BASQUES AGAINST NATO AND EU – Interview with Herri Ekimena organisation.

On September 5, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Anti-War, Basque Country, Current Affairs Comment, Euskal Herria, Imperialism, Mass Media Criticism, National Liberation, NATO, Political Analysis, Spanish State, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Oscar DíazTranslation from Castilian Spanish by D.Breatnach
(Reading time main piece: 10 mins.)

1. What is Herri Ekimena?

Herri Ekimena is an initiative that emerged in March 2022. A series of organizations began to get together due to concern about the offensive of Atlanticist imperialism in Ukraine, in addition to the blatant manipulation of the media to get us to support their war strategy.

We also observed that, in a context of capitalist crisis and with the excuse of the war against Russia, economic measures were being imposed that resulted in greater impoverishment of the working class.

That is why we took to the streets at that time with the slogan “NATO and the EU condemn us to war and misery”, to turn the official discourse around a little and point to these two organizations as the main ones responsible for the increase in international tensions, as well as for the oppression of the working classes of the imperialist bloc itself.

Also in the month of June of that 2022 we called a demonstration in Bilbo, “against the imperialism of NATO and the EU” and calling for the end of the Russophobia that is still being promoted.

In parallel to the NATO summit that was held in Madrid, we also carried out a 48-hour poster campaign in Gernika, a city with great anti-fascist symbolism that the Ukrainian Nazis tried to appropriate, citing it in a speech before the Spanish Parliament by Zelensky himself.

After a short break, we resumed the fight in the streets at the end of the year, with the “Free Euskal Herria out of NATO and the EU” campaign. In March we held a massive demonstration in Bilbo, together with Askapena¹ and the Bardenas Ya² collective.

*View of demonstration against NATO and war in Bilbao, June 2022.* (Photo source: *Bultza Herri Ekimena*)

This demonstration was exciting to us as we saw that the work that had been done was already bearing fruit and that the anti-imperialist spirit that has historically characterized Euskal Herria was projected in the streets.

We are currently in a restructuring process in order to be more effective, and give new impetus to the anti-imperialist struggle in the streets, which is where this game is truly played.

2. Why combine anti-fascist and anti-imperialist slogans?

The imperialist offensive, which has to do with the systemic crisis of capitalism and the rise of new economic powers, is being accompanied by a general reduction of rights and freedoms.

Those in power fear popular revolts, like those that have been taking place in the French State in recent months.

In Euskal Herria we know well what emergency laws or illegal practices are employed to put an end to dissent, but these types of measures are spreading and becoming normalized throughout Europe. Concentration camps for migrants, deportations without any type of legal guarantee, electronic anklet tags are also normalized…

And also in the case of the countries bordering Russia, imperialism is responsible for waving old supremacist and anti-Slavic flags, such as is happening in Ukraine or Poland.

We see therefore that capitalism, in its most decadent phase, has little scruple when it comes to reactivating liberticidal policies or inciting openly Nazi military and paramilitary shock forces.

So in effect, we believe that the anti-imperialist struggle and the anti-fascist struggle are inseparable parts of the same struggle for our rights and freedoms.

3. A few years ago one could see Donbass flags in the stands of Atlethic³. Why mix football and politics?

Through various institutions, including football clubs, they want to force down our throats the supposed “depoliticization of public spaces.” It is false, because they are the first to try to control absolutely all areas of our lives that we may become submissive and uncritical people.

The media bombardment is constant, generating false debates among humble people about insecurity, occupying empty properties… They thus try to legitimize, by action or omission, measures of social control and police repression that are very, very worrying.

So when someone puts a poster on the street to denounce any injustice, or puts up a banner, or paints graffiti… They are calling into question that false normality that they want to impose on us.

Banner displayed by Athletic Bilbao FC fans during a match. The text is difficult to see in its entirety but in general it is clearly in solidarity with the Donbas region against attack from the Kiev administration.

