Maybe Dubya is a fan of The Stunning, a 90s era rock band from Galway in Ireland. One of their most powerful songs is Men Without Souls which is a condemnation of those who promoted terror in Northern Ireland.
"Men without souls
The whole world is filled with them
Dragging their filth with them
Madmen will kill for them
Their mothers will feel for them
Men without souls"
This issue is generating some controversy here as well. In fact yesterday's Irish Times had a front page piece about how Clergy and Bishops who distribute the Vatican's latest bookley may find themselves on the wrong end on an 'Incitement to Hatred' charge. Conviction carries jail terms of up to six months. The article can be read at http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2003/0802/720611077HM1POPE.html
To my mind it's not the fact that the Church is opposed to gay marriage, but that it is trying to intervene in the political process, not by lobbying politicians by by ordering them to vote against such a measure that is so wrong. For many this evokes the memory of John Charles McQuaid, Archbishop of Dublin from 1940 to 1972.
This is the nature of occupation. It brutalises the occupiers and radicalises the occupied. When you're being fired on by hostile natives, every native is seen as hostile. So when you go to arrest a suspect you don't take any chances. After all the last thing you want to do is walk into a bomb factory where the occupants are armed to the teeth without an opportunity to return fire. So in that case the strong arm tactics are justified. But when the intel is wrong and the so called bomb factory is someone's home all you end up doing is driving moderates into the hands of extremists. The British learnt this lesson in Northern Ireland. In the early 70s they didn't bother checking the sources of their intelligence on the IRA and ended up alienating the Catholic population. By the 90s, they were still making mistakes but not as many. This, as Dave Bell suggests, could be why they are having less trouble than the US troops. They've learnt the hard way that good community relations are vital and have had an opportunity to perfect the necessary techniques, an opportunity US troops haven't had.
Happy 4th of July to you all. The US has always been a beacon of freedom and inspiration to opressed people throughout the world. Administrations may come and go but the essential values of America as enshrined in the Declaration of Independence shine through in the end. Long may it continue.
I hope you don't mind a comment from overseas but it is chilling to see the parallels between Iraq and Northern Ireland. When Ted Heath sent in British Troops to Northern Ireland to protect the Catholic minority they were welcomed as saviours, much as the US troops were welcomed by many Iraqis. Within months however, any goodwill had been squandered due to heavy-handed actions against suspected terrorists, often based on faulty or out-of-date intelligence, which inevitably led to the destruction of property, injury and in some cases death of non-involved civilians. The low point, of course was Bloody Sunday when 1st Para killed 14 people and injured many more, an event which radicalised an entire generation and boosted IRA recruitment.
Soldiers are trained to fight other soldiers. They are not trained to be policemen. If you don't mind me saying so, the US government does not appear to have grasped this lesson.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2004 | 2 |
| 2003 | 4 |
Total: 6 comments. View all these comments on a single page.
The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by David Stewart:
Show all comments by David Stewart.