom Institute is Ireland's Centre for Social, Economic and Political Studies. Our approach is simple - while others argue about causes, we seek solutions from the ideas and principles developed by great thinkers - Edmund Burke, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and their contemporaries.
The Freedom Institute will never shy away from expressing its view on any issue. Our beliefs are simple - pro-freedom, pro-enterprise, less government and strengthened security.
An Ireland that embraces FI beliefs would be a place where resources are diverted to fighting not just crime, but also the causes of crime. Our view is to increase choice and competition in every sphere - particularly in the economy, healthcare and education. People should have the opportunity to fulfill their potential in this country - not emigrate to pursue their dreams. Government should retreat to its core areas, and not interfere in areas where the private sector is more than capable of providing. Taxes should be reduced, with the burden of tax (as measured as a share of GDP) still unacceptably high, despite the progress made in recent years.
Our proposed policies will make Ireland a better place to live.
The Freedom Institute has a range of staff dedicated to producing our policies. We will fight for a better Ireland on a range of levels - through public meetings, lobbying and producing our expert reports.
In conjunction with many other think tanks throughout the world, we will not shy from our responsibility to creat a safer, stronger, freer and more prosperous Ireland.

Begat (so legend tells us) in 2003 in the back of a bus between four McDowell Youth Young PD members, the young Freedom Institute was off to a promising start when it received a donation from noted US lobbyist laundromat Tech Central Station in 2004 to fund a survey friendly to deregulation of medicine advertisement, an issue obviously close to the heart of TCS's Big Pharma donors. Latter years saw an influx of Young Blueshirts Fine Gaelers, plus the irrepressible ex-Ogra Fianna Fail (see Phoenix issues passim) John McGuirk.

"The Institute may have gone away, you know, but Richard Waghorne, the Institute’s director, is now writing full-time for the Irish Daily Mail. A recent article listed Pat Rabbitte as the most dangerous man in Ireland while author and lecturer Rory Miller is fighting the good fight elsewhere in the media."

Our analysis of Dickie's Mail career gets an airing in a recent thread-spat here with another veteran Freedom Instituteer (and professional global warming sceptic), one Peter Nolan, ex(?) of the lobbyist front The Stockholm Network. Suffice it to say that the Rabbitte article referred to above seems the tip of the iceberg for entertainment value (see the recent Waghorne piece blaming marriage breakdown on gay sex), though we of course can go only on what we read while nosing through the newsagents' shelves of a Saturday.

"Waghorne told Goldhawk that it was simply a matter of the band pursuing solo projects but conceded that the “creative energy” the group had in 2003 – when there was still a debate over the merits of George W Bush’s Iraqi plans – was gone by late 2006."

"Creative energy", indeed (how's the Bush Legacy going, anyone know?). Sad news that graduating college and getting jobs going on to 'solo projects' has led to this, though we're glad to hear that it wasn't due to no more money turning up after the TCS cash was expended (for so little apparent returns) by the goys.

"Eamon Delaney, editor of Magill magazine, was glad to provide it with a regular and wide platform initially, and Waghorne and John Lalor became constant contributors. Delaney, however, is eager to distance himself now from the Institute, which was eventually indulging in namecalling, cheap shots and, worst of all, predictability."

We're astonished. And more than a little confused. Is this actually the same neo-Magill editor who passed the following recent (February 2007) Waghorne column for publication?:

"More Ideas Please
Irish political culture would be enriched by more think tanks, say Richard Waghorne

One of the high profile London think tanks was in Dublin before Christmas, talking to our capital's decision makers about the possibility of opening an Irish branch. To say that the reception they received was chilly would be something of an understatement. Oppsition to the idea was as strong from business as from the civil service [...] Why are we still so averse to independent policy groups when other countries have come to regard them as an indispensable part of politics?
[...]
It is a sign of how backward we remain about this that, even though we have much ground to cover to catch up, new arrivals tend to be greeted not like liberal bromides but with overtly hostile suspicion [...]"

And so it goes on, ad nauseum (and without a reference to Dickie's personal connection to this topic anywhere in the piece, we might add).

Back to the Phoenix:

"While Waghorne said the group was never as right-wing as it was portrayed, he admitted that “message management” was an issue. Indeed it was, although when you publish articles praising the merits of rendition flights, the folly of concern for global warming or referring to the minimum wage as “criminalising” work, the message obviously needed more than simple management."

Heh, indeedy. The Phoenix scribe misses out on other Freedom Institute classics such as on the de Menezes shooting, their love-bombing of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, the repeated pimping of the McCarthyite David Horowitz and the Smoking Ban ("The Vampire At The Door", according to 'John Lalor Health Spokesperson'). Unsurprisingly enough, the Freedom Institute website was made inaccesible to the public several months back, at presumably the same time that it informally wound up; a check just now through the backdoor route we uncovered then reveals that the entire content has recently been scrubbed off their server.

We're hereby dedicating next week to recapping on some of the Freedom Institute's greatest hits, along with - if we've time - a "where are they now?" series. Stay tuned.

Postscript: a final note (pun unintended) on Sicilian Notes, which was recently promoted by Mulley as "one[...] to watch in 2007" (being an utter cunt[1][2][3][4], appears not to be a disqualifier for this distinction). Dickie has, it appears, turned his online scribblings into a gated community (what could he be afraid of, that people might read there? *).

One to watch, indeed.

* We've no idea (ok, maybe a few). We do, however, happen to possess extensive archives of the riveting opinions expressed by Dickie on his blog in the past (as well as those of the Freedom Institute). Requests to the usual email address.

Bupa: not going after all

2007-01-18T09:09:00.000Z

There's a surprise, he said snarkily. A company evidently engaging in bluff in a poker game it's started with the government.

As has been obvious from the beginning, the fuss over risk equalisation has only been an ploy by Bupa to maximise their profits in this jurisdiction, nothing else. They knew about it before they decided to set up shop in this state, and they've simply been engaged in Ryanair-style theatrics since.

Update, 25/01/07: As pointed out in the comments, there's not much to back this claim up in the original linked article (hey - self-correcting blogosphere!). I was sure that I heard a news report about a Bupa statement confirming this on Newstalk on Thursday morning, but having listened through their podcasts makes me think that it must've been on the Orla Barry show - i.e., non-podcasted. Consider this a retraction until further notice.

Back

2007-01-18T09:04:00.000Z

So, can anyone tell us about this "new" Blogger?

Reality Bites on Iraq

2006-10-12T23:36:00.000+01:00

First we had the news that George and Tony's Excellent Adventure has killed more Iraqis than Saddam ever did. Now, comes word that in the UK the generals are unwilling to be complicit in the la-la fantasies of the neocons and the "decent" left any more.

In an interview in the Daily Mail, Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff, is quoted as saying the British should "get out some time soon".

He also said: "Let's face it, the military campaign we fought in 2003, effectively kicked the door in."

Certain persons have been avoiding the topic of Iraq lately, unsurprisingly.

FascistWatch.IE

2006-08-21T03:22:00.000+01:00

Searchlight Magazine has an interesting article up:

"Author: By Scott Millar | Date: August 2006

Ex-Provo gives new life to Irish clerical fascism
A former senior Provisional IRA member, who until 2003 sat on Sinn Fein’s national executive, is reorganising the extreme nationalist right in Ireland by attempting a takeover of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), the largely moribund marching organisation seen as the Catholic equivalent of the Orange Order.

Gerry McGeough, 47, from Tyrone, now living in Dublin, has been described by the FBI as a “dedicated terrorist” and “senior commander” in the IRA. He makes no secret of his Provisional IRA past and his extreme anti-gay and pro-traditional Catholic views. McGeough is believed to have served on the PIRA’s “headquarters staff” and overseen its international arms buying and military operations during the early 1980s. He has served eight years in total in American and German prisons, awaiting trial for an IRA attack on a British barracks in Germany in 1988 and attempts to purchase surface-to-air missiles in the US. Until recently he was the editor of the large circulation Irish Catholic newspaper the Irish Family.

Now he has turned his attentions to saving Ireland from “sodomy” and immigration and returning it to “Catholic Faith and Gaelic Heritage“. In May McGeough, as editor, and Charles Byrne, a 28-year-old from Drogheda, launched a monthly magazine called The Hibernian, dedicated to “Faith, Family and Country”. Seemingly well funded and run from premises in the border town of Drogheda, the magazine acts as a publicity vehicle for McGeough and the extreme right in Ireland. Some of its contributors are associated with Youth Defence, an extreme anti-abortion group, and the Society of Pope Pius X, others are those attempting to infiltrate and take over the AOH.

In recent months local newspapers in rural southern Ireland and the border area have carried advertisements for those interested in joining a revitalised AOH which is to focus on the promotion of so-called “Hibernian” values. McGeough says that a significant number of persons associated with his brand of homophobia and extreme Catholicism have now been recruited into existing AOH “divisions”, the term for local units of the organisation, and have formed new “divisions” in Dublin and other areas of Ireland. "

Fine. Just the usual run-of-the-mill letter writers to the Irish Times, surely?

"The first outing of McGeough’s new look AOH was a televised speech on 26 May by Michael McDowell, the Irish Minister for Justice, on civil partnerships for same-sex couples. The speech was interrupted when a jug of water, a number of cups and copies of the Irish constitution were thrown at the minister by eight men in the audience who accused him of seeking to pervert Irish children. The men, who were eventually escorted from the building, identified themselves to the media as members of the AOH. On the same day the website of The Hibernian carried a press release stating: “We, the General Tom Barry Division No. 1975 AOH, Cork and the Naomh Lorc O’Tuathail Division No. 31 AOH, Dublin, wish to state that we carried out today’s protest at the launch of a conference on homosexual ‘marriage’
[…]
However not all in the AOH were supportive of the actions of some of their new members. A week later Tony Carroll, the AOH public relations officer, said: “We saw the pictures on TV and everybody was amazed at what went on”. He pledged further to investigate the disruption and take “appropriate action”. However McGeough believes the days of mere charity work by the AOH are numbered. He said, in a taped interview forwarded to Searchlight: “I am part of a new group of people in the organisation who want to take a more pro-active stance on Catholic issues. If the leadership have a problem with Catholic teachings, then they should take it up with the Pope. The organisation which was moribund for years under that leadership is now attracting huge numbers of new people. We only have a convention every three years. but I believe we will see a radical shake-up at the next election.”"

We believe that Suzy has already encountered this lot. Unsurprisingly, there's also a Justin Barrett connection:

"The former terrorist first emerged as a figure on the Irish extreme right when he accompanied Justin Barrett on a lecture tour of Irish towns in March 2004 in support of Barrett’s bid for election to the European Parliament.
[...]
When confronted by video film of brown-shirted skinheads marching with neo-nazi flags through the conference on national television, days before the second Nice referendum, Barrett’s defence that he was unaware of the nature of the meetings became a national joke.

It was during this period that McGeough, then acting as organiser of the Sinn Fein anti-Nice campaign, became involved with Barrett and his cohorts. The two are still in close political contact although McGeough says he does not agree with Barrett’s vocal opposition to immigration.

So what's McGeough's current relationship to the Shinners?

Because of his IRA activities McGeough had a strong following among some Provo supporters. He was elected to the Sinn Fein national executive in 1999 while studying history in Trinity College. He became the party’s national campaigns organiser in 2001 and remained on the executive until 2003. During that time he, along with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness, led Sinn Fein election campaigns and toured the country addressing republicans on behalf of the party.

The former terrorist is scathing of his former comrades in the leadership of Sinn Fein. In the Searchlight interview McGeough said: “Sinn Fein has been heavily infiltrated by homosexual activists and British double agents in recent years. A lot of republicans can’t fathom the liberal values of the leadership. They do not understand why they are pursuing a liberal British agenda. Immigration is a massive concern and there are a lot of people who are not happy with the level of immigration.” "

No love lost there, we guess. And then we were drawn to a familiar name:

"The only two websites that have links to [McGeough-edited magazine] The Hibernian are “Irish nationalism”, an openly racist site, and the “Irish Bulletin”. The second site, which has a banner proclaiming “Dispatches from the battle to defend Irish unity, culture, tradition and orthodoxy”, is the only outlet that initially promoted The Hibernian. It also carries “news” reports similar in content and style to those on The Hibernian’s website. Under the heading “European Nationalist Movements and Philosophies” the Irish Bulletin has links to the websites of Forza Nuovo, the International Third Position publication Final Conflict and the neo-nazi National Democratic Party of Germany among other extremist groups."

Searchlight goes on to further elucidate on the love-in. While there hasn't been any even half-serious fascist movement here since the days of the pre-Fine Gael Blueshirts, this lot (the somewhat further-out section of Irish wingnuttia) still bear keeping an eye on for mischief.

FundieWatch.IE

2006-08-21T02:09:00.000+01:00

Dr. James Dobson's US-based Focus on the Family (more here) is a name which garners precious little recognition here in the Republic, but it really ought to. Founded by Dobson in 1977 (and of which he was president until recently, handing over to an ex-Christian Coalition activist) and closely GOP-aligned in the Age of Bush, Focus on the Family serves as a lobbying organisation and pressure group for hardcore Bible-bashers on predictable topics such as Creationism, the separation of Church and State and homosexuality (the side of the fence they fall on can be readily guessed). Dobson himself gives new definition to the phrase "fundamentalist loon":

In response to 9/11: "Question: Has God withdrawn His protective hand from the US?"

James Dobson responds: "Christians have made arguments on both sides of this question. I certainly believe that God is displeased with America for its pride and arrogance, for killing 40 million unborn babies, for the universality of profanity and for other forms of immorality. However, rather than trying to forge a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the terrorist attacks and America's abandonment of biblical principles, which I think is wrong, we need to accept the truth that this nation will suffer in many ways for departing from the principles of righteousness. "The wages of sin is death," as it says in Romans 6, both for individuals and for entire cultures. " (FOF website, http://www.family.org/docstudy/excerpts/A0018615.html)

(via PFAW)

Those with a masochistic streak can also Google for the good Dr. Dobson's beef with a children's TV cartoon character named SpongeBob SquarePants. But don't say that we didn't warn ye.

Where does Ireland fit into all this? Your humble blogger will sheepishly admit to having tagged along to an evangelical service in Cork about a decade ago (long story). This soul was long ago promised to the Divil, we're afraid, so there was no chance of even the lovely-looking girl sent over to 'introduce' herself to a stranger in the congregation being a sufficient enough temptation to lure a non-practicising Catholic boy to the Dark Side. But the obvious professionalism of the act by the two American pastors was duly noted for future reference - and just because they don't get attention from the Dublin media doesn't mean they're not out there in numbers and growing, folks.

Fast-forward a few years, and a character named Mervyn Nutley shows up in 2003 as the Director of an outfit called "Christian Initiatives", making a submission to the Department of Communications in favour of allowing religious advertising on the airwaves. Apparently already in existence for eight years, Christian Initiatives later that year got the franchise (so to speak) and became "Focus on the Family Ireland", thereby entering our little tale. Posturing as a Christian 'family support' organisation appears to be the modus operandi of FotF Ireland; they also popped up at the Joint Committee on the Constitution in 2005. But you can be sure that like the US parent organisation, that's just the thin end of the wedge for the rest of their agenda - anti-feminism, homophobia, creationism, sexual ignorance for adolescents and all the rest of it - to get in the door too.

And here's where we assign some homework to the Free Stater readership. Via the never-disappointing PZ Myers at Pharyngula, comes word of a way to exact some karmic retribution on FotF's attempts to do an end-run around their dues to Caesar - namely, selling wingnut literature for tax-deductible supposed "donations". There is, however, a weakness in this scheme... and you can find full instructions here.

Needless to say, we've already taken this opportunity to get a headstart on the Christmas shopping, ordering some Narnia goodness:

Be warned, though, that doing this puts you on the US fundie spam and junk-mail lists. We've already had invitations for Christian Dating(!) amongst other God-related offers in the Hotmail inbox (though good luck to them sending us junkmail through An Post) so caveat emptor, as they say.

p.s. Where would your neighbourhood evangelicals host their website on the Godless Internets? Why, with Godsweb, of course.

The sweet smell of bullshit

2006-08-20T23:19:00.000+01:00

The BBC, yesterday:

Terror police find 'martyr tapes'

Police investigating an alleged plot to bring down airliners have found several martyrdom videos in the course of their searches, the BBC has learned.

An unofficial police source said the recordings - discovered on laptop computers - appear to have been made by some of the suspects being questioned.

Scotland Yard has refused to comment on what officers are finding.

Again, Aunty Beeb:

Terror detectives 'find bomb kit'

Police probing an alleged plot to bring down flights have found a suitcase containing items which could be used to construct a bomb, the BBC has learned.

Officers have been searching a piece of land called King's Wood in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.

A police source told the BBC the case contained "everything you would need to make an improvised device".

As Craig Murray notes sceptically, "everything you would need to make an improvised device" covers the contents of the average residence:

"The idea that high explosive can be made quickly in a plane toilet by mixing at room temperature some nail polish remover, bleach, and Red Bull and giving it a quick stir, is nonsense. Yes, liquid explosives exist and are highly dangerous and yes, airports are ill equipped to detect them at present. Yes, it is true they have been used on planes before by terrorists. But can they be quickly manufactured on the plane? No.

The sinister aspect is not that this is a real new threat. It is that the allegation may have been concocted in order to prepare us for arresting people without any actual bombs.

Let me fess up here. I have just checked, and our flat contains nail polish remover, sports drinks, and a variety of household cleaning products. Also MP3 players and mobile phones. So the authorities could announce - as they have whispered to the media in this case - that potential ingredients of a liquid bomb, and potential timing devices, have been discovered. It rather lowers the bar, doesn't it?"

The 'evidence' leaked to the press by the police in this case mirrors such recent inglorious episodes as the Ricin Plot, the Forest Gate arrests, the death of Jean Charles de Menezes last year (and that of Rigoberto Alpizar in similiar circumstances in Miami). In each case, the narrative of Islamic terrorist plots placed with accommodating press hacks by the police ultimately turned out to be completely without substance. And Murray (the very same ambassador who blew the whistle on UK collaboration with the people-boiler of Uzbekistan) deals with the unreliability of evidence extracted by torture, an unwelcome slap of reality for torture fans everywhere.

