Row at Trimble rights outburst

by Rooster Mon Jul 19, 2004 02:32

I'm guessing by the recent election results that daves attempt to bolster his unionist credentials have failed, good riddance to the appeaser!

by Desmond Fennell Thu Feb 19, 2004 06:57

He's making a fortune out of gullible students. If everything Chalmers says is so blindingly obviously true then ask yourself, why are there not millions of people marching on the streets every day to change the "evil Amerikkkan empire"??

Because, my young friends, those who are a little older and wiser than you can see that Chalmers and his ilk are cranks, they've lost contact with reality long ago and for that reason they're just not convincing.

All you yonug 'uns who read this will probably grow up to be fine pillars of the community. Betcha think it'll never happen to you, eh??

I certainly have no fears about "adapting to the world". We are receiving great news form the Netherlands these days. They've had enough of the liberal revolution. Yesterday they voted to deport 26,000 immigrants. They're cracking down on drugs and the sex trade too. Dutch people have had enough of "progressive" ideas, they're turning back to the good old fashiond conservative ideas which are the only way to a decent safe society. In a similar way, the American President is hugely popular with his robust foreign policy and his uncompromising stand on moral issues.

It's you, my young friends, who may find it difficult to adapt to the new conservative, family orientated world.

I'm of to work now, early to bed, early to rise....

by Dr. Strangelove Wed Feb 18, 2004 09:46

So Chalmers Johnson is also too young to understand HIS (USA) history ? Give me a break you ignorant asshole and check out the facts - he served in his country's armed forces during the height of the Cold War. Maybe the word Korea means something to you ?

And what did you do during the Cold War to defend South County Dublin from the evil Bolsheviks ? I hope that you didn't go AWOL like your hero George W. Bush. But we all know that bankers, smug parasites that they are, are great fellows for financing wars and sending young fellows out to die for a few shekels of profit for themselves ..... what was it Rothschild said about buying when the cannons roar and selling when the trumpets sound the ceasefire ....? Wars have always been a profitable business for the usurocracy and its apparatchiks (that's you BTW) ......

Desmond let's face the facts you're a patronising old stick-in the mud ideologically fixiated dinosaur whose Weltanschauung was formed during another era. You can't adapt to the modern world and are therefore threatened with extinction.

Chalmers Johnson's Blowback went through eight printings in a month after 11 Sept.

There's a hell of a lot of cranks out there Desmond .... better be careful ... some of them may even have crept into the leafy suburbs of South County Dublin ....

Let's face it you were never interested in debate. You glibly dismiss a learned scholar and critic of US foreign policy like Chalmers Johnson as a "crank" without even supporting this with anything more than empty sloganising (a tactic which is uncannily close to that of the bolsheviks - careful they don't sue you for infringement of intellectual property rights)

You didn't want debate you just wanted us all to obediently chant M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E and now you're disappointed when we don't ........

by Brutus Wed Feb 18, 2004 04:32

Yes, Desmond, here's a good link. Always good for a reasoned debate:
http://www.indymedia.ie/index.php
...though you may not last the pace, Desmond.

by Desmond Fennell Wed Feb 18, 2004 02:06

They're all a bunch of cranks.

If the US administration is so repressive, how come Bush is still hugely popular in America and among Europeans? You people here at Indymedia don't understand that people are grateful to America for delivering us from the Nazis and bringing us through the horror of the Cold War.

You're all too young to understand your history so I'm not going to waste my time any further. I'll have to find a forum where there's some grownups. Got any good links?

by Dr. Strangelove Tue Feb 17, 2004 23:29

Study them well Desmond ... and you might learn something ...

*********************************************

"The sorrows of empire are the inescapable consequences of the national policies American elites chose after September 11, 2001. Militarism and imperialism always bring with them sorrows. The ubiquitous symbol of the Christian religion, the cross, is perhaps the world's most famous reminder of the sorrows that accompanied the Roman Empire--it represents the most atrocious death the Roman proconsuls could devise in order to keep subordinate peoples in line. From Cato to Cicero, the slogan of Roman leaders was "Let them hate us so long as they fear us."

Four sorrows, it seems to me, are certain to be visited on the United States. Their cumulative effect guarantees that the U.S. will cease to resemble the country outlined in the Constitution of 1787. First, there will be a state of perpetual war, leading to more terrorism against Americans wherever they may be and a spreading reliance on nuclear weapons among smaller nations as they try to ward off the imperial juggernaut. Second is a loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co-equal "executive branch" of government into a military junta. Third is the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military legions. Lastly, there is bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchanges the education, health, and safety of its citizens. All I have space for here is to touch briefly on three of these: endless war, the loss of Constitutional liberties, and financial ruin.

[...]

A year and a half after September 11, 2001, at least two articles of the Bill of Rights were dead letters--the fourth prohibiting unwarranted searches and seizures and the sixth guaranteeing a jury of peers, the assistance of an attorney in offering a defense, the right to confront one's accusers, protection against self-incrimination, and, most critically, the requirement that the government spell out its charges and make them public. The second half of Thomas Jefferson's old warning--"When the government fears the people, there is liberty; when the people fear the government, there is tyranny"--clearly applies.

The final sorrow of empire is financial ruin. It is different from the other three in that bankruptcy may not be as fatal to the American Constitution as endless war, loss of liberty, and habitual official lying; but it is the only sorrow that will certainly lead to a crisis. The U.S. proved to be ready militarily for an Iraq war, maybe even a North Korea war, and perhaps an Iran war, but it is unprepared economically for even one of them, much less all three in short succession.

[...]

John le Carré, the novelist most famous for his books on the role of intelligence services in the cold war, writes, "America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War."15 His view is somewhat more optimistic than mine. If it is just a period of madness, like musth in elephants, we might get over it. The U.S. still has a strong civil society that could, at least in theory, overcome the entrenched interests of the armed forces and the military-industrial complex. I fear, however, that the U.S. has indeed crossed the Rubicon and that there is no way to restore Constitutional government short of a revolutionary rehabilitation of American democracy. Without root and branch reform, Nemesis awaits. She is the goddess of revenge, the punisher of pride and arrogance, and the United States is on course for a rendezvous with her."

by Dr. Strangelove Tue Feb 17, 2004 23:16

A serious debate Desmond ? Let me stifle my sniggers for a moment.

You have the cheek to admonish others for the alleged lack of clarity in their thinking.
Where in all your utterances here is the slighest evidence of any attempt at independent critical thought in your part ?

All you're capable of yourself is coming on here and mouthing slogans like "The US is our security and safety for at least another 300 years. God bless America."

I told you, you need to confront the REALITY of modern Imperial America and not wallow in your South County Dublin illusions ...

Personally, I trust Chalmers Johnson more than you. After all he is a REAL AMERICAN, a former US navy officer who voted for Ronald Reagan (!) and not some South Count Dublin wannabe who parrots slogans .....


**********************************************
What does the future hold for the United States if U.S. officials continue on this path?

The United States is embarked on a path not so dissimilar from that of the former Soviet Union a little more than a decade ago. The Soviet Union collapsed for three reasons -- internal economic contradictions, imperial overstretch, and an inability to reform. In every sense, we are by far the wealthier of the two Cold War superpowers, so it will certainly take longer for similar afflictions to do their work. But the equivalent of the economic sclerosis of the former USSR is to be found in our corrupt corporations, the regular looting by insiders of workers' pension funds, the revelations that not a single financial institution on Wall Street can be trusted, and the massive drain of manufacturing jobs to other countries. Imperial overstretch is implicit in our empire of 725 military bases abroad, in addition to the 969 separate bases in the fifty states. Mikhail Gorbachev tried to reform the Soviet system before it collapsed but he was stopped by entrenched interests in the Cold War system. The United States is not even trying to reform, but it is certain that vested interests here would be as great or greater an obstacle. It is nowhere written that the United States, in its guise as an empire dominating the world, must go on forever. The blowback from the second half of the twentieth century has only just begun.

What hope is there for the international community?

The main prospect for the future of the world is that perpetual war waged by the United States against small countries it declares to be "rogue states" will lead to the slow growth of a coalition of enemies of the United States who will seek to weaken it and hasten its inevitable bankruptcy. This is the way the Roman Empire ended.

The chief problem is that the only way an adversary of the United States can even hope to balance or deter the enormous American concentration of military power is through what the Pentagon calls asymmetric warfare ("terrorism") and nuclear weapons. American belligerence has deeply undercut international efforts to control the nuclear weapons that already exist and has rendered the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty more or less moot (the U.S., in particular, has failed to take any actions it contracted to do under article 6, the reduction of stockpiles by the nuclear armed nations).

The only hope for the planet is the isolation and neutralization of the United States by the international community. Policies to do so are underway in every democratic country on earth in quiet, unobtrusive ways. If the United States is not checkmated and nuclear war ensues, civilization as we know it will disappear and the United States will go into the history books along with the Huns and the Nazis as a scourge of human life itself.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=4793

Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, is a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times and The Nation. His previous books include MITI and the Japanese Miracle.
http://www.americanempireproject.com/johnson/index.asp

by Desmond Fennell Tue Feb 17, 2004 22:52

It's obvious I'm talking to some of the UCD militant Fraggles. Never mind, I wanted a serious debate but all I got was the usual undergraduate foolishness.

You kids need to get laid, seriously.

by Mark Mon Feb 16, 2004 03:56

Only 300 years then? I thought your 'Reich' was meant to last a thousand years!
I see you are on your own tonight Desmond. I wonder what happened to your alter ego.

by Desmond Fennell Mon Feb 16, 2004 02:48

But then I've come to expect that from looking at all the foolishness I see here.

You are all young and in need of something to rail against - I've got to say that the criticism of the US is really clutching at straws.

