Tuesday, December 18, 2007



The sham “democracy” of the EU so-called “Reform Treaty” was fully exposed on Wednesday, 12 Nollaig/December 2007, in the European Parliament, when a large group of MEP’s from across the political spectrum protested vociferously against the official signing of the Treaty. They were joined by independent Irish MEP, Kathy Sinnot, who pointed out the fact that 26 of the 27 members of the EU are denying their peoples the basic democratic right of a vote on whether they want this rotten Treaty or not. This shows the deep fear of the political elites and the Eurocrats in Brussels of the people’s free expression which is the essence of democracy and which this rotten Treaty attempts to circumscribe by unwarranted transfer of power to unelected bureaucratic cabals headed by the EU Commission.

There is rising anger all over the EU that the elites are trying to bulldoze through this Treaty which, is even admitted by several of its leading supporters to be the rejected EU Constitution by another name:
"As for the changes now proposed to be made to the constitutional treaty,
most are presentational changes that have no practical effect. They have
simply been designed to enable certain heads of government to sell to their people the idea of ratification by parliamentary action rather than by referendum".
Dr Garret FitzGerald, former Taoiseach, “Irish Times”, 30 June 2007


Both Blank Cheque Bertie and his Minister for European Affairs, The CockRoche, have admitted in public that this document contains 90% of what was in the EU Constitution. The Treaty supporters apparently see no irony in claiming that this treaty “extends” democracy in the EU yet none of them want to give the people the right to vote on it for themselves.

In the Seanad/Senate yesterday, The CockRoche announced the government would be challenging Treaty opponents “to spell out why the balance of the Treaty was against Ireland’s interests”. He didn’t have to wait long for his challenge to be taken up as in an immediate riposte, Senator Pearse Doherty (Sinn Féin) said the Treaty was not in Ireland’s interests because “…it involves a massive transfer of power to the EU. It significantly increases the militarisation of the EU and it advances an economic agenda based on a race to the bottom for wages and workers rights”.
(12/12/07)

VOTE NO TO “SHAMOCRACY”
VOTE NO TO “4TH REICH” MODERN FASCISM!



CASH FOR BERTIE: PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY, CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

More Tribunal revelations this week showed further cash “dig-outs” for Blank Cheque Bertie amounted to an additional £IP16,500 following a whip-around in a Dublin pub. At the same time as he allegedly received this cash, Blank-Cheque had £IP70,000 in bank accounts at AIB and Irish Permanent. This and the other “dig-outs” were supposedly to help “Poor Bertie” who was going through a marital seperation and had no permanent residence to call his own. Awwwr…. Don’t ya feel sad at that. The Tribunal continues its inquiries.

Blank Cheque Bertie also did a u-turn this week on the totally unjustified pay increases for himself and his ministers which has caused widespread public outrage. The increases are to be deferred until 2009 and then only phased in after that. This brass-necked government has been calling for “wage restraint” in 2008.
(12/12/07)


SCHOOLS WATER FIASCO:

If evidence were needed that one hand of this shambolic government doesn’t know what the other is doing it was clearly shown when schools in the public system received a flock of bills this week, from local and city councils, for water charges going back 3 years and more. These bills of thousands of Euro cannot be met without cuts in the schools budget for education since no-one in this outrageously incompetent government made any arrangements for the exclusion of schools from the implementation of the 1999 EU Water Directive which was designed to curb wastage of water by industrial complexes only.

Within hours of public statements in the Dáil both by Blank-Cheque Bertie and Grumpanella Hanafin, Minister for Education, saying nothing could be done, a senior Environment Commission spokesperson, Jorge Rodriguez Romero, said that governments could exempt schools from the Directive if they wished as there was an enabling clause in the Directive, Article 9(4) to provide for this.

This lazy Government couldn’t be bothered to properly look up their powers under this Directive and save everyone in the schools and county councils from going through the farce of sending out bills which need not be paid and, in a further example of gross incompetence, water meters are being installed in schools throughout the State which are unnecessary in the light of events and a scandalous waste of taxpayers money. The ludicrous Grumpanella was still defending her do-nothing stance and quoting the Directive on radio this morning having obviously not read the morning papers’ headlines contradicting her and Bertie’s previous statements to the Dáil. And these are the nincompoops who are proposing to give themselves substantial wage increases!
(12/12/07)

As the majority of countries represented at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia worked out the details of a historic agreement on firm action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions the despicable Buckfush regime in Washington tried to sabotage the conference by pressuring governments of countries with trading relations dependent on the USA not to support the World Agreement proposed at the conference to be finalised in 2009. Former Vice-President of the USA and Nobel prize-winner, Albert Gore, publicly declared to the delegates that his country’s delegation was engaged in destructive activities intended to sabotage the conference. This provoked a furious reaction from the despicable Buckfush regime in Washington.

In a blatant attempt to intimidate delegates and disrupt the conference, Paula Dobriansky, head of the USA delegation demanded that the media briefing centre at the conference be cleared so that it could be “swept” by armed police and sniffer dogs in advance of her delegations arrival. Thus, the theatrics of Washington’s paranoia on “security” were needlessly imported into the conference which had already been heavily secured by Indonesian forces, one of the largest armies in the world. Ms Doberman refused point blank to agree to any specific targets on emissions reduction being part of any agreement.

Ms Doberman then tried to undermine the Bali Conference by trying to intimidate other delegations into following her line of no specific targets and suggesting all decisions be deferred to an alternative do-nothing conference being organised by Washington to take place in Hawaii next January. Canada, led by right-wing Buckfush lick-a$$, Stephen Harper, and Japan were willing stalking horses in this charade by the USA delegation. When these machinations were revealed to the public, Ms Doberman was forced to retreat and agree, grudgingly ,to a joint communique but, intransigent as ever, the Buckfush White House issued a venomous statement pulling the rug from under its own delegation and refuting any committments to effective action.
The USA now stands opposed to the majority of the world’s nations in this vital effort on behalf of the whole of humanity to prevent the catastrophic results of unchecked climate change.

(18/12/07)


FearFeasa Mac Léinn Áth Cliath/Dublin,

18 NOLLAIG/DECEMBER 2007.











Tuesday, December 04, 2007

PHOTO: FFML


MYSTERY TIME DISCREPANCY
DURING FORMER TAOISEACH'S
STOPOVER IN
BERMUDA TRIANGLE !!

Well, the Bahamas, actually, but, they are one of the boundary points of the infamous, time-warping, legendary “Triangle”. The mystery arises from evidence this week at the Mahon Tribunal, investigating corruption in the planning process in Dublin County, concerning a foreign trip by former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds in 1994. Mr Reynolds left Dublin on March 12th that year on a fund-raising trip for FF in the USA and on the return flight landed at Nassau, Commonwealth of the Bahamas, for an “official” visit, unreported by the Irish media at the time.

Brigadier General Ralph James, Commander of the Air Corps, told the Tribunal, Wednesday, Samhain/November 27th, that he flew Taoiseach Reynolds and party to Nassau from the USA and on March 21st , the day the aircraft was due to return to Dublin, a change of flight was requested by the Taoiseach’s Office to include an additional visit to Freeport on another island in the Bahamas. The Brigadier’s evidence follows allegations to the tribunal by businessman Tom Gilmartin that suggested Mr Reynolds had collected up to a $1M in the USA for Fianna Fáil but that only $70,000 had been remitted to FF funds. “Someone said they (the money) must have fallen off the plane and drifted to the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands” Mr Gilmartin had declared. Mr Gilmartin also told the Tribunal, previously, that Cork property developer, Owen O’Callaghan had said that, allegedly, Mr Reynolds had received £150,000 after attending a dinner in Cork on Márta/March 11th, the night before he had left for the USA. Brigadier General James also confirmed that Mr Reynolds had been flown to Cork by helicopter at 5pm that day, returning to Dublin at 1.30am.