But - and this is the important part - the sense of induced panic from the screaming tabloid headlines always lingers on in the public subconscious; whether as unintentional byproduct or (more sinisterly) by design on the part of the Blair and Bush governments. Which interpretation is correct, we leave up to reader discretion.

And as other people have already observed, the 'discovery' of this alleged plot couldn't have come at a better time for the Bush Administration, what with prominent pro-Iraq war Democrat Senator Joe Lieberman defeated that same week in his party primary by an anti-war candidate. As Murray notes in further posts, treat the narrative being peddled now by the Blair government with a good dose of caution. Why has no police officer gone on the record about these supposed finds of evidence?

p.s. For a detailed look at the reality behind the hype of liquid explosives, The Register provides.

(A close death in the family will continue to disrupt blogging on Free Stater for a couple of weeks. Dickie's threatened solicitor's letter has meanwhile yet to turn up on our virtual doorstep... Rest assured, We Will Return)

A Response emerges on Emailgate

2006-08-01T21:23:00.001+01:00

Sicilian Notes posts a reply:

"Email Postscript

Following this post, the Sunday Independent ran this article. Much nonsense online has followed. While I regard the matter as closed, and said this when contacted by the author of the Independent piece, some clarification is in order.
First, I should not have published the name of the person who sent the email, as that put me on the wrong side of my own email policy. I'm happy to put my hands up and accept that I was in the wrong on that count. It's a remote probability that the author checked the policies or even knew they were there, but that's immaterial."

Regardless of whether or not there was a written policy, there is certainly a netiquette that private email carries some privileges. That Sicilian Notes put these principles into a written blog policies document just emphasises that Richard was aware of such custom.

"Second, the reports that the author lost his job are news to me. I know only that disciplinary processes were initiated. I neither know nor have any interest in what become of the email's author. Those presuming either way should limit themselves to known facts."

Here's a fact:

It's the same story out at UCD [helicopter noise - EWI note]. More often than not, when stepping outside there'll be one in the sky. The faint whir is audible as I type at the moment. Happily the noise inside this concrete bunker we all work in is reduced to insignificance, but the sheer number is striking. Given that helicopter traffic to UCD itself is unlikely on academic salaries, the supposition is that much of it is for the Radisson, which apparently is a favourite hideout of the helicopter set.

Posted by Richard Waghorne :: 7/14/2006 10:09:00 AM

"Third, the allegation online that I have misused IT facilities at one of my places of work is entirely incorrect."

The allegation that Richard has misused IT facilities has never been made. He has, however, been invited to reflect on the hypocrisy of castigating another person for the expenditure of taxpayer's money in a private cause while he himself clearly does likewise (UCD enjoying subvention from the public purse).

"Moreover, had I chosen to use UCD facilities to blog outside the time I allocate to fulfill my responsibilities there I would have been entirely entitled to do so, as is every other member of staff and the student body."

This is entirely up to UCD to decide, and not something that this blog concerns itself with. What does concern us is whether Richard uses any of our tax-euros to promote his views: the exact same justification ("Your taxes at work.") he used for outing the Údaras employee.

"It is possibly defamatory to report that I am in breach of contact by misusing facilities."

It is also "possibly" defamatory to falsely claim that someone else has made defamatory remarks about your own self. Richard has never been accused of breach of contract, about which we profess no opinion one way or the other: he has merely been labelled a rank hypocrite for likewise using facilities at least in part public-funded.

"I note in passing it has not been made by anybody writing under their own name. I note also that I have sought recourse to libel lawyers in the past with a 100% success rate to date. If the author is serious, I invite him or her to publish the claim under their own name. I will then refer the matter to one my lawyers (I find it a sad reflection on the world that at twenty-two I already have need of two of them). I invite those who have made or spread this claim to withdraw it. "

It is a matter for Richard Waghorne if he wishes to waste time and money pursuing a defamation case where it is abundently clear that none such has occurred. As to his concerns over pseudonymous bloggers, we suggest this little quiz for readers; just how many Waghorne-blogrolled right-wing bloggers are also pseudonymous?

"Fourth, though doubtless accidentally, Sarah Carey is incorrect in reporting that I "probably wouldn’t do it again". I would act exactly as I have with the single exception, as already mentioned, that I would not have made public the actual name of the person who sent the email. That an inappropriate and abusive email was sent from a state funded body is a matter of legitimate public interest and I would have considered myself remiss in not reporting the email, as I did straightaway, and in making public the basic facts of the matter. At the time I had no idea whether the author was a chief executive or a secretarial temp and would in any case have treated the matter in the exact same manner irrespectively. If the author did indeed lose his job the responsibility for that fact is entirely his and I neither express nor feel regret. There will be no apology. The responsibility is his and no amount of politically-motivated dislike of yours truly changes that fact."

Does Richard apologise for violating email confidentiality and publicly naming him? Apparently not...

"Fifth, Sarah Carey is in the wrong when she argued that I "shouldn’t have let the SINDO article go forward implying that [I] hadn’t complained". I supplied the journalist with all the information he requested and an accurate timeline of events on the day. I have at no point denied this and would have no reason to. If she is unhappy with the article in the Sunday Independent she should get in touch with the paper. They will, presumably, then tell her to get a life. As she is in the business of demanding apologies from people, myself included, she might consider, if not an apology, a correction at least."

In that case, there is a rather curious coincidence in that both articles forget to mention this detail; the disclosure of which might otherwise have taken the shine off Mr. Waghorne's halo in this sordid tale [1].

"Lastly, had the Irish language zealots who protested my brief piece in such inflammatory and unreasonable language across the blogosphere"

Inflammatory and unreasonable language isn't unknown to Mr. Waghorne, we fear.

"had the minimal maturity to respond in a rational fashion and desist from explicitly directing readers to send hate mail to my account, they would not have had one of their own suffer, by all accounts, a clear career setback of one type or another. You lost."

Who are the "you"? Alas, we can only speculate as to what VGLC (Vast Gael-Linn Conspiracy) Richard may have uncovered....

"And it was needless and entirely your fault."

Again, we're completely in the dark as to who the "you" is meant to be.

"Learn from it by learning to deal with disagreement as adults and not as caricatures of fringe interest lunatics. I accept no blame in the matter, reserve my right to report civil servants in the future for similar breaches of contract, and advise those who have devoted not inconsiderable time to this most trivial of news stories to find something else to blog about in what could hardly be considered a slow news week."

Have done. Back to this, now.

"The matter is closed."

So commandeth the Prince of the Internets.

[1] the Sindo reader demographic being unlikely to grasp the finer points of email ettiquette.

The plot thickens...

2006-08-01T04:01:00.001+01:00

L'Affaire Waghorne takes another turn:

"What I’d like to know is how the woman at Udaras found out so quickly that the employee emailed Waghorne in the first place…Did Richard ring Udaras to enquire (he very carefully says he “took” a call from an Udaras woman - is she following all web links to their website on a daily basis?)"

To which the answer apparently is:

"Someone who got in touch with me on the whole matter has told me that Waghorne complained personally to the Udaras head office on the matter; I’ve no doubt that he did as Udaras are unlikely to have noticed it any other way in such a short space of time."

This is far from over, we promise.

Another first - Daily Ireland sets up a blog

2006-08-01T00:23:00.000+01:00

Catch it here: http://www.apublishersblog.blogspot.com/

(via the Sunday Business Post)

Bet they're Young Republicans, too

2006-07-31T22:38:00.000+01:00

From The Register comes word that the American white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood have suffered a major setback:

"Bosses of an American racist prison gang have been convicted of murders and racketeering offences after investigators broke the encoded messages they used to order attacks.
[...]
The trial, the first of several targeting the leadership of the Aryan Brotherhood, covered 17 murders or attempted murders between 1979 and 1997. Mills and Bingham were convicted on all but one of the counts against them. Two others defendants, Edgar "The Snail" Hevle and Christopher Gibson, lieutenants in the Aryan Brotherhood, were convicted of lesser roles in some of the deadly assaults orchestrated by Mills and Bingham.

Prosecutors hope the trial will limit the power of the Aryan Brotherhood, a gang of around 100 men who use fear and violence to control drug pushing and gambling in jails across the US.
[...]
These instructions, encoded using steganographic techniques developed by Francis Bacon 400 years ago, were written in invisible ink, whose contents only became visible when held over a flame. The gang smuggled messages by placing them within mop handles or under recreation yard rocks."

Now these are extremely dangerous men, undoubtedly with the blood of many people on their hands. However, you can't read the following:

"But the prosecution produced a raft of documents, including decoded letters and membership lists, to back-up its case. The government even produced a "mission statement" for the gang setting out an agenda for the Aryan Brotherhood to become "the very best possible criminal organisation"."

...and help but imagine this particular Aryan leadership generation as less like the ruthless, scheming Vern Schillinger (from HBO's superb Oz)

....and more like Cholla from Every Which Way But Loose.

We send an email

2006-07-31T10:52:00.001+01:00

From: Free Stater [mailto:freestater1916@hotmail.com]
Sent: 30 July 2006 21:29
To: independent.letters@unison.independent.ie
Subject: Údaras Email Firing

"Dear Editor,

On Sunday 30th July 2006 the Sunday Independent ran a piece entitled "State agency forced to apologise in email misuse incident" by a Daniel McConnell, dealing with the firing of a summer student who had been employed by Udaras. The student - one Ultan o hAodha - had sent an email using an Udaras address in reply to a posting by a UCD employee (one Richard Waghorne) on Mr. Waghorne's own online blog.

i) It is not unreasonable to guess that Mr. Waghorne posted his original derogatory comments concerning the Gaelic language using UCD facilities.
Does UCD allow or endorse Mr. Waghorne using their facilities to promote his ideological positions?

ii) Mr. Waghorne has a number of stated policies at his blog, accessible
here:

http://siciliannotes.blogspot.com/2006/01/sicilian-notes-policies.html

I draw your attention in particular to the following:

"Quoting policy on Emails
Unless you ask otherwise, emails will be regarded are quotable. However,
unless you state permission, it will be assumed that identity is not to be
published."

Nowhere in the Sunday Independent article in question is Mr. Waghorne's
failure to honour his committment of confidentiality to his email
correspondents noted. I feel that this is a serious flaw in the reporting on this particular incident, and I hope that the Sunday Independent will print
a correction to that effect in the next issue.

Yours faithfully,
EWI"

--
Thanks to the reader who sent in the link to the Sindo article. Some related links:

http://freestater.blogspot.com/2006/07/public-health-warning-for-silly-notes.html
http://www.sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/o_manamse/P25/
http://siciliannotes.blogspot.com/2006/07/email-from-udaras.html
http://siciliannotes.blogspot.com/2006/01/sicilian-notes-policies.html
http://talideon.com/weblog/2006/07/lets-not-feed-the-troll.cfm
http://donal.wordpress.com/2006/07/11/we-cannot-do-without-irish/
http://imeall.blogspot.com/2006/07/imeall-145-trollil.html
http://imeall.wordpress.com/2006/07/20/being-a-peasant-is-nothing-to-be-ashamed-of-being-ignorant-is-nothing-to-be-proud-of/

Update 13:28 31/07/06 more links...

http://twentymajor.blogspot.com/2006/07/apologising.html
http://donal.wordpress.com/2006/07/31/stick-that-in-your-pipe-and/

Lies and the Lying Liars

2006-07-28T20:18:00.000+01:00

The BBC:

"Israel says world backs offensive

Israel says Wednesday's decision by key world powers not to call for a halt to its Lebanon offensive has given it the green light to continue.

Justice Minister Haim Ramon made the remarks before Israeli cabinet ministers decided not to launch a large-scale ground offensive."

Oh, really?

Britain and US block call for ceasefire
John Hooper in Rome, Ewen MacAskill in London and Jonathan Steele in Beirut

The split within the international community over the Lebanon war was clearly exposed yesterday when the US and Britain combined at a Rome summit to block a move by European and Arab countries to demand an immediate ceasefire.

In a frenetic last 90 minutes of the summit, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, had to fend off a chorus of calls from foreign ministers demanding that she support a call for Israel and the Lebanese-based militia Hizbullah to declare a temporary truce. Her only ally at the conference was Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary.

A US state department official travelling with Ms Rice denied the US had been isolated, a view disputed by other sources at the conference.

A state department official said: "Whether we call [ the ceasefire] immediate or urgent is semantics. We walked out of that room with the same sense of urgency [ as others]."

The conference ended with a statement fudging the ceasefire issue, with participants expressing "their determination to work immediately to reach with the utmost urgency a ceasefire", but going on to incorporate Washington's insistence that any cessation of hostilities be "lasting, permanent and durable".

British and Israeli sources have said the US was deliberately delaying the diplomatic process to give Israel more time to complete its military operations against Hizbullah.

Lebanon's prime minister, Fouad Siniora, made what Ms Rice described as an "impassioned appeal" to the summit.

"Is the value of human rights in Lebanon less than that of citizens elsewhere?" he asked. "Are we children of a lesser god? Is an Israeli teardrop worth more than a drop of Lebanese blood?"

© Guardian Service

Our Mr. Ramon doesn't stop there, though:

"Speaking on Israeli army radio, Mr Ramon - a close confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert - said "everyone understands that a victory for Hezbollah is a victory for world terror".

He said that in order to prevent casualties amongst Israeli soldiers battling Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, villages should be flattened by the Israeli air force before ground troops move in.

'All southerners terrorists'

He added that Israel had given the civilians of southern Lebanon ample time to quit the area and therefore anyone still remaining there can be considered Hezbollah supporters.

"All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah," Mr Ramon said."

Some of those "terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah":

Funding appeal for orphanage with Irish links
John Downes

The director of a southern Lebanese orphanage which has a long association with the Irish Defence Forces and has received funding from the Irish Government, yesterday described how the children in his care and other orphanage staff are running out of food in Beirut.

Hassan Fawaz, a former principal translator with the Defence Forces, also said 28 of his charges had been forced to live for almost two weeks in a small bunker formerly used by Irish troops. The orphanage which he runs is located in the town of Tibnin, close to the Defence Forces' former battalion headquarters at Camp Shamrock.

Mr Fawaz was speaking on RTÉ Radio's Gerry Ryan show, which yesterday initiated an appeal for funds to help Mr Fawaz and the residents of the orphanage.

A fundraising bank account to help Mr Faraz and the children of the orphanage has been set up through Bank of Ireland.

If anyone knows how to contribute to this fund, please leave details in the comments to this post. Much appreciated.

Update 31/07/06: From the comments:

If you want to donate money to the Hussan Sawaz orphan appeal in Beirut, the details are:

Name: Lebanese Orphan Appeal
Branch: Bank of Ireland, Baggot Street, Dublin
Sort Code: 90 14 90
Account number: 44 99 95 22

Just for interest: A story of Dev, Bob Briscoe and Israel/Palestine

2006-07-28T19:44:00.000+01:00

This is an article that we've linked to before, but it appears to have since disappeared along with the rest of the Ha'artz Daily site and it's nowhere to be seen on the new one. The following was recovered from the Google cache. It'll hopefully be of considerable interest to readers (the writer refers to a Palestinian arms shipment intercepted by Israel a few years back).

Son of a gun
By Thomas O'Dwyer

I was 13 years old the first time I met a gunrunner. Since he was also the first Jew that I had ever met, that was the identity that stuck - stories of gunrunners were then ten a penny among Father's cronies of the Old IRA. Bob Briscoe was an Irish and Jewish gunrunner, and a hero because of it, and the memory of meeting him came flooding back to illuminate the veil of indignant hypocrisy hovering over all the blustering and babbling about the capture of the "ship of terror" last week.

This greatest military operation since the rescue at Entebbe, and greatest national endeavor since the parting of the Red Sea, failed inexplicably to rouse the righteous indignation of a universe apparently unmoved by the imminent threat to galactic civilization. These deluded foreign fools (anti-Semites one and all) apparently find it unremarkable that a nation under siege and brutal occupation - for no apparent reason other than the bloody-mindedness and land greed of the occupying superpower - try to smuggle in arms from time to time.

In the history of occupations, it has been a singularly commonplace occupation of the occupied - as the Jewish state should well remember. Occupied countries like Algeria, Cyprus, and Mandate Palestine did it all the time. The Irish were the world's most incorrigible arms smugglers in the struggle for independence.

Maybe the story of the Karine A just wasn't startling news. After all, the Palestinians are in a fight for independence from Israel, just like Jews were in a fight for independence against Britain not too many years ago - as aging hypocrites like Ariel Sharon, Yitzhak Shamir, and the other old gunrunning nationalists know only too well.

The contempt of the international diplomatic community in Israel for the cynical timing and inept presentation of the arms ship story was undisguised this week. "The usual circus performance for Zinni," one European envoy told me. "If they were tracking this ship for months, why didn't Sharon do something really clever and ask the U.S. Navy to intercept it in the Strait of Hormuz as it was about to leave the Gulf with the arms? The Americans could have done so in the context of the war on terror, and they would have handled the publicity much more skillfully, and maybe even have delivered Israel a free propaganda coup."

This envoy had politely declined the government's kind invitation to "freeze my butt off in Eilat while officials babbled at us in Hebrew," but his report home on the stage-managed fiasco was no less scathing than the rest.

The star of the whole show was probably the affable captain of the "ship of terror," Omar Akawi. His frank and relaxed interview with the television stations and Reuters from his unenviable position in Ashkelon jail reminded me once again of Bob Briscoe's accounts of his daring gunrunning for the IRA and later for the Irgun, before he settled down to a respectable job as Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1956. Make no mistake - the gunrunning of the Karine A and others like it will one day enter the folklore of how the State of Palestine struggled for its freedom.

"A nation in desperation will find its ways," Briscoe later wrote. He described the curfews and closures on the Irish people in 1919 and 1920 that drove him willingly into the fight for Irish freedom alongside Michael Collins - the man whose name Yitzhak Shamir later adopted as an underground nom de guerre. "Frightfulness was their official policy," Briscoe wrote of the British occupation, as it is of the Israeli one.

