Cowen gambles 

Government 

stability for

Party advantage 

and falls flat on face; 

replaced by Martin as 

Greens quit Government;

General election on

for February 25^th

Shell-shocked FF 

backbenchers

desert Biffo in droves 

as FF Party 

morale crumbles;

At the end of a tumultuous three weeks in Irish politics, Taoiseach Brian (Biffo) Cowen has been replaced as Fianna Fáil Leader by Micheál Martin and suffered the collapse of his Government as coalition Green Party partners withdrew from Government and a General Election has been called for February 25^th.  

The rot started the week after the Dáil resumed following the Christmas break in early January with revelations in the “Sunday Independent” of a previously undisclosed meeting between Biffo and former high-flying banker, Seanie Fitzpatrick, of disgraced and insolvent Anglo-Irish Bank in July of 2008 a few weeks before the Irish Government brought in its controversial blanket guarantee claimed necessary to prevent total collapse of the Irish banking system when the Anglo-Irish insolvency became public knowledge.

Under pressure to provide details of the encounter, which took place at Druid’s Glen golf course near Foxrock in salubrious South Dublin suburbia, Biffo, in a Dáil statement, tried to minimise the event as a quiet golf outing in a social setting which had nothing to do with bank troubles or Government business of any kind. But, faraor, this cosy description was blown wide open by a cruise missile from Sinn Féin leader in the Dáil, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, when he asked Biffo to list the other attendees at the gathering at which the Taoiseach was present. This, after an hour of bluff and bluster by Biffo claiming the Opposition were trying to hang him out to dry over what was a mere social occasion, proved his undoing when he had to reveal that also part of the cosy social gathering were Alan Gray, a board member of the Irish Central Bank, the institution which is the state regulator of banking in Ireland and Gerry McCann, a former director of the then seriously insolvent Anglo-Irish outfit!

People watching the live broadcast of the proceedings on television could see the shock-wave rippling across the Government benches,  with jaws dropping and sharp intakes of breath. Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin reinforced his attack by revealing that he had been present at the same venue at a wedding reception when Biffo and Co. arrived and had seen the other supporting characters when he approached the Taoiseach to invite him to meet the Bridal party as a courtesy. Following this embarrassing debacle which unleashed a whole new round of questions from media and Opposition putting Biffo’s leadership into question again and starting a roller-coaster ride to resignation a few days later.

Events followed in rapid succession. A number of clapped out FF ministers had signalled they would not be contesting the coming election. Cowen saw an opportunity to update his tired Cabinet by bringing in young bloods from the junior ranks of the government. He proposed a confidence motion in himself to see off rising dissidence in the parliamentary party which he won and then, when the Green Party expressed unease at the appointment of any new ministers he re-allocated the portfolios  to the remaining Fianna Fáil ministers. Green Party ex ministers, in high dudgeon, claimed they had not agreed to this proposal and that Biffo was on a solo run. Further consternation on the FF backbenches as the, 48 hours previously, motion of confidence which Cowen had won from them began to dissipate like the early morning mist in the sunrise on the Offaly bogs.

Limerick sewer-rat, Willie O’Dea, sacked as Defence Minister last year as a result of a court perjury scandal(see ‘Brat on a Hot Tin Roof’ in our 2010 articles) emerged to rubbish Cowen’s leadership publicly and plump for dissident Foreign Minister, Micháel Martin, and dismayed coalition partners, the Green Party, who had wrestled with their consciences behind closed doors for a whole day, came into daylight again to announce they were resigning from the Government. Biffo’s goose was plucked, stuffed and cooked all in one go. Seeing the writing on the wall, Biffo resigned the Party leadership. Ex Foreign Minister, Micheal Martin, won the contest a few days later and replaced Cowen as FF Leader. The whole thing a farce, not unlike a mutiny on the Titanic, replacing the Captain as the Iceberg had already holed the Ship of State and the rump Government was forced to accept an ignominious bailout of the State’s indebtedness by the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Fianna Fáil, the dominant party in Irish politics since 1932, when they first entered Government, now riven by factions and despised by a fiercely angered public because of the financial collapse, forced into a general election with only 14% in the polls, down from 42% in the last election in 2007 now facing the most devastating meltdown of a political party in Ireland since the demise of the Irish Party at Westminister at the 1918 General Election which led to Irish independence in 1922.