It is sad — but this situation also reflects the weakness of the system in terms of political legitimacy. Who explicitly supports them? Who is not fed up with everything that is happening? So they are afraid of the flame that starts a prairie fire.

Sports venues do not escape this logic of imposing false normality, even if the laws have to be twisted or passed directly through the triumphal arch.

A Donetsk flag, for example, ruins their photo and calls into question the story that people agree with what they do. So they impose fines of €3,000 just for displaying the flag of a People’s Republic.

Let’s hope that in not many years we will be able to analyze all this as the blows of a dying regime, but for now it is up to us to organize the response and popular solidarity. Repression should not be normalized, nor should people who step forward feel alone.

4. Is EH Bildu⁴ being favorable to NATO?

We do not believe that the social base of EH Bildu is in favor of NATO. That is, if we asked EH Bildu voters if they were in favor of NATO, surely 99% would say no. The problem is that, for its leaders, opposing Atlanticist imperialism is not currently on the list of priorities.

Regarding the issue of the war in Ukraine, Arnaldo Otegi⁵ has openly positioned himself in favor of Ukrainian “sovereignty” and against the Russian “occupation.” Is Ukraine now a sovereign state? Or is it rather a puppet of NATO in its offensive against Russia?

Doesn’t Russia have the right to defend itself from NATO attacks? What about the thousands of people killed in Donbass since 2014? Should Russia have been obliged to watch this genocide impassively?

Have the self-determination processes in Donetsk, in Lugansk, in Crimea … not been practical exercises of sovereignty? In this context, we can say that the speech of some EH Bildu leaders has favored and continues to favor the interests of NATO.

Their support for the State Budget deserves special mention, which includes a 25% increase in military spending. A measure imposed precisely by NATO to approach 2% of GDP in 2029, which is truly outrageous.

So… perhaps it is harsh to say that EH Bildu is in favor of NATO so let us put it another way: What is EH Bildu doing to make Euskal Herria break with NATO? What teaching are they carrying out among their social base and at a public level to create a truly anti-imperialist consciousness?

Very little or nothing, we believe, that is the reality.

5. Will it be possible to continue to see reliable information about Ukraine in the Basque Country and the Spanish state now that military juntas have been formed in African countries that have expelled French embassies? They are very different countries and thousands of kilometers away…

The events that are taking place in the SAHEL area are complex processes, and surely have many sides that make it difficult for us to equate them with the decolonization processes that we have known historically.

But we would be committing a mistake if, due to these supposed “imperfections” with respect to the theoretical manual, we stopped supporting countries that are fighting for nothing less than to expel their occupiers (since those are true occupiers who try to impose themselves by force of weapons thousands of kilometers from their borders) and also to gain control of their enormous natural resources.

How can it be that in extraordinarily rich countries, like Niger or Gabon, the majority of the population survives in absolute poverty? We will have to carefully observe all these processes, but in anti-imperialist Euskal Herria we can only rejoice and tell them that they are not alone.

In this land that, to a degree, also knows what it is to fight against armed occupiers and various collaborators, we know very well that solidarity is the love between people.

Regarding the quality of the information that we are able to receive in Euskal Herria or in the Spanish state, we believe that right now it is below minimum.

It is pathetic to see how, every time an event occurs that could undermine the hegemony of Atlantic imperialism, the mainstream media wait to receive instructions before even reporting the event.

The control of capital over the big media is a reality, so we must promote and support alternative means of information and communication. And also to fight openly in the streets, so that they have no choice but to report our demands.

6. Couldn’t the creation of a multipolar world be dangerous on a war level?

Yes, in fact it already is. We had been talking for years about the end of Yankee hegemony and the economic rise of countries like Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the so-called BRICS.

Perhaps we thought that this change of orientation of world hegemony was going to be a calm process, without any surprises…

But nothing could be further from the truth. While it is true that Yankee imperialism is mortally injured (which we believe it is), the truth is that it seems willing to kill as it dies.