"As the citizens go to bed, the barracks spring to life," Briscoe recalled. "Tanks and searchlight cars muster in fleets, lists of `objectives' are distributed. Through the dark curfewed streets the weird cavalcades issue forth to attack. The `objectives' for the most part appear to be held by women and children. Thunder of knocks on their doors and in charge the soldiers in full war kit. No warrant shown on entering; no apology on leaving when, in nine cases out of ten, suspicions proved groundless."

In the midst of the brutality, Collins summoned Briscoe, "our blessed jewman," (unlike the wretched Zvi Hendel MK today, Collins could then use the term with affection for the only Jew of senior rank in the IRA.) He dispatched Briscoe to Germany, with the cover of a Galway wool merchant and the swashbuckling operational name of Captain Swift, to buy arms. "From a secret underground of German ex-naval officers called Orgesh, I bought large quantities of automatic pistols called Peter the Painters and Parabellums, and variants with detachable stocks that converted them to small rifles, as well as considerable quantities of ammunition," wrote Briscoe.

When the arms had piled up in a Hamburg warehouse, Briscoe bought an old tramp steamer, the Karl Marx, and a seagoing tugboat, the Frieda. He loaded the Karl Marx with cement and had the Frieda tow it out to sea where it sailed north and south and north again shadowed by the suspicious Royal Navy. Meanwhile the arms-laden little Frieda slipped away and made a daring and successful run to Waterford.

Briscoe also ran the City of Dortmund, to and from German ports, with an all-IRA crew. In one of his finest operations, just before a peace treaty was agreed with Britain, Briscoe landed a haul of machine guns and a million rounds of ammunition in Ireland from the gunrunning ship Hannah.

Briscoe was always more reticent about his work for the Irgun. He became an enthusiastic supporter of Zionism after meeting Vladimir Jabotinsky when he visited Ireland to study the tactics of the IRA against the British and was fully briefed by Briscoe: "I appointed myself to a full professorship with the Chair of Subversive Activity against England." During the war he went to South Africa and raise considerable funds from its Jewish community to help ferry Jewish immigrants past the British and into Palestine.

But he conceded laconically: "Most of the immigrant work was organized by the Haganah. I naturally was drawn to the Irgun."

But after the sinking of the Irgun's gun-running ship, the Altalena, in Tel Aviv, Briscoe became horrified at the prospect of a Jewish civil war, like he had witnessed in Ireland. At a meeting with Menachem Begin in Paris, he urged Begin to abandon the Irgun as a physical force movement and convert it to a constitutional party, as the IRA had done.

In 1950, this old son of a gun traveled to Israel with President Eamonn De Valera, who had become his close friend. De Valera was impressed with Israel's progress but disturbed by the plight of the Arab refugees. And so was Briscoe - IRA man, Irgun man, Collins man, Jabotinsky man, Zionist, Irish nationalist and gunrunner. "De Valera sympathized with the Arab people in their hopes for independence and prosperity," he wrote. "So do I. I want to see all people this way - a world where every human being is of equal dignity and equal importance."

Too bad. Fifty-two years later, Mr. I Have Defeated Terror is still too busy listening to his own stupid propaganda.

A thirty-year lie unravels

2006-07-28T19:34:00.000+01:00

About time that some attention was paid to intimate Unionist/Loyalist links.

UNIFIL/UNTSO Update 28/07/06

2006-07-28T18:25:00.000+01:00

OGL - the part of UNTSO assigned to Lebanon - is withdrawing to the protection of UNIFIL positions (UNIFIL is armed, UNTSO is not):

""These are unarmed people and this is for their protection," said Milos Struger, a spokesman for UNIFIL, the peacekeeping force whose 2,000 members have light weapons for self-defense.

UNTSO has about 50 observers in four posts along the border, two of which have already been abandoned - the one that was destroyed at Khiam and a second near the village of Maroun al-Ras, which was abandoned after one of the observers was seriously wounded by Hezbollah gunfire on July 23, said Milos Struger, spokesman for the UNIFIL peacekeepers.

Staff were being removed from the remaining two posts to be placed at UNIFIL posts along the border, Struger said. He would not say whether the move had been completed."

A lot of smoke-and-mirrors has been deployed by Right Blogistan - at least, the parts not glorying in the deaths of UN peacekeepers - claiming that Hezbollah were operating from the UNTSO position. In part, this is based on deliberate misinterpretations of an email sent a few days earlier by the Canadian UNTSO fatality which mentioned that the outer edge of the zone of Israeli bombardment had been falling near to the UNTSO position, which is indeed fair enough in a hot warzone. But what happened on the day the position was destroyed was that it was deliberately attacked, with four hits in what one pro-war Israeli blogger says the IDF claims was mistaken identity:

"Kofi Annan has now exhibited his most blatant anti-Israel bias ever. Yesterday Israel accidentally shelled an IDF post in south Lebanon, killing four soldiers. Annan said it was deliberate, although he has since retracted this. The diplomatic response from Israel was one of horror. Said Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Gillerman, Annan is a seasoned diplomat, one who should not be making such inflammatory and regrettable statements. The IDF has apologized, saying the post was mistaken for an Hezbollah outpost."

The Israeli Defence Forces themselves haven't claimed that they were firing at Hezbollah fighters "near" the UN position. The IDF line is that they 'mistook' the UN observer position for a Hezbollah one, which Tom Clonan noted yesterday is an insultingly bald lie, and is also a very real war crime. But how many of the pro-Israel 'instapundits' even in the Irish blogging world have picked up on any of these points?

Israel is of course extending the kind of co-operation in investigating the bombing of the UNTSO position that one would expect:

Israel rules out United Nations role in peacekeeping force
Israel's ambassador to the UN ruled out Thursday major UN involvement in any potential international force in Lebanon, saying more professional and better-trained troops were needed for such a volatile situation.

Dan Gillerman also said Israel would not allow the United Nations to join in an investigation of an Israeli air strike that demolished a post belonging to the current UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. Four UN observers were killed in the Tuesday strike.

"Israel has never agreed to a joint investigation, and I don't think that if anything happened in this country, or in Britain or in Italy or in France, the government of that country would agree to a joint investigation," Gillerman said.
[...]
His refusal to conduct a joint investigation will be a slap to UN officials, who have specifically sought to partner with Israel to investigate the bombing.

Gillerman was highly critical of the current UN peacekeeping force, deployed in a buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon since 1978, saying its facilities had sometimes been used for cover by Hezbollah militants and that it had not done its job.

"It has never been able to prevent any shelling of Israel, any terrorist attack, any kidnappings," he said. "They either didn't see or didn't know or didn't want to see, but they have been hopeless."

Gillerman even mocked the name of the force - the UN Interim Force in Lebanon.

"Interim in UN jargon is 28 years," he said.

The flaws with the UN force make it imperative that any UN force come from somewhere else, though it could have a mandate from the United Nations, he said.

"So obviously it cannot be a United Nations force," Gillerman said. "It will have to be an international force, a professional one, with soldiers from countries who have the training and capabilities to be effective."

It should be borne in mind that UNIFIL was also unable to forcibly eject the occupying Israeli Defence Forces down through the years, or to subdue their DFF goons. Why? Because it's a peacekeeping mission, and as such (in theory and in practice) reliant on the good faith of all parties pursuant to a diplomatic settlement. UNIFIL is armed only for self-defence, and only authorised to use force in self-defence.

Israel, of course, really wants America or NATO in south Lebanon to fight their war for them. One good compromise might be for international diplomats to give them a quid pro quo - unilateral Israeli withdrawal from all occupied territories - the Shebaa Farms which Hezbollah claim they fight to liberate, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip - and for a similar peacekeeping force to go in there, too. Fat chance of the Likudniks accepting that, though.

In other UNIFIL-related news from the UN:

"UNIFIL's mandate is due to expire at the end of this month and on 7 July Lebanon's Government asked that it be extended for a further six months. But, given the worsening situation, Mr. Annan recommends that the Security Council extend it only for one month to give time for all "possible options" for south Lebanon to be worked out."

Now this is rather less dramatic than it sounds, as the UNIFIL mandate has been regularly renewed for one- to six-month periods since its establishment in March 1978. But it's extremely unlikely that the same status quo will be in place in south Lebanon by the close of this year. Watch this space.

Armageddon gets postponed?

2006-07-28T12:13:00.000+01:00

A good news week for the wingnut community both at home and abroad, we see. First, four of the hated UN peacekeepers get killed by the Israelis as part of the continued bombardment of Lebanon, then the discovery of a well-preserved Psalter in an Irish bog gets intimated as a message from God by the ever-excitable Likudnik demographic. But as often happens, once actual experts weigh in there's a different story:

Museum plays diplomatic role on psalm's 'warning to Israel'

In a week in which it secured one of its most remarkable artefacts, the National Museum yesterday found itself intervening in an unlikely international quarrel over global geopolitics and Biblical prophecy, writes Ruadhán Mac Cormaic.

As news of the discovery of a 1,000-year-old psalter in a bog in the midlands made its way briskly around the world this week, keen eyes fell on an ostensibly peripheral detail: while most pages had yet to be carefully studied, the museum had said, there was one that was legible. Psalm 83.

And with that, the news websites and blogs began to hum, each one honing in on Psalm 83 and its supposed reference to "the wiping of Israel from the map".

On Wednesday, under the title An Amazingly Timely Discovery, a writer with one Israeli news magazine devoted an entire column to the find, which he regarded as "nothing short of a phenomenon".

"I don't want to take it any further than I should, but time may show that the discovery of the Irish psalm book was a warning," he wrote.

However yesterday, before it all got out of hand, the director of the National Museum, Dr Patrick Wallace, issued a statement saying the text visible on the manuscript found in the bog does not refer to the wiping out of Israel but to the "vale of tears".

"This is part of Verse 7 of Psalm 83 in the old Latin translation of the Bible [the Vulgate] which....would have been the version used in the medieval period.

"In the much later King James version the number of the psalms is different, based on the Hebrew text and the 'vale of tears' occurs in Psalm 84.

"The text about wiping out Israel occurs in the Vulgate as Psalm 82" which equals Psalm 83 (King James version), he said.

"It is hoped that this clarification will serve comfort to anyone worried by earlier reports of the content of the text," Dr Wallace added.

© The Irish Times

If we were to tout our knowledge of both Christianity and Latin on a regular basis, and yet hadn't caught this, we guess we'd be pretty embarressed right now. Oops.

Because I'm still too angry to post on this

2006-07-27T20:56:00.000+01:00

Israeli agenda may be to drive out the UN
The attack on the UN post in south Lebanon is a very sinister development, writes Tom Clonan

Tuesday's destruction by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) of the UN observation post at Khiam (OP Khiam) - occupied just 48 hours prior to the attack by Irish officers - is a very sinister development in the conflict in Lebanon and raises serious questions about the integrity and intent of Israeli military commanders in the area.

Any objective inquiry - however cursory - by the UN or the IDF into OP Khiam's destruction and the death of four unarmed UN observers deployed there will of necessity bring IDF claims that the destruction was "accidental" under sceptical and hostile scrutiny.

The UN OP at Khiam, like all UN positions in south Lebanon was very clearly identifiable as a UN post. It would have had the letters "UN" clearly painted - several feet high - on the north, south, east and west facing blast-walls and sides of the compound.

The UN designation would also have been clearly visible on the roof of the white-painted installation. This lettering would have been clear to the naked eye for many miles around the Khiam compound.

In addition, as an OP, Khiam - sited on high ground - would have been a very prominent, high-visibility feature on the landscape. Having been in situ for at least three decades, OPs such as Khiam are referred to by the military as "Known Points" or "KPs".

UN posts such as OP Khiam have served as visual reference points in south Lebanon for UN troops as well as Hizbullah fighters and the IDF for almost 30 years. As a consequence, all such UN posts are clearly marked on UN and IDF tactical maps of the area, and are considered to be invaluable visual aides for the orientation of ground and airborne units in the vicinity.

At night, all UN posts are illuminated by searchlight powered by diesel generators located within the positions. During the current shelling, with most villages and the surrounding countryside in complete darkness, the UN posts are all the more clearly identifiable as the only illuminated structures in the area.

In addition, all IDF artillery units have 12-figure grid references for each UN position.

All Israeli Air Force squadrons would have similar detailed information on UN locations to include both grid references and electronically programmed GPS co-ordinates.

Having adjusted and bracketed missile and shell fire into this terrain for the past 30 years - from ground, sea and air - the IDF are fully aware, to the nearest metre, the exact location of each UN post in south Lebanon.

From eyewitness accounts, it would appear that OP Khiam was destroyed from the air - most likely by a F-16 fighter deploying a laser-guided 1,000kg bomb. During the previous 48 hours, OP Khiam had reported at least 14 "firings close" or direct hits on its position from Israeli forces. These incidents were brought to the attention of the IDF and emphasised by UN Force Commander Gen Alain Pellegrini to his Israeli military counterparts.

To claim - as the Israelis are currently claiming - that this attack was accidental stretches credibility to breaking point. The deliberate targeting of such a high profile and clearly identifiable UN post - the eyes and ears of the international community in south Lebanon - by guided missile, speaks of another agenda. This agenda is perhaps to drive the UN out of its OPs and to blind the international community to IDF activities in south Lebanon.

Dr Tom Clonan is The Irish Times Security Analyst. He lectures in the School of Media, DIT

© The Irish Times

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2006/0727/1153813803467.html

(Tom Clonan is a former Captain in the Irish Defence Forces, and as such almost certainly is familiar with south Lebanon and UNIFIL - EWI)

Oh, wonderful.

2006-07-25T04:40:00.000+01:00

The Washington Times:

"A senior member of Muqtada al-Sadr's Iraqi Shi'ite militia, the Mahdi Army, says the group is forming a squadron of up to 1,500 elite fighters to go to Lebanon.

The plan reflects the potential of the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah to strengthen radical elements in Iraq and neighboring countries and to draw other regional players into the Lebanon conflict.

"We are choosing the men right now," said Abu Mujtaba, who works in the loosely organized following of radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. "We are preparing the right men for the job." "

One pretty good reason for the US not to escalate a confrontation with Shi'ite Muslims of any nationality has been the tenuous supply chain of the Americans now spread throughout Iraq. Billmon quotes from a former US intelligence officer writing in the Christian Science Monitor:

"American troops all over central and northern Iraq are supplied with fuel, food, and ammunition by truck convoy from a supply base hundreds of miles away in Kuwait. All but a small amount of our soldiers' supplies come into the country over roads that pass through the Shiite-dominated south of Iraq . . .

Southern Iraq is thoroughly infiltrated by Iranian special operations forces working with Shiite militias, such as Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades. Hostilities between Iran and the United States or a change in attitude toward US forces on the part of the Baghdad government could quickly turn the supply roads into a "shooting gallery" 400 to 800 miles long."

Billmon points out the eternal failing of politicians and pundits:

"There's a saying: Amateurs talk strategy; professionals talk logistics. "

Indeed. And even the above nightmare scenario for the US - having to bloodily fight their way out of Iraq -assumes that unrest doesn't spread elsewhere across the Middle East as well. The "New American Century" could be over before it's begun.

Daily IRISH Mail

2006-07-24T22:58:00.000+01:00

The Guardian's Roy Greenslade has some comments on the Daily IRISH Mail:

"None of that understanding of the culture, politics and genuine interests of the Irish people is evident in the pages of the Irish Daily Mail. I'm no fan of the Indo's politics but I know where it's coming from and I'm aware of the way it represents a large section of the Irish population. It is one of them, while the Mail is a mere interloper, a foreign publication pretending to be something it isn't. It is professionally produced, of course. It looks like a proper newspaper, as you would expect from the Mail. But a bit of green in the masthead doesn't make it Irish. It is as authentic as one of those terrible Irish theme pubs that have emerged in every capital city across Britain. It's a pretence. It doesn't belong."

We particularly like this recent effort by the Oirish Mail to cash in on the 1916 anniversary, which was certainly a trip down the rabbit-hole for anyone familiar with the Mail's historically rabid anti-Irish views.

What would Middle England think?

(via Maman Poulet)

Postscript: of course, the Greenslade article was prompted by a recent blog post by Adam Maguire, of which the most interesting part is:

Emmet Oliver in today’s Irish Times reports on a massive dive in sales figures for the (Irish) Daily Mail. This follows on from the recent news of huge loses made in the company’s Irish operations.

The newspaper, which launched in February 2006 had figures of over 82,000 in March but this has now dropped down to 54,641 for June.

Interestingly Oliver states that advertisers are looking for a greater emphasis on Ireland before they are willing to part with their cash; something that I suggested is a big part of the problem for the publication last week.

We'd suggest that they can start with taking more care in future with the quality of their 'Oirish' hires. Really, Mary Ellen Synon?

Update 25/07/06 0930:

There's a disagreeing voice in the comments on that last remark. A recent Mary Ellen Synon article was devoted to passing on fashion tips for men... from some dinner party she'd had with Enoch Powell (surprise, surprise). If they had decent regulars, good content would naturally follow. But they don't. The regulars were obviously ideological hires chosen for their ultra-Catholic, pro-Anglo-American outlook. Quality suffered as a result.

The Sunday Business Post clawed its way up to a decent circulation by means of having good reportage and editorial, despite having a somewhat schizophrenic identity as a Republican and Socialist-tinged pro-business paper with a division on the Catholic Church (in many ways, they hit the modern Fianna Fáil demographic). And they did this without having access to the fortunes available to (and wasted by, so far) Associated Papers. Will AP take that lesson to heart, or do they really believe the fashionable revionist notion in recent years that Irish people are naturally Redmondite neo-Unionists?

Are the owners of the Mail fundamentally unable to take off the ideological blinders when it comes to Ireland?

Hola, Digital Rights Ireland!

2006-07-24T22:36:00.000+01:00

Any interest in this Amnesty Campaign against technology companies who collaborate with the Chinese government?

(via Howl @ The Moon)

Aer Lingus catches the Ryanair ethic

2006-07-24T00:51:00.000+01:00

Via Irish Flight News, comes a Sunday Business Post scoop:

"Aer Lingus sought instant payment for mercy flight

Aer Lingus demanded money up front from the Department of Foreign Affairs to fly more than 80 Irish people home last week, following their evacuation from Lebanon.

