Extract: An idea or rather an image bubbles up in my head of a human being held in one of the prisons for captives in the “War on Terror” - their sense of self slowly disintegrating under the pressure of uncertainity, torture and fear. I try to articulate what I think about Guantanamo. My heart is pounding and I am stabbing the air with my finger.

Meanwhile the same lackey is continuing to repeat his demand that we condemn Republican violence. This is absurd. I had expected grubby debating society tricks, oily pragmatism and weasel words but I wasn’t ready for such lazy contempt and a sheer inability or unwillingmess to argue for the merits of his decision on refuelling at Shannon.

Unexpectedly one of the retinue makes a coherent point about the plight of the Kurds and I begin talking to him. Bertie is still looking up and down the street though and his prayers are answered in the form of a beetroot faced man with a bristling moustache, a stocky little black dog and more than a couple of jars inside him.

The subject of this opinion piece submitted to Indymedia Ireland is Anjem Choudary (also known as Omar Bakri Muhammad), a Muslim cleric who was born in Syria, participated in the 1982 revolution against the Syrian Ba'athist regime and was later given political asylum in the UK. He spoke at a debate in Trinity College on Thursday night. Choudary is well known for his extremist Islamic views and was leader of Al-Muhajiroun, an organisation whose eventual goal was to prepare the way for a global Islamic theocracy.

Choudary's remarks pointed out something in blunt terms which anti war campaigners have been saying since 2001, when it became common knowledge that Shannon was being used as a refuelling base for US warplanes. He said that "if you allow Ireland to be used to refuel US warplanes which are going on bombing raids, what do you expect the reaction of the Muslim world to be? This is not neutrality. It is better for the Muslim world to tell you this reality, so we can change this situation, and to make sure what is taking place in other countries will not happen here in Ireland." His remarks were in the context of his argument that Ireland is open to attack by terrorist groups, because of its support for the Bush administration's war on terror.