FURY IN CYPRUS OVER 

de ALMEIDA SPEECH:

The Cyprus Government has reacted angrily to a speech given by EU Ambassador to Washington, Jose Marques de Almeida, at a NATO seminar in the Portuguese National Institute of Defence on October 23 2010. Cypriot leaders are incensed at de Almeida’s comments on the division of their island brought about by an invasion by NATO member Turkey, in 1974. The invasion set up a bitterly contested partition of the island, which had wrested independence from Britain in 1960, and since 1974 occupied by more than 40,000 Turkish NATO troops in the northern part of the island and half of the island’s capital, Nicosia.

De Almeida, a former adviser to President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, said in his speech that the best solution for the enhancement of EU-U.S. relations would be that the European Union (EU) joins NATO. De Almeida was one of the speakers in a seminar organized by the National Defence Institute of Portugal in Lisbon. Before being adviser to the EU commission president, he was president of the Portuguese Institution, a government think tank to elaborate on defence and strategic policies According to Marques de Almeida; “the main difficulty in the NATO- EU relation is the issue on the Cyprus unification; Turkey has the second largest army in the alliance, but the division of the island of Cyprus blocks a better relation with the EU”, he stated.

Cyprus is a member of the EU since 1 May 2004 and has a veto on any new members coming into the Union.  The Cypriot leaders were further incensed by a statement released by NATO indicating that during the upcoming NATO summit in Lisbon on November 19-20,  Secretary General of NATO, Anders Rasmussen will propose “the enhancement of the relationship with Turkey”, a move that could include the Turkish “presence in the European Defence Agency with a full membership". These provocative comments by the NATO-EU political and military elite will only add to the tensions which have already arisen in the EU over Turkey’s application for membership which is being informally opposed by Germany and France. There is also no likelihood of Cyprus or Greece agreeing to Turkish entry while its troops are still in occupation of Northern Cyprus.

“EU joining NATO” is the latest push by the elite in Brussels in accelerating the militarisation of the EU which was provided for in the Lisbon Treaty which came into force last year after a second referendum in Ireland. The supporters of the Lisbon Treaty vehemently denied that Ireland could be part of an EU military alliance by default but now we have these statements and others by Merkel and Sarkozy proposing the immediate formation of an EU Army and the rapid establishment of the European Defence Agency shortly after the Treaty was ratified. These lies are now exposed and will be further exposed at the NATO summit in Lisbon later this month. The new NATO strategy for the 21^st Century prepared by former US Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration, Madeline Allbright, and a cabal of retired Generals and others, will be presented and agreed here. The strategy retains NATO’s inhuman “First Strike” Nuclear weapons strategy which would cause the death of millions and poison the Earth’s atmosphere with radiation inimical to all life on the planet.

NATO’s barbarous war mongering will be actively opposed by a people’s “Counter Summit” peace conference in the city on the same weekend and massive public demonstrations against NATO’s aggressive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the Saturday, November 20^th. Delegates from Ireland’s anti-war and peace movements will be taking part in these events.

Further information is available on the Peace and Neutrality link on the sidebar

FearFeasaMacLéinn

Áth Cliath/Dublin

Samhain/November 2 2010.

 Next stop: The Hague 

 for

WAR CRIMINAL

BLAIR!

 In the two weeks since Tony Blair got the bum’s rush by angry Dublin protesters out of our Capital city there have been a number of letters in the “Irish Times” whinging about the throwing of various objects such as eggs, bottles and shoes at the former British Prime Minister, including from Irish Government  Minister ,Martin Mansergh,in the Office of Public Works. Mansergh played a backroom role in the negotiations between Blair and the Irish Government which led to the peace agreement in Northern Ireland a decade ago and would have been well acquainted personally with Blair.

In response to these Moaning Minnies who never have given a thought to the type of missiles thrown by the Blair/Bush War Machine we publish the attached photos of the horrific injuries done to then 12 year old Ali Abbas who lived in the village of Zafaraniya, which is 30 miles from Baghdad, and his entire family wiped out : his mother who was six months pregnant, his father, brother and at least 10 other relatives. It was reported that, just after midnight on 30 March 2003 and 10 days into "Operation Iraqi Freedom", a weapon or two weapons exploded near their house:

“We had all gone to bed and there was this loud noise and smoke. I felt very scared  and I was in much pain. I kept shouting for my mother. I did not know at the time what had happened to her” said young Ali later when he was able to speak of these appalling events.
 