Department officials, who spent most of last weekend organising the Irish government’s first ‘mercy mission’, were taken aback by the demand, according to a well-placed source."

Looking good for cottoning-on to the bigger priorities there, boys and girls. Well done.

Another new Irish politics blog

2006-07-24T00:44:00.000+01:00

The Cedar Lounge Revolution. Looks good, written (if we're not mistaken) by a small group of politics.ie refugees....

UNIFIL/UNTSO update

2006-07-24T00:36:00.000+01:00

Via The Jerusalem Post:

"Jul. 23, 2006 19:20 | Updated Jul. 23, 2006 19:32
UN observer seriously wounded by Hizbullah gunfire in Lebanon

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

A United Nations observer was seriously wounded Sunday in the crossfire during fighting between Hizbullah and Israeli troops in south Lebanon, and flown to an Israeli hospital for treatment, officials said.

The observer, identified as Italian army Capt. Roberto Punzo, was wounded by "fragments," the office of the Italian chiefs of staff said, adding that the source of the fragments was not immediately clear.

Earlier a UN official said he had been wounded by a bullet, apparently fired by Hizbullah.
Punzo was evacuated by an Israeli military helicopter to Rambam Hospital in Haifa and admitted for emergency care, said hospital spokesman David Ratner.

Ratner said he was undergoing surgery for a stomach wound and was in serious but stable condition.

Punzo is the second member of the UN monitoring team injured in 12 days of fighting. Several UN positions on the border have taken hits from Israeli shells, and Israel said earlier this week that a UN post on its side was hit by a Hizbullah missile - though the observer team said it was a stray Israeli shell."

(There is no mention on either the UNIFIL or UNTSO sites at this time of Sunday's casualty)

Appreciated

2006-07-23T20:26:00.000+01:00

A pair of fine upstanding Freepers have helpfully ridden in to reinforce Robert Fisk's claim about Israeli propaganda directed against Irishbatt:

"Finally, Israel’s move against Hezbollah has revealed one of the reasons behind every one’s frustration in the region of South Lebanon. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon - known by its acronym Unifil—has a long history of ineptitude, laxity and corruption.

"They are barely able to take care of themselves," said Timur Goksel of the UN peacekeepers. "How can you expect them to do their work?"

The blue-helmeted UN soldiers included a poorly trained and undisciplined Irish brigade.

The Irish UN troops were jokingly referred to as the "whisky army", and Israeli-backed Christian militiamen - known by the Unifil acronym LAUIs (Lebanese armed and uniformed by Israel) – countered any effort by the Irish troops to stray far from their base at Camp Shamrock."

He's wrong on everything, even the plausible-sounding claim about the title of the Christian Phalangist militias. (They were known universally to Irish peacekeepers as "DFF" - i.e. De Facto Forces)

On chickenhawks

2006-07-23T18:58:00.000+01:00

Gene Healy, writing for CATO-at-Liberty:

War without End
[...] here’s a front pager in today’s Washington Post about neoconservative anger towards the Bush administration because of its newfound restraint in foreign policy. Prominent Iraq hawks like Max Boot and Cakewalk Ken Adelman are upset that their favored tactic, “bomb today for a brighter tomorrow,” no longer commands the respect it once did in Washington.

Now, you could marvel at the brazenness of all this: the same people who helped lead us into the biggest foreign policy disaster in 30 years trying to push another war (or wars) on us without so much as a prefatory “sorry about the whole Iraq thing, old boy.” But the current squawking also strikes me as a useful reminder of how very, very important war is in the neoconservative vision. It is as central to that vision as peace is to the classical liberal vision.

For the neoconservatives, it’s not about Israel. It’s about war. War is a bracing tonic for the national spirit and in all its forms it presents opportunities for national greatness. “Ultimately, American purpose can find its voice only in Washington,” David Brooks once wrote. And Washington’s never louder or more powerful than when it has a war to fight.
[...]
Who we’re fighting is secondary. That we’re fighting is the main thing. To be a neoconservative is to thrill to the sound of gunfire. (From a nice, safe distance, generally.)

UNIFIL Sitrep

2006-07-23T18:27:00.000+01:00

UNIFIL is only a shell of its peak strength of 5,600, since the Israeli withdrawal and the collapse of their DFF creation - the UNIFIL website lists a strength of 1,990 UNIFIL troops, and there are an additional 50 UNTSO observers. About a dozen of the total are Irish, if we remember correctly (the mission itself is issuing press releases, which can be seen at the UNIFIL website). Most notable reports in the past few days:

UNIFIL press release, 17th July (PDF):

"There is also a growing concern about the safety of UN personnel deployed in the area. Yesterday, there were 17 incidents of firing close to UNIFIL positions, and two direct impacts inside UNIFIL positions. There was significant material damage, and one member of the Indian battalion with UNIFIL was seriously wounded by shrapnels from the tank fire from the Israeli side.
[...]
Following a report about Lebanese civilians killed on the road between Al Bayyadah and Sharma, as their two vehicles were fleeing from the Marwahin village, UNIFIL retrieved 16 bodies and transported them to Tyre. During this mission, UNIFIL medical teams also came under fire. Despite some media reports and statements in the press, these were not the same civilians who had approached UNIFIL for shelter earlier that day.

The Lebanese government requested UNIFIL to provide a humanitarian secort to the villagers seeking safe passage outside of Marwahin. UNIFIL dispatched a patrol to the village the same day, which stayed with the villagers throughout the night. Yesterday, UNIFIL was able to provide a humanitarian escort to 283 villagers from that area to Tyre. During this mission the team came under fire, which endangered the lives of local civilians and UNIFIL troops. Initially, Hezbollah fired rockets from the vicinity of the village and subsequently the IDF fired into village on two occasions.

Furthermore, UNIFIL requested the IDF for a safe passage in order to transport humanitarian assistance provided by CARITAS, from Tyre to the border villages of Rmeich and Ayn Ibil. The response to the request is still pending since 14 July, although it has been repeated by UNIFIL again today.

Today, UNIFIL carried out a small humanitarian convoy between Tyre and Naquora, and will attempt to provide mater supply to a civilian hospital with 500 people in Tibnin"

Nicholas Blanford, writing in Time, 19th July:

"So far UNIFIL, which has been in Lebanon since 1978, when Israel launched its first major incursion into Lebanon, and today numbers around 2,000 peacekeepers, has found itself almost powerless to intercede. "The situation is very serious and the fighting is continuing to intensify," says Milos Strugar, UNIFIL's senior adviser.

UNIFIL'S headquarters runs for half a mile along a broad stretch of rocky coastline in the village of Naqoura, one mile north of the border with Israel. From an old French mandate customs house in the center of the base, UNIFIL's top staff are assessing how to best protect and provide assistance to the beleaguered population of south Lebanon, but also how to keep running themselves.

Supplies — fuel and drinking water especially — are running short, and there seems little immediate prospect of resupply from Beirut. U.N. staff are negotiating with Israel to grant safe passage to a resupply column and also to allow APCs to rescue trapped villagers looking to leave and transport casualties to hospitals. The response from the Israeli military, according to Strugar, "was not forthcoming.""

UNIFIL press release, Friday 21st July (PDF):

"There were seven incidents of firing close to UN positions during the past 24 hours, with three positions suffering direct hits from the Israeli side. Three artillery shells impacted on the building inside the patrol base of the Observer Group Lebanon (OGL) in the Marun Al Ras area, causing extensive damage to the buildings and vehicles, but with no casualties. Four artillery shells also hit this position a day earlier. There are 34 civilians from the village of Marun Al Ras inside the position. One artillery shell impacted inside the UNIFIL Headquarters compound in Naqoura yesterday evening, and one impacted inside a Ghanaian battalion position in the area of the village of Marwahin this morning. No casualties were reported, but there was material damage. UN equipment and vehicles were also damaged by splinters in the Ghanaian battalion position in the area of At Tiri in the central sector, and in the patrol base of the OGL in the Khiyam area in the eastern sector.
[...]
UNIFIL provided humanitarian escort from Naqoura to Tyre for the local civilians. UNIFIL also carried out a medical evacuation from Naqoura to the hospital in Tyre of a child who was operated on in the UNIFIL hospital. There are reports of concentration of local civilian population displaced from the border areas in towns further north in the area. At present, there are around 2500 in Kleyaa, over 1000 in Hasbaya, 1000 in Tibnin, some 700 in Ain Quenia, as well as in Marjayoun, El Mari, Rmeich, Bint Jubayil, Deir Mimmes, and Ebl El Saqi. Some humanitarian convoys are planned for today, but the ability to move will depend on the situation on the ground."

Nicholas Blanford (Time magazine), Friday 21st July:

"The southern hinterland beyond Tyre has become a killing zone. Here the dead lie under the rubble of houses destroyed in air strikes and the wounded die in the streets for lack of medical attention. Almost all the roads that criss-cross the hills and valleys of the south have been heavily cratered from multiple air strikes, making them impassable. Even United Nations peacekeepers with their armored personnel carriers have abandoned the effort to resupply or evacuate residents of southern villages because of the conditions of the roads and the Israeli shelling and air strikes. "We are in close contact with the Israelis to request safe passage but their answer has not been forthcoming," says Milos Strugar, senior advisor to the UN force, known as UNIFIL.

Lebanese Red Cross volunteers, young men and women who regularly venture out to the beleaguered villages to rescue casualties, retrieve bodies and hand out whatever medicines and food they can muster, say that starving dogs abandoned by their owners are beginning to eat the dead.

Sami Yazbek, chief of the Lebanese Red Cross in Tyre, claims that even his clearly marked white-and-orange ambulances have been attacked by Israeli missile fire, which blow up the road yards in front of their vehicles. The unrelenting pressure to bring aid to the stranded villagers is beginning to take a psychological toll on his team of 50 volunteers. Distraught civilians in outlying villages constantly call in for help, Yazbek says, but often there is nothing the Red Cross can do. "We hear them pleading on the phone and we can't help but cry. It's very stressful for the guys," he says."

Meanwhile, as Macdara[1] and his caretaker blogger have been pointing out, the United States has been doing its bit for Lebanon too. Surely, Freedom is on the march.

[1] we see that Macdara has attracted the attentions of a deranged American wingnut harpy living here in Dublin, whose blog (and you saw this coming) was recently introduced to the world by a certain Irish-Canadian admirer.

Ireland, UNIFIL and the Lebanon

2006-07-23T03:05:00.000+01:00

Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day happily finds itself in the position this week of being able to both bash the UN and advance Israeli policies at the same time:

"UNIFIL, unfit
This is the mission statement: "UNIFIL was created in 1978 to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, restore the international peace and security, and help the Lebanese Government restore its effective authority in the area." We're talking about the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. Costing $233 million a year, UNIFIL has brought neither peace nor security to the area. Now Kofi Annan is calling for a larger UN force to be sent to the region. Is he unwell?"

The US war in Iraq has cost about 300 billion dollars as of right now, and most certainly provides neither 'peace nor security'[1]. Given that Mr. Fitzgerald has now publicly advocated these criteria to judge miltary deployments on, will he now call for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq? We suspect not. We will, however, let the following accounts speak for themselves as to the truth of whether or not UNIFIL has brought 'peace nor security':

The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Jan/Feb 1999:

"As UNIFIL marks the 20th anniversary of its presence in this troubled country, it has a great deal of support from local residents. “After Qana the connection became stronger,” Orsini said. “People saw U.N. soldiers risking their lives to distribute food and other assistance, during the shelling when they didn’t have to. They know the U.N. has taken casualties.”

The connection between the blue helmets and the residents was clear in Aaita al Jabal, where three Irish soldiers sat sipping tea and eating cookies with a Shi’i family within sight of SLA guns, along the “frontline.” The farmers of Aaita al Jabal eke out a living growing tobacco on lands directly under the SLA/IDF positions.
UNIFIL’s Irish Battalion provides daily security escorts to the farmers as something of a deterrent. However, both IrishBatt soldiers and the villagers agree that it doesn’t deter much. There is frequent shooting from the SLA/IDF position, and when the firing comes too close, the farmers have been known to crowd inside UNIFIL’s armored personnel carrier.
[...]
Within Aaita el Jabal, the Irish soldiers conduct twice-daily patrols in addition to special protection during harvest time. However, it is perhaps the general assistance they provide that makes their connection with the village so strong.

“People build houses around the UNIFIL positions,” explained Major Ahern. “If UNIFIL wasn’t here the population wouldn’t be here.” IrishBatt works with orphanages, provides medicine to area clinics, and in Aaita al Jabal even helped a farmer get his stalled tractor moving again during a visit by the writer.

As part of its mandate, UNIFIL is providing security for the construction of a school in Aaita al Jabal. When the school is completed IrishBatt will, on its own, donate supplies and equipment. “For 40 years the Lebanese government has promised to build a school. The presence of IrishBatt finally makes it possible to do it,” explained the moktar (mayor)"

And why could UNIFIL not fulfil its original mandate?

"In late Jul and early Aug 78 the Lebanese government attempted to assert its authority in the south by sending a 700-man Lebanese Army battalion into the area of operations via the Bekka Valley. Its advance was halted by the Christian militia de facto Forces on 2 Aug 78 as both the Lebanese Army and UN troops in the area came under heavy fire. The Lebanese government accused Israel of participating in this action. Intermittent shelling in the Kaoukaba, Marjayoun and Beaufort areas continued for two weeks as negotiations continually broke down. Unable to extend Lebanese authority in the South, this regular Lebanese Army unit was withdrawn. During the remainder of Aug and Sep 78 the pattern continued as heavily armed roadblocks in the Christian enclave impeded UNIFIL operations.
The relationship between the IDF and the de facto forces of Maj Haddad, who in essence provides Israel with a buffer zone, is the major factor that has prevented the complete restoration of Lebanese sovereignty in southern Lebanon. During the first six months of operation 11 members of UNIFIL had been killed and 52 injured as a result of firing incidents and mine explosions. On 18 Sep 78 the UNIFIL mandate was extended for an additional four months. "

Just to drive home the point:

"Until now, however, it has not been possible for UNIFIL to carry out in full its original mandate. From its inception, the Force had to operate under extremely difficult conditions. The PLO and the Government of Israel never fully accepted the UNIFIL mandate with all its implications. Given these attitudes, the Force was prevented from deploying fully in the area evacuated by the Israeli forces between April and June 1978. In fact, the enclave along the border was turned over to the "de facto forces" (Christian and associated militias supported and supplied by Israel). Israel thus retained a degree of military power in the area and continued its fight against the PLO and its Lebanese allies. UNIFIL's efforts to implement its mandate in these conditions inevitably met with only partial success and caused the Force to suffer significant casualties.

In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon again. This invasion changed UNIFIL's situation drastically. For three years, UNIFIL in its entirety remained behind the Israeli lines, with its role limited to providing protection and humanitarian assistance to the local population to the extent possible. In 1985, Israel carried out a partial withdrawal, but it retained control of an area in southern Lebanon, manned by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and by Lebanese de facto forces (DFF), the so-called "South Lebanon Army".

The situation in southern Lebanon continues to be tense and volatile. The boundaries of the Israeli- controlled area have not been clearly defined but are determined de facto by the forward positions of IDF/DFF. Within the area of operation of UNIFIL, IDF/DFF maintain 72 military positions. IDF/DFF remain targets for attacks by armed groups opposed to the occupation. For their part, IDF/DFF react vigorously to these attacks, often with heavy weapons and with air support from Israel.

UNIFIL has thus been prevented from carrying out its mandate. In the circumstances, it endeavours, to the best of its ability, to prevent its area of operations from being used for hostile activities and to protect civilians caught in the conflict. In carrying out its tasks, the Force is sometimes hampered by firing in close vicinity to its positions and personnel. On a few occasions, UNIFIL has itself been the target of violence.

UNIFIL's operations are based on a network of positions which are manned 24 hours a day. The Force maintains 45 checkpoints, whose function is to control movement on the principal roads in UNIFIL's area; 95 observation posts, whose function is to observe movement on and off the roads; and 29 checkpoints/observation posts which combine the functions of control and observation. Each is assigned responsibility for ensuring that hostile activities are not undertaken from the area surrounding it. This involves not only keeping watch from the position but also patrolling on foot or by vehicle in its vicinity.

In addition, unarmed military observers of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) maintain five observation posts and operate five mobile teams in the area under Israeli control. The UNTSO observers are under the operational control of UNIFIL's Commander.

UNIFIL's network of positions and the patrols mounted from them also play a central role in the Force's performance of its humanitarian task. They provide the civilian population with protection and with a source of help if they are subjected to harassment. Within available resources, UNIFIL also provides civilians with medical supplies, water, food, fuel, electricity, engineering work and escort for farmers. UNIFIL medical centres and mobile teams have provided care to an average of 3,000 civilian patients per month and a field dental programme has also been provided."

Irishbatt served with UNIFIL in Lebanon between May 1978 and November 2001, rotating through 30,000 men and women and taking 47 casualties, 18 in action. There's a granite memorial with these names inscribed standing on a hill overlooking Tibnine, left there by the departing Irish troops in 2001. An Cosantóir (the official Defence Forces magazine) is unfortunately still unavailable on the web: there is, however, a short excerpt from the magazine's commemorative UNIFIL edition published in 2001 here (PDF). Some passages from the bits not online:

Robert Fisk, Middle-East journalist and good friend through the years to Irishbatt:

"There was always something very Irish about southern Lebanon. The hillsides around the Irishbatt area looked like Galway, the winter storms might have come off the Atlantic, and the people with their immediate hospitality towards strangers - could have been from Mayo or Cork [...] It was a dangerous time. Saad Haddad's tinpot, ruffian militia quickly decided that Irishbatt was too dedicated, too reluctant to allow the 'Free Lebanon Army' - later transmogrified into the 'South Lebanon Army' - run roughshod over the UN lines. They called them the 'Johnny Walker' Irish; a slur that was as nasty as it was geographically inappropriate. The Israeli press took up the same story; the Irish were pro-IRA, 'pro-terrorist', pro-PLO drunkards [...] I still think that Irishbatt's refusal to hand over the village of At Tiri to the SLA was a formative moment in Unifil. UN missions can succeed if they start well. They will always fail if they start badly. At Tiri was a test of Unifil and of the Irish, and Private Stephen Griffin, just 21 years old, was the sacrifice."