On RTÉ, Irish national radio,Thursday, Samhain/November 29th, Dr Martin Mansergh, TD for Tipperary South, and a member of the group which accompanied Mr Reynolds to the USA and the Bahamas, made a rambling, amnesiac statement about the diversion to Freeport implying that the flight had been a scheduled one, directly contradicting the evidence of Brigadier General James that the diversion was requested only on March 21st 1994 and had not been included in the schedule when the party originally left Dublin. Dr Mansergh has not added anything to the erudition of the Nation by his rambling statement but, only extended the confusion and evasion which has characterised the explanations for the bizarre financial arrangements of Blank-Cheque Bertie and his cronies in 1994.

“White Chief speaks with forked tongue….”

Further evidence contradicting Blank-Cheque Bertie’s explanations emerged also with statements by the former managing director of NCB Stockbrokers, Mr Pádraic O’Connor, that a £5000 donation from that company to Fianna Fáil ended up in Blank-Cheque Bertie’s personal account. Mr O’Connor also emphatically denied Blank-Cheque Bertie’s statement on RTÉ Television SixOneNews in September 2006 that he was a personal friend of Taoiseach Ahern or that the Taoiseach had thanked him personally for the £5000 donation. Again, on Thursday’s RTÉ Television’s news bulletins, Blank Cheque Bertie when quizzed by reporters on this matter offered the completely lame response that he “thought Mr O’Connor was a friend”. It beggars belief that this man, holding the highest government office in the State, expects the people to believe anything he says. A further revelation that a false invoice was issued by NCB to cover up the political donation has put Blank-Cheque Bertie again on the back-foot.

Only days after this evidence it has now emerged that, in 1994, the Chairman of the National Lottery, Mr John Hynes, was instructed by Department of Finance officials to co-operate with a consortium of businessmen who were promoting the establishment of the first gambling casino in Ireland at the site of the old Phoenix Park Racecourse. One of the partners in this project was Mr Norman Turner who contributed $10,000 to the Fianna Fáil party via Mr Des Richardson, then Fianna Fáil chief fundraiser, also in 1994, and the other partner in the consortium was Mr Robert White, a schooldays friend of Blank-Cheque Bertie. Who was Minister for Finance in charge of the National Lottery at the time? Yes, you guessed it; Mr Bertie Ahern T.D. And who was also known to Mr Turner and Mr White? You guessed right again: Mr Bertie Ahern T.D. These Casino negotiations were kept secret from the public at the time by a so-called “non-disclosure agreement”.

Mr Hynes, a shrewd and careful executive, also chief executive of An Post at the time, and previously Managing Director of Dublin Bus, soon realised that the Casino promoters were only interested in having the National Lottery on board in order to “rent a reputation”. In interviews with the “Irish Independent”, repeated in other newspapers in the past few days and yesterday, 03 Nollaig/December 2007 on RTÉ Irish National Radio news, Mr Hynes stated “I was fully satisfied from my contacts with senior civil servants that the Minister (Mr Bertie Ahern) did not demur from my contact with Sonas-Ogden (the Casino promoting company)”. Blank-Cheque Bertie subsequently publicly opposed the Casino project when local opposition became widespread and very active prior to the 1997 general election when he was first elected Taoiseach. This is now being spun as a virtue by Government spokespeople.

A Guru by any other name….

RTÉ Radio listeners to the midday news bulletin yesterday 03 Nollaig/December were treated to an apoplectic rant by Senator Eoghan Guru Harris, appointed to the Senate by Blank-Cheque Bertie after the May General election this year. In a ludicrous attempt to divert attention from the serious and damaging evidence now emerging on a daily basis at the Tribunal concerning Blank-Cheque Bertie’s bizarre financial arrangements in 1994, Guru Harris, whose equally bizarre political career has stretched from Worker’s Party Revolutionary Socialist to Friend of Ulster Unionism , mentor of right-wing Fine Gael under John Bruton, and currently, Knight-Defender of the Bertie Empire, made a desperate attempt to imply that the Tribunal and media reporting of it was a conspiracy by the Irish Daily Mail (an Irish edition of a British tabloid newspaper) to bring down the head of the Irish Government.

….. would stink as much.

The Daily Mail may have an agenda, most British tabloids do, and so does the “Irish Independent” group for which Guru Harris has written extensively for years with his own peculiar political views. The Independent Group, owned by billionaire businessman “Sir” Tony O’Reilly is the most notorious right-wing propaganda machine in the Irish media, regularly slandering left-wing politics in Ireland and abroad; supporting the imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; praising everything done by the usurper, vote-rigging Buckfush regime; slandering the Irish Anti-War Movement and anyone who protests against the misuse of Shannon Airport by the US Military and CIA “rendition” torture plane flights through the same airport; slandering the decent people of Erris, Co Mayo in their brave attempt to oppose international Oil-Monopoly, Shell Oil’s plan to put a high-pressure gas pipeline across their lands close to their residences.

Guru Harris, now shamelessly playing the Green Nationalist Card in defence of the indefensible, was quite comfortable spouting his propaganda from the columns of the London “ Sunday Times”, imperialist war-mongering rag, long-time enemy of the Irish people and their right to self-determination, now owned by “Not-Sir” Rupert Morlock, billionaire meeja mogul and propagandist for the “New World Order” of Buckfush and Blairschmuck.

Guru Harris’ stock-in-trade for years past has been condemnation of Sinn Féin – IRA Provo nationalism in Northern Ireland and has milked every penny he can get from this stance in any media outlet which would allow him in. It is sheer brass-faced hypocrisy for him now to use this card to prop up a floundering leader of a shameless, incompetent government which uses any means to try to cling to power.

The question for the Irish people now is not what a British tabloid newspaper thinks or might be up to, but, is the Head of the Irish Government a trustworthy person to hold such office and can his public utterances be believed as truth. It is not the duty of the elected representatives in Dáil Éireann to support any Taoiseach who is attacked by a British newspaper without qualification, as Guru Harris is urging them to do but only to support a Taoiseach who puts the interests of the people before himself and tells the truth on all occasions. The people’s representatives in the Dáil, under Bunreacht na hÉireann, are not there as cannon fodder for any Taoiseach but to ensure that the people’s interests come first before any individual politician or party.

As regards British tabloids, the question is why the Irish media is not pursuing the investigation into Blank-Cheque Bertie’s sleazy closed-door “fund-raising” or “dig-outs” to the extent the public interest requires. The Irish media, including Guru Harris, but with one honourable exception, Vincent Browne, of “Village” magazine, raised no serious questions about the financial shenanigans of former FF Taoiseach, Charles J. Haughey, whom we now know was as corrupt as a Mafioso Godfather. Is it any surprise, then, that we need to rely on British tabloids for some of the information?