Currently it has restructured NATO in a few months, has de facto absorbed the European Union and is reconfiguring its alliance policy on a global scale. It is increasingly easier to identify “which side” the different states are on, which can be the prelude to a conflict on a planetary scale.

We have been able to verify this recently with Morocco. NATO and the EU buy Morocco and abandon the Sahara to its fate.⁶ What should the Sahrawis do if Algeria, Russia or China offer them help to win their rights and survive as a people?

Of course there may be geopolitical interests in this aid from emerging powers, but it is necessary to analyze whether the agreements, commercial exchanges, donations and aid are produced with mutual respect for sovereignty and benefit the currently oppressed nations.

Of course, from a revolutionary point of view we have to be exacting, and not give a blank cheque to these emerging powers.

In this entire process of multipolarity, whether we like it or not, which is already making its mark upon world geopolitics, there is a class struggle that we must not ignore.

But this critical stance cannot lead us to fall into ninism and evade our own historical responsibility: to combat Atlanticist imperialism from the very heart of the beast.

7. You say “Euskal Herria free from NATO.” And what about the rest of the Spanish state?

We say Euskal Herria should be free outside NATO, but also outside the EU. We believe that this contribution is important, since for many years consideration of leaving the EU has been a kind of taboo, also in Euskal Herria.

Some thought that the EU might even support a possible independence process in Euskal Herria, just as was thought in Catalonia.

*“A Free Basque Country out of NATO and the EU”.*

But the EU has definitively been revealed as a capitalist lobby, as an instrument at the service of elites with a more than dubious past, even with regard to their support for Nazism.

Úrsula von der Leyen, Josep Borrell… are faithful representatives of the EU of Capital, authoritarian and totally committed to the interests of the US. That is why we say that neither the nation nor as a class have a future within the EU.

We make this statement from Euskal Herria, which is our area of struggle. But of course it extends to the entire Spanish State, as well as to the French State and all the peoples of Europe.

A future in freedom is not possible belonging to these criminal organizations, neither in Euskal Herria nor anywhere else.

8. What do you think of the military administration by Margarita Robles of the PSOE/UP government?⁷

Margarita Robles is a pit bull of Spanish politics, a woman who knows perfectly the ins and outs of the State from the offices to the sewers. Not for nothing has she been in positions of power for more than 30 years, originally in the shadow of Belloch, later of Rubalcaba…

At first it may have been surprising to see her at the head of a Ministry like the Defense Ministry, she who comes from the judiciary and who, even in relation to the conflict between Euskal Herria and the Spanish State, had adopted a dialogue profile at certain times.

We are missing a lot of information (I wish that we in Herri Ekimena knew what was going on in the Ministry of Defense, haha), but Margarita Robles is probably dedicating herself to doing in the Spanish military what she also did in her day in the Ministry of Justice and Interior.

That was to send the most archaic elements to the refrigerator in a non-traumatic way to perfectly adapt to the current standards and guidelines of NATO and the EU. Change a minimum so that everything remains absolutely the same.

Can anyone imagine Spanish generals standing up for Spanish national sovereignty in the face of Atlanticist imposition? This could happen in the French State, in fact it would not be unreasonable for something like this to happen.

In the Spanish State it is much more unlikely, but it is the responsibility of politicians like Mrs. Robles that nothing should deviate from the script written by Washington and Brussels.

In this regard, it is worth highlighting the role of the PSOE in what has been the process of integration of the Spanish State into imperialist structures. In addition to Felipe González, we could mention Javier Solana (who became Secretary General of NATO), Josep Borrell⁸…

Whether it is a matter of affinity, or a matter of pragmatism, the truth is that it appears that the PSOE generates a lot more trust among the imperialist powers than any other political party at the level of the State.

9. There were elections this past July 23, 2023. Did any of the political forces propose the departure of NATO from the Spanish state?

We are not aware that this was the case. As we have said before, this government is responsible for the largest increase in military spending in history, and faithfully complies with NATO and EU mandates.