Timor Goskel, UNIFIL Press Officer (1979-2001), on the creation of UNIFIL:

"You must remember that just a few months before the Israeli invasion, President Sadat of Egypt had paid an historic visit to Israel. President Carter of the US didn't want to waste this opportunity to make an important start on the road to peace in the Middle East. The Americans felt that to keep the momentum of the Sadat visit going, they needed to just keep a lid on things in Lebanon. So in a rush, the UNIFIL mandate was created by the UN.
I talked to a lot of UN officials afterwards who said that they opposed the creation of this force. They had asked some very basic questions at the beginning, like who is the national authority? What guarantees do we have that all the parties will allow us to implement the mandate? They'd envisaged staying just six months, maybe a year, and then getting out. I guess this wasn't realistic"

"'At the time of the Israeli shelling known as Operation 'Accountability' in 1993, Irishbatt sent troops down here [to the Tibnine orphanage] to stay with the children for the seven days. Also in 1996, during Operation 'Grapes of Wrath', Irish soldiers remained in the orphanage for the 16 days of bombardment. Just by being there to hold the children's hands and smile at them and be with them when the bombs were going off gave the children confidence and reassurance. It is such kind actions that stay with you. If you talk to some of the children about the Irish leaving, they cry. They can't believe it'
[...]
'In 1993 our house was destroyed by a plane, ' [Famte] says. We stayed in the school in the village for the summer [....][UNIFIL interpreter] Hassan spoke to the Irish Battalion officer. The battalion built an entire new house for us, and gave us everything in it.'
[...]
'In the war with Israel in 1996, one day amid the 16 days of rat-tat-tat there was quiet. So me and my mother and my sister came from the hospital, where we were sheltering to our house to take some things that we needed. When we arrived at our house, a plane came right down. An Irish soldier saw this, and he knocked on the window and made a sign "don't be scared". I'll never forget'
[...]
When Famte, an exceptional student at school, expressed an interest in studying for a law degree in university, Irishbatt were only too happy to pay for Famte's third-level education in Beirut, as well as that of her sister, Malak, who decided to study physics. [...] 'I have this ambition to be a judge, but I will have to go to Beirut.' she says"

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you carry out peacekeeping and render humanitarian assistance. More than that, it's how you behave as decent human beings - and as a side-effect, win those hearts-and-minds. Israelis and US please take note.

But, back to our featured authority on UNIFIL and the Lebanon:

"Talking of poor form, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora is saying that Israel is "opening the gates of hell and madness" on his country. The man must be suffering from schizophrenia, just like his country is. Lebanon is a land with two personalities. One act like a normal state; declares itself to be free, welcomes tourists and property developers and purports to act in moderation. The other persona consorts with an organization that uses terror against civilians, bathes in racist rhetoric and demands the liquidation of Israel. Siniora needs to be reminded that because his governing partner staged a cross-border attack on its neighbour from Lebanese territory (watched over by UNFIL) that resulted in killing and kidnapping, his country is now paying for its duplicity."

Mr. Fitzgerald might do well to note that the same description of "schizophrenia" also neatly attaches to Israel. It was created as yet another ill-fated project of the British Empire; won independence through means which many of Mr. Fitzgerald's fellow travellers of the international anglophone right term "terrorist" in other contexts; established a gerrymandered Jewish state through the forced ejection of a population from their ancestral homes (and still refuses them the right to return to their properties); connived with the US, UK and France several decades ago to complete a secret atomic program resulting in a present-day arsenal of a couple of hundred nuclear weapons; was a principal ally of and collaborator with Apartheid-era South Africa; is still stealing Arab land; is a deeply xenophobic society placing no value on the lives on non-Israelis and with a record of casual murder; and apparently possesses a carte blanche from the US to pursue WMD programs reminiscent of Nazi Germany:

"In January 1999, the British Medical Association (BMA) began warning the world of the dangers of ethnic weapons. Although the report, “Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity,” made no direct charge, it said the BMA could no longer ignore the varied reports that such weapons were currently being developed. The report concluded: “Weapons could theoretically be developed which affect particular versions of genes clustered in specific ethnic or family groups.” The possibilities of producing such weapons have been enhanced with the 2002 completion of the Human Genome Project.

The 1999 BMA study was provoked in part by a 1998 story in the London Sunday Times alleging that Israel already had developed a genetically specific weapon. “Unnamed South African sources,” according to a report cited by the Times, “[say] Israeli scientists have used some of the South African research in trying to develop an ‘ethnic bullet’ against Arabs.” Reported links between Israel’s ethnic weapons and South Africa’s Project Coast are tentative; some would say tenuous. But the possibility of such links is terrifying, and justifies as much scrutiny as was focused on Iraq’s imaginary arsenal. "

The keeping of all these dirty little Israeli secrets from wider public knowledge, of course, necessitates a take-no-prisoners propaganda campaign abroad, principally in the US whose public largely foots the bill for this wickedness through their tax dollars. Thus we get the vilification of any commentators deviating even an inch from the Israeli government line, with even Jewish critics of extreme Zionism labelled as "anti-Semites". But we digress.

Back to Rainy Day:

"But maybe Fouad Siniora is more deluded than we know and maybe his country isn't a country at all. As Austin Bay so lucidly points out: "Israel is being fired upon from a Lebanon that 'is not quite Lebanon' in a truly sovereign sense. The rockets, of course, come from 'somewhere,' but Hezbollah's 'somewhere' is a political limbo in terms of maps with definitive geo-political boundaries. Lebanon is a 'failed state' — a peculiar failed state (it's not Somalia), but nevertheless failed. It will continue to fail so long as the Lebanese government cannot control Hezbollah — and control means disarm." Indeed."

As myriad others have noted, the same spurious justifications could easily have been extended to provide cover for the UK attacking the Republic of Ireland during The Troubles [2]. How does Eamonn Fitzgerald square that circle, we wonder? Onwards to his conclusion:

"It's not going to be easy to make peace with a country that can't make up its mind about what it is. That last thing it needs is thousands more "peacekeepers" for a mission that is doomed to be unfulfilled. Send them to Darfur instead. No illusions or delusions there, at least."

Let's see.

"WASHINGTON The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, met President George W. Bush and his top aides, and, without asking for specific U.S. commitments, made clear that he believed the United States would have to play a significant role in deploying a new kind of peacekeeping force in the Darfur region of Sudan.
[...]
But the import of the meeting, said one senior official, is that "the president signed on to the concept and understood that we will need Western assets and the U.S. would have to be part of it."
When the resolution was passed, U.S. officials made it clear that no American troops would be sent to Darfur. "

Looks like somebody else out there has complications with "illusions or delusions" of their own.

Addendum: This post was begun on a Friday, and was still unfinished by the Saturday night/Sunday morning (it's been a busy weekend). So we're able to address here two Rainy Day follow-ups developing on the same Zionist theme. The first is a gimmick that we've seen the pro-Israel right employ before:

SERIAL NO. 3817131: Israel's female soldiers
The photographer Rachel Papo was born in Ohio, but raised in Haifa. At the age of 18, she began two years of mandatory service in the Israeli military. After serving her time, she returned to the U.S. to attend art school, but was drawn back to the Middle East where the subject of the young women serving in the Israeli Army became the focus of her creative energy. The result is a collection called SERIAL NO. 3817131 [...]
[snip blurb. You can catch it here, and we've blogged on SERIAL NO. 3817131 before]
We can draw our own conclusions when looking at the images of SERIAL NO. 3817131.

Indeed we can, particularly seeing how swiftly last year's Lebanese pinup appears to have been forgotten. The infidelities of the Anglophone right-wing male and his principles affections ought to be borne in mind by freedom-loving young women everywhere in the world, we fear. On to our last Rainy Day piece:

Kofi Annan, the UN and Hezbollah
The kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers on Mount Dov on 7 October 2000 by Hezbollah terrorists was witnessed by several dozen UNIFIL troops who stood idly by. An indication of broader UN anti-Israel, anti-Semitic attitudes?"

Even the briefest perusal of the official UN report on the incident in question reveals that no UN personnel were witnesses to the attack in question. We realise that we live in days when even the most ignorant and extremist self-proclaimed 'commentator' can get himself onto the airwaves, but this is a shocking outbreak of wingnuttery even so, and by someone who (as an Irish citizen oughting to be even peripherally aware of the Irish experience in "the Leb") should know better.

The above is an extremely serious charge made by Eamonn Fitzgerald, bearing on the honour of all Irish UNIFIL (and indeed UN) veterans, some of whom have returned in bodybags; and we hope he has the decency to post a swift and full retraction and apology on his blog. We're waiting.

No better place to look for a conspiracy theory than at Volokh Conspiracy. The analysis is anything but hysterical, though, and the conclusion is troubling:
"So there is no anti-semitic conspiracy at the UN, in the sense of a conspiracy directed by people who are deeply motivated by hatred of Jews. Rather, the UN's criminal complicity in the kidnapping of Israelis, like the rest of the UN's anti-Israelism, is explainable as the logical result of a wide variety of UN actors behaving according to their self-interest."

There was no "[UN] criminal complicity in the kidnapping of Israelis", as the UN report makes clear. The Israeli state and their apologists in the pro-Israel right are nothing if not audacious liars, though.

"The Rainy Day position on Kofi Annan is that he has had two terms to sort out the bureaucratic morass that is the UN and he has failed dismally. He failed dismally because he's a creature of the UN bureaucracy and thus incapable of visualizing or implementing reform. It is only right and reasonable that the US and Japan should withhold payment from such an organization. Maybe the next secretary general will try to clean up the UN, but don't bet on it."

These last pious sentiments were brought to you by a blogger who has been an enthusiastic Bush administration supporter from the beginning, right through Enron, Iraq, Katrina etc. to the present day. An answer in itself?

[1] a related piece of trivia is that the Irish State bore the cost of the UNIFIL deployment in the Nineties, due to the GOP-controlled Congress which came in with the Gingrich Revolution refusing to pay US contributions to the UN budget. This marked the start of their campaign (in the post-Cold War world) against the civilising restrictions that the existence of an international body imposes on a lone superpower. The underhanded appointment by the Bush administration - without US Senate approval - of the malevolent John Bolton as US Ambassador to the UN is just the latest step in this war.

[2] or, as Henry Farrell over at Crooked Timber points out, as an IRA apologism for killing innocent bystanders.

Barr Report

2006-07-20T21:31:00.000+01:00

Catch the day's news over at RTÉ. With the publication of this report into the Abbeylara killing of John Carty - and the continuing shocking revelations from Donegal, with much worse supposedly to come in the Morris Tribunal - the time has come for long-overdue reform of certain powerful sections of the Gardaí. This is a task which Phoenix magazine has recently been claiming McDowell is maneuvering to accomplish with a raft of senior promotions outside of the usual Special Branch gang. We'll see in the next year if McDowell can manage to pull this off, and reverse his image as a blusterer.

Specifically on the ERU, today's report comes as what may be the last straw in a unit history littered with disasters by Dirty Harry-types who have persistently proven to be a danger to the public, to colleagues and to themselves. Certainly within the Defence Forces (long saddled with the unwelcome task of trying to train this bunch) they've been the subject of strong criticism, along with some very dark rumours about past cock-ups which never came to public light. The government taking them firmly in hand cannot come soon enough, if indeed it does occur with this opportunity.

Public Health Warning for Silly Notes

2006-07-20T19:28:00.001+01:00

Speaking of Our Man From CATO, it appears that the following Sicilian Notes 'policy':

"Quoting policy on Emails
Unless you ask otherwise, emails will be regarded are quotable. However, unless you state permission, it will be assumed that identity is not to be published."

...is entirely subject to the whim of the blogger in question.

Email From Udaras
Udaras, the Gaeltacht development board, has been in touch. I believe, though I'm open to correction, that this is taxpayer funded body:

Hey there Dick,
You say a lot, but have you any actual reasons or back-up to your article entitled ‘we can do without Irish’, other than your own spurious and totally groundless opinions. In response I simply say, “We can do without Waghorne’.
Go away, and rot, somewhere outside Ireland so your ilk does not pollute any of my Irish island
Sáigh suas do thóin é
Ultan Ó Haodha

Your taxes at work.
Update 1: Impressive. I took a phone call from an extremely apologetic Udaras lady an hour or so ago and this followed in the email shortly thereafter:
[snip apology from summer student]
Ultan, it should be noted, was there on work experience and isn't Udaras staff, something I'm happy to pass on. I fear his career prospects have not been enhanced, but that's his problem [...]

Nice one, Dickie.

It bears pointing out that Mr. Waghorne was in all likelihood using his employer UCD's facilities when he posted that same piece and others. If Richard were this tone-deaf literally (as well as figuratively) he'd make a mediocre musician...

On the rewards of taking screen-caps

2006-07-20T17:18:00.000+01:00

Sicilian Notes early this morning:

Sicilian Notes by lunchtime:

We must say, we're sorely disappointed in Mr. Waghorne's seeming retreat from fanning the flames of bigotry, which is most out of character. We had looked forward to further insights in the same vein of reasoning from this Research Fellow of the UCD School of Politics and International Relations (SPIRe). Alas, we can only guess at the wasted future treats:

Murdered by the United States (Abu Ghraib)

Murdered by the Roman Catholic Church

Murdered by Free-market Economics (the Irish Great Famine)

Murdered by Classical civilization

Murdered by Judaism (Qana massacre, 1996)

Murdered by Joe Lieberman, Harry's Place, the "Freedom Institute" etc. (taxi driver shot dead by US forces, Iraq)

p.s. We're vastly amused at someone who routinely posts on the uselessness of Gaelic as a modern language - yet double-jobs as a Latin enthusiast.

"Israel doesn't target civilians"

2006-07-20T09:14:00.000+01:00

One unfortunate Fox News reporter discovers the truth otherwise, in spectacular fashion while live on-air.

(via Toirtap)

Safely back in Ireland

2006-07-20T09:09:00.000+01:00

MacDara in the Leb, plus wife.

The Problem with Joe explained

2006-07-18T22:46:00.000+01:00

Duncan Black (Atrios) lays it all out.

Psychological Warfare

2006-07-15T20:06:00.000+01:00

Some food for thought from Media Matters.

(via Atrios)

Celebrations in the streets last night

2006-07-05T02:38:00.000+01:00

Maybe Fústar has the answer?

Borat: The Movie

2006-06-25T19:52:00.000+01:00

Please, please let this not be a wind-up.

Daily Mail, Daily Nazi?

2006-06-25T17:30:00.000+01:00

Slow blogging, so to share some links that have resided in the bookmarks waiting for a rainy day:

"The Daily Mail made one of its first campaigns against admitting Jewish refugees fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe. It supported Mosley’s fascist black shirts in the 1930s including the notorious headline ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts’. It supported appeasement with Nazi Germany and its owner Lord Rothermere willingly met Hitler and openly expressed admiration for Mussolini.

In July 1933 Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail, attacked in its pages the ‘clamorous campaign of denunciation’ being against the Nazi regime. He stated that under Hitler: ‘Something far more than a new government has arisen among the Germany. There has been a sudden expansion of their national spirit like that which took place in England under Queen Elizabeth’. He alleged that prior to Hitler coming to power: ‘Israelites of international attachments were insinuating themselves into key positions in the German administration.’ On 1 October 1938, after the Munich agreement, Lord Rothermere telegrammed Hitler ‘Frederick the Great was a great popular figure in England. May not Adolf the Great become an equally popular figure? I salute Your Excellency’s star which rises higher and higher.’ On 28 March 1938, when the anti-semitic policies of the Nazi government were well known, the Daily Mail wrote regarding Jews attempting to flee that regime: ‘To be ruled by misguided sentimentalism would be disastrous. Once it was known that Britain offered sanctuary to all who cared to come, the floodgates would be opened and we would be inundated by thousands seeking a home.’ At that time Jews could leave Nazi Germany and refusal to admit them directly cost the lives of thousands or tens of thousands of German Jews. A Daily Mail editorial in 1940, when Britain was at war with Germany, and Hitler’s anti-semitic regime had been in power for seven years, attempted to pin a moral responsibility for their treatment on the Jewish people themselves writing that ‘They should be careful not to arouse the same resentment here.’"

- from London Mayor Ken Livingstone, 22 February 2005.

More:

"Four days before the 1924 General Election Rothermere decided to publish what became known as the Zinoviev Letter [which] urged British communists to promote revolution through acts of sedition. The letter, later discovered to be a forgery, contributed to the defeat of Ramsay MacDonald and the Labour Government.

[...]

Rothermere became increasingly nationalistic in his political views and in 1929 joined with Lord Beaverbrook to form the United Empire Party. Rothermere urged the Conservative Party to remove its leader, Stanley Baldwin, and replace him with Beaverbrook. He also argued for a reform of the House of Lords to make it possible for peers to be elected to the House of Commons. This dispute divided conservative voters and this enabled the Labour Party to win the 1929 General Election.

Lord Rothermere disposed of his shares in the Daily Mirror in 1931. He now concentrated on the Evening News and the Daily Mail. In the 1930s Rothermere moved further to the right and gave support to Oswald Mosley and the National Union of Fascists. He wrote an article, Hurrah for the Blackshirts, in January, 1934, in which he praised Mosley for his "sound, commonsense, Conservative doctrine".

Rothermere also had several meetings with Adolf Hitler and argued that the Nazi leader desired peace. In one article written in March, 1934 he called for Hitler to be given back land in Africa that had been taken as a result of the Versailles Treaty.

Rothermere and his newspapers supported Neville Chamberlain and his policy of appeasement. He was therefore devastated when war broke out between Britain and Germany in 1939. Lord Rothermere died on 27th November, 1940. "

Again:

Adolf Hitler, letter to Lord Rothermere (7th December, 1933)
I should like to express the appreciation of countless Germans, who regard me as their spokesman, for the wise and beneficial public support which you have given to a policy that we all hope will contribute to the enduring pacification of Europe. Just as we are fanatically determined to defend ourselves against attack, so do we reject the idea of taking the initiative in bringing about a war. I am convinced that no one who fought in the front trenches during the world war, no matter in what European country, desires another conflict.