Today, 04 Nollaig/December, Blank-Cheque Bertie is reported as condemning the issuing of the false invoice for the money which he has been forced to admit he benefited from, and has stabbed in the back his collaborator, Fianna Fáil fund-raiser Des Richardson, and Pádraic O’Connor, formerly of NCB, whom last week he was calling “a friend” in a petulant and cynical manoeuvre to try and save himself from an increasingly slippery slope to perdition. Blank Cheque failed to comdemn the promotion of tax-evasion schemes by Mayo deputy, Beverly Stupor-Flynntstone, whom he has been assiduously courting and wooing back into his parliamentary party and ratbag coalition, even hinting that the discredited former bank official could be given ministerial office in the current government. This shows the depths of cynicism and tolerance of corrupt practice at the highest level of the Government Guru Harris wants all T.D’s to support.
As the Tribunal proceeds towards Blank-Cheque Bertie’s next fateful appearance there, in two weeks time, a Mt Everest of questions has arisen on these matters which demand answers to the public on the conduct of persons holding the highest offices of the state, with most of them being members or associates of the Fianna Fáil Party.


FearFeasa Mac Léinn
Áth Cliath/Dublin, 04 NOLLAIG/DECEMBER 2007.




PHOTO: FFML

CHANGE IN THE WEATHER?

The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, recently presented to the Security Council the 4th Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which was launched in Valencia, Spain, in early November. The Secretary General, in one of the strongest warnings given to world leaders in decades of dithering do-nothing and procrastination declared that the whole world was facing potentially catastrophic consequences before the end of this century with “abrupt and irreversible” climate changes unless urgent action was taken to curb greenhouse gases saturating the Earth’s atmosphere as a direct result of human activities on the planet. Secretary General Ban insisted that world leaders must make a serious effort to agree counter-acting measures at the Bali, Indonesia, conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which opened yesterday, 03 Nollaig/December 2007.

The Convention is supposed to agree a successor to the Kyoto Treaty but, intransigent reactionary politicians like Buckfush and his Australian conservative licka$$, John Howard, have been blocking international efforts at the UN and elsewhere to enforce tougher environmental laws in deference to the wishes of their big- business cronies. Fortunately, Howard was ousted from the Prime Minister’s office in Canberra at the November 24th Australian general election by Labour Party leader Kevin Rudd. Rudd is leading the Australian delegation to the Bali Conference and signed-up yesterday, as promised, to the Kyoto Treaty in a public snub to Washington and Buckfush. The despicable Buckfush regime is now isolated internationally as never before on this issue.The tide is turning against the reactionaries as the world-wide public awareness and alarm at the consequences of irreversible climate change grows.


This year alone we had Tornados in Clonakilty and the Irish Sea, Beauty Queens of Leenane running for their lives as their river bridge was swept away by a raging torrent. Monsoon in Britain with major flooding disaster areas for weeks during the summer months and a new sweep of mini-tornados in September. 40,000 homes, mostly in England were damaged by floods and the estimated costs arising are declared to be £41 Billion by the British Government. Is there a pattern to this and is it connected to the phenomenon of “Global Warming”? As the vast majority of the world’s physical scientists say yes, an intransigent group of political leaders are trying to downplay what is now being declared a serious crisis by the United Nations.

The IPCC’s report evidences that 11 of the past 12 years were the warmest recorded since accurate recording began over 150 years ago. The tropical rain-belt has extended North and South in a much shorter time than previously predicted.

The Arctic ice-cap (which floats on the sea), continues to melt at an accelerating rate causing increased sea levels everywhere. Ice reflects sunlight, reducing the surface temperatures in the vicinity. More ice-free ocean absorbs sunlight speeding up the melting process. Warmer water, being less dense, floats on top of colder water. Extending this southward from the Arctic could possibly block or even eliminate the Gulf Stream which gives Ireland its milder winters compared to Labrador, in Canada, which is at the same latitude as us.

Warming the Northern hemisphere results in melting in the vast perma-frost areas of Russia and Canada leading to the release of vast quantities of methane gas from rotting vegetation. Methane is a so-called “greenhouse” gas and a major contributor to global warming. The vicious circle is perilously near to closing and, sooner rather than later, if we, as a species, don’t take immediate remedial action, we will be unable to stop it with disastrous consequences for human life on this planet.

The Irish Government’s piddling efforts on this issue are a disgrace. Buying “carbon credits” instead of tackling the waste problem at its most acute; industrial landfill; not household bin collections. Spending 80% more on private vehicle facilitation than on public transport. Spending vast sums on road-building contacts and begrudging, procrastinating efforts on railways. Penalising householders for the existence of unwanted packaging produced by commercial enterprises instead of taxing the actual producers of this waste. Fearing to tackle the motoring lobby on fuel-guzzling 4-wheel drive SUVs.

Even with Green Party Ministers in Cabinet, they have been so compromised that little effort can be expected from them. The Government will be pre-occupied with Bertie's troubles for months to come further distracting ministers from doing their jobs.



FearFeasa Mac Léinn

Áth Cliath/Dublin, 04 NOLLAIG /DECEMBER 2007.

Thursday, November 08, 2007



NEW POLL SHOWS MASSIVE
DROP IN SUPPORT FOR
EU “REFORM TREATY”

(Photo:FFML)

Only days after choking on their cornflakes at the “Irish Times” headlines of a 9% drop in electoral support for Fianna Failure, the Soldiers of Multiple Disasters faced a new and shocking poll which shows support for the so-called “EU Reform Treaty”, which is nothing less than the rejected “Constitution” under a different name, has evaporated in the last two years and is now at a new low of only 25% positive support with 62% in the “don’t know” camp and definite Noes up to 13%. This is a 50% drop in support from the polls in 2005 on the previous “EU Constitution” document which was scuppered by voters in France and Netherlands referenda.

This is shattering news for the Leinster House political elite and their business cronies who were hoping for a no-discussion walkover referendum next summer. Now they will have to get up off their lazy a$$es and, horror of horrors, spend money trying to convince the Irish electorate to buy this latest pig-in-a-poke from the Brussels Bureaucrats Club.

The People "need to be informed about its contents and to hear the arguments for and against before they can be expected to make a real political choice next year…." whinged the “Irish Times” editorial of Monday, 5th Samhain/November 2007. Never mind that it and the Irish media in general have failed to supply any coherent analysis of this Treaty and explain to the public what they might be voting for. There is a deliberate attempt to curtail discussion of this disgraceful anti-democratic document and Fianna Failure have set up a “dirty-tricks” committee to discredit any opposition to it. The main thrust of this committee will be to try and dismiss the opposition as “head-bangers” and “right-wing fanatics” as Foreign Minister, Dermot Ahern, tried to do in a statement , Tuesday, 06 Samhain/November 2007 in Dundalk.

Ahern, who has turned a blind eye to CIA “Rendition” Torture Camp Shuttle Planes landing at Shannon Airport and who lied to the European Parliament inquiry into such matters, had the brass neck to try and link the democratic opposition to this treaty to such as Le Pen, the French fascist agitator and racist politician. It is imperative therefore that the democratic opposition present a clear message of anti-bureaucratic protest and distinct anti-militarisation policies and not anti-European sentiment which would only serve the lying propaganda of Fianna Failure’s Dirty-Tricks Committee.

In a disgraceful attempt at manipulation, it has become known that certain journalists at the “Irish Times” have been calling Le Pen and slyly trying to inveigle the openly racist politician to come to Ireland and intervene in the Irish referendum.



As the date of the referendum approaches the pressure will mount, especially as Ireland is the only member-state, so far, to hold an official referendum on the ratification of the Treaty. There is, however a ground-swell of opinion in other countries for their voters to be given the chance to express an opinion and this might become unstoppable by next year. Thus, the Irish referendum will be followed closely on the continent and the Brussels Bureaucrats Club will be pulling out all the stops to ensure victory. Blank-Cheque Bertie has staked his reputation (what’s left of it) on it in the hopes of getting the sinecure of EU Presidency later on. Let’s make sure he doesn’t get his wish.