Vice President Yolanda Díaz has publicly supported sending weapons to Ukraine and, as far as we know, no party that supports the government has opposed these shipments as a matter of principle.

We remember that these are weapons that are being used by Nazi soldiers to bomb and murder, not alone Russian soldiers but also the civilian population of Donbass. So we have to organize and fight in the streets, because if we don’t, things will remain exactly the same or worse.

This is the reason for existence of Herri Ekimena, to activate the popular struggle against the imperialism of NATO and the EU. We are working at it and, if all goes well, there will be good news in this regard in the coming weeks.

SOURCE

http://oscar-elbloquedeleste.blogspot.com/

FOOTNOTES

1Askapena was the internationalist solidarity arm of the broad Basque national liberation organisation but split from it many years ago in concern at the deviation from the path of resistance by the leadership under Arnaldo Otegi.

2Bardenas Ya is an organisation campaiging against the military installation in Bardenas, Nafarroa (Navarre).

3Athletic Bilbao FC, whose fans and many of its players have a strong anti-fascist and pro-Basque independence tradition.

4EH Bildu is the political party of the current compliant ‘official’ leadership of the Basque national movement, replacing the Herri Batasuna of the past.

5Leader of EH Bildu who has led the party into what many consider its collaborationist current stance.

6Western Sahara was a Spanish colonial possession and it abandoned it without decolonisation, which allowed Morocco and Mauritania to invade and occupy it against the wishes of the Saharawi people. As a result of the national liberation struggle of the Polisario Front, Mauritania withdrew but Morocco remained in occupation and carrying out repression against the resistance. Shortly before Trump’s departure from the USA’s presidency, he agreed to endorse Moroccan defiance of the UN-recognised Sahawarwi resistance to occupation in exchange for Morocco reversing its long anti-Zionist policy and formally recognising the Zionist occupation of Palestine, which the Moroccan Kingdom has done.

7The recent coalition Government of the Spanish State, the social-democratic PSOE with the Left-social democratic alliance of Unidas Podemos. Currently, the PSOE is endeavouring to form a government in coalition with a somewhat reconfigured Left-social democratic coalition called Sumar.

8All three have been PSOE politicians, Felipe González a prime minister and widely believed head of the GAL anti-Basque terrorist gang. Borrell was President of the European Parliament (2004-2007) and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Spanish Government from 2018 to 2019. He attacked Catalan self-determination which he characterised as part of a disease, despite his own Catalan origin and he is now the Foreign Minister of the European Union.

DRIPPING WITH PROPAGANDA – BUT ALSO REVEALING

On July 6, 2023July 7, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Mass Media Criticism, NATO, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

NEWS & VIEWS NO 4. – Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

A recent article appearing briefly on breakingnews.ie was packed with some of the typical anti-Russian propaganda of the current western mass media but also, unintentionally, revealed the purpose of the US/NATO proxy war in Ukraine.

Whether one is pro-NATO, pro-Russia or of some other position, it can be instructive to dissect this mass media propaganda to which we are subjected daily in western states.

Let’s take the headline first, which serves not just as an ‘attractor’ or ‘hook’ to draw the reader but also as a statement in itself and, in this case, very definitely as propaganda.

“NATO prepares military plans to defend against bruised but unbowed Russia” is the headline. So straightaway we are being told that NATO needs to defend itself against Russia, which is turning truth completely on its head.

Firstly, where in the world is the Russian Federation attacking NATO? In Ukraine? But then the Ukrainian state is not actually in NATO, is it? Unless what is meant is US/NATO’s plans to get the Ukrainian state into NATO, of course, which they’re generally vague about.

But if not there, where? Nowhere, of course.

Who threatens whom?

As to reversing reality, one look at a map of Europe with NATO states indicated makes it clear that it is not NATO that needs to defend itself but Russia — and bears out the Russian line that one of the reasons they went to war was to stop their encirclement by NATO.