Lord Rothermere, telegram to Adolf Hitler 1st October, 1938)
My dear Fuhrer, everyone in England is profoundly moved by the bloodless solution to the Czechoslovakian problem. People not so much concerned with territorial readjustment as with dread of another war with its accompanying bloodbath. Frederick the Great was a great popular figure. I salute your Excellency’s star, which rises higher and higher."

Wrapping up with Red Ken again:

"After the replacement of David English as editor of the Daily Mail on 10 July 1992 a party was held in the building of Associated Newspapers. Two accounts of this have been published. In An Unlikely Hero: Vere Rothermere and How the Daily Mail Was Saved, prepared in cooperation with the most senior managers of Associated Newspapers, the author states the following: ‘when David [English] retired as editor of the Daily Mail in order to take over as chairman of Associated Newspapers, he gave a party wherein he and all his editorial staff dressed up like Hitler and various members of the Third Reich. A memorable appearance of the newspaper’s drama critic Jack Tinker as Goebbels brought the house down.’ (An Unlikely Hero p171)

Associated Newspapers has disputed some aspects of this account stating that only five persons in Nazi military uniform were present and David English considered the spoof in ‘poor taste’. It does not state who the five were, whether they are still employed by Associated Newspapers, or dealt with the issue of whether Jack Tinker, who was extremely senior writer, made an imitation of Goebbels. What is clear even from Associated Newspaper’s own admissions is that people in Nazi military uniform were present at a party with the most senior management of Associated Newspapers, they were not asked to leave, no apology was made, and no action taken against them."

The leopard never changes its spots, apparently. Looking forward to a defence of the glorious record of the Daily Mail (now with an "oirish" edition), if anyone should be so stupid courageous as to do so.

* Yes, that's Daily Mail owner Lord Rothermere in the photo.

Anglophile Principles

2006-06-25T17:19:00.000+01:00

A post over at Rainy Day (on the subject of FIFA and junta-era Argentina) serves as an appropriate postscript to something written here recently. It deals in forthright terms with the reality of what that living under the junta meant:

"A country run by a brutal military dictatorship that had seized power two years earlier and set about "disappearing" thousands of those who resisted it."

Yet we are willing to wager that Mr. Fitzgerald would experience difficulty in summoning up similar outrage to what was happening in neighbouring Chile at that same moment. Oppressive military dictatorships in both, yet one made the error of threatening British interests and the other did not. Guess Saddam can sympathize.

'Barley' Impressions

2006-06-25T16:07:00.000+01:00

Went to see it last night in the company of friends, some foreign. Powerful stuff - a two-hour film that doesn't shirk in showing the harsh realities of both the War of Independence and the Civil War, in stark contrast to the romantic floss that has hitherto defined the genre (Michael Collins, etc.). From the savagery of the British forces to the ruthlessness of the Volunteer response, Loach shows a gritty, authentic portrayal of the birth of this State. Accusations of "pro-IRA bias" (made by the British rightwing and tabloid press) are predictable, entirely false and reflect a continuing misty-eyed version of their Empire days in certain British quarters.

For those who haven't grown up in communities with strong local memories of the period - and those who don't 'get' the bitterness that created the enduring Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael dichotomy that defines Irish politics to this day - this is an essential film to see.

Squeaking Furious Venom-spitting Rabid Lamb Squadrons

2006-06-25T13:02:00.000+01:00

Oh, my.

Trusting commentators in the media?

2006-06-24T12:43:00.000+01:00

Atrios (in a specific context) sounds forth on a problem which has now arrived on our own shores, too:

"But, more generally, there's no qualification or particular expertise or license one obtains to get to talk about politics on stage, on cable, on the radio, or on the internets. In outlets with barriers like TV and radio, some people magically enter the "pundit club" through various channels. Some people earn their key to face time by being on enough rolodexes. Some people are actually experts in some stuff. But, for a long time punditry has consisted of people who don't necessarily know what the hell they're talking about posing as experts in just about everything. That's not necessarily as bad as it sounds, but it's made better if we strip away the pretense that everyone invited to talk about stuff on the TeeVee is actually an expert."

Specifically in an Irish context, one can readily think of certain pundits whose presence on the airwaves or in print in a serious media publication is inexplicable. Why, exactly, should a PR liar professional be allowed hawk his or her services in the guise of providing commentary on political issues of which she has clearly no expertise whatsoever, other than obfuscation and spinning? Why is there still any pretence that the audience on Questions & Answers isn't stuffed with activists and that questions aren't pre-vetted? And on a tangent, just how did members of the Stalinist Worker's Party get away for so long (and are still in situ in some cases) in infiltrating the national media? And why do the numerous Catholic conservative activists in the media go relatively unremarked?

We here at DICK are shocked that the media are both so easily manipulated and can so easily manipulate in turn, we can certainly tell you.

Oh, dear

2006-06-24T11:59:00.000+01:00

The former 'Freedom Institute' bloggers are apparently still pushing the notion that yep, those WMD were indeed found in Iraq (see here for one earlier FI foray into this territory). The latest resurgence of this wanton dishonesty (i.e. that rusting Iran-Iraq War era mustard shells are the 'proof' that Bush and Blair didn't lie) was prompted by grade-A wingnut Republican Senator Rick Santorum's latest bizarre outburst.

A good measure of the lunacy of these claims is that even the white phosphorus (WP) munitions used by the Irish Defence Forces for night illumination could conceivably fall under the absurdly wide definition of "WMD" that the true believers now apparently accept. This is a useful example of how it seems that you can flap your gums with any kind of old nonsense and get some to believe it, even among allegedly "serious" bloggers on the Irish Right. Though admittedly, some have been a little more creative (and entertaining) in trying to escape the judgement of history than others.

A poorer place

2006-06-21T18:23:00.000+01:00

Monsignor Denis Faul, RIP. From today's Irish Times:

"Msgr Faul first rose to prominence when he marched with the Civil Rights movement in 1968, which was demanding equality for Catholics in the North.

He was criticised by then Primate of Ireland, Cardinal Conway after attracting attention with a pamphlet in 1969 which said the unionist-appointed judiciary "perhaps actively promoted systematic discrimination against the Catholic minority."

He also protested against human rights abuses by the British army and Royal Ulster Constabulary in the 1970s and was also outspoken about republican and loyalist paramilitary violence.

Msgr Denis Faul intervened in the republican H-Block hunger strikes 25 years ago in a bid to save the lives of some of the 10 men who died in the Maze Prison.

He also campaigned for the release of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four who had been wrongly imprisoned in Britain for the bomb attacks before their cases became high-profile."

The Wind That Shakes The Barley

2006-06-13T09:39:00.000+01:00

(A 25MB QuickTime trailer is available at Allocine)

The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Ken Loach's Palme d'Or-winning Irish War of Independence/Civil War flick which we've mentioned before (and is on release next week) is the subject of a Hidden History documentary tonight (Tuesday) at 10pm on RTÉ 1.

One notable omission in the interviewees, though - just where are revisionist Canadian academic Peter Hart's many critics among those mentioned at the RTÉ site?

The myth of the 'Special Relationship'

2006-06-11T22:10:00.000+01:00

A short memory among Anglophile wingnuts in this jurisdiction, apparently.

Sir John Nott, British Defence secretary during the Falklands war:

"The issue of America's involvement in the crisis is a crucial one. Certain Americans, of course, such as Casper Weinberger, the US Defence Secretary, were splendid from the outset.

But the State Department, at this time, was dominated by Latinos who saw President Reagan's Latin American policy going down the drain. Jeane Kirkpatrick, the American Ambassador to the UN, had even dined with the Argentines on the evening that they invaded British territory.

It took weeks of determined diplomacy by Sir Nicholas Henderson, our ambassador in Washington, before the White House was prepared to declare itself on the side of the British. Moreover, it did so, I suspect, only because Congress and American public opinion had come down heavily on our side. By doing so, it destroyed the support of the South American dictators for Reagan's anti-communist crusade in Central America.

As the Falklands conflict developed, America stopped arms sales to Argentina, but was unwilling to take more effective economic measures. Nicholas Henderson reported that the Americans were not prepared to "tilt" too heavily against Argentina; to do so, they said, would deprive them of their influence in Buenos Aires.

They did not want the Argentine dictator General Leopoldi Galtieri to fall - whereas we saw him as an outright fascist and aggressor. For the Americans, he was a central pillar of resistance to communism in South and Central America - and all the efforts of Reagan and the State Department were concentrated on the crisis in El Salvador.

The United States, it seemed, did not wish to choose between Britain and their interests in Latin America. Indeed, apart from Weinberger and the Pentagon, the Americans were very, very far from being on our side.

If Washington had been in the hands of the East Coast Wasps (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) instead of the West Coast Americans, with their overriding concern for the Americas, things might have been different.

But the State Department, the White House security staff and the president himself were, privately, never wholly committed to our cause. For all Margaret Thatcher's friendship with Ronald Reagan, he remained a West Coast American looking south to Latin America and west to the Pacific. Sometimes, I wondered if he even knew or cared where Europe was.

So, the Americans gave every assistance to the United Nations and every other mediator - Brazilian, Mexican and the rest - to bring about a negotiated settlement, on terms which would have been seen as a surrender in the United Kingdom. Then, in the closing stages of the conflict, when we had already lost many ships and men, they leant heavily on us - aided by telephone calls from Reagan to Thatcher - to find some way of saving Galtieri's face. "Magnanimity before victory" became their watch-phrase."

And that's not all:

"In many ways, Mitterrand and the French were our greatest allies. They had supplied the Argentines with Mirage and Super Etendard aircraft in the earlier years; but, as soon as the conflict began, Mitterrand's defence minister got in touch with me to make some of these available so that our Harrier pilots could train against them before setting off for the South Atlantic. The French also supplied us with detailed technical information on the Exocet, showing us how to tamper with the missiles.
[...]
It was a remarkably successful operation. In spite of strenuous efforts by several countries - particularly Israel and South Africa - to help Argentina, we succeeded in intercepting and preventing the supply of further equipment to the Argentines, who were desperately seeking resupply."

Shouldn't a political scientist (and endless self-promoter as a commentator on politics) really be expected to know these things?

Scurrilous Notes

2006-06-11T21:36:00.000+01:00

Witch-hunting season over at Half-Assed Notes:

"Michael Jansen's Bad Reporting
From Iraq, as the good news broke:

Joy filled Baghdad's hot streets, as gun shots sounded through the air, and cars packed with overjoyed Iraqi's roamed the streets. Iraqis were sharing sweets with people outside their homes. Civil organizations paraded as they condemned violence chanting "death to Zarqawi and Saddamites." Thursday's celebrations could be compared to the jubilation in Baghdad's streets the day Saddam Hussein was captured.

Michael Jansen of the Irish Times seems less enthused. Writing the day after Zarqawi overdue demise, at a time when the news was being universally hailed in the English speaking mainstream as a significant success, Jansen ran with the absurdly pessimistic headline "Fears killing may lead to retaliatory attacks". After duly flagging the fact that not even the killing of al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq would squeeze a positive headline out of his column, Jansen choose to prejoratively describe Zarqawi's demise as an 'assassination', as if there had been something illegal or immoral about the overdue killing of that terrorist butcher."

First off, "assassination" is the accepted description of the targeted killing of a specific individual; which is exactly what happened to the late unlamented Zarqawi (and, advice to Mr. Waghorne: "strike" is a term which gives away the user's knowledge of military matters as coming entirely off American cable news). Dickie can look it up in the dictionary (if he so wants), where he will discover that no such pejorative meaning (as he rests his case on) hangs on the word.

Mr. Waghorne is unfortunately also going to need to expand his list of al'Qaeda sympathisers to include the Iraqi government, who ordered a curfew in Baghdad on the strength of - you guessed it, fears of retaliation. Again:

"Nor is Jansen much better on facts. He writes:
"Buoyed by the elimination of Zarqawi, Iraq's parliament confirmed the nominees of Mr Maliki to three key posts which were not filled when he presented his cabinet three weeks ago"
but as most will know, the posts were filled before Zarqawi was killed, not afterwards."

The BBC:

"Shortly after the Zarqawi announcement, the Iraqi parliament approved Mr Maliki's nominees for the key posts of defence and interior ministers.
The two crucial roles had remained unfilled despite the formation of a coalition government last month. "

Need we add more?

The Witchfinder-General then goes on to finish:

"Jansen concludes, calling the killing "a politico-military and propaganda coup". That he cannot, in a thousand word article, bring himself to join the chorus of relief and approval is genuinely revealing. Jansen's factually wrong and politically charged reporting is only intelligible as the output of a man who genuinely regards the beheadings and bombings in Iraq as the work of a home-grown, quasi-legitimate resistance against foreign occupation, one worthy of some sympathy.
Jansen has not, in any of his many pieces for the Irish Times, once reported that the UN mandate for the coalition troops is worth supporting. Nor has he once argued that Iraq's democratic government is the true and legitimate voice of that nation. He has yet to call for the unequivocal suppression of the terrorism in that country. He is, in short, an apologist of the al-Qaida/Ba'athist insurgency in that country. That the Irish Times continue to print his chronically unreliable and political unacceptable pieces is a stain on the paper's reputation. If he had any integrity he'd apply to al-Jazeera where he belongs."

A real journalist simply reports the facts, ma'am. That Dickie doesn't accept that the press shouldn't be Pravda-like (or indeed Fox News-like) in reporting - well, state propaganda - says a lot about this neo-Magill and Oirish Daily Mail 'contributor'. And the characteristic sneering reference to al-Jazeera - the only serious independent media in the Arab world, mind you - speaks volumes too.

Oh, and we nearly forgot. Michael Jansen is actually a member of the fairer sex, so to speak (we can helpfully provide sketches if Dickie has trouble identifying one). Not only that, but she happens to be a very distinguished journalist:

Michael Jansen is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and the American University of Beirut with specialization in the politics of the Middle East. She has since worked as a regional correspondent for the Irish Times [Dublin], Middle East International [London] and the Deccan Herald [Banglagore, India]. She also contributes columns to other publications including the Jordan Times [Amman] and is the author of The United States and the Palestinian People [1970], The Battle of Beirut [1982 and 1983], The Aphrodite Plot [1983] which deals with the 1974 invasion of Cyprus by Turkey, and Dissonance in Zion [1986]. Following the outbreak of the civil war in Lebanon, Jansen took refuge in Cyprus, where she has lived since 1976.

The contrast with the résumé of Mr. Waghorne could not be more striking, we think readers will agree. Perhaps Dickie should make an effort to get his own facts straight (such as the sex of his target, even) before penning articles condemning "bad reporting". But we won't be holding our breath waiting.

Bashing gays back on the GOP agenda; must be US election year

2006-06-06T07:50:00.000+01:00

See here for the video, and here for confusion in the Bush White House as to what constitutes 'civil rights'. Here's a question - is Bush going to outlaw divorce by Constitutional amendment too, in order to "strengthen the family"? And if not, why not?

(via Raw Story)

US to World: Geneva protections for us, but none for you

2006-06-06T07:38:00.000+01:00

Suspected to long unofficially apply under the Bush régime, it may now be made formal.

A Mystery

2006-06-06T07:32:00.000+01:00

Sicilian Notes:

"Advisory
It's been brought to my attention that some wise guy is signing up email accounts with names similar to mine and purporting to send emails from me to various people. These hoaxes are sufficiently artless that I don't believe any damage could have been done, but I'm putting the word about that people should take a moment to check the address of emails in my name. If it's not from my usual gmail account, it's not from me."

Free Stater will be eternally grateful to any person who can forward (to the usual address here) the actual contents of one of these alleged hoax emails. Confidentiality will be assured!

Schizophrenic analysis?

2006-06-01T04:34:00.000+01:00

One (and especially amusing) theme over at Sicilian Notes is the repeated attempts to conflate the long and honourable Irish tradition of UN service - intimately tied with our anti-colonial past - with imperial adventures of the United States - e.g., the second coming of the British Empire in many anglophile eyes. We don't think many are taken in by this, so we usually let it go without comment.

But while the usual strategy employed is a simple one of what Americans refer to as a 'bait and switch' (somehow, pieces on the Irish military always seem to segue into attempts to set up arguments to go to Iraq), recent days have seen one particularly dishonest element creep in:

29th May 2006:

"Never mind that the US is there under a UN mandate, or at the express request of Iraqi leaders, or with the support of the Iraqi people as repeatedly voiced to pollsters"

30th May 2006:

"The US is a good friend to Ireland, fighting in Iraq with a UN mandate and at the request of the democratically elected government there."

i) The US didn't invade Iraq under "UN mandate", as political science research assistant Richard presumably knows to be the case;

(ii) Isn't it curious how ephemereal Richard's disdain for the United Nations becomes once the UN can be used (however dishonestly) to ginny up talking points favouring George W. Bush?

(ii) We're still waiting on Richard's comment as to whether he's siding with McDowell/the gay marriage campaigners, or the homophobic Catholic protestors who broke up that meeting; on tenterhooks, some might say.

Wingmuppetry

2006-06-01T03:32:00.000+01:00

Bill Sjostrom, US expat and NUI Cork academic:

I remember fondly the good old days when the left used to have the decency to lie about their opposition to an Iraq invasion. You remember, Saddam was a wicked man and all, but there is the matter of sanctity of the UN and all. But now they barely seem to bother. David Hirst, the Guardian's former Mid-east correspondent, in a rant blaming George Bush for the rise of Hamas, offers this:

Even if the US did succeed in bringing Hamas down, it would, like the overthrow of Saddam, be a catastrophic kind of success . . .

The overthrow of Saddam was catastrophic. Pretty much says it all, doesn't it.

It certainly does, but not about the entirely innocent Guardian reporter. The short institutional memory of wingnuttery strikes again, we fear!

US Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, press briefing 11th April 2003:

"[The invasion of Iraq] is fascinating. This is just fascinating. From the very beginning, we were convinced that we would succeed, and that means that that regime would end. And we were convinced that as we went from the end of that regime to something other than that regime, there would be a period of transition. And, you cannot do everything instantaneously; it's never been done, everything instantaneously. We did, however, recognize that there was at least a chance of catastrophic success, if you will, to reverse the phrase, that you could in a given place or places have a victory that occurred well before reasonable people might have expected it, and that we needed to be ready for that; we needed to be ready with medicine, with food, with water. And, we have been."

US President George W. Bush, August 2004:

"Bush, in an interview with Time magazine, suggested he still would have gone into Iraq, but with different tactics had he known "that an enemy that should have surrendered or been done in escaped and lived to fight another day."

He called the swift military offensive that led to the fall of Baghdad in April 2003 "a catastrophic success" even though fighting continues despite the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's government."

Did Bill not get the memo?
Postscript 6/06: of course, Sjostrom has long form in being wrong.

Rabbit-Proof Fence

2006-05-26T21:32:00.000+01:00

On now on RTÉ2. Timely considering (RealPlayer file) the Howard visit earlier this week.

Paging the Freedom Institute!

2006-05-26T19:21:00.000+01:00

Toirtap gambols through Iranian nuclear ambitions past.

Crunch time for Mary Cheney?

2006-05-26T17:19:00.000+01:00

AMERICAblog thinks so.

Militant Christians seeking to deny civil rights to non-religious

2006-05-26T16:39:00.000+01:00

As Back Seat Drivers notes (and Suzy over at Maman Poulet witnessed in person) this morning saw an attempt by what seem to be Catholic activists to break up a conference on domestic partnerships. An unwelcome indication that Youth Defence and their ilk haven't gone away, you know.

We'd love to see a comment on the matter from über-Catholic and tireless defender of law'n'order, Mr. Richard Waghorne, but we're not going to hold our breath.

On the relation of the New Right to Fascism

2006-05-26T12:52:00.000+01:00

Lindsay Beyerstein over at Majikthise:

"Anyone who wants to identify similarities between the current administration and true Fascism will have to specify exactly what's fascist about Bush and the Republicans. This is not a trivial task. However, I believe there's a very strong case to be made.

I'm NOT saying that we have a fascist government in America today. The United States is a democracy, we still have a free press, and the armed forces haven't acquiesced to the one-man rule of George W. Bush. I'm not claiming that it's inevitable, or even especially likely, that America will eventually become a full-blown fascist state. I'm certainly not saying that anyone in power today is consciously striving to create a full-fledged fascist dictatorship on the model of Mussolini's Italy or Franco's Spain. What I am saying is that the Bush administration has embraced many of the key mutually-reinforcing ideological tenets of Fascism: militarism, imperialism, corporate statism, state-sponsored religion, male dominance, irrationalism, and mass propaganda."

Read her full article here.

True or false?

2006-05-25T23:48:00.000+01:00

According to Wikipedia, the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP)

"[...] used to call for a vote for Sinn Fein in the North up until its party conference of 1995, when it was argued that the Adams/McGuinness leadership of Sinn Féin were moving to an accommodation with imperialism. It opposed the subsequent Good Friday Agreement, arguing that rather than ending conflict in the North, the GFA was 'institutionalisng sectarianism', creating two competing communities and political leaderships, both nationalist and unionist, which did little for working class people.

Following riots in Dublin on 25 February 2006 by republicans protesting at a planned 'Love Ulster' parade, the SWP issued a press release in which it expressed its full support for the actions of the rioters. According to the press release, given the wider context of (apparent) working-class alienation at the hands of the capitalist political establishment, the riots were completely justified: "socialists do not join in the condemnation of young working class people who riot against the police- especially given this wider context." Also, the SWP claimed that the 'Love Ulster' march was purposely planned by Michael McDowell, the Minister for Justice, as a provocation to republicans to riot, and thus further blacken the republican movement, of whom the Minister is a most vocal critic."

While it's arguable as to how McDowell could be so naive as to believe that the 'Love Ulster' loyalists could parade without trouble through the streets of Dublin, the responsibility for the rioters' violence lies entirely with the rioters (Garda heavy-handedness aside). Maybe some of the SWP folk out there could comment.

Could be interesting

2006-05-25T23:31:00.000+01:00

Badman Anthem.

'Kenny Boy' goes down

2006-05-25T18:29:00.000+01:00

Via Raw Story. Just what is it about US Republicans in the Age of Bush? He's the unluckiest honest man in the world, to be surrounded by so many crooks...

Either way, some small revenge for both Enron employees/shareholders and the good people of California.

Are we there yet?

2006-05-23T01:42:00.000+01:00

The permanently turning-the-corner Iraq War, as seen by the British Ministry of Defence:

"PRINCE Harry may be barred from serving with his men when his regiment is deployed to Iraq next year because of concerns for his safety.

Clarence House and the Ministry of Defence said yesterday there was official concern that the posting could pose an unacceptable risk to the Prince and those under his command. The same worries will arise when Prince William finishes at Sandhurst later this year."

Envying the cool kid

2006-05-23T00:54:00.000+01:00

Michael Dell - perennial Steve Jobs wannabe.

One for Mulley

2006-05-22T21:45:00.000+01:00

Fire Scoble too...?
(Warning: most definitely not-safe-for-work!)

Economical Posting

2006-05-19T23:33:00.000+01:00

Gratifying several diverse Free Stater reader demographics all at once, we present Serial No. 3817131.

Public Service Announcement

2006-05-17T23:37:00.000+01:00

Alas, the Curse of Haloscan appears to have done in Mr. Waghorne's blogging comments once more. In a public-minded spirit (and in a fit of nostalgia), Free Stater will help to tide His Nibs' many fans over by re-establishing access to the last number of SN comments threads.

Bertie On Haughey
Duly Noted
Saving Questions And Answers
Are You An Irish Conservative?
Irish Conservatives
End Of The Road?
Tomato/Tomato
Ruth Kelly's Faith
Oppose The Boycott
The Worst Man In The World
A View From Ramallah
Is Discontent Bipartisan?
May's Magill Magazine
On Errors
Professor Francis Ruane to the ESRI
Where's The Outrage?

Tune that dial

2006-05-03T13:39:00.000+01:00

Tonight (Wednesday) sees RTÉ Radio 1 broadcast a documentary made last year about a recruit platoon in the Permanent Defence Forces. It's called "Recruits" and it goes out on Documentary on One at 7pm. (Alternatively, there'll be a podcast available).

RTÉ and the Irish media in general have always had excellent coverage of the Defence Forces, and we look forward to listening to this tonight.

Blogging off

2006-03-23T05:49:00.000Z

And that's it until 25th April, and our return.

An Easter Message

2006-03-23T03:45:00.000Z

This Easter, as people are no doubt aware, marks the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Rising which occurred in Dublin, Galway and other scattered parts throughout Ireland and involved members of the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Citizen Army, Cumann na mBán and various smaller groups (such as the Hibernian Rifles) and myriad individuals who joined in the fight. 1916 in a real sense was the act of defiance that sparked off the struggle for complete seperation and independence in the early part of the twentieth century, and many future Irish political leaders such as Eamon de Valera (pictured above, under British guard after the surrender), WT Cosgrave, Michael Collins, Séan Lemass and others took part in the fighting, news of which was censored from the Irish public that week by a fearful British government. Arguments about the "legitimacy" of the Rising are anachronistic and miss the point that those have freedom only who are prepared to fight (and if necessary die) for it. This is no less true in today's world than it was ninety years ago, and we owe due respect both to our great-grandparent's generation and to those who came before them, who fought a long fight for Irish freedom - sometimes by arms, sometimes by politics, sometimes though their Faith. The failings of those who inherited the newly-independent twenty-six county State, won from the British through making Ireland ungovernable both politically and militarily, are not theirs to blame for.

As remarked on through this blog previously, we consider the most serious failing of the Irish State to have been the effective abandonment (post-Collins) of the plight of the large part of the population trapped by Partition in a Unionist regime built on gerrymandering from top to bottom. The birth of the Provisional IRA in the wake of the crackdown on the Civil Rights movement in the North (and the Catholic population in general) owes a great deal to the policy of the Lynch government to attempt to seal the issue off at the Border. And, it can be suspected, to a rather more widespread government understanding about causing a split within the IRA and arming the splinter group as stand-in proxy (in which they were merely following standard British practice in the long retreat from Empire) than is officially admitted to.

The other plank of this policy of containment found expression in the large-scale official effort to sterilise the Republic of all vestiges of the republican and nationalist traditions which had provided the backbone for resistance to British rule from the late eighteenth century onwards. This took the form of a corrosive policy of official censorship and in revisionist re-writing of the course of Irish history to remove the Irish nationalist viewpoint (it may be remarked that there is frequently difficulty in distinguishing revisionism from classical pro-British propaganda), with a final element in Irish political parties divesting themselves of their respective honourable heritages in the fight for independence.[1]

The irony is in Provisional Sinn Féin (and fringe groups such as RSF) more than happily then stealing those same clothes, to what can be guessed to be considerable advantage in appealing to patriotism.

Which leads us neatly to this Easter's military parade, part of the Fianna Fáil contribution to the sudden interest of the respectable Dublin political establishment in 1916-21. (An interest, one may surmise, prompted by the alarming electoral successes of the Provos and the 100-year anniversaries rapidly approaching within the next decade or so.) Fine Gael have re-discovered Michael Collins, and amusingly also renewed their claim to the unpleasantly anti-Semitic (and dual-monarchist) Arthur Griffith. Even Michael McDowell has rediscovered his Republican roots, and no doubt is already burnishing his grandfather Eoin MacNeill's 1916 medal War of Independence medal has recently announced that the GPO is to be turned into a monument to 1916. Will this outbreak of new-found patriotism be enough to reclaim the Provos' grip on the fight for independence, or are Bertie & co. merely shooting themselves in the foot (and doing the memory of these people and events a grave disservice) by indulging in such theatrics, which are more than transparent to the bemused public? Time will tell, though it may today prove difficult to keep Gerry Adams off the reviewing stand and outside the limelight.

So what of how the other side now view 1916? The British Government are sending the Ambassador to Ireland, Stewart Eldon, in what is to be welcomed as a sign of the modern-day partnership between our two nations in peace and friendship (if the French and Germans can do it...) . Ulster Unionism, well, that's a different story. Our UUP and DUP friends in the North have reacted in apoplexy to word of the official British delegation, and it appears that within the Unionist community at large there regrettably exists the sentiment that the rebels of 1916 were (quote) "terrorists" [2]. This is a remarkably disappointing reaction in this day and age of the Good Friday Agreement, both in terms of the historical realities of the time (the IV merely following the example of the Ulster Volunteer Force in all things) and in the grievously unjust label applied (one would not hear of the ancestors of the Ulster Unionist population being referred to as ethnic cleansers, after all). This was a golden opportunity for Unionism to return some of the considerable reaching-out by the nationalist Irish side in recent years as regards Poppy Day, the Somme, the Boyne and other British cultural values; some reciprocal respect would be greatly appreciated by us, your fellow Irishmen and women.

[1] The author was present to witness the reaction of a Fianna Fáil Comhairle Ceantar during the Nineties where a redesigned logo - minus FF's English-language title of The Republican Party - was put on display. Suffice it to say that at least in FF there still existed some vestige of resistance to tampering with the party's heritage, as HQ was told exactly what to do with the election literature in question... Contrast this with the Irish Times-reading, Stickie-led Labour Party of modern times (sometime roost for Conor Cruise O'Brien while out of fringe Unionist parties), one of whose apparatchiks declared party founder James Connolly 'irrelevant' recently.

[2] Arch-gombeenman and ardent British imperialist, Irish Party leader of the time John Redmond has also recently been resurrected and rehabilitated, and in much the same unfortunate political vein, by certain southern unionists.

Dev's party returning North?

2006-03-23T02:40:00.000Z

Via Slugger comes word that the perennial rumbling within Fianna Fáil about organising in Northern Ireland is coming to the fore again, this time with rumour that FF will try to start a society at Queen's. One wonders how such news will go down in the parts of the press that fawned over Trinity's Young Unionist Society a few years ago (a project brought to us by the same coterie of crypto-Unionists that run the ridiculous Reform Movement, whose publicly-admitted patrons we seem to recall number Ruth Dudley Edwards, Bruce Arnold and John Bruton amongst them).

FF organising again up North is a subject that arouses controversy similar to that with the UK Tories and Labour Party doing same - namely stepping on the toes of (and dividing the vote for) the respective local political allies such as the SDLP or UUP. While enrolling as an individual member of the Soldiers of Destiny in the North is now permitted, establishing cumainn and running candidates is still a long way off - presuming that the SDLP can meantime manage to survive the Provo electoral challenge, that is. But the establishment of a Fianna Fáil cumann within QUB is the first real step along such a path.

(As an aside, we recall Wexford Fianna Fáiler Malcolm Byrne - the subject of some attention recently - as being one of the loudest voices within the party to organise immediately in the six counties.)

p.s. Explaining the title. De Valera was a Stormont MP for South Down (abstentionist, of course) from 1921-29 and 1933-37, and was once arrested by the Unionist regime for straying north of the border. More on this little-known tidbit here.

Weekly sex blog

2006-03-23T02:30:00.000Z

Via Feministing comes ten reasons that liberal/leftie men are better in bed (a topic that we've dwelt on before, funnily enough). No word yet on whether or not liberal women are better in bed, a natural source of curiosity here at Free Stater HQ...

(We welcome contributions on this from all quarters, straight or queer!)

Holding the line

2006-03-23T01:39:00.000Z

Crooked Timber's Henry Farrell posted a critique yesterday on an essay concerning the formation of a left-wing message machine to counter the GOP's dominance of the American news and political agenda (creating and nurturing the myth of the "Liberal Media" has been a crucial victory in the advance of US wingnuttery, one they are attempting to emulate in going on to crush dissent in American academia).

Farrell's contribution to this internal Democratic debate is a typically well-considered, thoughtful piece which has relevance to those on the centre-left and left of the political spectrum here; especially considering the degree to which the new right in Ireland (and in the the rest of the Anglosphere, too) is a direct child of the post-Goldwater radical US right. A key piece:

"The reason that the right has been so successful in shaping politics over the last twenty years is in part because it successfully constructed an alternative intellectual apparatus of think-tanks, research institutes, journals etc, pushing out endless policy papers and talking points, and, over time, shifting the center of political debate substantially over to the right. This is something that the netroots can’t do if they see an interest in policy questions and ideology as markers that you belong to the corrupt establishment. Ideas and policy are vitally important to politics – they’re a fundamental force structuring the conventional wisdom that Bowers is interested in. It sometimes seems to me that there are two left wing blogospheres – the netroots centered around Kos, MyDD etc, and the wonkosphere centered around Brad DeLong, Kevin Drum, Matt Yglesias and others, with only a few connecting threads between them (Duncan Black serves inter alia as a sometimes grumpy intermediary). One talks mostly about the winning and losing of elections, the other mostly about policy and ideas. This strikes me as a very serious weakness indeed; there’s a lot that these people should be talking about together if they want to construct something real and lasting, but they’re not."

As happened in the US, the political debate within the early Irish blogger population has been dominated by rightwingers feeding off the voluminous propaganda pumped out by the well-funded right-wing wonk apparatus in the US (the ORI is small fry in comprison, and the FI insignificant). The same relative dearth of intellectuals doing the grunt-work of producing research and policy talking-points will inevitably retard the emergence of a response here to the growing rightwing Young Turks within Fine Gael, the PDs and to a lesser extent Fianna Fáil. (Other 'innovations' that have contributed to the GOP success in recent years - such as developing a rapport with militant rightwing Christianity - will inevitably follow as well)

A debate to watch closely and to learn from on this side of the Atlantic.

The sociological blog meme (finally)

2006-03-20T13:23:00.000Z

(Apologies to Sinéad Gleeson and to Cian - who both tagged me - for putting this off for so long. Sorry, guys! And thanks to Fiona de Londras, who started this)

Gender: Male

Age: 19-30

Nationality: Irish.

Country of residence: Ireland.

Sexual Orientation: Straight.

Do you have a disability? No, but I have an old knee injury that hurts when I can't move it for long periods, such as on journeys.

How would you describe your political philosophy? Republican and small 'n' Irish nationalist, religiously agnostic.

Level of education Graduate.

If you were to vote on party lines which party would you choose (Ireland)? In a PR electoral system, this makes for a complicated answer. I'd vote candidates. If it were to be a hypothetical ballot where I knew no-one, then FF-Lab-FG-Green.

If you were to vote on party lines which party would you choose (UK)? Anyone other than "New Labour", who are completely abhorrent and much, much worse than Thatcherism ever dared to be.

If you were to vote on party lines which party would you choose (USA)? Democrat. The GOP are completely in thrall to militant Christian religious fundies, the corporate lobby and a coterie of intellectuals with barking-mad schemes (the neo-cons).

Where do you stand on the EU? Deeply suspicious of how in thrall the EU is to the corporate lobby. Brussels is reputedly as bad as Capitol Hill for corruption and backroom dealing. The lack of proper accountability to the EU citizenry is appalling - especially in how Directives periodically appear as if out of thin air, presenting us with pretty much a fait accompli.

Did you support the invasion of Afghanistan? Yes, though not with enthusiasm. Invading Afghanistan was about working-out the American desire for revenge, and nothing else - Bush was himself in person more than happy to cavort with the Taliban before OBL struck on 9/11.

Did you support the invasion of Iraq? No - but not from resistance to the notion of Saddam as anything other than the thug he was. Iraq was always about the cynical use of 9/11 to achieve strategic American objectives under PNAC. Those who believed the clear nonsense that was the (post-no-WMD) humanitarian justification offered are fooling themselves.

Do you continue to support either or both of those conflicts? No. Iraq speaks for itself. Afghanistan has been abandoned - the Afghani President is pretty much mayor of Kabul and nothing else. It's not tenable to support something which has no relation to reality.

What do you believe is the single biggest issue facing Irish politics?The North. Always has been, and will be for decades (if not centuries) to come. Efforts to seal the problem away led to the rise of the Provos, and only chance of neutering them now is inside a United Ireland. The "revisionist project" has (inevitably) failed, and all we have to show for it is that Provisional Sinn Féin have seized possession of the legacy of the sacrifices made by previous generations to free Ireland from a tyrannical foreign rule.