The pre-eminence of the US is the one good thing to come from the 20C. The US is our security and safety for at least another 300 years. God bless America.

* Just to clear up one point, the United States GIVES AWAY billions of dollars to poorer countries every year.

by Julius Caesar Sun Feb 15, 2004 04:53

"it gives billions of dollars in aid to poorer countries every year"
Wow! Out of the goodness of its heart! and all for nothing in return!
B.S. The 'West' in general, and the USA in particular are giving loans and then expecting the poorer countries to repay these loans at unfair interest rates.

(and if you are Desmond Fennell then I'm Julius Caesar)

by R Isible Sun Feb 15, 2004 04:30

if Desmond Fennell is to be taken seriously. Therefore we can ascribe both the good and the bad to the USA.

So, the USA has created (according to the Grand Unified Fennell Hypothesis) more democracies (any actual statistics for that bud?), and also more slavery.....yes, that's right there are more slaves now than there were at the start of C20. (As a _proportion_ of population the proportion has declined, but in absolute numbers there are more).

So, there ya go Dessie, USA creates slavery. Go USA. Go!
(B.t.w. did you hear what Mexican soccer fans think about the USA? During their recent 4-0 trouncing of the USA they chanted "Osama, O-SAAAMMMAA!"

Doesn't sound like they're fans of the USA does it?

by Desmond Fennell Sun Feb 15, 2004 03:03

I thank God I am lucky to live in a time whem this is so..

In the long run history is progressive. as we have seen in the 20C with the defeat of the evil Soviet empire.

The United States has done more for the cause of human rights and human diginity than any other civilisation in the history of the world. It faced down the evil of communism, it rescued Europe from the Nazis, it gives billions of dollars in aid to poorer countries every year. It dealt with the threat from Saddam Hussein and the Middle East can now look forward to a safer, more prosperous future.
And before you start whinging: "but the US put Saddam there in the first place" (as if that was justification for letting him continue killing his fellow countrymen) I have to remind you kiddies that the Cold War was about preventing the extinction of all human life!!! Saddam was a pawn in that struggle against the Soviert imperialist mass murderers.
_______

Like everything, money has it's price. It is the banking system which enables thousands of small businessmen in Ireland to realise their dream of working for themselves and making a product they care about. A bank invests in people, enabling to do things that would otherwise be impossible. I get great job satisfaction from knowing that I am giving bright young people the means to make their dreams come true.

by Dr. Strangelove Sat Feb 14, 2004 23:59

Desmond you need a good dose of reality therapy.

My recommendation for you: "The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic."

[QUOTE]
In it, Johnson argues that Okinawa is not unique – that the United States, with more than 700 bases spread around the world, is "a military juggernaut intent on world domination."

That's not the way Americans like to see themselves, of course. We often equate "empire" with the Romans, the Nazis, and imperial Japan. Our leaders prefer to call their military forays "humanitarian intervention" and say our troops stationed in other parts of the world are a necessary counterbalance to threats like "the axis of evil."

Using a mountain of facts – the footnotes alone run more than 50 pages – Johnson traces the growth of the military from one George (Washington) to another (Bush), and explains how secrecy has enabled the Pentagon to undermine the public scrutiny and financial accountability the founding fathers built into the Constitution.

"I fear that we will lose our country," he writes in the opening chapter, and in the last one details the "four sorrows" he sees as inevitable: a state of perpetual war; the destruction of democracy; a system of propaganda and disinformation; and bankruptcy.

[END QUOTE]

by Dr. Strangelove Sat Feb 14, 2004 12:59

Aye indeed Desmond old fruit.

But neither was the US "set up" to police the world.

As that cunning old devil John Quincy Adams observed as far back as 1821 in respect of US foreign policy, America "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. ... She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit...."

And some of us would say that we have lived to see that day .....

In our lifetime the US has indeed become "the dictatress of the world" ........

But why do I waste my breath on a lackey of the usurocracy. You prattle on about "freedom" and "liberty" but all your masters the money-lenders have to offer the people is a lifetime of debt-slavery just to have a roof over their heads .....

AND THAT IS A POINT ON WHICH YOU REMAIN STRANGELY SILENT.

by Desmond Fennell Sat Feb 14, 2004 04:13

Bush has the moral high ground here. He wnet ahead and enforced the "serious consequences" which should have been enforced if the UN was to be taken serioulsy.

I might remind you that the UN was not set up to police the United States but to prevent fascist dictators from threatening other countries. The people of the US have done moe for freedom and human rights in the world than any other country.

The Nicaraguan operation was a step towards eliminating Communism so I'm pretty happy with what they did. The Security Council is a joke, frankly, it was set up during the Cold War to prevent WW3 and needs a complete overhaul.

You're not happy about your commie friends in Nicaragua but that's just too bad, you just picked the wrong side.

by Sean Doyle Sat Feb 14, 2004 03:24

"What is the point in a UN if its rulings are ignored?"
Indeed! The USA itself ignores the UN and the World Court when it suits. They mined and then continued to mine the ports of Nicaragua despite a ruling that they should stop doing so.

All criticism of US foreign policy is "anti-American" according to you, Desmond. The reality is that more and more of the US public are beginning to see through Bush and his cronies.

by Desmond Fennell Sat Feb 14, 2004 03:00

If that attitude had prevailed Europe would be in a sorry mess by now.

It was right to stand up to Hitler and it was right to stand up to Hussein. What is the point in a UN if its rulings are ignored?

Thankfully we had a strong, resolute American President who put an end to the hypocrisy of punishing the ordinary Iraqi people for the crimes of their leader.

Bush-Cheney, another four years!!!!

by Dr. Strangelove Fri Feb 13, 2004 21:50

You poor deluded dupe and lackey of the global usurocracy, you would have done better to study Lindbergh, a true American patriot ...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lindbergh/filmmore/reference/primary/desmoinesspeech.html

But I shall no more disturb your sweet dreams, beaver on there and serve well your masters the money-lenders .....

by Desmond Fennell Thu Feb 12, 2004 08:56

I feel it's important to get the message out there. There's far too much rabid anti-Americanism in the European press. The ovine herbivores in the BBC are a clear example of blatant bias. The hopeof BBC journalists that Iraq sinks into a quagmire is palpable in every dispatch from Baghdad. However, the Iraqi people are far too intelligent to allow that to happen. After all, they were intelligent enough to consistently give their approval for the removal of Saddam and they're not going to throw away all of their hard won freedoms.

Let freedom ring from sea to shining sea!!!

Read it and weep, George Galloway.

by Dr. Strangelove Wed Feb 11, 2004 21:50

"Make no mistake about it, the freedom and safety we take for granted is in the greatest peril since 1939 and we must not foresake the United States in its brave stand against chaos and terror."

And might I add, in a small Rooseveltian flourish, that we have nothing to fear but fear itself ...

Well, if AIB ever turf you out, you can apply for a job as a speech-writer for the likes of Bertie & Co. ..... but that might be infra dig for a South County Dublinite ... imagine having to write speeches for a Northsider .... how dweadful ....

by Desmond Fennell Wed Feb 11, 2004 08:44

I'm not Durutti and I'm posting from South County Dublin.

I won't be looking at the board now for a few hours because I'm off to my job in AIB Bankcentre in Ballsbridge..

C YA L8TER

If the Revolution starts today you know where I am....

by Earth Citizen Wed Feb 11, 2004 03:46

"the best ally we have"
"we"?
"Desmond", you are in fact "Durutti", and you are posting from the USA, so where does the "we" come in?

by Desmond Fennell Wed Feb 11, 2004 02:18

I suppose you style yourself an anarchist or a syndicalist. I suppose you approve of the recent letterbomb campaign ? There's no votes in it but who needs democracy, eh?

Bakunin wrote that pure anarchy could not be achieved immediately and in order to safeguard the ideals of the revolution ther would need to be a small coterie of truested anarchists giving the orders. Sounds all too familiar to me.

I can assure you that the USA is the best ally we have in the world today against the forces of tyranny and disorder. Those who turn their backs on the United States turn their backs on civilisation and by their recalcitrant arrogance give succour to the dark forces ar work in the world.

Make no mistake about it, the freedom and safety we take for granted is in the greatest peril since 1939 and we must not foresake the United States in its brave stand against chaos and terror.

by Dr. Strangelove Tue Feb 10, 2004 21:44

You damnable South County Dublin cad.
I am no Marxist I 'll have you know ....

I abhor the Bolsheviks as much as you do.

But you yourself are in grave error in believing that the USA of today is the Republic of Jefferson or Lincoln.

However, I expect no better from the cocooned and mollycoddled bourgeoisie of South County Dublin. Critical analysis was never their strong point.

by Desmond Fennell Tue Feb 10, 2004 02:26

I happen to think Churchill was a disastrous war leader, from Gallipoli to Dunkirk. He was a drunken sot born in a palace. If it wasn't for the USA we would have endured decades of tyranny by now. You're proving nothing to me with this quote.

What you have proven to me however, is that you will stop at nothing - not even using Nazi propaganda- in your feeble attempts to discredit the United States of America, the leading nation of the free world.

You, Strangelove, and your ilk lost your battle in the 20th century. Your Marxist totalitarianism has been consigend to the dustbin of history where it belongs. This is the American century and I thank God for America.

by Dr. Strangelove Mon Feb 09, 2004 21:36

Desmond, my friend since you're such a nice reasonable SCD type of a fellow, I'll meet you halfway .....

How about some nice tasty Churchillian propaganda straight from the mouth of Sir Winston himself ?
Just what the Doktor ordered for his SCD patients .....