*Map of European states currently in NATO* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

Then, we need to consider that NATO is not a country or one region in the world that could need defence. No, it is a military alliance of European states with the United States. And if it ever was a defensive alliance, that ‘reason’ for its existence disappeared with the fall of the USSR in 1991.

Far from scrapping NATO or even freezing its expansion then, US/NATO started collecting former USSR states into its alliance until nearly every state on Russia’s eastern borders had joined the alliance or was friendly towards it and hostile towards Russia.

The former Ukrainian regime was friendly towards Russia until the coup in 2014 by pro-NATO elements, which are the regime now in power and responsible for a decade of cultural attacks on – and artillery bombardment of – the ethnic Russian population of the Donbas area.

*Moldovan troops in joint NATO military exercise in Ukraine, 2017.* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

Only a propaganda-blinded fool or a liar could deny that Russia has been and is under threat from US/ NATO, rather than the reverse.

We could do with looking at the record of states in invasion of – and interference in – other countries.

The USA is the founder and leader of NATO; since the end of WWII, the USA has been involved in 34 armed actions against smaller nations, not including coups and proxy wars. This includes initiating 81% of all global armed conflicts from 1945 to 2001.

The United Kingdom is a major NATO member and, with direct involvement in 35 armed conflicts since WWI, has exceeded the USA’s tally by one and France’s tally of 33, also an important NATO member, by two.

How many Russian Federation armed conflicts since it came into existence? Thirteen, mostly on or around its own state’s territory, whereas the armed conflicts of the USA, UK and France were mostly outside their own territories and far from their borders.

So who has more reason to fear attack from whom?

“What we see in general is that the Russians are careful around NATO. They are not seeking a conflict with NATO. I think that is a sign that they are very, very busy,” the article quotes NATO Chairman, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer saying. “Busy” with what, is he inferring?

Nuclear weapons

“NATO, as an organisation, does not provide weapons or ammunition to Ukraine and has sought to avoid being dragged into a wider war with nuclear-armed Russia,” states the article.

True, as far as that goes but how many NATO states are supplying the Ukrainian state with military equipment? It would be quicker to list how many are not supplying it!

In that quoted sentence, there is almost an admission that were it not for Russia’s nuclear weapons, the US/ NATO forces would be willing to intervene directly to attack and invade Russia.

Indeed, they may still do so. NATO Chairman, Admiral Rob Bauer, in briefing the press, “laid out the biggest revamp to the organisation’s military plans since the Cold War” (of course for purely defensive reasons!).

“US President Joe Biden and his Nato counterparts are set to endorse a major shake-up of the alliance’s planning system at a summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, next week,” we are told.

“About 100 aircraft take to the skies in that territory each day, and a total of 27 warships are operating in the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas, with those numbers set to rise. In new plans, NATO aims to have up to 300,000 troops ready to move to its eastern flank within 30 days.”

Of course, weapons and military transport require funding (a big source of profits for the arms industries). “In 2014, NATO committed to move towards spending 2% of GDP on their military budgets by 2024” (2014 was the year of the US/NATO-inspired coup, 8 years before the invasion).

“At their July 11-12 summit, the leaders will set the 2% figure as a spending floor, rather than a ceiling to aim for.”

“Russia bruised but unbowed”

When wishing to force the enemy to surrender, it may be sufficient to bombard it from the air and sea. But in order to extract its riches, the situation requires either invading troops on the ground or a compliant regime.

In this context it is significant that Admiral Baur commented that of Russia’s ground forces, around “94% is now engaged in the war in Ukraine”, meaning that the state’s principal ground defence forces are already engaged in war and presumably taking casualties.

But Russia’s armed forces are “bruised but by no means bowed” in the war in Ukraine, commented Admiral Bauer, which looks very much like an admission that pushing Russian forces into a proxy war in the Ukraine was intended to sap Russia’s military strength.

So that Russia can be invaded, carved up into US/NATO dependencies, its rich natural resources plundered for the benefit of western imperialist states? No, surely not, the USA, UK and France would never go to war for imperialist plunder, would they?