What do you believe is the single biggest issue facing European politics? Making the EU accountable, and establishing a proper Constitution (the attempt to label the other thing as one is reprehensible sleight-of-hand).

What do you believe is the single biggest issue facing international politics? Hard to decide... Global warming. The continued wretched state of so much of the world, which allows the West to keep prosperous as we leech cheap labour and resources from them with the assistance of puppet regimes. The continuing decline of the US position as the 'hyperpower', and the question of how they'll deal with this (so far, not so well). Reform of the UN to both neuter the vampires in the Security Council and to treat tyrannies with the appropriate odium.

Are you, have you ever been, and do you ever wish to be involved in politics in a party political manner? Yes, I was born into staunch rural Fianna Fáil on both sides, and grew up with politics (I am a veteran political worker by this stage!). I cut my ties to FF due to the rehabilitation of the corrupt Haughey faction with Ahern's leadership (and, latterly, professional reasons).

Who would you have voted for in the past US Presidential Election? Kerry. No matter what the Democratic candidate's faults may have been, casting a vote for Bush is an unconscionable act morally.

Apple brings video-making into Irish primary schooling

2006-03-20T12:09:00.000Z

Via Macenstein comes word that Apple appears to be the main supplier of hardware and software for FÍS, a Department of Education program to integrate video-making into the primary education system. From Apple Education:

"Apple technology is at the centre of this unique education project. “The three watch words for FÍS are simplicity, connectivity and creativity”, says Creative Director Ciarán McCormack. “Apple gets ticks in all three boxes. The hardware and the software are so intuitive that teachers and children can just get on with what the project is all about — making and using films to learn”.

[...]

A pilot scheme was so successful in 31 Dublin and Cork schools that six years later, well over 100 primary schools are using film to enrich their studies. FÍS plans to support the use of film in all of Ireland’s 3,500 primary schools by the end of 2006.

Important to the project’s success has been the broad support base inspired by national Government leadership. The Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT) at Dún Laoghaire — home to Ireland’s National Film School — provides project management and advice to teachers on filmmaking theory and how to integrate it into the curriculum. Ireland’s regional Education Centres train teachers to use cameras, sound recording and editing equipment at specially-run summer programmes and training days.

[...]

Technology support for FÍS comes from a combination of IADT and Education Centres’ ICT advisers. FÍS, based at IADT, has a range of Macs, including Power Mac G5s, PowerBooks and iBooks. Education Centres with local schools involved in the project each have an iMac, five iBooks and a Canon camera, all available for booking. The schools themselves are equipped with video cameras, tripods and microphones, and share digital editing suites.

No Pre–cooked Content
FÍS schools are using film in many different ways. One is making a series of documentaries about its local history, based on interviews with the school caretaker. Another has adapted a Graham Greene short story for film, with children writing the screenplay, and acting and filming their own production.

Other schools are studying the science of film technology, or exploring dance and music through film soundtracks. Many use the opportunity film presents to hone reading and writing skills.

Schools that cater for children with physical and learning disabilities have found film particularly helpful in establishing a sense of individual achievement. One special school produced a short film showing how it makes its annual Christmas card. The still shots of the children who contributed to the film were as important to its motivational impact as the film itself. Filmmaking is particularly flexible for mixed abilities. There is always a role for everyone — storyboard, continuity, camera, sound, even holding the microphone."

There is also an official FÍS website.

It's amazing to compare the use of computer technology in education now at all levels. We're of an age that green-screen monochrome machines were our primary school "computer" experience (no Macs, unluckily!), and even in third-level computers were used only for office applications, technical programs and the new-fangled WWW.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple have been blazing the trail on bringing video into mainstream computing for a decade or more now (just as they did in the Eighties with desktop publishing) and have brought such revolutions as Quicktime video, the Firewire interface and latterly the amazing Final Cut Pro professional editing suite. The tight integration of hardware and software by the same company creates a computing platform for affordable multimedia production which rivals can only play catch-up to.

It's a testament to the quality of their vision that Apple are such a serious player in film-making at all levels, and pretty much own film-making in education. To all the Apple-haters out there - we'll continue to make ours a Mac.

Spring-cleaning the old blog

2006-03-20T04:46:00.000Z

As people may today notice, we've taken to the whole fashion recently and renovated the place. Expect more changes to come soon as well. (For those curious to know, the font used in the banner is Ceanannas™ by Michael Everson, whose services to the whole subject of Irish typography we cannot praise highly enough.)

Please, suggestions/criticism on the new look in the comments to this post.

Update: Before anyone mentions it, yes, the line spacing is too wide for comfort. And the banner graphic is going to acquire a little more eye-candy.

DCU sets up the Institute for Ethics. CPI Mark II or not?

2006-03-19T02:56:00.000Z

corrib_report_reads_2006.jpg, originally uploaded by Free Stater.

Via Runningwithbulls last week, we discovered that Dublin City University is to establish a new Chair (and associated Institute) for Ethics:

The main task of the new Chair in Ethics is to conduct research in ethics, promote the teaching and debate of ethics in DCU and to lead the Institute. But the new Professor will also be expected to engage in debate on ethics issues nationally and internationally with the media, government institutions in Ireland, the European Union and other relevant bodies and organisations around the world.

As the above blogger notes, immediately thought turns to American billionaire Chuck Feeney and the short-lived Centre for Public Inquiry which his Atlantic Philanthropies foundation funded for a time. (While Mr. Feeney does indeed have an association with DCU, there is no sign of any announcement on the AP website as to whether or not he is funding this venture).

The question is to who watches the watchers, and it's a relevant one given the manner in which the CPI was destroyed by its enemies in political life and the press. Alleged links between Executive Director Frank Connolly and Provisional Republican activities in Colombia (especially concerning the alleged use of a forged passport) were widely aired in public; the resulting scandal forced Feeney to withdraw his money and the Centre has apparently folded. As of today the last notice on the Centre's website is a statement in support of Connolly by CPI chairman Mr. Justice Feargus Flood, which is dated from December 16th 2005.

As regards who exactly will be funding the Chair and Institute, DCU is so far hewing to the Freedom Institute line as elucidated recently by Dickie Waghorne (in a reply to Tom Cosgrave):

On funding, we don't discuss individual donors as a rule for their confidentiality and ours, but it's no big deal mentioning that the large majority of funding sources are private individuals.

While the desire for confidentiality of donors is understandable (as Feeney showed, they can be vulnerable to political pressure) the need to have transparency in these operations is essential in order to build trust and consequently legitimacy.

One only needs to consider the worst-case scenario of a magazine or think-tank operating here with lavish funding from a source with less than altruistic motives (or a university department being financed by a large corporation in the academics' own area of research and teaching). The US experience of the past forty years provides a sharp lesson on the harmful, distorting effect of such corporate shills on the public debate necessary to a healthy democracy.

(The original DCU announcement is here, with an RTÉ interview on Morning Ireland here in RealPlayer format. Bernie Goldbach and Potatriotique also have more.)

ICANN in deepening trouble

2006-03-18T22:11:00.000Z

A recurring topic of interest here at Free Stater HQ has been the shenanigans involved with 'ownership' of the Internet. Simply put, there's too much financial and political interest involved for control to be allowed to pass out of US hands.

International disquiet with the existing scheme of things (especially under the confrontational Bush administration) has, however, been steadily building to a head; and in the first sign of reaching crisis-point the (U.S.-based) ICANN registry body has just suffered the withdrawal of the Canadian Internet registry authority, CIRA.

It'll be interesting to see what spin US wingnut bloggers (and their toadies here) will put on this clear blow against "Freedom". Time for the dusting-off of old posts calling for the invasion of Moose Country?

(Via the excellent ICANNWatch)

Wonder how this one will be explained away

2006-03-16T00:22:00.000Z

Pew (via Atrios):

"Currently, 48% use a negative word to describe Bush compared with just 28% who use a positive term, and 10% who use neutral language.

The changing impressions of the president can best be viewed by tracking over time how often words come up in these top-of-the-mind associations. Until now, the most frequently offered word to describe the president was "honest," but this comes up far less often today than in the past. Other positive traits such as "integrity" are also cited less, and virtually no respondent used superlatives such as "excellent" or "great" terms that came up fairly often in previous surveys.

The single word most frequently associated with George W. Bush today is "incompetent,"and close behind are two other increasingly mentioned descriptors: "idiot" and "liar." All three are mentioned far more often today than a year ago."

Certain Irish bloggers have described Bush in glowing terms, even recently, and delighted in casting aspersions on those who didn't share this touching show of blind faith. Perhaps they might enlighten us all on how it is "anti-American" to share the actual views of the American public on this embarrassing failure of a man.

Andrew Sullivan

2006-03-14T22:24:00.000Z

The cartoon (via Atrios).

Shove over Bloscars

2006-03-14T01:15:00.000Z

Here come the Mingers!

Blog Awards Aftermath

2006-03-13T03:04:00.000Z

Raging to not have been going. By all accounts[1] a great time was had by all on Saturday night, and Damien Mulley deserves praise for a great job. Well done Damo!

The Awards were (and there's general agreement that they were all well-deserved):

Best Blog: Twenty Major - twentymajor.blogspot.com
Best Blog Post: Twenty Major - twentymajor.blogspot.com - "New York Diary"
Best Fiction: Thinking Out Loud - www.thinkingoutloud.biz - "47 Hours"
Best Comment: Kevin Breathnach - disillusionedlefty.blogspot.com
Best Technology Blog: Tom Raftery - www.tomrafteryit.net/views
Best Use of Irish Language: An tImeall - imeall.blogspot.com
Best Political Blog: Slugger O'Toole - www.sluggerotoole.com
Most Humorous: Twenty Major - twentymajor.blogspot.com
Best arts and culture: Sinéad Gleeson - www.sineadgleeson.com/blog
Best group blog: The Community At Large - www.tcal.net
Best photo blog: In Photos - inphotos.org
Best personal blog: Thinking Out Loud - www.thinkingoutloud.biz
Best contribution to the Irish blogosphere: IrishBlogs.ie - www.irishblogs.ie

Back Seat Driver Jon Ihle has a piece up in tomorrow's today's Irish Times, which can also be found online here. We won't take the bread from the mouths of Mr. Ihle's children (if he has any) by reproducing the article here; but we'll just say, priceless.

[1] and the photos! A more distinguished and sophisticated bunch of people we've not seen outside of a Camille O'Sullivan gig; though can someone please introduce the guy on the right to a pair of scissors?

[2] 'Team Fústar' went along too.

Charity

2006-03-09T23:27:00.000Z

See this post over on Gavin Sheridan's blog.

IRA plot to blow up Westminster uncovered

2006-03-09T23:13:00.000Z

"V for Vendetta", a film we're very much looking forward to, is opening March 17th... St. Patrick's Day. Do we really need further proof?

Quick, someone run tell Jim Cusack.

Question to the floor

2006-03-09T21:25:00.000Z

Neo-conservatives as the self-appointed, real-world Hari Seldons. Discuss with relation to the teachings of Leo Strauss.

On 'Good News' reports from Iraq

2006-03-09T20:58:00.000Z

Christopher Allbritton has something to say about some of the so-called reporters in Iraq who feed the likes of Dickie Waghorne & Co. with US military propaganda.

AWOL for the coming weekend

2006-03-09T20:11:00.000Z

Off hill-walking in the Mourne mountains, staying in Newcastle for two nights... anyone know what the good pubs are, there? Therefore we won't be going to the Blog Awards, much as we look forward to Twenty's acceptance speech.

On a happier note, among the group going up for the hiking will be two newlyweds, who tied the knot here in Dublin a few weeks ago.

An antidote to right-wing dishonesty on science

2006-03-09T17:16:00.000Z

Computer scientist Tim Lambert's Deltoid blog, now over on Scienceblogs (where Free Stater favourite, US biologist PZ Myers also roosts these days).

Whereas Myers' specialisation is in Intelligent Design nuttery, Lambert is a man of many talents, and also an old friend of wingnut 'experts' (and TCS contributors) the AEI's John Lott and Michael Fumento.

Well worth keeping on your blogroll.

Another piece in the Edelman saga

2006-03-08T00:34:00.000Z

A recent piece (since disappeared off the SBP website) in the Sunday Business Post's Computers in Business section stirred up some controversy in the Boggersphere recently. In a nutshell, the SBP published an article on blogging which primarily quotes/promotes a PR outfit named Edelman based here in Dublin.

The problem is - as happens so often - that the article is basically a commercial puff-piece of a type familiar to readers of the Irish IT press, with not one local blogger mentioned. The suspicion is hard to escape that the story relies heavily on Edelman-supplied material, if indeed it didn't originate there (did anyone note if Edelman advertised that week?).

Lo and behold, the name 'Edelman' has shown up again on bloggers' radar this week, this time in a New York Times story on how Wal-Mart has been seeding spin material to sympathetic right-wing bloggers in the US. Who did Wal-Mart hire to run this astro-turf effort? You guessed it.

As Atrios notes, it's quite amusing to note mainstream media outlets holding bloggers to much higher standards of disclosure than they hold themselves to. Jeff Jarvis is (for once) spot-on as well, in an important issue which should cross partisan political lines as being of concern.

Update: unsurprisingly (we suppose) some seem to welcome this 'opportunity' for bloggers.

The Beast at the Blog Awards

2006-03-07T22:46:00.000Z

First off, kudos to Damien Mulley for his organising of the Irish Blog Awards. From Mulley's blog, we see that there are even Irish Blog Awards t-shirts for sale. We'd love to go along and see some of the faces at what's going to be a terrific evening, but unfortunately a prior commitment calls.

However, no Free Stater post would be complete without a bunch of snark. From Damien again, we see that:

I got an invoice this morning for rental of the function room in the Alexander. You best sit down: It’s €2000. Microsoft has stepped in and offered to cover costs for it. I’m totally blown away by this offer and there were no conditions about it. We don’t now have to be called The Microsoft Irish Blog Awards or The Vista Irish Microsoft MSN Blog Awards or anything else [...] So remember to say thank you to the Microsoft people who turn up on the night and buy them a drink or two at the very least [...] Again thanks to the folks in Microsoft. There shouldn’t be a problem with space now. Someone from Microsoft is going to come along (at my request) and talk and answer questions about IE7 and RSS

Now we've known Damien for a while and he's on the up-and-up and a very trustworthy guy. Nonetheless, we confess to misgivings when we saw that The Beast of Redmond has extended its clutches out to this event. As an example of what we're talking about, we spotted the following on the (MSDN, inevitably) blog of one Robert Burke, who appears to be the very same Microsoft employee in question:

Irish Blogging Awards
Damien Mulley, organizer of the Irish Blogging Awards, kindly offered me the opportunity to take part in the judging. But bear in mind that, in true blogging style, almost two thousand people have contributed electronically to the voting!

[...]

"How many of you have blogs?" asked celebrity blogger Robert Scoble in Cork a few months back, and less than 5% of the hands went up.

Microsoft has a great opportunity to help make it easier both to consume blog content, and also easy for everyone to contribute to the conversation. In the coming months, the next version of Windows, called Windows Vista, and also Internet Explorer 7, will add new features which will make blogging, and RSS, more intuitive and really take blogging mainstream.

For a technical perspective and more info, check out the Microsoft Team RSS blog. Don't forget you can also sign up for your own blog at MSN Spaces, or Blogs.ie, or Developers.ie, or Wordpress.org,...

...or even that obscure other one, run by giving-Ballmer-nightmares wunderkind Google. (Bogger? Bloggy? Someone help us out here.)

One constant source of amusement here at Free Stater HQ is the PR value-for-money of Scoble to Microsoft. All those years of enduring public resentment over their ruthless business practices, shoddy products and ceaseless attempts to torpedo open standards; when all they had to do was hire a geek agony aunt to nod along sympathetically to the hacker population's concerns and offer reassurances that Uncle Bill cares (Agent Smith must be kicking himself right about now).

We have a suspicion also as to just how exactly the Beast intends to "help make it easier both to consume blog content, and also easy for everyone to contribute to the conversation.". We feel confident that that part has a great deal to do with the "new [Vista] features which will make blogging, and RSS, more intuitive and really take blogging mainstream", which in Microsoft-speak typically means this.

Update 14/03/06 - via ENN:

"A mention of Microsoft drew booing from the crowd which quickly died out when it was announced the software giant had stepped in at the last moment to sponsor the ceremony."

Pussies.

Keeping up with security issues

2006-03-06T23:32:00.000Z

Jane's is the standard by which other references on this topic are measured, and for good reason. (As an example, Jane's is the best publicly-available source on the Irish Defence Forces, especially in providing an accurate inventory of equipment.)

Even though the online subscription services are prohibitively expensive, the email list of weekly summaries is worth signing up for. Jane's relies for its bread on providing accurate information and analysis: though inevitably written from a Western (read US) viewpoint, wingnuttery has no place here.

Some tidbits from recent alerts:

Trouble in Bahrain: symptoms of a wider malaise
Record-breaking demonstrations and spontaneous outbreaks of violence in conservative Bahrain provide an illustrative example of wider tensions in the Middle East * The tensions being voiced, from religious conservatives and liberal reformers, are mutually exclusive and leave little room for a middle ground to be found * As newly reinvigorated authoritarian regimes in the Middle East battle it out with Washington over democratic reform, it looks as though the only progress being made is by the Islamists
[Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst - first posted to http://jiaa.janes.com - 30 January 2006]

Iran's conventional forces remain key to deterring potential threats
Key Points * Iran's Western-influenced defence doctrine is focused on conventional forces and incorporates lessons learned from a range of post-Cold War conflicts. * Layered aerial and coastal defences make Iran a potentially prickly opponent and would require the US or Israel to invest considerable resources in offensive options. * The overstretched and exhausted US military will require a period of strategic reset if it is to undertake effective operations against Iran.
[Jane's Intelligence Review - first posted to http://jir.janes.com - 19 January 2006]

One recent article that may be of considerable interest to observers is the impending demise of the Sea Harrier in UK service - the end of an era for the veteran Falklands War-era fighter jet, a victim of the new British CVF conventional carrier-building program.