A photograph taken in hospital in Baghdad shows that Ali was burned across his trunk and that his hands and forearms were incinerated. His head, neck, abdomen and legs were unblemished. Examination of this photograph shows this boy was subjected to the most intense radiated heat, not contact heat. It couldn’t have been a conventional explosive or the boy would not have lived. It seems parts of his body were shielded by whatever part of the house he was in and the rest exposed to the deadly weapon of mass destruction launched by Blair/Bush’s evil war machine against him and his innocent family. These images were suppressed by the British Media at the time.
Please note: this article contains graphic images which some may find upsetting.

Now, for those who express to be concerned about Mr Blair’s minor discomfort while in Dublin, including Minister Mansergh, we have no hesitation in declaring them to be 

the worst of hypocrites, apologists for murder and genocide and not representative of the majority of decent-minded Irish people, 100,000 of whom came on the streets of Dublin in February, 2003 to declare their opposition to what became Blair/Bush’s barbaric war on the people of Iraq.

Blair is a prima facie war criminal. There is more evidence against him personally than any of those who were brought before the Yugoslavia War Crimes tribunal.

Charges which could be brought include:

 

Breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention from the time he became Prime Minister in 1997 until March 2003 during which time draconian sanctions were being applied to the civilian population of Iraq. These sanctions prompted the resignation of Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck who served as assistant Secretaries-General of the UN. The former stated that the effect of those sanctions was genocidal. It was established that there was an excess mortality of babies and children of at least 500,000 between 1992 and 2003. This had to do with foul water, poor nutrition and deteriorating medical services, all of which were satisfactory before the sanctions took hold;

 

Conspiracy to join with another power in aggressive war, the supreme international war crime, contrary to the Nuremberg Rules and the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations. This was first made public when he joined  Bush, President of the United States of America, for bloodied steaks over a barbecue at Crawford Ranch in April 2002;

 

High treason (betrayal of one's country, sovereign or government) in manufacturing a case for war, the central one of which was the supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq now known to be a web of lies concocted by Blair and his hated spin-doctor Alastair Campbell.. This in itself gave no legal grounds for war because the possession of such was no basis for a military assault on a sovereign country. Three aggressive nations, the US, UK and Israel, have held weapons of mass destruction for decades; no attempt has been made to disarm them. The grounds for UK military action against Iraq changed as the unlawful operation proceeded under the guise of liberation of the people and Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The part played by the 'sofa cabinet', three of whom were unelected, in promulgating a war fought on behalf of Her Majesty is being minutely examined by law officers. One such cabinet member, Mr Charles Powell, recently stated on BBC TV that the aim of the war was the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. He would know that was an illegal aim. Ann Clywd MP was appointed  Blair's human rights envoy in Iraq. She has continuously claimed a virtuous aim ... but, the fact is that at least a million Iraqis have been killed, about 40 per cent of whom will have been children. Using a conservative ratio, at least two million will have been maimed.

Mr Blair can also be charged with a litany of war crimes that followed the invasion, one of which is the failure of the 'coalition of the willing' to halt the further deterioration in the quality and quantity of medical services in Iraq which had already worsened during the 12 years of sanctions. Another obligation of an occupier is to maintain security for the populace. The very opposite happened. Disbanding the Iraqi army and other government structures was central to the violent chaos which followed the invasion. Protecting the heritage of a country is another obligation of an occupier in international law. Mr Blair failed as leader to meet these and he can be so charged. The suppression of Iraq’s civil government and police and the abolition of its laws and constitution are also grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

The charges could also include collusion in a military and political coalition which has used banned weapons. The illegal use of white phosphorus at Fallujah by the US was admitted. Armour-penetrating tank and cannon shells, as well as "bunker busting" bombs and missiles, have used depleted uranium. Uranium U238 is dispersed widely as a very fine dust; it has been detected as far away as the Britain itself. Iraqi doctors claim that there have been dramatic rises in grotesque deformities in babies born prematurely, in leukaemia and in other malignancies.

At least 1,000,000 civilian deaths, 4,000,000 refugees, 5,000,000 orphans and countless thousands disappeared, maimed and injured are the legacy of this despicable man who defiled our city by his presence. It was an excellent result of the Dublin protest that this criminal was forced to cancel his obscene book tour parasiting on the death and destruction caused by his insane  bloodlust.

