Villagers 30/11/06

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Lasting peace for Iraq seems less and less likely

Napoleon always led his army to battle. So too did Cromwell and dozens more famous leaders of the past, who had the honest conviction that their actions were justified. If Tony Blair and George Bush, such loving allies, were asked or expected to do likewise in the case of Iraq, I doubt if there would be a war today and the thousands of innocent lives that are being sacrificed daily would have been saved.  Instead, we have one dictator chasing the other and, even with some success, still leaving the situation in the end far worse than it was at the outset.

Before taking such drastic action, Mr Bush should have been aware of and reflected back on the Vietnam experience when thousands of young Americans were indiscriminately drafted into a futile war and inevitable death. The same is happening in Iraq, an ongoing war with no apparent remedy in sight.
Saddam Hussein is now overthrown and sentenced to death. Nevertheless, the failure of Bush and his republican party in the midterm elections must have spelled out the message loud and clear.

So too is the current hypocrisy of Tony Blair and his government plain for all to see. In opposing the death sentence and the hanging of Saddam Hussein, they are casting a blind eye on the unnecessary killing of over 50,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, for whom they are directly or indirectly involved.

And to add insult to misery, it looks as though the umbilical cord between Bush and Blair has now been severed. The British prime minister has resorted to setting up a new partnership between Iran and Syria, with prospects of dialogue over the future of Iraq. A deal conditional that these countries cease support of terrorism in Iraq and dismiss their nuclear aspirations – as well as also promising them, in return, that military action against Iran would be ruled out.

An obvious toe in the rear for Bush as he sees out his final years of office, it prompts the question: where now lies a lasting solution for permanent peace in Iraq?

James A Gleeson
Thurles
Co Tipperary

Time to talk to agnostics, atheists, etc

Vincent Browne (Village 16 November) in his editorial, says, apropos of the recently announced church/state dialogue proposals, “Let the dialogue begin.”
Unfortunately, because we live in a representative democracy here in Ireland, a problem has arisen straight away. Those who find it impossible to believe in a god based on the incredibility of the claims that form the bases of Christianity, Islam, Judaism and others are likely to feel, at best, unrepresented or, at worst, conspired against when the state gets its dialogue underway with the churches.

Further, it must be fairly obvious that religious motivations to behave in any manner at all are receding, not because religious adherence is falling – although it is – but because a great many of those who profess to believe have moved away from the historical and from the real understanding of what religion means. These people merely go through the motions for social, cultural and even superstitious reasons. The fact that representatives of the ‘mainstream' religions have apparently agreed to attend the plenary meetings related to the proposed dialogue indicates a major compromise on their part because their defining books make it very clear that their philosophies, such as they are, are totally incompatible with one another.

News stories might indicate a collapse of values of decency in society. If one examines history, it will be easy to demonstrate that this not so. The great majority of people are more likely to behave well towards one another than otherwise. That is their natural propensity.

Atheists, sceptics, agnostics and humanists are taxpaying citizens. In particular, many have a strong interest in ethics – as opposed to the inflexible defence of a particular moral code, often imperfectly understood by its defenders – and their views deserve to be taken into account. The government should make a serious effort to involve them.

Another option, of course, might be to scrap the whole idea and let all interests be represented in the way they have been, at least in recent times – by means of the democratic process.

Seamus McKenna
Dundrum, Dublin 14

Join the Shell protests in your area

We would like to point out the importance of campaigning on issues that are not just in one's own county. The Wicklow People Before Profit Alliance is in its fifth consecutive week of protesting at the Shell garage, Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow as part of the wider Shell to Sea campaign at Rossport. The protest takes place every Sunday at 12pm and has been growing each week.

The Bray Anti-War Group and local Socialist Workers' Party are also campaigning with the People Before Profit Alliance on this issue. Proposed construction of this pipleline will use previously untried methods to stabilise the bog surface which will involve massive amounts of traffic. There was uproar from Wicklow residents last week due to the massive delays on the N11/M50 of up to seven hours – now it's time for those residents to put themselves in the shoes of the people of Rossport. I urge them to continue to join with us in this campaign opposing Shell.

Carmel Mckenna
Wicklow People Before Profit Alliance
carmel@people-before-profit.org
Stoking up incitement to violence

On Tuesday 14 November, the Irish Independent columnist Kevin Myers wrote an article that advocated violence against protestors. In the course of his column, he stated that “he wished for more... broken heads”.

Most disturbingly, he singled out a local school teacher, Maura Harrington, and called on gardaí to crack her skull. The article specifically urged gardaí to make “bloody sure that the treatment she received at the local hospital was both protracted and thoroughly merited”. He referred to Maura Harrington's “cranial tissue” and wished that the local hospital got an “opportunity to practice their seamstress skills” on that tissue.

We find this type of journalism deeply offensive for a number of reasons.

People have every right to protest and whatever discussion there may about the limits to that right, they surely do not include gratuitous recommendations to break people's skulls.
There is a legal process in place for dealing with any complaints against protestors or gardaí and this should not be replaced by an advocacy of brain injury as a form of punishment.
There is also something singularly distasteful in a journalist stoking up an incitement to violence from his rather comfortable desk in the Irish Independent. Advocating more violence at Ballinaboy serves neither the Garda nor the protestors.

Kevin Myers' article falls well below the standards of Irish journalism.

Kieran Allen, John Baker, Noreen Barron, Angela Bourke, Catherine Conlon, Dervila Cooke, Thomond Coogan, Roland Erne, Mary Kelly, Patricia Kennedy, Kathleen Lynch, Mary McCann, Stephen Mennell, Patricia Moloney, Miriam Murphy, Valerie O'Brien, Jeanne Riou, Andrew Smith, Ailbhe Smyth, Jennifer Todd, Theresa Urbainczyk
University College Dublin
Withdrawal won't make things worse

Wasn't it kind and thoughtful of George Bush to intervene and spare one turkey from the Thanksgiving dinner! However, such kindness and thoughtfulness was not on the mindset when the US illegally invaded Iraq.

