Nine years ago I had an article “GALLLIPOLI, TWO GERMAN OFFICERS AND THE FOG OF MILITARY HISTORY” published in THE IRISH POLITICAL REVIEW.
It refuted an untruth published in THE IRISH TIMES written by a leading member of the Military History Society of Ireland.
Five years ago, following the reappearance of the same untruth in that “newspaper of record” I had my article recycled here as a BLOG.
And not long ago in another blog I revealed that for two years I had knelt in Chapel with a worshipper destined to be a senior Officer of the Military History Society, and sat at a desk beside the son of an historian, whose school text books, used for decades, gave the lie to the assertion that the heroism of Irishmen fighting in British uniform in Gallipoli and elsewhere from 1914 to 1918 had been airbrushed out of history as taught in Ireland.
You may understand why I suspect that both the Military History Society of Ireland and The Irish Times are resolved to persist in their lies until Hell freezes over.
Living in England these past 57 years I was mainly dependent on the British media for news from Ireland. When Robert Fisk became the (London) TIMES correspondent in Ireland he reported honestly and fearlessly. He neither demonised nor canonised Unionists or Republicans, nor did he spoon-feed unexamined propaganda from any source to his readers. He reported the war, researched its origins and trusted to the intelligence of readers to put otherwise inexplicable horrors in context.
He was so respected that the then Editor of The Irish Times, Douglas Gageby, a splendid Irishman, gave him a by-line in that paper over the protests of lesser writers.
Fisk covered wars in Afghanistan, the Balkans, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, wherever they were being fought and for many decades was in the thick of the fighting. A pacifist, he was exposed to more danger for longer periods than most career soldiers in the most bellicose powers. His journalism and his many books earned him prizes and honorary degrees from reputable institutions.
He died In Dublin a year ago and THE TIMES of London gave him a short and mean-minded obituary. I’m sure he would have regarded that as sufficient endorsement of his integrity. For he despised the interests served by that paper.
Which brings me back to the question I ask about THE MILITARY HISTORY SOCIETY OF IRELAND.
I quote from “THE AGE OF THE WARRIOR” , a selection of writings by Fisk, published in 2008 –
“When the Military History of Ireland asked me for permission to reprint a paper I had published some years ago on a battle between the Irish Army’s UN Battalion in Southern Lebanon and Israel’s proxy – and brutal militia, the so-called “South Lebanese Army” whose psychotic commander was a cashiered Lebanese Army major called Saad Haddad. In the paper, I mentioned how an Israeli major called Haim extorted money from the inhabitants of the South Lebanese village of Haris and revealed the code name of the Israeli agent – ‘Abu Shawki’ – who was present at the murder of two Irish soldiers.
I had published these details many times, both in my own newspaper and in my previous book on the Lebanese War ‘Pity The Nation’ Major Haddad had died of cancer more than ten years ago. I actually met Haim in the early 1980s after he emerged from a meeting with the mayor of Haris from whom he demanded money to pay Israel’s cruel militia-men – the UN was also present and recorded his threats – while ‘Abu Shawki’ , whom the Irish police would like to interview, later tried to arrest me in Tyre – and immediately freed me when I told him I knew he was a witness to the two Irish soldiers.
So what was I supposed I was to do when I received the following letter from ex-Brigadier General Patrick Purcell of the IrishArmy? ‘Unfortunately we have been forced to withdraw your article in view of a letter from our publisher Irish Academic Press. It is clear from our contract that our society would be responsible in the event of a libel action.’
The enclosed letter from publisher Frank Cass advised that his lawyer had ,cautioned him because I had described Haddad as psychotic, named the blackmailing Israeli major and named the Israeli agent present at the two murders. It’s interesting that Frank Cass’s lawyer thinks it is possible to libel a man (Haddad) who has been dead more than a decade, even more so that he should think that publishing a military code name would force this rascal to expose his real identity. As for Major Haim,he remains on UN files as the man whotried – and apparently succeeded- to force the people of Southern Lebanon to cough up the cash to pay for their own oppressors.”
It seems to me that the Military History Society of Ireland may be determined to suppress the country’s history by persisting in the untruths it publishes about how history was taught from the1920s to the late 1960s.
That the story of the murder of Irish Army soldiers honourably serving their country and the international community can be suppressed by a general of their own army is a matter for concern.
It suggests a lack of moral fibre, a surfeit of fibs and a dearth of intelligence in Military Headquarters.
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