"In fifteen years that have followed this resolve, he has succeeded in restoring Germany to the most powerful position in Europe, and not only has he restored the position of his country, but he has even, to a very great extent, reversed the results of the Great War ... the vanquished are in process of becoming the victors and the victors the vanquished ... whatever else may be thought about these exploits they are certainly among the most remarkable in the whole history of the world.

"... and the achievement by which the tables have been turned upon the complacent, feckless and purblind victors deserves to be reckoned a prodigy in the history of the world and a prodigy which is inseparable from the personal exertions of life of a single man .... Those who have met Hitler face to face in public, business, or on social terms, have found a highly competent, cool, well-informed functionary with an agreeable manner, a discerning smile, and few have been unaffected by a subtle personal magnetism. Nor is this impression merely the dazzle of power. He exerted it on his companions at every stage in his struggle, even when his fortunes were in the lowest depths .... One may dislike Hitler’s system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated I hope we should find a champion as admirable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.

"There must not be lacking in our leadership something of that spirit of the Austrian corporal who, when all had fallen into ruins about him, and when Germany seemed to have fallen forever into chaos, did not hesitate to march forth against the vast array of victorious nations and has already turned the tables so decisively upon them."

by Desmond Fennell Sun Feb 08, 2004 23:26

If you have to resort to plying me with Nazi propaganda and defending of the Hitler regime then you really have gotten yourself in an ideological Gordian knot.

You're ridiculous. I suppose you think the conflagration of the Jews was "exaggerated"?

by Dr. Strangelove Sun Feb 08, 2004 20:57

What you mean is that I should learn to conform to the South County Dublin Weltanschauung, i.e. learn to see the world according to the received wisdom dispensed by the Anglo-American propaganda machine as regurgitated in SCD.

I'm not sure that I would call that "education".
In any case, way too late for that ... have long since broadened my world view far beyong the blinkered parochialism you advocate by moving to continental Europe ....

Perhaps one day you will learn that South County Dublin doesn't have a monopoly on interpretating world history (or rather parroting the Anglo-American interpretation given that South County Dublin merely mimics and imitates having no ability of its own for independent thought ....)

I'm a little bit surprised, you seem to have changed your tune a lot since your last book ......

by Desmond Fennell Sun Feb 08, 2004 19:59

Your ass is hanging out the window. You need to educate yourself.

by Dr. Strangelove Sun Feb 08, 2004 13:31

That the USA had already declared war on Japan on 8th Dec. 1941. Japan was an ally of Germany, therefore the Germans were simply complying with their obligations to support Japan.

by Dr. Strangelove Sun Feb 08, 2004 13:26

That Hitler never had any plans to invade the USA. He was more interested in establishing Germany as the dominant EUROPEAN power and having a go at the Russians.

The idea that the Nazis wanted to "conquer the world" is a British or Anglo-American myth, crafted ex post facto.

Certainly Hitler wanted Germany to be a "world player", *A* leading power but he was not so naive as certain US neo-cons who really do want the USA to be THE WORLD POWER.

However, I suspect that South County Dublin sees things differently ...

by Dr. Strangelove Sun Feb 08, 2004 13:17

Have you ever read the text of the war declaration ?

December 11, 1941

MR. CHARGE D'AFFAIRES:

The Government of the United States having violated in the most flagrant manner and in ever increasing measure all rules of neutrality in favor of the adversaries of Germany and having continually been guilty of the most severe provocations toward Germany ever since the outbreak of the European war, provoked by the British declaration of war against Germany on September 3, 1939, has finally resorted to open military acts of aggression.

On September 11, 1941, the President of the United States publicly declared that he had ordered the American Navy and Air Force to shoot on sight at any German war vessel. In his speech of October 27, 1941, he once more expressly affirmed that this order was in force. Acting under this order, vessels of the American Navy, since early September 1941, have systematically attacked German naval forces. Thus, American destroyers, as for instance the Greer, the Kearney and the Reuben James, have opened fire on German sub-marines according to plan. The Secretary of the American Navy, Mr. Knox, himself confirmed that-American destroyers attacked German submarines.

Furthermore, the naval forces of the United States, under order of their Government and contrary to international law have treated and seized German merchant vessels on the high seas as enemy ships.

The German Government therefore establishes the following facts:
Although Germany on her part has strictly adhered to the rules of international law in her relations with the United States during every period of the present war, the Government of the United States from initial violations of neutrality has finally proceeded to open acts of war against Germany. The Government of the United States has thereby virtually created a state of war.

The German Government, consequently, discontinues diplomatic relations with the United States of America and declares that under these circumstances brought about by President Roosevelt Germany too, as from today, considers herself as being in a state of war with the United States of America.

Accept, Mr. Charge d'Affaires, the expression of my high consideration.

December 11, 1941.

Ribbentrop

by Desmond Fennell Sun Feb 08, 2004 04:02

The US feared the Nazi's were close to perfecting the atomic bomb, much of their own work on the bomb was done by German scientists who fled Germany.

Their obvious prowess in ballistic missiles (the V2 left the atmosphere) was also rather scary for the Americians.

by Dr. Strangelove Sun Feb 08, 2004 03:28

And how pray tell did Hitler's Germany present a greater threat to the USA than Stalin's USSR ?

I never heard that Hitler had any intentions to attack the USA.

by Desmond Fennell Sun Feb 08, 2004 03:17

You can't resist an ad hominem.

RRegarding WW2, are you so naive as to expect that the US would take on Japan, Germany and Russia all at the same time??

Do you expect the US to behave unlike any other country in the world and throw itself away on a war against all?
You're showing incredible naivety if you expected the US to do that.

The Allies used Stalin to defeat an even greater menace. It was only in the 50's and 60's, when USSR perfected the atomic bomb that they became an international threat.

Stalin exceeded the terms of the Yalta agreement and seized Czechoslovakia and Hungary. It began a long campaing of Soviet interference in other nations and the US retaliated in kind.

by George Kennan Sun Feb 08, 2004 02:59

Document PPS23, 24th February 1948

Written by George Kennan
Former Head of the US State Department Policy Planning Staff

Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment.
Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.
To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.

[...]

In the face of this situation we would be better off to dispense now with a number of the concepts which have underlined our thinking with regard to the Far East. We should dispense with the aspiration to "be liked" or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brothers' keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague and--for the Far East--unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.

We should recognize that our influence in the Far Eastern area in the coming period is going to be primarily military and economic.
We should make a careful study to see what parts of the Pacific and Far Eastern world are absolutely vital to our security, and we should concentrate our policy on seeing to it that those areas remain in hands which we can control or rely on.

by Dr. Strangelove Sun Feb 08, 2004 02:49

"In every conflict since WW2 until the fall of the Berlin Wall the US has only acted in the interests of defeating communism in order to make the world a free and safe place."

The US allowed Communism to become the menace it did by its act of entering WWII on the side of Joe Stalin.
The Russians didn't "seize Eastern Europe after WWII", Churchill and Roosevelt (later Truman) handed it to them at Yalta as a reward for assisting them in defeating Hitler.

George Patton wanted to march all the way to Berlin and then to Moscow but his political masters put him on a tight leash.

Your parochial anglophile South County Dublin Weltanschauung won't let you see beyond the official Churchillian BBC view of world history.
You should remove your own blinkers some time my friend.

by Desmond Fennell Sun Feb 08, 2004 02:08

The Soviet Union began the Cold War by seizing Eastern Europe after WW2. The US rebuilt Europe and created a free and democratic Germany. The USSR's puppet state the GDR, on the other hand, had to build a WALL to keep it's citizens in and shor dead anyone who had the teremity to leave their communist paradise.

The United States would never have had to kill anybody if it wasn't for the Soviet aggression. Do you expect that the US should behave like no other country in the history of the world and refuse to defend itself?

Come on, why don't you stop reading the ridiculous propaganda rags like Socialist Worker and read a fair and balanced view of history.

In every conflict since WW2 until the fall of the Berlin Wall the US has only acted in the interests of defeating communism in order to make the world a free and safe place.

Don't believe me? Go to the library and read up on your history.

by Dopey Sun Feb 08, 2004 00:16

Desmond I haven't had such a good laugh in a long time:
"The Soviet regime could only get what it wanted through threats and muder of it's citizens. It is our democracy, the accountability of our leaders which makes us strong."

Well sometimes it seems that the USA regime can only get what it wants through threats and murder of OTHER COUNTRIES' citizens.
OK, they also make pretty good use of bribery as well.

As for "our" democracy, the accountability of our leaders which makes us strong, is little Ireland supposed to be included in that ?
Irish political leaders "accountable" ? To whom pray tell ?
Would you say that CJH who was Taoiseach on a few occasions during the Cold War era was an "accountable" leader ?

Desmond, all I can say is that living in South County Dublin must affect the old brain cells in funny ways.

And while you're busy lecturing the youth of Ireland about the freedom which they undeservedly enjoy, just remember for those not fortunate enough to live in South County Dublin with wealthy parents the only "freedom" they are likely to enjoy is enslaving themselves for the next thirty of forty years to the pan-Irish banking cartel with a huge mortgage for an overpriced piece of jerry-built real estate - courtesy of our wonderful accountable democratic system.

Dream on you silly old fool - nobody is listening to you.

by Cold Warrior Sat Feb 07, 2004 23:42

Ahem .. as far as I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis was dealt with by JFK ...

But Desmond you're avoiding the question ...
What did YOU do in the great struggle against the evil Red Pest ?

by Desmond Fennell Sat Feb 07, 2004 23:35

What the hell do you think the Russians were doing installing missile bases 90 miles from American soil?

It was real, and we came close to Armageddon many times. Thanks to the firm policies of Ronald Reagan the threat of communism was finally defeated.