It is true to say that the EU is at a crossroads of history in this campaign. The choice is between a free, democratic, independent, socially progressive Europe and a monoploly capitalist, monopoly market, militarised bureaucratic dictatorship subservient to the USA and embroiled in its military neo-colonialist follies around the world.


This so-called “Reform Treaty" does not bring the European Union towards more democracy, quite the contrary; it is a regression in the democratic processes already established. This Treaty transfers more powers to unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who will be making 90% of the legislation we will be forced to live under. Open fascism like Le Pen in France, Haidar in Austria and the revived Mussolini dynasty in Italy is publicly condemned by Brussels but, their so-called “Reform Treaty” is itself incipient fascism, more subtly presented, but fascism nevertheless. The new “4th Reich”, in fact. The “Reform” EU will be a union of Monopoly Capitalism, the Military(NATO) and State bureaucracy, not a union of free, independent peoples with democratic and accountable national governments.

In the economic sphere, OECD plans for worldwide capitalist monopoly by forming so called Multilateral Agreement on Investments. The EU would be a regional part of this system. MAI was delayed especially because of the resistance by France, but with Sarkynoze now in power this resistance is likely to crumble. The plan is for complete freedom for finance and speculative Capital in and out of the EU and restrictions on labour and Trade Union rights. There are NO guarantees of Trade Union rights in this Treaty only aspirational shibboleths with no legal or statutory foundation.


The plan is for massive privatisation of every aspect of life, Health, Education, Welfare, Domestic Water Supply, Transport and anything that moves. If they could privatise the air we breathe, they would. Privatisation is enshrined in this Treaty as the NEW GOD of Monopoly Capitalist EU. We have already had a taste of this with Eircom, Aer Lingus and now ESB as the next target. Water privatisation will follow in a snap if this rotten Treaty is ratified.


WITH MALICE AFORETHOUGHT

The plan is for continued restrictions of democratic rights, free expression and curtailment of the right to protest sometimes, conveniently, under the guise of “anti-terror” legislation. We have seen examples of this too. In March, 2003, in Poland, a massive NATO military operation with 15,000 troops from twelve countries, was held at the country’s largest military base near Stettin, on the German border. “Defending Democracy” – no, not on your NATO Nellie – they were trying out new tactics of crowd control and suppression of street protest in the EU. The Polish Army bussed in hundreds of civilians from surrounding towns and villages to act as “rioters” and these were confronted by the NATO jackboots and rounded up en masse and then taken into the base where Guantanamo-like “detention centres” were set up to hold them. There wasn’t a whisper of this event in the Irish media.


The US armaments company, Raytheon, which has a factory in Derry, in Northern Ireland, is engaged with the US Military in inventing exotic new methods of “crowd control” and anti-personnel weaponry such as intense laser beams which create unbearable heat on human targets. Raytheon, based in Palo Alto, Calif., is testing numerous "non-lethal" weapons for military use, with funding from the National Institute of Justice.


According to FOIA documents obtained by the U.S. Sunshine Project, Raytheon's Pulsed Energy Projectiles (PEPs) fire a laser burst of expanding plasma--a collection of charged particles containing equal parts positive ions and electrons. (In science fiction terms, this could best be described as a "raygun.")PEPs can be used from as far as two kilometers away, and are designed to create severe and debilitating pain resulting in temporary paralysis. Of particular concern is the fact that PEPs, apparently ready for use as early as 2007, are being investigated for use against "rioters," according to the British science magazine New Scientist.

Raytheon is also pursuing a microwave-technology-based weapon, named the Active Denial System (ADS), which fires a 95-gigahertz beam at its targets. Thus far, what is known about ADS is that people hit by the weapon's beam experience a sharp rise in body heat and severe pain within five seconds of contact, an experience that is supposed to prompt targets to run in the other direction. A vehicle-mounted version of the weapon is already being designed for use in Iraq, while other portable versions are being designed for both U.S. Marine Corps and domestic law enforcement use.A 2005 Reuters article noted that tests of the weapon have taken place at the Kirtland Air Force base in Albuquerque, N.M. As a part of those tests, researchers first made sure that participants removed all glasses, contact lenses and metal objects like keys, to prevent serious injury--of course, the conditions of real-world use are less controlled.


These developments show the malicious intentions of the Brussels Bureaucrats towards the democratic-minded people of Europe. Slimeball Solana is busy setting up an EU-wide Internal Security Police which will have supra-national powers of arrest in any EU state regardless of local laws if they get this Treaty ratified.

This week, again, we have seen democracy set aside in NATO allies Pakistan ,where military dictator Musharraf has declared a "State of Emergency" and today in Georgia where would-be dictator Saakashvili has also declared a "State of Emergency". In both countries civil rights have been suspended and public protests responded to with brutal police suppression tactics as described above which the NATO jackboots have been practicing for years. In both countries the excuse offered has been "anti-terrorism" and their military and police have received substantial financial aid and NATO/EU training. Only the mildest rebuke has emanated from Washington and Brussels with "hopes" that civil rule be restored "as soon as possible". If this were happening in Venezuela, for example, there would be front-page screaming headlines of condemnation and calls for "sanctions". NATO/EU hypocrisy seen now in its full lying, anti-democratic, anti-people conspiracy and corruption.










FearFeasa Mac Léinn, Áth Cliath/Dublin,

08 SAMHAIN/NOVEMBER 2007.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Ma! I’m in a Big Stew!
Ma! What’ll I Do?


Art by 'Plif'. Concept FFML. Download free for personal use. Commercial & Syndication rights reserved.


SHOCK-HORROR POLL RESULT
SENDS FIANNA FAILURE
STAGGERING:


Only months after re-gaining power the floundering FF Coalition Government has found the Party of “Reality” losing 9% of its support since the General Election last May. The poll results were published by the “Irish Times” last week. The shocking reversal is supposedly due to the shambolic performance of Blank-Cheque Bertie and his ministers in the few short months since the May election. The incompetent mishandling of the Aer-Lingus Shannon Airport withdrawal and the resultant furore in the western counties, with ministers publicly contradicting each other and some running with the hare and hunting with the hounds along with several FF Td’s in a desperate attempt to retain support; Blank-Cheque’s fumbling, bumbling appearance at the Mahon tribunal and the latest Noel “Disaster” Dempsey’s clumsy attempt to rationalise the chaotic learner driver permit system; the arrogant announcement of large pay rises for Cabinet Ministers and Ministers of State, with special legislation to provide additional pension payments for one individual, have all accumulated to create an impression with the public that the Government is out of touch with reality and only interested in feathering its own nest.



Blank-Cheque Bertie, the “Teflon” Taoiseach, had to sweat it out at the Mahon Tribunal in Dublin Castle where he lost further credibility in his attempted explanations of his bizarre financial arrangements in the late 1990’s when he first became leader of Fianna Fáil after the resignation of Albert Reynolds as Taoiseach.

“Teflon” didn’t seem to do much good as the Blank-Cheque Supremo was given the standard roasting by the Four Courts Brigade forensic vivisection squad on their juiciest target yet at the marathon tribunal investigation into planning corruption in Dublin County. Bertie has changed his story yet again about the now infamous “Manchester Dig-out” where he has admitted receiving substantial cash gifts from a prominent businessman following a supporters’ dinner in the city where he went to attend a football match. According to Bertie, the donations were unsolicited and were purely as a result of sympathy for him due to his personal circumstances following separation from his wife.