Since then, up to 4,000 Iraqis have been killed each month; up to 100,000 people leave the country each month; up to 655,000 people have been killed since March 2003; and up to 400,000 soldiers land at Shannon each year.

It is totally illogical for Blair and Bush to say that things will only get worse if they leave Iraq – Operation Enduring Freedom rings such a cruel and sad note, especially at this time of the holy and peaceful season.

Peter Kennedy
Sutton
Dublin 13
Message sent to media manipulators

The debate on the hows and whys of awarding a major and lucrative government telecoms licence will continue for some time to come, but that does not allow the newspaper barons or sirs, either in this state or controlled externally, to make unsubstantiated accusations towards an individual, wealthy or otherwise. We the citizens, through our jury system, have just sent a message to these media manipulators!

Keith Nolan
Carrick-on-Shannon
Co Leitrim
New inquiry needed into Stardust 

I support the demands of the Stardust relatives for a new and proper enquiry into the Stardust tragedy. I believe they are right to stage daily protests outside the Dáil until their demands are met.

What has Taoiseach Bertie Ahern got to hide? Why is Bertie stonewalling on the Stardust relatives' demands for a fresh enquiry? There are many questions that the original tribunal didn't answer. For example, what about the reports that residents living near the Stardust saw flames on the roof of the disco 15 minutes before the fire was reported? Hardly sounds like arson. A fire in the roof would point to an electrical fault which many people have long suspected was the real cause of the fire.

Therefore, the original tribunal's findings are unacceptable to many people.

Paul Kinsella
Santry, Dublin 9

STATEMENT: Mail on Sunday claims of violence were ‘ridiculous'

The participants in the Rossport Solidarity Camp wish to challenge the articles appearing in the Irish Mail on Sunday on 26 November. As well as being riddled with misquotes and factual inaccuracies, the articles seriously misrepresent the nature of the Shell to Sea campaign and the Rossport Solidarity Camp.

The author attempts to portray a divergence between the Erris campaigners and those from other parts of the country. He infers that participants in the camp and members of the Dublin Shell to Sea branch are promoting the use of violent tactics and draws unfounded comparisons with the tactics of animal-rights campaigners and paramilitaries.

There is a total misrepresentation of the term “direct action”. Anyone who has ever participated in a strike, walk-out or sit-down protest has been involved in direct action. The Rossport Solidarity Camp advocates the use of non-violent direct action, such as was employed by the civil rights movement in Ireland in the 1960s. The Dunnes Stores workers who opposed cooperation with the apartheid-era regime in South Africa are now widely applauded for their tactics which constituted a form of non-violent direct action.

The Rossport Solidarity Camp has worked hand-in-hand with the local community since its inception. The national network of Shell to Sea groups seeks to support the Erris people in protecting themselves and their area and no conflict exists between regional groups.

The camp is open to all those who support the aims of Shell to Sea and it is ridiculous to imply that it is a clandestine organisation plotting violence. This is amply demonstrated by the fact that an “undercover” journalist can easily walk on to the camp and participate in it; the same goes for the weekly meeting of Erris Shell to Sea.

The Rossport Solidarity Camp

Importing dual-use items in Iraq

In his interview with the former head of the Oil-for-Food Programme, Hans
von Sponeck, Colin Murphy mentions dual-use items that the abominable
dictator Saddam Hussein attempted to import to Iraq.

Chlorine is a hazardous gas whose potential as a chemical weapon was enjoyed
by both the Germans and British against their respective enemies during the
First World War. Chlorine used in swimming pools stings the eyes and, after
repeated long exposure, turns blond hair green.

Even when used to purify water, chlorine is a dual-use item, as the pure
water may be drunk by a nuclear physicist who is keeping blueprints for a
nuclear bomb buried in his back garden.

Mind you, chlorine was not the only dual-use item that the Iraqis attempted
to import under the humanitarian programme. The Colorado Campaign for Middle
East Peace has published five spreadsheets that list dual-use items whose
import the American and British representatives in the Security Council
diligently obstructed. These spreadsheets can be read on-line at
http://www.ccmep.org/list.html or downloaded and searched in Excel.

For some items, it is easy to see how they could be used in Saddam's weapons
programmes:

Educational materials and equipment from Italy could have been used to teach
Iraqi children how to make chemical and biological weapons. Inks and solvent
for inks could have been used to draw secret blueprints and to delete them
again afterwards. Telecommunications equipment could have been used to warn
the foreman at the botulism factory that the weapons inspectors were on
their way. And a bulldozer from China could have been used to bury mobile
laboratories so that the weapons inspectors would never find them.

Other items give pause for thought:

Perhaps we might imagine that garbage trucks from the Russian Federation
could have delivered typhoid-bearing refuse from Iraqi households and
hospitals to cities in Europe? And perhaps an Egyptian cesspool emptier
tanker could have delivered cholera-rich sewage from Baghdad to London,
Frankfurt or Barcelona?

I suppose flour mills from Switzerland, instant dry baking yeast from Turkey
and spare parts for bakeries from Germany could have been used to make
enormous quantities of leavened bread with which to attack Israel during
Passover, thus serving as weapons of mass desecration.

Finally, anybody who has seen a defector from Saddam's biological weapons
programme being stoned to death with dried cuts of Iraqi goat's cheese will
understand why it was necessary to obstruct the import of Italian
cheese-processing equipment.

Coilín Ó hAiseadha
Máigh Nuad
Co Cill Dara