Marxism is now in the dustbin of history, where it belongs.

by Cold Warrior Sat Feb 07, 2004 23:27

The Cold War ... eh ... yes I seem to remember it too ... it was a bit like the prequel to the War Against Terrorism ... all those goddam commies with their WMDs pointed against Washington DC .... and then they just vanished into thin air and all became good greedy profit-seeking capitalists .... some of them even dabbling in a bit of plutonium trading with a some rather dubious towel-heads .....

So Uncle Desmond ... um .. what exactly was your contribution to this great world-historical struggle against communism ?
Were you out in the jungles of Viet Nam fighting the Red Pest ?

And if not, why not ?

I hope that you weren't shirking your duty ......

by Desmond Fennell Sat Feb 07, 2004 21:50

Do you think the Cold War was simply a matter of diplomatic frostiness?

I lived through it, it was an all-out war using proxy nations. We lived under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation, minute by minute. One false alarm and it could have been the end of mankind.

You're all obviously too young to remeber that. It was worth using a few paramilatary gangs who happened to fund part of their activites through drugs in order to beat communism. And hey, It worked!!

Good always triumps in the end. The west won ecause we had liberties worth fighting for. The Soviet regime could only get what it wanted through threats and muder of it's citizens. It is our democracy, the accountability of our leaders which makes us strong.

If the US was as corrupt as you imagine, why are they going through the pain of an inquiry into Iraqi intelligence?? Did you ever stop to think about that? Bush could lose the election on this issue (hopefully not). Wouldn't it be so much easier for the EVIL Amerikkka to plant WMDs?

But they didn't.

You kids need to educate yourselves.

by Curious Sat Feb 07, 2004 10:50

So why did the USA forge an alliance with Stalin and cede half of Europe to his control ?

by Dopey Sat Feb 07, 2004 10:27

By the way Desmond while we're at it you might like to read what that nice Mr. Geoff Metcalf, former Green Beret and retired Army officer, says about operation Mockingbird:

"Operation ‘Mockingbird’ was a program supposedly conceived by a brilliant Machiavellian State Department official, Frank Wisner. Wisner selected Philip Graham, then publisher of the Washington Post to manage the program. According to Deborah Davis, author of ‘Katharine the Great’, "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles, plus stringers, four to six hundred in all, according to a former CIA analyst."

Over twenty five major newspapers and wire services became willing house organs for the CIA media manipulation.

[...]

Investigators digging into MOCKINGBIRD have been flabbergasted to discover FOIA documents in which agents boast (in CIA office memos) of pride in having placed "important assets" inside every major news publication in the country.
I know, this is the stuff of Ludlum novels conspiracy wackos, but not until 1982 did the ‘Company’ finally concede that reporters on the CIA payroll have been case officers to field agents."


Curious how the mainstream media is so silent about the CIA's black ops isn't it ......

Who would ever have thought they would be so negligent .....

WAKE UP DESMOND !!!

by Dopey Sat Feb 07, 2004 10:15

Desmond old chap maybe the Italian sun has gone to your head ....

I don't think that anyone has ever claimed that the CIA's articles of association envisage it as a drug-trafficking organisation.
Drug-trafficking is clearly not its sole raison d'etre merely one position in a diversified portfolio.

Now what even a CIA apologist like you is prepared to admit is that its black ops often involve "cooperation" with drug traffickers and there is no official requirement to provide reports on such activities to any monitoring organs ......

Hence in regard to such "alliances" the CIA becomes fundamentally unaccountable ........
Got that ? UNACCOUNTABLE
Under these circumstances it becomes very difficult to draw any firm conclusions about what exactly this "cooperation" entails or how far it goes ...

As far as Gary Webb is concerned, the USA DOJ came to the following conclusion:
"We found that the allegations contained in the original Mercury News articles were exaggerations of the actual facts."

Got that ? EXAGGERATIONS.
They did not say that the articles were "completely unfounded" but that they contained EXAGGERATIONS OF THE ACTUAL FACTS ........

Peter Kornbluh senior analyst at the National Security Archive writing about the Dark Alliance affair in the Columbia Journalism Review states:
"To be sure, the "Dark Alliance" series was an overwritten and problematically sourced piece of reporting. It repeatedly promised evidence that, on close reading, it did not deliver. In so doing, the Mercury News bears part of the responsibility for the sometimes distorted public furor the stories generated. (A thorough editing job might have spared the Mercury News such responsibility and still resulted in a major expose.)
....
Yet the Mercury News was singlehandedly responsible for stimulating this debate. This regional paper accomplished something that neither the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, nor The New York Times had been willing or able to do -- revisit a significant story that had been inexplicably abandoned by the mainstream press, report a new dimension to it, and thus put it back on the national agenda where it belongs. "We have advanced a ten-year story that is clearly of great interest to the American public," Ceppos could rightfully claim.

The unacknowledged negligence of the mainstream press made that possible. Indeed, if the major media had devoted the same energy and ink to investigating the contra drug scandal in the 1980s as they did to attacking the Mercury News in 1996, Gary Webb might never have had his scoop."

Got that ? OVERWRITTEN and PROBLEMATICALLY SOURCED
but nevertheless relating to "a significant story that had been inexplicably abandoned by the mainstream press".

Oh and by the way just so you didn't miss it while you blinked:
"the unacknowledged negligence of the mainstream press "

by Desmond Fennell Sat Feb 07, 2004 04:20

Same old rubbish from you people. I think the Kerry Commission sums up the whole story best.

Like I said way, way up above, it's like if the CIA used the IRA or the UDA to further it's aims in this part of the world, would you then say that the CIA was "involved" in the drugs trade?

The phrase "involved in the drugs trade" implies that the CIA was actively selling drugs for profit, that drugs were a fundamental part of it's raison d'etre. None of any of the links you have provided me show even the slightest evidence of this.


At best, what you have is a situation where the CIA is using organisations in it's war on communism which happen to be partly funded by drugs.

Well, boys and girls, the war on communism was a real war in every sense and sometimes you don't get to choose who your allies are, sometimes to you have to make compromises for the sake of a greater goal and the defeat of communism was the number one priority in the 20th century.

The next time you kids decide to slander the CIA just remember that if the Soviets had succeeded in enslaving the west none of you kids would have had the freedom you so undeservedly enjoy today.

by Dopey Fri Feb 06, 2004 21:49

Desmond how about a nice homely news site like:
http://www.newsmax.com/

Or a nice sensible down-to-earth guy like Geoff Metcalf ?
http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/

Let me know if these would meet your standards ....

I can't be sure you're such an awkward nitpicker .....

by Dopey Fri Feb 06, 2004 21:37

Desmond would you trust the Columbia Journalism Review ?

http://archives.cjr.org/whoweare/

by Dopey Fri Feb 06, 2004 21:24

Desmond

I think I finally found it .......

Ever heard of FRONTLINE ?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/us/

Since January 1983, FRONTLINE has served as American public television's - PBS - flagship public affairs series. Hailed upon its television broadcast debut as "the last best hope for broadcast documentaries," FRONTLINE's stature over 20 seasons is reaffirmed each week through incisive documentaries covering the scope and complexity of the human experience.

Is that mainstream enough for ya ?

by Dopey Fri Feb 06, 2004 21:04

By the way Desmond Langley is the area of McLean, Virginia where the Central Intelligence Agency's headquarters are located ...

Shame on you for not knowing that ... I mean you are otherwise so well informed about the CIA being 150% certain that they are NOT involved in the drugs game ......

**********************************************

"During the War of 1812, President James Madison and his wife Dolley fled the British siege of Washington to the safety of family and friends in Langley. Langley was a Union stronghold in Virginia, a southern state, during the Civil War and had two forts, Camp Griffin and Camp Pierpont, which housed soldiers who helped protect Washington.

With the building of the Great Falls & Old Dominion Railroad, 1903 was a defining year for Langley. John McLean, president of Washington Gas Light Company and, later, editor of the Washington Post, and Senator Stephen B. Elkins of West Virginia collaborated on construction of a railroad which would bring vacationing Washingtonians to nearby Great Falls and provide people who worked in Washington the choice of living outside of the city. In 1906, the railroad began operating, and the population of Langley and nearby Lewinsville quickly grew. In 1910, the post offices of these towns closed and, named for the man who helped the area grow, a new post office named "McLean" was opened. In 1959, the Federal government broke ground for the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters. Construction was completed in 1961, adding another chapter to McLean's long history.

Despite the name change in 1910, the name "Langley" still lingers to describe the McLean neighborhood where the CIA is located. "

by Dopey Fri Feb 06, 2004 20:54

OK let me continue where I left off.

Let's assume - which seems to be on the Congressional record - that the CIA doesn't need to report the drug dealings of its paid and unpaid assets .....

Now if I actually want to "prove" to your strict standards of evidence that the CIA is mixed up in drug-dealing and money laundering, then I'm going to have a pretty hard time locating "hard evidence" ..........

And since the mainstream corporate mass media is more or less an elongated arm of the military-industrial complex and largely in the business of dumbing-down the citizenry rather than alerting them to abuses of power and corruption in high places, it's hardly likely to be going out of its way to cover something which "officially" doesn't exist (because there is no paper trail you see ......)

But you know what Desmond I can see that you are not convinced ...... so why don't you do us all a favour and explain where the CIA does get its funding from and produce a copy of the audited accounts so that we can settle this thing for once and for all .......

Can you do that for us ....... ?

PS: What do you really believe the CIA spends its time at ? You haven't answered that one yet ..... !!!

by Dopey Fri Feb 06, 2004 20:43

Desmond old chap what farce ?

You are just as quick to make allegations without providing evidence.

You rubbish Gary Webb without providing a shred of evidence .....
Ditto for McCoy.

Now to try and deal with your concerns .....
How about Alexander Cockburn & Jeffey St. Clair of Counterpunch ?
Do you write them off as well as third rate hacks devoid of any editorial standards ?