When the Dáil resumed last month, newly elected Labour Party leader, Éamonn Gilmore upped the political ante by submitting a motion of no confidence in the Taoiseach for the first session of the new Dáil Éireann since the general election in May. The predictable phalanx of Fianna Failure Ministers and TD’s emerged to surround Bertie, but, were joined by former Green Party leader, Trevor Sargent, who also made an astonishingly hypocritical statement attacking the Labour Party for not raising the issue during the general election campaign. Clever Trevor is now Minister of State in the Agriculture Department, having signed himself and his party into government with the same man he is now accusing the Labour Party of not being hard enough in criticising. It didn’t take long, did it, for the once oppositional Greens to turn into brass-faced hypocrites of the style we have come to expect from the FF camp. All boys together, The Greens trooped into the lobbies with the Phalanx to save Bertie’s skin.

At the Tribunal itself, Blank-Cheque Bertie’s lawyers have been trying their best to discredit the evidence of Tom Gilmartin whose allegation that Cork businessman Owen O’Callaghan (who denies the allegations) told him that Bertie had received inappropriate cash payments in the late 90’s started the inquiries into Bertie’s personal finances, but, last month’s testimony by well-known broadcaster Eamonn Dunphy that O’Callaghan had made a similar statement to him, Dunphy, intimating that Bertie had been “bought off” or “taken care of” has severely undermined their efforts to get Bertie off the hook. Blank-Cheque Bertie’s own rambling, muddled, amnesiac testimony has only served to undermine his credibility further. His tardiness in providing documentation requested by the tribunal could do nothing but evoke suspicion that he had something to hide despite repeated denials.

Whether or not Bertie did wrong by statute remains to be proven but, the attitude of his ministers and supporters in rallying around him regardless of wrongdoing shows a shocking level of amoral political practice which would shame the worst banana republics of Latin America. Further woes are expected form Blank Cheque’s next appearance at the tribunal later this month. It could be a Winter of Much Discontent!





FearFeasa Mac Léinn
Áth Cliath/Dublin, 07 SAMHAIN /NOVEMBER 2007.

FIRST USE OF IRISH TROOPS IN

“EU PEACE MISSION” IN AFRICA:

The despatch of the first of 350 Irish troops to Chad in Central Africa as part of an EU Battle Group being deployed under a UN resolution raises once again the debate about the function of the Irish Defence Forces and its deployments abroad. This is the first occasion that our forces are going out under EU Command rather than direct UN Command as in all previous cases. While this mission is basically humanitarian assistance in its content under UN Resolution 1778 which proposes to keep the peace and defend the refugees from conflict in the Darfur province of Sudan who have fled across the border to Chad, the question of mission control and policy matters has not been debated or outlined in any fashion available to the public or Dáil Éireann.


The rank and file representative body, PDFORRA, has also raised the question of funding of this operation as the EU does not pay for individual countries supplying troops like the UN does. Thus the question arises as to whether the Department of Defence is going to fund this from current budgets or whether the Government will provide a supplementary budget for the purpose. Although this endeavour is being promoted as an EU operation “under mandate of the United Nations” it is for all practical purposes a NATO operation as EU military affairs were allocated to NATO under the Nice Treaty of 2003. As pointed out by Susan George, the distinguished US political scientist, at a meeting in Liberty Hall, Dublin, last Saturday, 03 Samhain/November 2007,
NATO is not an EU institution but is run by the USA.

The EU Command is headed by Javier Solana, former Secretary General of NATO and currently EU “Security” Commissioner. Solana, a complete imperialist stooge and a$$-lick of Buckfush and Blairschmuck, supports the illegal war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan and is the prime agitator of further militarisation of the EU as outlined in the so-called “Reform Treaty”, the rejected EU “Constitution” under another name. Solana was also a leading shriek-owl in the illegal and barbaric bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 in which hundreds of civilians were killed and thousands forced from their homes in massive destruction of Yugoslav cities and towns. Hospitals, schools and working public transport were indiscriminately bombed in an unprecedented onslaught on a European country by NATO air strikes in an effort to intimidate Yugoslavia into compliance with NATO diktat.


In 2001, Solana bullied and intimidated the Macedonian Government into accepting completely unjustified demands by the KLA terrorist organisation for concessions for “ethnic” Albanians living in Macedonia. Solana threatened to withdraw EU aid from Macedonia and block its application for EU membership unless it complied with NATO’s diktat. Intimidation, murderous violence, blackmail, bribery, mafia gangsterism, all used in NATO’s plan to establish military bases in all the former Eastern Bloc countries bordering Russia.

This unelected, despicable parasite Solana, is the individual to whom Irish troops in Chad must now report and with whose instructions they must comply. The Irish Government has agreed to send our troops overseas without any public debate and on a mission whose parameters have been decided behind closed doors by unelected officials.

This is an example of what we may expect as routine under the so-called EU “Reform Treaty” which was accepted by the Council of Ministers without debate in Lisbon last month. Ireland is now the only EU member which must hold a referendum on this monstrous bureaucratic assault on European Democracy and Citizens’ Rights and it is vitally important that it be decisively rejected by the Irish people.

If this “Treaty” is ratified then large areas of decision-making will be removed from democratic control and scrutiny. EU bureaucrats we don’t elect can make laws we can’t change or challenge and our parliament, Dáil Éireann, will have no say in it. EU Officials will be immune from prosecutuion, but, Europol Police will be able to travel here and arrest anyone on their own warrants without any hearing in an Irish court. This is the worst attack on civil liberties in Europe since Hitler’s Nazi regime!


Photo: FFML.
FearFeasa Mac Léinn
Áth Cliath/Dublin, 07 SAMHAIN /NOVEMBER 2007.


Wednesday, August 15, 2007


GOODBYE SHANNON! HELLO BELFAST!


Aer Lingus’ decision to withdraw its aircraft on the Shannon-London Heathrow route and transfer this service to Belfast-Aldergrove has stirred up a hornets’ nest of hysterical protest, special pleading and complaining about the losses involved to the surrounding region. It should be noted that, apart from the Trade Unions involved, none of these protesters were in evidence when the Government privatised the State Airline, Aer Lingus, last year. Despite warnings from the Trade Unions and the Labour Party that privatisation would have negative effects on access and future regional development, none of the so-called “business community” raised any objections to the privatisation and subsequently, the Government which engineered it was re-elected to power last May with substantial support from the Midwest region. Pro-privatisation TD’s received 80% of the vote in the election.

The Shannon Airport Authority, which is in the lead of the protest, was set up on demand of local management when Aer Rianta, the state company which managed the airports previously, was dissolved and the assets divided between Shannon, Dublin and Cork airports. SAA had, further, the brass-neck to demand that Dublin Airport Authority be saddled with Shannon’s share of the debt of Aer Rianta! Now, this molly-coddled bunch of incompetents who have sat on their hands since they were set-up and have done nothing to expand the business of their airport in the commercial sphere, preferring instead to wallow in the mercenary gains of the blood-dollars from the use of Shannon Airport by the US Military in supplying troops and materiel to its illegal imperialist War on the people of Iraq, and the illegal transfer of kidnapped persons to the US torture camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This is the main achievement of their existence, so far; to draw shame and embarrassment, internationally, on the Irish people and to ignore national protest and public opinion against this abuse of state facilities for prosecution of an illegal war.

