So how was the visit of various Irish political parties to Washington, including the DUP, the UUP, Sinn Féin and Alastair McDonnell (his party, we’re told, boycotted the shindig) – was their journey fruitful?
No and yes. No, in that not a word or a half-syllable of what they said will deter Joe Biden from backing Israel to the hilt in its murder in Gaza. Yes, in that the subject of a border poll was raised by several US politicians.
Richie Neal, co-chair of the Friends of Ireland caucus” “I think given the democratic nature of the Republic and Northern Ireland that the idea of a conversation is entirely appropriate.” You don’t get to where Richie is without choosing your words carefully.
Congressman Brendan Boyle, who also sits in the Friends of Ireland caucus: “What’s really important right now is for people in Dublin and Belfast, but also in Washington and London and Brussels, to talk about and work through all the possible scenarios, the ramifications, how best to prepare.”
You can see how both men, and other US politicians are approaching the whole border poll on tip-toe. While they don’t want to present themselves as some sort of Brits-out brigade, they are clear in indicating their support for investigation and preparation for a reunited Ireland poll. They also stress the need for “baked-in” security of identity for those unionists who’d be part of the new Ireland. And they point, as many of us have, to the need to avoid the Brexit bear-trap, where people voted without knowing what they were really voting for, which has reduced the UK to the quivering, infirm economic invalid it is today.
Like them or loath them (and boy, do some unionists loath them), the Americans are vital to Irish nationalism and making the reuniting of our country a global rather than a parochial matter. Maybe with the words of the likes of Neal and Boyle ringing in his ears, Leo Varadkar will make his contribution with a citizens’ assembly, sooner rather than later.
Back in 1911,Winston Churchill a member of the Liberal Cabinet led by Asquith, and like Asquith
a member of the secret Committee of Imperial Defence which had been preparing to smash Germany
since the Entente Cordiale of 1904, spoke in Belfast in favour of Home Rule which would “usher
in a prosperous and loyal Ireland, lying like a great breakwater across our (British) Atlantic flank.
He never accepted Ireland’s right to independence and neutrality and his Government resolved,
if the Germans landed in Ireland during the Second World War, to choke us with mustard gas and
phosgene, manufactured at Porton Down, sprayed by a British Squadron based at Feltwell in Norfolk
specially reserved for our murder. From the north of Norway to the Franco/Spanish border the Germans
had been in occupation for four years.
When the sovereign Irish state which had adopted a republican constitution in 1937 was (unnecessarily) labelled a Republic by John A.Costello in 1949 the British (“Socialist”)
Attlee, then co-founding NATO, marked “noted” on a memo from his Cabinet Secretary
which ended with the statement, that “for strategic reasons SOME PART OF IRELAND
SHOULD REMAIN WITHIN HIS MAJESTY’S DOMINIONS.
Attlee and his successors were and remain no less Imperialists today.
Little Catholic Belgium, the Netherlands and France, and Britain resumed the rape and plunder
of non-Europeans, as soon as Hitler’s regime was crushed by the Soviets.
The British Welfare State was largely funded by the almost limitless rubber stolen from MALAY
under Attlee’s “EMERGENCY” . That was a massive war waged on the natives which served as
as prototype for America’s war on Vietnam. That was where Frank Kitson earned his spurs,
Political Britain has never been Ireland’s protector. Nor has Russia ever been Ireland’s enemy.
Irish foreign policy as conducted by De Valera and Frank Aiken served Ireland and mankind well.
The nuclear non-proliferation treaty of 1968 (fruit of 10 years work by Aiken) gave everyone] on
earth a 55 year breather. The United States, Britain and most of the EU are doing their best to blast
us to Kingdom Come. Latter day Redmondite idiots in Ireland are collaborating in the suicide campaign
It would be interesting to establish the views of people deprived of homes, food, water and health care in Gaza and the West Bank about that gig in Washington.
Today, 18 March 2024, the slaughter continues. It is preposterous to hear reports of ‘surgical strikes’ in the vicinity of al Shifa Hospital. The hospital’s electricity supply has been cut off. Medical and nursing staff are not able to properly treat patients. Journalists are being beaten and their equipment destroyed by the IDF.
The IDF continue to prevent international journalists to report on the daily atrocities in Gaza. The number of journalists who have lost their lives in Gaza remains an indictment of the Netanyahu administration. It is reported that to date 126 journalists have been killed for simply reporting events.
During a meeting of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 28 February 2024, Chris Van Hollen excoriated Mr Netanyahu for his role in the events pertaining in Gaza.
The history of Gaza and the West Bank did not start on 7 October 2023.
Watching Gaza on Channel Four news, it has to be the nearest thing to hell on earth. Shocking. Hamas hates Israel and Israel hates Gaza. The people who live there are pawns in a wider geopolitical game. Of course there have been wars in that region since God knows when, where are the hostages taken by Hamas? How do people survive such hideous conditions, all I see is rubble? People scrambling for food and medicine, sad but just another day in Gaza. Hopefully after this current conflict settles down the leaders on both sides will wise up.
well I guess after 30,000 + lives. facilitated by POTUS, I can only hope that MLMcD & MO’N enjoyed the party & have the belief that for Ireland’s sake , it was the right thing to do. However, I am not alone in my belief that it was shameful.