Probably, but nevertheless I refer to:
Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Press
published by Verso Books
http://www.versobooks.com/books/cdef/c-titles/cockburn_alex_whiteout.shtml

Verso Books used to be New Left Books, yep a left-wing publishing outfit ..... sorry about that probably counts as an immediate disqualification for you ..... yeah I know they also publish Chomsky.

But if you're still reading try this:
"As Cockburn and St. Clair narrate, the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times joined in 1996 in one of the most shameful and unrelenting smear campaigns in journalistic history, trying to exonerate the CIA. Indeed, the CIA has actually managed, in its own cryptic self-investigations, to be more forthright about its drug-trade ties than the big-time journalists defending the Agency.

But the cat's out of the bag now.
By March of 1998, the CIA Inspector General was admitting to the US Congress that in 1982, just as the Contra War was heating up, the Agency won from Reagan's Justice Department an agreement that it need not report the drug dealings of its paid and unpaid assets."

Got that ? Able to digest that much ?

Still there Dessie ... ? OK I'll continue ....

Now let's agree that for the moment this is just speculation. But if it is true that the CIA secured an agreement that it need not report the drug dealings of its paid and unpaid assets, then perhaps you can realise the implications of this .....

Having trouble ? Let me explain .....

In the murky world of intelligence agencies there exists the concept of the "deniable operation", various referred to as called covert operation, black operation etc.

It basically refers to an operation that is secret, clandestine and generally VERY NAUGHTY ...... so the government or agency orchestrating it wants to be able to deny it if it starts to be uncovered ........
Very simple concept really, I hope you can deal with it .......
Think Northern Ireland and the SAS for example ....

If you need more background information you could look here:
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/USO/intro.html

Now the whole point about a "deniable operation" is that it isn't supposed to create a paper trail ...... you're not supposed to leave "evidence" lying around .........

Have you begun to understand ....?

by Curious Fri Feb 06, 2004 12:17

"PS, I am Desmond Fennell from south Co. Dublin, not an American from Langley, wherever that is."

Not in Rome any more?

by Badman Fri Feb 06, 2004 10:21

"The United Nations Society of Writers and Artists this week presented MIT professor of linguistics and author Noam Chomsky with the Award of Excellence."

Now if only CNN or Fox would cover him he might have some credibility.

by Desmond Fennell Fri Feb 06, 2004 02:19

How can you characters explain that no news agency ANYWHERE in the entire world has picked up these stories?

Why is it they exist only on a few dodgy internet sites and in the ravings of rabid anti-Americans like Chomsky and LaRousse??

Isn't you who should be less naive and a bit more sceptical.

C'mon kids, put down the bong and start thinking.

PS, I am Desmond Fennell from south Co. Dublin, not an American from Langley, wherever that is.

by Dopey Thu Feb 05, 2004 19:17

Dessie boy we are simply acting on the best information available .....

http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=16378

by Dopey Thu Feb 05, 2004 19:06

Yep. As I explained we are following the lead established by your government in its dealings with "rogue nations" ..........

We's doin' things de American way massa ....

Spewing out allegations without a single hard fact to back them up .......

by Leon Thu Feb 05, 2004 10:14

Des, you denied any CIA role in the drugs trade.

It was an indefensible position and you couldn't defend it.

The CIA gets its cash from the MIC.

by Desmond Fennell Wed Feb 04, 2004 23:40

You two characters are in meltdown here. Yiz are all over the shop.

The question was CIA raising funds for their activities by selling drugs. So far I haven't seen a shred of evidence for this. All I've seen are allegations without a single hard fact to back them up.

by Dopey Wed Feb 04, 2004 21:01

Oh and by the way Dessie boy, none of the allegations about WMD used by the US to foment war against Iraq appear to have had any substance .... and even your "reliable" mainstream media seems to be increasingly adopting this position .......

If the USA can foment and wage war against foreign governments on the basis of allegations without substance, why should our allegations against the "central intelligence agency" of this evil Empire need to have any substance .... ?

Isn't it a bit hypocritical to demand such standards of us poor deluded Europeans when you don't require your own government to comply with them .....

by Dopey Wed Feb 04, 2004 20:49

Fess up Dessie boy .... you are just a naive right-wing redneck US Republican Party animal who is upset because we evil Europeans don't believe that the CIA are the good guys ....

It's OK, you are entitled to your ideological baggage and to defend the honour of YOUR national spook organisation, but don't try to pretend that you are neutral on this one ...

Any by the way you haven't explained what Alan Greenspan was doing accepting honours from foreign monarchs ... not a very "republican" sort of behaviour is it now ?
Surely the head honcho of the Federal Reserve System behaving so indiscreetly is adding grist to the mills of all those crackpot LaRouchian conspiracy theorists ... shouldn't someone tell him to read the Declaration of Independence and take a cold shower to curb his enthusiasm for the tacky baubles of foreign monarchs and former rulers of the territory now known as the US of A .........

Or maybe LaRouche really is on to something .......

by Badman Wed Feb 04, 2004 20:35

"I have to tell you that in mainstream political life, Chomsky is regarded as a crackpot. I know he's revered by the militant left but his standards are just not good enough."

In pretty much every university department in the world (outside of the US) Chomsky is considered to be an intellectual giant. He is still acknowledged universally as the leading thinker in linguistics, even by his bitter rivals. Of course a few unknown right wingers throw a bit of mud at him occasionaly, hoping to win that grant from one of the corporate think tanks or research foundations.

Your point is basically that if it isn't on the 4 big US networks or in one of the 3 or 4 big US newspapers it is not credible. Of course they are all owned by mega-corporations that have an extreme vested interest in maintaining the status quo. From an academic viewpoint those are all sources that should be dismissed rather than relied upon - as they have vested interests.

I assume that you are writing from the US (Langley? ;-) because, I know that in the US this combination of mud-slinging and 'it isn't on the networks' is actually quite an effective way of convincing people to dismiss alternative viewpoints. When arguing to a European audience it simply doesn't work. Having regular access to US media and our own media to compare it with, most Europeans consider the US networks to be incredibly jingoistic and ridiculously unbalanced. Your argument is like claiming that Saddam Hussein is a great guy and dismissing any arguments that didn't appear in the Iraqi state media.

You ignore (actually you distort them badly) the evidence presented to the US congress, the costa rica commission on drugs, the BBC, and a long long list of others. You aren't interested in the truth, just in covering it up. So, if all you've got to say is - "if it's not on CNN, I won't buy it", you might as well f*ck off now. You're wasting your time. This is indymedia. People around here are intelligent enough to realise that the corporate media is a crock of shite.

by Desmond Fennell Wed Feb 04, 2004 19:00

Even if any of this writer's facts are verifiable.

They used some opium gangs as pawns in their grand design. What's the big deal?

It would be a bit like using the IRA or the UDA in Norn Iron to achieve some other objective.

If that's their crime then it's nothing. It's just a smear campaign.

Yawn. Boring, and ancient history too.

by Leon Wed Feb 04, 2004 17:36

The above link discusses the CIAs role in the heroin business in the late 60s.

by Desmond Fennell Wed Feb 04, 2004 17:16

This whole story is confined to a few dodgy internet websites and a few cheap paperbacks by unreliable authors like LaRouche, Chomsky, McCoy.

No news agency with any editorial standard has touched it. The paper in which the LA Crack allegations were printed retracted the entire story.

Still, if truth means little to you, it's a useful smear.

by Dopey Wed Feb 04, 2004 08:23

So you mean that we also have to believe all the hype about WMD in Iraq published by these "reliable sources" .....?

I mean in ten years time people like you will be able to cite these "reliable" sources to "prove" that Saddam Hussein had WMD pointed at Washington DC ......

Desmond old chap, it's about time that YOU grew up and realised the simple fact that:
ONE MAN'S "RELIABLE SOURCE" IS ANOTHER MAN'S CROCK OF SHIT ....

Or as William Blake once said:
"Both read the Bible by day and night
But thou readst black where I read white".

Got that ya sick little puppy ?

by Desmond Fennell Wed Feb 04, 2004 04:46

Instead you give me Noam Chomsky. In fairness I have to tell you that in mainstream political life, Chomsky is regarded as a crackpot. I know he's revered by the militant left but his standards are just not good enough.

See the link provided for just some examples. If you want more, I got more.

This is no good. I keep seeing cackhanded attempts to smear the CIA with allegations of "complicity", whatever the hell that is supposed to mean.

C'mon guys, I asked for a reliable source, for example a national news agency or newspaper.

Can ye get me some evidence? otherwise I have to just reject these allegations as a smear campaign.