Hypocrisy Flies Again

The howls of “protest” from the hypocritical bunch of FF/PD td’s plus gombeen hangers-on like Healy-Ray who trooped into the lobbies to vote for privatisation of Aer Lingus last year is a sickening display of the dishonesty and corrupt immorality of these parasites who trumpeted the privatisation as a necessity and a progressive development in so-called Celtic Tiger Ireland.

Yet, when the first commercial decision of the now private airline exposes their propaganda stunt and that dishonesty for what it is, they refuse to take responsibility for their own decisions to asset-strip the public sector and they run for cover as “local” representatives as if they were somehow detached from the Government they support in the Dáil. Then, along comes the Wicked Wanker of the Whinging West the vile, scurrilous Two-Gun Deputy O’Dea (Limerick East) who pretends, on occasions, to be Minister for Defence of this Republic, jumping on the bandwagon with a slimy attack on the Aer Lingus Chief Executive, Mr Dermot Mannion whom he likened to a “latter-day Oliver Cromwell”. Mr Mannion has done nothing but implement Government policy, the same Government of which Deputy O’Dea, on occasions, purports to be a member. It is Deputy O’Dea and his slimy Government who are the real “Oliver Cromwells”, the ones who failed to implement their own so-called “spatial strategy”, a political fraud along with their so-called “regional policy” to fool the EU into providing funds for these phantom “developments”. The “Irish Times” of 13/08/07 announces years of delay in 11 sectors of the much-vaunted “Transport 21” infra-structure project in another example of Government chicanery. How the “business community” can believe that they can get a coherent policy implemented by this shambles of a government with ministers contradicting each other in public doesn’t say much for their level of intelligence either.

Calculated Procrastination

There is, undoubtedly, both a demand for connections to London and further expansion required for industrial development in the Midwest region as a whole but, whether it should be Shannon-Heathrow or Aer Lingus, in particular, which provides the service is primarily a business, market- based decision, something which the FF/PD alliance has been preaching support for for years. The through-put at Shannon at just 3m passengers p.a., mostly on trans-Atlantic routes, compared with Dublin at 20m, Belfast at 1.2m and Heathrow itself with 68m shows just how limited the business for airlines is at Shannon with an Authority that couldn’t be bothered seeking new business until it was shocked out of its slumbers by the Aer Lingus withdrawal. What has been ignored in all the fury is that the connections to other airports in London are still operating from Shannon.

On surface transport for the region, the FF/PD alliance has equally failed to adopt a dynamic approach as their procrastination on re-opening the rail connections between Limerick and Sligo via Ennis and Athenry has shown. In the 60 years or more the Airport has been open at Shannon no attempt has been made to connect it to the relatively nearby national rail network.

Donegal, a county in the northwest with a population of over 100,000, has been cut off from rail access since the 1960’s and the FF/PD alliance have made not a sputter of effort there either. The sham “Regional Assemblies” which they set up a few years ago are toothless muppet-shows which have nothing to do with genuine local government which has been steadily degraded throughout the period of FF/PD being in power.

On Wings of Whimsy

In a savage irony, Leering O’Leery, the Pirateer of the Cabeens, scourge of the Trade Unions and persistent thorn-in-the-side of Blank-Cheque Bertie, has made a public offer to use his 25% shareholding in Aer Lingus in concert with the government’s 25% and the Aer Lingus workers’ shares at an EGM of the Board, which he has initiated, to attempt to reverse the management decision to withdraw the Shannon-Heathrow service. The Clown Prince of International Aviation now has the Blank-Cheque Supremo in a bind, forcing him into the open to make a stand for or against the Shannon-Heathrow link.

With less than 100 days since his “new” Government took office, the political blunders of the so-called “Teflon” Taoiseach have attracted mounting criticism; the arrogant, two-fingers to public decency re-habilitation of Beverly Stupor-Flynntstone, the disgraced former FF Td for Mayo; the cronyist appointment of Eoghan Guru Harris to the Seanad seen as an obvious reward for sycophantic a$$-licking during the recent General Election and the current debacle of the Shannon/Belfast switcheroo which smacks of three-card-trickery of the worst kind. His cabinet is in a shambles with Noel “let them eat cake” Dempsey being called out to a duel on the tarmac by Two-Gun Deputy O’Dea, the Wicked Wanker of the Whinging West. With friends like these Blank- Cheque needs no enemies.


The lessons from these events should be quite clear now; if you vote for privatisation parties like Fianna Fáil and PD, privatisation is what you will get, along with all the negative consequences of such transformations of public assets into privately owned ones, answerable only to the shareholders as with any other capitalist private company.






IF YOU COHABIT WITH SCORPIONS YOU ARE LIKELY TO GET STUNG!





(PHOTO: FFML)





YA GOT WHAT YA VOTED FOR!



FearFeasa Mac Léinn

Áth Cliath/Dublin, 15 Lúnasa /August 2007.













Wednesday, July 25, 2007


JUSTICE TRAPS THE GUILTY!

Yes, GUILTY as charged: the decision of the Chicago Jury in the trial of former Meeja Mogul , Conrad Black, also known as Lord Blackheart of Muckharbour, a title conferred by Tony Blairschmuck as a reward for Blackheart’s newspapers backing the imperialist War on Iraq. The Friday 13th July verdict proved dramatically unlucky for Blackheart, once the dahling of the Right all over the world and kiss-me-a$$ buddy of Buckfush and the American Neo-Cons cabal, now faces up to 30 years in the pen for his crimes

Prosecutors are demanding 15 to 20 years, although some lawyers suggested it would more likely be closer to five years. Defence lawyers said Blackheart would appeal against the convictions. Looking shattered and disbelieving, he stared in front of him as Judge Amy St Eve read out the verdicts. Co-defendants, Jack Boultbee, Peter Atkinson and Mark Kipnis, were also found guilty of fraud.

The US government petitioned for Blackheart to go straight to prison, describing him as a "flight risk" who might flee to Canada or Britain. Defence counsel Edward Greenspan pleaded for bail to continue, insisting his client would appear for sentencing. The Judge allowed Blackheart to remain at liberty pending a hearing on Thursday, but she ordered him to remain in Chicago. Blackheart was forced to hand his UK passport to the court clerk before hurrying away without a word.

Delivered just after 11am local time, the verdict ended a four-month trial and marked the final humiliation for the once lauded press baron who previously counted Baroness Thatcher, Princess Tony and Henry Kissinger amongst his friends. No doubt, Blackheart is now box-office poison in those quarters. In a cutting irony, the headline of the London “Daily Telegraph” once one of Blackheart’s prize possessions, announced; “Black, the fraudster”

The US attorney who brought the case, Patrick Fitzgerald, said it showed "grave concern" about integrity at the highest echelons of multinationals which had arisen when firms such as Enron and WorldCom collapsed. "The message is a very simple one," said Mr Fitzgerald, who also led the prosecution of the White House aide to Cheneyshite, “Scooter” Libby, recently convicted of obstructing justice but, immediately afterwards given a pardon by Buckfush; "If you're going to take liberties, and break the law with other peoples' money, there are going to be consequences." There was a public interest need to ensure "insiders in public corporations dealing with shareholders' money do not engage in self-dealing".