FearFeasaMacLéinn

Átha Cliath/Dublin

24 Mean Fómhair/September 2010

MOTORMOUTH O'DEA

STRIKES AGAIN!

Former Defence Minister, Willie O’Dea, T.D., Limerick East, emerged from obscurity last Friday to launch a broadside against the Green Party coalition partners in the crumbling Government he was once a member of on RTÉ’s “Late Late Show” prime time weekender show hosted by celeb groupie Ryan Tubridy.

O’Dea was forced to resign in disgrace last February following a Green Party ultimatum to Taoiseach Brian, “Biffo”, Cowen that they would quit the Government unless O’Dea was dismissed, only 24 hours after a vigorous defence of O’Dea in a Dáil debate led by Cowen and other senior ministers. The rancorous debate itself was a disgrace as Government ministers tried to justify O’Dea’s outrageous behaviour in supplying a false affidavit to the High Court in a slander case in which he was the defendant and the author of his own misfortune as subsequent events revealed.

O’Dea, a well known scurrilous operator throughout his political career, snookered himself by lying to the High Court in the matter of an action for slander arising out of remarks made by him during the Local and European elections in June 2009. During the election campaign, O’Dea spoke to a reporter from the “Limerick Leader” and alleged that a rival Sinn Féin candidate was engaged in criminal activity and that he had been given this information by the Garda Síochána (national police). Apart from the serious impropriety of any member of the police supplying confidential information to a Government minister who was not entitled to such information, the way in which O’Dea used this supposed “tip-off” to slander another candidate was itself a criminal act. When the candidate concerned, now elected Limerick City Councillor, Maurice Quinlivan, sued O’Dea in the High Court, the Minister submitted an affidavit to the Court stating he did not recall having uttered the slander. The controversy was revived in December 2009 when Fine Gael Senator Eugene Regan asked in the Senate about the veracity of the Minister’s statement and newspaper interest revived. Eventually, O’Dea went on radio to defend himself and reiterated the contents of his false affidavit but, faraor, the journalist whom he had spoken to during the 2009 election had retained a tape recording of the interview in which O’Dea is clearly heard uttering the slanderous remarks about Councillor Quinlivan which was provided to RTÉ and broadcast while O’Dea was still in the studio. Collapse of O’Dea’s disingenuous defence and consternation in the shambling Cowen Government. Bravado and defiance in the ensuing Dáil debate didn’t work and on presentation of the Green Party ultimatum the same evening, Cowen had no option but to sack O’Dea from the cabinet or face dissolution of his Government. It should be stated also that Official Garda sources vehemently denied giving any information to Minister O'Dea who then modified his story to relate a "conversation" he had with an "off-duty" member of the Gardai. No such member of the force was ever identified.

O’Dea’s latest outburst on RTÉ television, showing obvious peevishness at his sacking and resentment for the Green half of the miserable Coalition grimly hanging on to power, indicates that the lifetime of this government is limited and O’Dea, like the rest of the herd of the bonehead Fianna Fáil backbenchers terrified of losing their seats in the next election, is trying to pretend, as is his long-time tactic, that he is somehow the “opposition” instead of the miserable lackey he is to the worst government this Republic has ever suffered in its history.

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch.....

Boss Biffo, having spent too much time at the social revels following the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party Stink-Tank in Galway, turned up for a radio interview Tuesday morning sounding the worse for wear and got lost trying to explain what they actually achieved at their Stink-Tank over a long weekend. They were supposed to be getting advice from experts on how they might extricate themselves from the black-hole economy they have created on the collapse of the fraudulent “Celtic Tiger” but, it seems absolutely clear now that Biffo and his wobbly Coalition government haven’t a clue how to do this and the longer they cling to office with no mandate for anything anymore the worse it will be for the suffering population of this country. 

They are now in hock both to the zombie banks which wrecked the economy with their reckless lending and the neo-liberal agenda of the European Commission and the European Central Bank who are enforcing a ruthless policy of cutbacks on wages and social spending not seen since the 1930’s Depression which eventually led to the outbreak of World War 2. There is only one demand to be made now by Labour and the other Left parties and that is a General Election as soon as possible to be fought on a credible alternative of state action to create new jobs, end the banking scandals  restore public control of all our national resources and defend the social gains of the past hundred years or more.

FearFeasa Mac Léinn

Áth Cliath/DUBLIN,

16 Mean Fómhair/September, 2010.