Remeber, any crank can put up a website and write whatever he pleases. Doesn't mean it's true.

by Badman Wed Feb 04, 2004 04:01

Chomsky:

The CIA and other U.S. government agencies have been instrumental in establishing and maintaining the drug racket since World War II, when mafia connections were used to split and undermine the French labor unions and the Communist Party, laying the groundwork for the "French connection" based in Marseilles. The Golden Triangle (Laos, Burma, Thailand) became a major narcotics center as Chinese Nationalist troops fled to the region after their defeat in China, and not long after, as the CIA helped implement the drug flow as part of its effort to recruit a mercenary "clandestine army" of highland tribesmen for its counterinsurgency operations in Laos. Over the years, the drug traffic came to involve other U.S. clients as well. In 1989, General Ramón Montano, chief of the Philippine constabulary, testified in a public hearing in Manila that drug syndicates operating in the Golden Triangle use the Philippines as a transshipment point to other parts of Asia and the West, and conceded that military officers are involved, as a Senate investigation had reported. The Philippines are on their way to "becoming like Colombia," one Senator observed.21

The effect was the same as the CIA shifted its attention to the terrorist war against Nicaragua and the Afghan resistance against Soviet occupation. The complicity of the Reagan-Bush administrations in the drug rackets in Central America as part of their contra support operations is by now well known. Pakistan is reported to have become one of the major international centers of the heroin trade when Afghan manufacturers and dealers "found their operations restricted after the Soviet invasion in 1979," and moved the enterprise across the borders (South). "The U.S. government has for several years received, but declined to investigate, reports of heroin trafficking by some Afghan guerrillas and Pakistani military officers with whom it cooperates," the Washington Post reported well after the drug war was charging full steam ahead. U.S. officials have received first-hand accounts of "extensive heroin smuggling" by the leading Afghan recipients of U.S. aid and the Pakistani military establishment, who gave detailed information to the press in Pakistan and Washington. "Nevertheless, according to U.S. officials, the United States has failed to investigate or take action against some [read "any"] of those suspected." U.S. favorite Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the terrorist leader of the fundamentalist Hizbe-Islami party, is reported to be deeply implicated in drug trafficking. Other reports indicate that the Aghan rebels are being "debilitated by increasingly fierce local battles for the lucrative heroin trade."22

As in Asia, U.S. allies in Central America are also caught up in the drug traffic. Only Costa Rica has a civilian government (despite pretenses), and its Legislative Assembly's Drug Commission has provided information about these matters. Former president Daniel Oduber was cited for accepting a campaign contribution from James Lionel Casey, a U.S. citizen in prison in Costa Rica on charges of drug trafficking. The Commission recommended that Oliver North, Admiral John Poindexter, former Ambassador Lewis Tambs, former CIA station chief Joe Fernandez, and General Richard Secord "never again be allowed to enter Costa Rica," the Costa Rican press reported in July 1989, blaming them for "opening a gate" for arms and drug traffickers as they illegally organized a "southern front" for the contras in Costa Rica. A rural guard Colonel was charged with offering security for drug traffickers using air strips, probably including those used for supplying contras in Nicaragua, the Commission President told reporters. Oliver North was charged with setting up a supply line with General Noriega that brought arms to Costa Rica and drugs to the U.S. The Commission also implicated U.S. rancher John Hull. Most serious, the Commission reported, was "the obvious infiltration of international gangs into Costa Rica that made use of the [contra] organization," on requests "initiated by Colonel North to General Noriega," which opened Costa Rica "for trafficking in arms and drugs" by "this mafia," in part as an "excuse to help the contras."23

There are good reasons why the CIA and drugs are so closely linked. Clandestine terror requires hidden funds, and the criminal elements to whom the intelligence agencies naturally turn expect a quid pro quo. Drugs are the obvious answer. Washington's long-term involvement in the drug racket is part and parcel of its international operations, notably, during the Reagan-Bush administrations. One prime target for an authentic drug war would therefore be close at hand.

Also: San Francisco Bay Guardian: - http://www.sfbg.com/reality/16.html Or: Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America by Peter Dale Scott, or Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press by Alexander Cockburn, et al

The evidence is just so overwhelming that you can only deny the obvious if you bury your head in the sand. One shite review by a tame and unkown academic in an obscure right wing US publication is not that convincing.

by Desmond Fennell Wed Feb 04, 2004 03:37

The San Jose Mercury retracted his story because it failed to meet editorial standards. That's why Webb's wild tales are such a big hit on the web, where no editorial standards need apply (this site being a good example).

Read the review of the story from http://www.worldandi.com for a good balanced view of the story.

Note that this was written in 1998, before the House Committee reported on the allegations and found absolutely no basis for these allegations. Remember, they hung Ollie North out to dry so if there had been any wrongdoing there would have been a showtrial.

Really folks, the burden of proof is on you "allegators" and so far you've given me nothing but lame conspiracy theories and suggestions of "complicity".

It's not good enough. If you're going to reject capitalism then you'd best make sure you know all the facts, not just the version in Socialist Worker.

BTW, my name happens to be Desmond Fennell, what's so funny about that?

by Leon Tue Feb 03, 2004 15:52

Desmond I'd refer you to the famous book 'The politics of Heroin in South East Asia' . The CIA's role in distributing drugs in that part of the world 30 years ago was (I had thought) uncontested.

Get back under your bridge.

by tom Tue Feb 03, 2004 15:26

Desmond Read this review of Gary Webb's book - Dark Alliance:the CIA the Contras and theCrack Cocaine Explosion . Better still try to get hold of the book.
http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/webb-o22.shtml

by Dopey Tue Feb 03, 2004 08:09

Yep, that's exactly the kind of line of argument taken by the RC hierarchy (or the leadership of any authoritarian organisation, e.g. the military) responding to any kind of institutional crisis ...

"No sensible person would believe this kind of rumour and innuendo ...."

You weren't trained in a Jesuit seminary by any chance Desmond ?

Or are you really the "lone gunman" in disguise ?

You almost have me convinced that the CIA is the American equivalent of TROCAIRE .......... NOT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

by Dopey Tue Feb 03, 2004 08:01

The real Desmond Fennell (with whom I have conversed on a number of occasions) doesn't use expressions like "your ass is hanging out the window" ......

(whereas the "lone gunman" might ....)

And as for LaRouche's "whacky" theories about the US being controlled by the British Royal family ... it is well known that there is a srong connection between the US and British ruling establishments .... e.g. Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar if you know what that means ....

And what about "Sir" Alan Greenspan ....
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/26/politics/main523378.shtml

It doesn't "prove" anything concerning the extent to which the British Royal family "controls" the US and I am not claiming that it does, but just answer me this why in the normal course of events would the citizen of a free Republic want to accept an honour from a foreign monarch ?

For the record I don't regard LaRouche as an infallible source but he speaks at least as much sense as any other US establishment politician ...... and probably spews as much nonsense as well ...... however many of the articles which his EIR publishes are well researched and contain a lot of interesting information not available from corporate media sources .....

Anyway as I already pointed out above he was only one of THREE sources I named .....

You home in on that to conveniently ignore the other two ....... doesn't say much for YOUR debating skills Desmond ......

(but then again a "lone gunman" wouldn't need too many of those ......)

by Freddy Tue Feb 03, 2004 04:09

You have given up any attempt to justify your position, and are now resorting to repitition.
Seems to me that its you "Desmond Fennell" who is the time waster. Its also about time you stopped your impersonation.

by Desmond Fennell Tue Feb 03, 2004 02:00

Your ass is hanging out the window.

If you consider Lyndon LaRouche a reliable source of information then I pity you. He thinks the US is secretly run by the British Royal family, did you know that? Your other sources are just as dubious, I'm sorry to say.

Any fool can publish allegations on a website based on the flimsiest of evidence and the most doubtful sources.

You've got nothing, you've wasted my time.

by Dopey Mon Feb 02, 2004 22:24

Could well be Sean.

However, a military chappie like "lone gunman" (claimed to be) would be well aware of the massive amounts of drug-trafficking that took place under the cover of military activity in for example places like Vietnam (can be easily confirmed by talking with vets.) ......

So if it really is the gunman, then he thinks us civvies are dumber than we really are .... on the other hand that kind of mindset would be typical for someone who has spent too long in the army .......

All very confusing here in cyberspace ..... I think I'll retire for a few puffs on the opium pipe ..... purely for medicinal purpose you know ......

by Sean Doyle Mon Feb 02, 2004 22:17

His first name MIGHT be Desmond, but I have extremely strong doubts about him being Desmond Fennell.
Anyone notice that 'lone gunman' has not posted anything recently? at least under that name...

by Dopey Mon Feb 02, 2004 21:53

By the way Desmond old chap thanks for your enlightening comments about the Opium Wars ......

I had always been under the misguided impression that Hong Kong was grabbed by the Brits under the Treaty of Nanking as war booty after the first Opium War which had been triggered by Chinese efforts to crack down on British violations of Chinese sovereignty by trafficking in opium in contravention of Chinese law.

But as Badman has kindly pointed out, the keen accuracy of your profound historical observations has revealed just how dated this anti-imperialist gloss on the Opium Wars is ..... (thanks Badman :-))

I have to admit Desmond that this makes your protestations of innoncence on behalf of the CIA appear all the more credible ......... in the eyes of all gullible gobshites at least .................

by Dopey Mon Feb 02, 2004 21:20

Desmond old chap you are clearly a troll ... and do not deserve to be fed .......

Nevertheless arguing with you has become addictive so allow me to return to the matter under discussion.

First of all you are missing the point.

It is not about "proving" anything ....

There was an initial "thesis", i.e. that the CIA was and is heavily involved in the drug trade.

Your "counter-thesis" is that this is a load of old nonsense.

In "debunking" my defense of the original thesis you conveniently dismiss Lyndon LaRouche as a crackpot - I am well aware that he is a controversial figure and thus an easy target - but maintain a discreet silence on William Blum and Alfred McCoy, two other sources I cited ......

Now I could equally well ask you for "proof" of your position ... can you deliver it ?
How ? By citing the CIA's annual report ?
No mention of any drug-trafficking activites in there, well I never ..... that proves it then doesn't it ......... beyond a shadow of doubt ....

Well I have to level with you: for me that's about as convincing as the fact that the FF annual report doesn't mention anything about planning corruption and backhanders received ..... on that basis they must be squeaky clean mustn't they ......
Or the annual report of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dublin doesn't have any report of child abuse activities by clergy ...... oh well that means that the problem is all in the minds of the enemies of the Church then doesn't it .... ?

The simple fact is that you cannot "prove" your assertions to my satisfaction any more that I can "prove" mine to your satisfaction ......

So in the end people will believe what they want to believe ......