The case against Blackheart revolved around a series of phoney "non-compete" agreements attached to the sale of newspapers in America and Canada owned by Blackheart’s company, Hollinger International. According to the US government, he and his colleagues used these little-noticed clauses to skim as much as $60m from Hollinger. Indicted on nine fraud charges, he was convicted of three, amounting to embezzlement of $6.5m. The jury dismissed charges relating to his expense claims, and billing Hollinger for a holiday to Bora Bora and for his wife's 60th birthday party.

Throughout the trial, Blackheart has been ensconced at Chicago's Ritz-Carlton hotel. He all the time protested his innocence and lambasted prosecutors in vitriolic language, declaring he was "at war" with the US government and declaring his opponents were "Nazis".

Blackheart & Missus, right-wing screech
owl Babs Amiel, appropriately dressed as
Marie Antoinette, on-the-town in more
lavish mode before justice caught up with
himself.

A lawyer specialising in white-collar crime, Andrew Stoltmann, said chances of a successful appeal were slim, given the leeway allowed the defence: "I think Conrad Black has virtually no grounds for appeal. Judge Amy St Eve bent over backwards to give him a fair trial."

Once again, a jumped-up celeb Meeja Mogul, feted in government circles everywhere, and using the tremendous influence of the press to peddle lies and distortions for the political benefit of the rich and powerful elites he attached himself to, has been exposed as a miserable fraudster and immoral purveyor of blatant untruth and propaganda while lining his own pockets at the same time.

Sentencing has been set for November 30, 2007.





FearFeasa Mac Léinn
Áth Cliath/Dublin, 25 IÚIL /JULY2007.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

A Serb villager greives over desecrated graves in Kosovo, a regular
event in the UN/NATO ruled enclave. Photo: K.I.M.



NATO Aggression

At the end of the Yugoslav civil wars in 1998, wars provoked and financed by the USA and some of its NATO allies in an attempt to destroy Socialist Yugoslavia, a Russian ally, and pave the way for further NATO expansion up to Russia’s borders in Eastern Europe, further provocations began in the Serbian province of Kosovo mounted by the Albanian terrorist group, the KLA (“Kosovo Liberation Army”) When Yugoslav forces challenged and resisted the terrorist attacks they were accused of “genocide” by NATO and the whole raucous chorus of the Western monopoly media and in March 1999, quite illegally and without any authority of international law, NATO forces led by Clinton and Blair began a bombing campaign against Yugoslav cities and towns hitting mostly civilian areas schools, hospitals, homes, public transport and civilian infrastructure, killing hundreds of men, women and children and rendering thousands homeless.

During the warfare, Croatian aircraft, with Yugoslav markings, were used to attack civilians on roads fleeing cities and towns to bolster the NATO propaganda lies about Yugoslav “genocide”. Yugoslav forces, Army and Police were eventually forced to withdraw from Kosovo under threat of continuing the air assault and invasion by NATO land forces. A “ceasefire” dictated by Clinton and Blair forced Yugoslavia to allow NATO Occupation of Kosovo and only a swift, peremptory occupation of the airport at Pristina, the Kosovo capital, by Russian troops which were part of the UN forces stationed in neighbouring Bosnia, prevented total NATO control and allowed a token UN force which includes a small Irish contingent, to also be stationed in Kosovo.


Clinton's Secretary of State, Madelena Ne'er-too-Bright

with Hashim Taci, KLA terrorist leader.

At the 1999 negotiations between NATO and the Yugoslav representatives at Rambouillet, near Paris, Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madelena Ne’er-too-Bright , imposed Hashim Taci, leader of the KLA as representative of the ethnic Albanians. Washington and London had already decided to mount the air attacks on Yugoslavia and needed the KLA gangsters to triangulate positions on the ground for the attacking NATO aircraft. The US sponsorship of Taci led to the eventual displacement of Ibrahim Rugova, the moderate leader of the ethnic Albanians and the foundations were laid for the criminal narco-statelet which Kosovo has become under NATO/UN Occupation. The KLA was supposed to disband and its members join the “Kosovo Protection Corps” to be set up to police the territory under NATO administration. Instead, the KLA remained to continue as the muscle for the criminal activities of the Albanian Mafia and the KPC was totally infiltrated and rendered ineffective by this means.

MACEDONIA

In 2001 the KLA , through its off-shoot in Macedonia, the NLA, instigated a campaign of violence against the Macedonian Army and Border Police in which hundreds of civilians were also killed and thousands left homeless and made refugees in their own country. On March 18, 2001 Macedonia's Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski launched a dramatic appeal to the nation; "It is obvious that the international community cannot run away from the fact that this time we are dealing with the creation of a new Taliban by the Western democracies within Europe" he said. But, the appeals of the Macedonian Government were ignored in favour of NATO/EU “strategic” considerations.

A ceasefire, supposedly arranged by Javier Solana, former Secretary General of NATO and current EU Security Commissioner, forced concessions from the Macedonian Government on unjustified increased political representation of “ethnic” Albanians in the Macedonian Parliament and coerced the Macedonian Government to allow NATO bases to be established in the country and thousands of NATO troops to be stationed there. Solana threatened to withdraw EU aid from Macedonia and block its application for EU membership unless it complied with NATO’s diktat. Intimidation, murderous violence, blackmail, bribery, mafia gangsterism, all used in NATO’s plan to establish military bases in all the former Eastern Bloc countries bordering Russia. Only Serbia stands in the way of these schemes but, the pro-NATO parties in Serbia, bribed by Washington financing and the promise of EU membership in the future, are actively trying to undermine the country’s independence and sell-out to NATO/EU at the earliest opportunity.

Solana, a complete imperialist stooge, carries out NATO and Washington orders against the interests of the EU which he supposedly represents. Solana is the leading lobbyist for militarisation of the EU and its involvement in neo-colonialist military adventures across the globe.


REPUBLIC OF HEROIN

Subsequent NATO/UN rule in Kosovo has proved disastrous, allowing the territory to become a hotbed of criminality, subversion, ethnic violence against the remaining Serb population, drug smuggling, human trafficking, and money laundering on a massive scale. The “Taliban within Europe” is now a well established fact. Both Interpol, the international police organisation and Europol, its EU equivalent, have condemned the deteriorating situation in the enclave and warned EU ministers that lack of action by them was allowing the creation of an uncontrollable situation with dire consequences for the whole of Europe.

European police forces estimate that 5000 tons of heroin per month are passing through the KLA/Albanian Mafia organisation in Kosovo, and the amount is steadily increasing. As far as Albania is concerned "We do not talk in kilos any more but in tonnes of drugs," a senior Western diplomat in Tirana told the “Irish Times” in July of 2006. "Albania is like a big drugs warehouse," the diplomat concluded. 19,500 Kosovo Albanians are clogging German jails for selling drugs; 2,500 Kosovo Albanians are in Swiss jails for selling drugs; Hungarian anti-mafia chief Djerd Holosi says Albanians control 80% of Hungarian drugs; Czech's attribute 70% of drug distribution to Kosovo Albanians. The Azuri coast in Spain is now controlled by Kosovo Albanian Mafia.



Agim Ceku, a lying terrorist war-criminal of the so-called “Kosovo Liberation Army” (KLA) is now NATO appointed “prime minister” of this lawless territory and making belligerent statements threatening unilateral declarations of “independence” for his mafia-run enclave. There is no normal economy in Kosovo anymore, only criminal enterprises which function undisturbed right under the noses of the NATO/UN Administration and these activities could not continue without some active collusion by the supposed “Authorities”. "Ethnic Albanian groups have escalated from being simple service providers to other OC [organized crime] groups to reaching the highest echelons of international OC," declared the Council of the European Union in Brussels, 17 November 2005, and continued: "They are hierarchical and homogeneous, mainly involved in drug trafficking and trafficking in human beings (THB; often with disproportionate use of violence), exploitation of prostitution, facilitating illegal immigration and all kinds of property crime."