I hope that this clarifies matters for you, but doubtless you'll be back for another round of trolling ........ however, don't be surprised if my enthusiasm for rising to the bait has waned ......

by Desmond Mon Feb 02, 2004 14:31

If you are so sure PROVE IT!!!!!
YOUVE BEEN ASKED ENOUGH TIMES!

by matt Mon Feb 02, 2004 13:44

if you are so naive as to beleive that the CIA has not been up to its neck in the drugs business for decades. As other posts above show, it has been documented by the US Congress itself, and there are many other reliable accounts of how the CIA has at the very least turned a blind eye to drug trafficking when it suited their agenda.

by Badman Mon Feb 02, 2004 04:38

The brits forced China to open their market to opium because they wanted to heal the sick. The mass addiction that followed was colateral damage and was completely unanticipated. Talk about loopy! You sure you ain't been smokin' something boy?

A number of years back BBC2 screened a documentary about Lockerbie in which it was revealed that a suitcase full of heroin was routinely on every single flight from the Lebanon to NYC (via frankfurt) throughout the 1980's. And yep it was the good old CIA who was shipping it. But the beeb has now been exposed as a pack of commies I suppose.

If the beeb is too off the wall for your taste, how about the Iran-Contra congressional hearings. Seems like the CIA were selling Hezbollah's drugs in the US to finance the contras as the commie-loving congress wouldn't give them any money. That Ollie North was always a bit of a commie himself.

Here's a question: how could a terrorist possibly get a nuclear bomb into a major urban area like NYC?
Answer: Just wrap it in a bale of marijuana, or put it inside a suitcase of heroin.

by Desmond Fennell Mon Feb 02, 2004 02:43

Hong Kong was a part of the BE, don't forget. Anyway, my point was that Britain traded in a drug that was commonly believed to be a medicine - not a dangerous drug - throughout the 19th C so your whole opium War theory has a gaping hole in it.

It sounds very convincing that Lyndon LaRouche is the US Democratic Party Candidate - sounds like a very reliable source doesn't it?

Until you find out that the guy is a certifiable crackpot.

He's stood as a candidate for the last five terms. He associates himself with the Dems but he's never received any official approval from the DP. His organisation is widely regarded as a cult (much in the same way as the SWP) and the guy's bography reveals him to be a total freakin goofball fruitcake. He's the author of a multitude of conspiracy theories involving the British Royal family and particularly the Duke of Edinburgh (a bit like david Icke).

See his entry in Wikipedia for more.

You''ll have to do better than this Dopey. Something from national newspaper or TV station perhaps. Can ya do that for me?

by dopey Sun Feb 01, 2004 23:39

Not to mention of course:
The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade
by
Alfred McCoy, professor of Southeast Asian History at the University of Wisconsin.

But of course nobody should believe a word which issues from the mouths of these communist stooges and America-haters .......

by dopey Sun Feb 01, 2004 23:31

By the way bozo, just in case you're interested I can refer you to the works of Mr. William Blum, an American freelancer and author of such books as:
Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
Rogue State: a guide to the World's Only Super Power
West-Bloc Dissident: a Cold War Political Memoir.

Have a look at the atttached link for his synopsis
"A brief history of CIA involvement in the Drug Trade"
http://www.serendipity.li/cia/blum1.html

But of course you won't fall for any of that crap ... you're such a smart guy .... you know what the CIA *really* gets up to in its spare time .......
Pity you won't share it with us ......

by dopey Sun Feb 01, 2004 22:53

Glad to see that you are so supportive of the British position in the Opium Wars ....
Good to know that the Brits were only concerned with importing opium to China for medicinal purposes ....... if only the Emperor had been able to see things their way .....

But if you were as smart as you like to think you are, you might have realised that China wasn't part of the British Empire .... so the legal position of opium in the British Empire had no bearing on the rights of the East India company to import opium into China .......
Though as an unabashed apologist for the excesses of British Imperialism, you no doubt have a different opinion on the matter.

As far as "facts" relating to the modern day operations of the US establishment are concerned, I referred you to Senator Lyndon LaRouche's book "Dope Inc." which I am sure you can obtain from any good library.

The fact is that the Anglo-American establishment have a long tradition of running the international drug trade and using their banking houses for laundering the proceeds .... a highly profitable business as documented by many reputable writers .....

Next thing you'll be telling us that King Leopold of Belgium came by his wealth honestly and that all those stories about five million dead natives in the Congo are just the diseased fantasises of the deranged mind of an Irish pervert called Roger Casement .......
Glad to see that someone is naive enough to believe that the ruling classes of the earth don't have their hands steeped in blood and crime .......

Sad to say my own personal budget for carrying out independent research into the murky world of counter-intelligence is rather limited so I'll have to leave it at that .......
You believe what you want, I'll believe what I want .... and by the way I say what I want to say on the basis of what I have researched on my own initiative, and not what somebody told me to say ......

And now, you self-opiniated prick, why don't you do us all a favour and enlighten us by telling what YOU think the CIA spend their time at ..... spreading "freedom" and "democracy" and "liberating" oppressed peoples no doubt ....


GOD BLESS AMERICA
and god bless your boundless naivety ....

by Desmond Fennell Sun Feb 01, 2004 22:04

It only became a controlled substance in the British Empire in 1920. So, I don't really see what your point is.

Look, I asked for some backup for your claims that the CIA are a gang of drugrunners and all you've provided me with is a load of rubbish. Absolute crap, in fact. Please do some research before you go spouting some nonsense that somebody else has made you say.

by dopey Sun Feb 01, 2004 19:30

Just in case you hadn't heard of the Opium Wars here goes:

"By the 1830's, the English had become the major drug-trafficking criminal organization in the world; very few drug cartels of the twentieth century can even touch the England of the early nineteenth century in sheer size of criminality. Growing opium in India, the East India Company shipped tons of opium into Canton which it traded for Chinese manufactured goods and for tea. This trade had produced, quite literally, a country filled with drug addicts, as opium parlors proliferated all throughout China in the early part of the nineteenth century. This trafficing, it should be stressed, was a criminal activity after 1836, but the British traders generously bribed Canton officials in order to keep the opium traffic flowing. The effects on Chinese society were devestating. In fact, there are few periods in Chinese history that approach the early nineteenth century in terms of pure human misery and tragedy. In an effort to stem the tragedy, the imperial government made opium illegal in 1836 and began to aggressively close down the opium dens. "

So if the British establishment and its "East India Company" were heavily involved in the drug trade then, why should be it so implausible to suggest that the US American establishment (CIA etc.) is involved in its modern equivalent ..... ?

by dopey Sun Feb 01, 2004 18:27

The US Democratic Presidential Candidate Senator Lyndon LaRouche has written extensively on the subject of the drug trade and its Anglo-American establishment backers (such as the Bushes - a leading CIA family), for example in his book Dope Inc.
http://www.schillerinstitute.org/strategic/war_on_drugs/dope_rpt_dec01.html

For more information about George Bush Seniors's involvement in such matters you could refer to the "Unauthorised Biography" of Bush Senior by the investigative journalist Webster Tarpley:
http://www.tarpley.net/bush20.htm

Whether of not you want to swallow all that LaRouche & Tarpley have to say is your business.

But what they are saying is not by any means implausible ... or surprising ...

The Anglo-American establishment has a long tradition of involvement in the drug trade.

Ever hear about the Opium Wars ?

by LizH Sun Feb 01, 2004 15:56

Afraid there is quite a lot of evidence for US involvement in drugrunning when it suits them. Ask former Col. Oliver North. Read the transcripts of the Contragate hearings. And Desmond Fennell, stop being ageist i.e. using 'child' as a putdown.

by Desmond Fennell Sun Feb 01, 2004 13:00

Get real, child. I've senn this allegations before and these smears are certainly not "well documented".

I challenge you to show me some convincing evidence of this - apart from hearsay from a few potheads with little better to do.

Opium production has boomed in Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted - obviously we have to blame the US, they're like the REAL culprits. Get a grip, child.

by mattt Sun Feb 01, 2004 10:43

However, given the apparent increase in heroin from Afghanistan SINCE the US victory there, and the well documented history of CIA invovlment with drugs gangs, the US can hardly claim to be serious about stoping the trade.

by Desmond Fennell Sun Feb 01, 2004 01:45

Nice little ad hominem there, sign of a feeble mind. Now, the govt of the USA is not the moral conscience of the world and it's only duty is to protect and further the welfare of it's citizens. If that means doing business with nasty regimes in order to block the flow of drugs, so be it. There's nothing the USA would like better than to be surrounded by healthy societies but the govt of the USA is not a social worker.

Got that?

by matt Sun Feb 01, 2004 00:19

Don't think so. A far more articulate man.

As for Colombia, it is hardly a mystery as to the shameful role that the US has played here and other Latin American countries in support of the most vicious dictatorships.

by Desmond Fennell Sat Jan 31, 2004 22:37

The US is squeaky clean as regards Colombia, you Trots can't find a damn thing to pin on them, while at the same time trying to protect Castro, Kim Il and Saddam.

by John Meehan Fri Jan 30, 2004 23:42

Nobody who has followed Tribmle's career could be surprised at these comments - most recently he was a vigorous backer of the Bush/Blair war on Iraq, justified by a threat of "Weapons of Mass Destruction" - for sure these never existed - and that is becoming more clear by the minute to a growing number of people.

A logical simple conclusion follows - no political party that is part of the left should go into a coalition government led by an extreme right winger like Trimble.

by Orla Fri Jan 30, 2004 20:51

It is interesting that Trimble sided with the vice president of Columbia. According to the Guardian article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,7369,1133677,00.html)


'He backed another politician at the conference, the Colombian vice-president Francisco Santos, who said that human rights groups were hindering progress towards peace in his country.'