It is difficult to understand, then, why the EU is continuing to support the insane policy of separating Kosovo from Serbia and advocating “independence” for this lawless enclave. The Irish Government which has a contingent of troops in Kosovo, has done nothing to oppose these developments or bother to inform the Irish public of what is going on in the territory. We have seen in the past two days the extent of the efforts being made by international criminals to smuggle drugs into this country with the seizure of €120M worth of cocaine off the coast of West Cork yesterday. Cocaine comes from Latin America, mainly Colombia and Bolivia. There are now proven links established between the Colombian and Albanian Mafias. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the Colombian cartels have set up supply bases in the Albanian port of Durres for transport of cocaine overland to the rest of Europe via Kosovo.

Mujahadeen


The introduction of thousands of “mujahadeen” fighters from the Arab world and further east into the Bosnian civil war at the end of the 90’s with the direct collusion of the Clinton regime in Washington, allowed Al Qaeda to gain a foothold in Europe which it has since consolidated and expanded into militant offshoots now based in Kosovo and neighbouring Albania. With the turn of events since September 11th, 2001, the US is now waging bloody war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda in Iraq but the “Taliban within Europe” as the Macedonian Prime Minister described it, is being supported and facilitated in its criminal enterprises. Within sight of the KLA drug-trafficking villages in Kosovo is “Camp Bondsteel” one of the largest US Military bases ever constructed overseas, on a vast site, near the village of Uresevac, and accommodating over 4000 troops.

"Camp Bondsteel", US Military Base, Kosovo. (Photo: GlobalSecurity)

This shows that the US has no intention of moving out of Kosovo, which it would have to do if the province was returned to Serbia, and this military presence fits in with the overall Balkans and Caspian Sea strategy of Washington. This is also the reason why the US is bullying its NATO allies and other EU countries into supporting the stupid “UN Plan” for Kosovo independence. There is nothing in the UN Charter which entitles the Security Council to detach territory from any member state and set it up as a separate entity. This is pure diktat by the Washington regime in pursuit of its own interests and the UN should not be misused and corrupted for this purpose.

The Irish Government should oppose these manoeuvrings both at the UN and at the EU Councils if its alleged commitment to International Law is to have any credibility.


FearFeasa Mac Léinn

Áth Cliath/Dublin, 05 IÚIL /JULY2007.

Monday, July 02, 2007


So, Who are the Anti-Americans?
The latest opinion polls taken in the USA show that 73% of the American public are now opposed to the Buckfush regime’s disastrous War in Iraq. The question has to be asked then; who are the Anti-Americans? Those who agree with the majority of the American public or those who ignore, defy and show only contempt for the democratic opinion of the American people?

We know who THEY are, don’t we? Buckfush and his discredited, shambling, crumbling regime of incompetence and corrupt manipulation of political power and daylight robbery and plunder of the US Treasury; Blairschmuck and his fawning cronies now ousted from power in Dowdy Street, and the miserable collection of ratbag dictators and despots who have joined up the so-called “War on Terror” for dollars and despoliation.

The “War on Terror”, far from defeating terrorism or even containing it, has, in fact, increased the danger and provided more propaganda opportunities and conflict areas for the jihadists and other extremists to join in. As the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, and the Palestine –Israel conflict is even further from any resolution as a direct result of Anglo-American pro-zionist policies, a new area of conflict threatens to open up in Europe with the attempts to separate NATO-occupied Kosovo from Serbia. The extreme stupidity of the EU-NATO moves on this issue, blinded by US military expansionism in Eastern Europe, will cost Europe dear if this situation is not resolved strictly in accordance with the UN Charter and International Law.

With Irish troops stationed in Kosovo in the direct line-of-fire if conflict resumes there, the spineless Irish Government has failed to make any efforts to assist a peaceful and law-based solution to the conflict there. But, then, this is par for the course with them since they continue to assist the US war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan by allowing US Military aircraft facilities at Shannon Airport despite clear breaches of the Geneva Conventions in respect of these activities.
FearFeasa Mac Léinn
Áth Cliath/Dublin, 02 IÚIL /JULY 2007.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

DIE LINKE IST NICHT TODT!


(Foto: "Der Spiegel")


The Left is not dead! Despite calculated meeja attempts to bury the Left in Europe, with the victory of right-wing Sarkynose in France, and in Ireland with the disappointing performance of Labour in the recent General Election here; on the contrary, the Left is showing vigorous signs of life right now with the establishment of a new Left Party in GermanyDie Linke, and an increased vote for the Socialist Party in the French Parliamentary elections.

GERMANY

In a vibrant and packed conference in Berlin last Saturday, a new left party Die Linke”/”The Left” was formed by the merger of the Party of Democratic Socialism of Eastern Germany and the Social Justice Party of former SPD leader and former Finance Minister of the Federal Republic, Oscar Lafontaine. In one of the fiery speeches for which he is renowned, Herr Lafontaine pointedly reclaimed the historic territory of the German Left in the tradition of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, iconic leaders of German Socialism both brutally murdered by the Freikorps right-wing militias in 1918 in the aftermath of WW1. Damning the welfare cuts of the previous Schroeder SPD/Green government, Herr Lafontaine stated “We are the Party of the Social State. We need a New Force, The Left, which says; ‘Yes, we want to restore the Social State’ to ecstatic enthusiasm and a standing ovation. Herr Lafontaine went on to firmly position the new party as Anti-War and Pro-Environment.

The new party, also led by Lothar Bisky of the former PDS, will be the second-largest opposition party in the Bundestag with 8% of the national poll but, with nearly 40% of the vote in the five Eastern Lander which made up the German Democratic Republic(DDR) until 1990 and nearly 30% of the vote in the capital, Berlin. Pollsters have rated the new party’s chances as gaining 24% of the national vote in the next election and 44-45% in the eastern Lander, which are the areas surrounding Berlin. The potential in the city of Berlin itself is even higher at 60%. The consequences are dire for the Social Democrats who moved their party significantly to the right in going into coalition with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats after the last election.. Coalesce with the Right at your peril seems to be the message here.

FRANCE

In the French Parliamentary elections on Sunday last, despite cock-crowing media predictions of a landslide for Sarkynose and his UMP Party and the rout of the Socialists, the opposite happened. The Socialists gained more than 50 parliamentary seats and Sarkynose lost his new Deputy Prime Minister, Alain Juppé, to a victorious Socialist candidate. This puts paid to Sarkynose’s plans for gung-ho Yankee-Doodle capitalism in France without opposition and will encourage strong resistance to any attempts to dismantle the social state in France.

The stage is now set, in both France and Germany, the key economies of the EU, for a resurgence of Democratic Socialism, a strengthening of the International Anti-War Movement, the International Resistance to Capitalist Globalisation and the Greed Economy, the fight for Scientific Climate Change Prevention measures, internationally agreed, and the sidelining of the wishy-washy and unreliable Greens. Irish LABOUR needs to note and absorb the lessons of these events immediately.


Beatha don Eite Chlé! Vive La Gauche! Es Leben Die Linke! Long live The Left!

FearFeasa Mac Léinn

Áth Cliath/Dublin, 19 Meitheamh/JUNE 2007.