The 'progress towards peace' seems to include state-backed terror campaigns. This is an interesting extract from

Unionists at Risk in Colombia
by Dan Kovalik
at http://www.americas.org/

'Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists. One need look no further than the U.S. State Department’s most recent human rights report, dated March 31, 2003, to see the extent of this problem and its causes. According to this report, 1,875 labor activists have been murdered in Colombia since 1991—already 178 in 2003 alone. The State Department explains that a majority of the murdered trade unionists have been killed at the hands of right-wing paramilitaries which, as the State Department accurately concludes, continue to be aided and abetted by the very military the U.S. is funding at record levels. As the State Department notes, members of the Colombian armed services continue to collaborate with and tolerate the activities of the paramilitaries, even, in some cases, joining the ranks of the paramilitaries.

Collaboration with the paramilitaries extends to the very highest ranks of the Colombian military, including the head of the Colombian army himself, General Carlos Ospina...Ospina, a graduate of the School of the Americas, has been cited by Human Rights Watch as an active and frequent collaborator in death squad atrocities.'


From the 2003 State Department report mentioned above:

''Credible allegations of cooperation with paramilitary groups, including instances of both passive support and direct collaboration by members of the public security forces, particularly the army, continued. Evidence suggested that there were tacit arrangements between local military commanders and paramilitary groups in some regions, since paramilitary forces operated freely in some areas despite a significant military presence. Some members of the security forces actively collaborated with members of paramilitary groups--passing them through roadblocks, sharing intelligence, providing them with ammunition, and allegedly even joining their ranks while off duty....Impunity for military personnel who collaborated with members of paramilitary groups remained common.'

Columbia is one of the highest recipients of US military aid.

by jeff Fri Jan 30, 2004 18:34

A good article would be to show how glibly ignorant the right are when citing examples of, or making points to the effect of backing up their arguments.

Brenden O' Connor was (probably)paid handsomely for a three page rant against liberals in magazine The Dubliner( around Summer 2003).

It was a rant, because statements would include calling George Monbiot moronic , without actually saying why he was so.

So youraverage right winger is just going to go " Yeah". They'll never ask themselves why Monbiot is supposedly moronic, it is just assumed.

Those of us freed of the constraints of right/left whatever, or even those of us who still see hemselves as left, must be careful never to fall into this method. It is easy, comfortable and makes for a great soundbite.

The bad news is that this only works part time. Kids stil grow up watching people being killed on tv, and more and more of them ask why?

Monetarist cynics laugh at the idea that the world can be changed by information, appealing to minds, etc. If we follow that logic, then logically we should still be burning witches at the stake, and engaging in self flaggelation, not because some of us find it
kinky, but because in those days, many many people thought it'd get them into heaven.

At the end of O' Connors article, he urges the reader to relieve themselves of ideals, and to be more " human".

People are precisely that, because many people actually give a sh&t about other stuff in life, even while they are going through the necessary drudgery of building a house, saving, and voting Fianna Fail this time round because it will sort out their bank balance in order to get their kids education.

Thus, a once great journalist like Jim Cusack will now just be remembered as a scumbag who glibly supported the Gardai, when he should have been asking the real question; Who watches the Watchers?

People are people, and while the wanna make a quick buck, they still want to eradicate nastiness, no matter what gobsh*te politrician, c -list celebrity journo, or loopy right wing college professor tells them to think.

Who was it who said " Those that desire security over freedom deserve neither security nor freedom."?

by jeff Fri Jan 30, 2004 18:14

Can you give case examples of any of the major Human Rights organisations that need to engage in "rethinking"?

Or will you just give the same answer your hero Trimble gave when pressed on comments he made regarding the Republic of Ireland a year and a half ago*; something to the effect of " you read up on it now, do your reading." When asked what, where, or who did he get his sources from, he just repeated himself.

What a logical man of "moral authority".

Perhaps, though, he is prone to spastic comments so as to retain the votes of certain constituents?

Either way, Mr. Bergin, your comments are about as bright, illuminating, and inspirational as a pig shed on a late winters evening.
--------------------------------------------------------------

* note; Trimble referred to the Republic as insular., rascist, and other stuff that was more apt a description for the De Valera years. Of course, his neck of the woods was never like that.

by jeff Fri Jan 30, 2004 18:05

Either you work for or have been brainwashed by right wing media.

The Anti War movement did not support Saddam, it equated his removal as "one dictator being toppled by another."

Your libel against the Irish Palestinian solidarity has been already corrected.

Handy for you, you picked a movement aligned with Republicans, the Anti Extradition people, to back up your frail arguments.

So whose next? Amnesty, Human Rights watch?

People like you are quick to condemn anyone left of center by equating them with Stalin or Mao. If anyone condemns a Tory and equates them with Hitler, you would be the first to start wailing like a baby.

However, all of a sudden, it is quite alright for you to advocate putting people in mental homes to be sedated for having different opinions, or, god forbid, advocating Human Rights.

That, my friend, is Stalinism.

by Irene - Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign Fri Jan 30, 2004 15:18

Can you back up your claim and name an occasion where we have been "openly supportive of suicide bombings", Alan? The IPSC condemns suicide bombings -- and has always done so -- but we recognise that they are a by-product of Israel's brutal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the appalling human rights violations it visits daily on the Palestinian population. If this translates as "supportive of suicide bombings" to you, then that's your problem.

by Mike Fri Jan 30, 2004 13:30

Maybe Trimble doesn't like the fact that these groups would have a lot to say about his own criminal antics at Drumcree etc.

However, I am not sure what the surprise is all about though, in the era of the peace process most of the left has gone around in adaze praising this man and talking absolute rubbish about reconciliation etc. when the real problem is that Trimble and Unionism are right wing ideologies and the peace process was about doing a deal with such people or rather as we shall soon see with the DUP it was about surrendering to this type of crap.

as for being a Nobel Prize Winner, come off it, that is meaningless. Henry "War Criminal"Kissinger was also one. These are the acolades of imperialism for those who behave themselves or do a deal. Rarely if ever does anyone get one while they are still fighting tooth and nail against imperialism. at least I can't think of one example.

by depp Fri Jan 30, 2004 12:52

Few questions for you.

Do you have any sympathy for innocent Palestinians killed or made homeless by Israel?

If you had any sympathy would you like to extend that sympathy to them?

How would you extend this sympathy to them?
---------

Would you have any sympathy for innocents killed in Iraq by western bombs or western sanctions?
How would you express it?
-----------

Have you human feelings at all?
Most people do you know, and they like to express them.
------

Explain how human rights workers are against 'free society' in America or Britain.

by Michael Turley Fri Jan 30, 2004 12:39

Perhaps because Trimble is a Nobel Peace Prize winner? Despite Trimbles admittedly Tory leanings he has been ingratiating himself with Blair recently (possibly looking for a comfy sinecure).

by matt Fri Jan 30, 2004 12:07

David Trimble is an extreme right wing Tory. This is what extreme right wing Tories think about these things.

As for some of the other posts here. Maybe their authors ought to look at some of the reports made by Amnesty and other human rights groups where they document genoicde, torture and other abuses throughout the world, and by all types of regimes from left to right. Only right wing nut jobs think that groups like this are commies.

by Michael Turley Fri Jan 30, 2004 11:56

David Trimble has a tendency to overstate his position or give full vent to instinctive sentiments which have not been fully considered (remember his 'pathetic' and 'monocultural' jibes). This seems to be especially true when addressing those that appreciate uncompromising viewpoints.

I suppose what he is perhaps trying to relate is that he feels that human rights organisations are unbalanced in their focus on state abuse rather than non-state abuse. That is perhaps understandable given his background but still unfair, uninformed and not particularly appropriate from a Nobel Peace prize winner.

by An Injury to One is an Injury to All Fri Jan 30, 2004 11:40

State Collusion in the murder of innocents, the use of assasinations to attack political opponents, support of supramacist and sectarian organisations, membership of these KKK like organisations, turning a blind eye to a politically motivated police force renowned worldwide for human rights abuse..using working class Protestants to do the fighting and dying for him, being a Noble peace Prize winner but doing everything when in power to bring about equality..harping on about unused weapons while Nationalists were being slaughtered in the six counties......thats the politics of David Trimble...his comment should be put with the "we are not racist " cries of the Afrikanner Nationalist Government's 1949-1994 or the "WMD threaten the West" statements recently...I would have more respect for Mr Trimble if he admitted that he can't have a non-WASP about the place and we should just shut up about Equality and know our place.....

by Patrick Bergin Fri Jan 30, 2004 11:15

I respect Trimble very much. As a Nobel Price winner his views along side those of John Hume command moral authority.
I gree absolutely with what he has said.
I believe that "human rights" organisations had better undergo a serious rethink or rather START thinking!

by Alan O' Shea Fri Jan 30, 2004 11:12

The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign is openly supportive of suicide bombings by Islamic fanatics who blow up innocent men women and children.
The Anti-Extradition movement in the 1980's was opposed to the trials of IRA terrorists who committed acts of murder.
The Irish Anti-War Movement was openly supportive of the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and protested against his removal from power.
Amnesty International is more worried about Al-Qeada terrorists captive in Gauntanamo Bay than in the victims of the terrorist attacks on September 11.

The visible pattern is indiscriminate support for extremist groups of all kinds be they Nazis attacking Jews in Germany or Islamic fanatics crashing airplanes into buildings in New York who are opposed to free society in America and Britain which supporters of so-called human rights groups want to destroy arising out the abject failure of Communism and the fall of their beloved Soviet Union in1989.

When a right minded person condemns this undefensible and sickening phenoma they are screamed at hysterically.

What we need is a change in mental health law. These people have to be committed put in strait jackets and sedated 24/7.