End.

SOURCES:

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/nato-prepares-military-plans-to-defend-against-bruised-but-unbowed-russia-1496880.html

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2345663/us-initiated-81-global-armed-conflicts-from-1945-to-2001

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_Kingdom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_France

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia

IRISH NEUTRALITY – WHO CARES?

On June 28, 2023July 5, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Ireland, Mass Media Criticism, NATO, Political Analysis, US Imperialism1 Comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time main article: 6 mins.)

A packed public meeting in Dublin city centre on Saturday listened to and applauded prominent people speaking against the Irish State becoming part of military alliances, whether PESCO¹ (“NATO by stealth”²) or NATO itself.

The high-profile panel of speakers chaired by Irish MEP Clare Daly featured fellow MEP Mick Wallace, Sevim Dagdalen (MP Die Linke), Medea Benjamin (founder of Code Pink) and Anne Wright (ex-US Army Major and opponent of the US-Iraq War).

Celebrated anti-imperialist rapper Lowkey was also a speaker as was Yanis Varoufakis (ex-Syrza)³ who addressed the meeting by recorded video from abroad and applauded the Irish for their long resistance to colonialism and urged them to be proud of their state’s neutrality.

Yanis Varoufakis’ recorded speech video screened at the *Neutrality Who Cares* meeting on Saturday (*Photo:* Rebel Breeze)

BACKGROUND

There is a constitutional impediment to the Irish state’s participating in a war partnership with another state and during WW2 the state’s official position was neutrality.

However, it was always a pro-Allied neutrality with British downed airmen allowed to cross over into UK territory and US servicemen often crossing the UK border to visit the ‘south’, while German downed airmen were interned for the duration of the War.

The impediment is not absolute and is usually referred to as the ‘Triple Lock’, listing the three conditions which would enable to government to send more than 12 troops overseas:

a mandate from the United Nations
a Government decision
and a Dáil vote ⁴

In recent years some politicians and public commentators have floated the idea that the Irish state could rejoin the British Commonwealth and, since the war in the Ukraine, a discourse has arisen that the State needs to join an external military alliance in order to protect itself from Russia.

Sevim Dagdalen, Die Linke party MP, speaking at the *Neutrality Who Cares* meeting on Saturday (*Photo:* Rebel Breeze)

The Irish Times/Ipsos poll in April, amid criticisms of not following best practice in its design and even accusations of trying to steer respondents towards favouring joining some external military alliance, delivered two thirds clearly against the Irish state doing any such thing.

Russophobic propaganda has speculated on the activities of Russian trawlers in the Irish Sea. This is entirely a whipped-up alarm and discussion without the slightest foundation in fact since Russia has never presented the slightest threat, militarily or politically, to the Irish people.

On the other hand, Britain has invaded and occupied Ireland for over 800 years and is still in possession of one-fifth of its territory and has substantial economic and financial interests in the country as, more recently, have the USA and European Union states.

The UK’s Royal Navy frequently enters Irish national waters and the State has regularly permitted its ships, along with warships of other NATO countries, to dock in Irish harbours. And also the Royal Air Force, it has recently emerged, to patrol Irish territorial air space.

As part of this false alarm and discourse, the Irish Government⁵ recently founded the Consultative Forum on International Security Policy which was scheduled to meet last week in Cork and Galway, then for two days in Dublin Castle.

The President of the State, Michael D. Higgins, in an unusual intervention during an interview with the Examiner expressed concern at what he perceived as the “drift towards NATO” and criticised the composition of the speakers and chairperson of this organisation as being pro-NATO.

Michael D commented on “the admirals, the generals, the air force, the rest of it” and described its chair Louise Richardson, as a person “with a very large DBE – Dame of the British Empire”.

President Higgins apologised later for what he said was “a throway remark” about Richardson but did not withdraw his remarks about the overall composition of the Forum which has indeed been criticised by others, including Richard Boyd Barrett TD⁶ and Senator Frances Black.

THE DUBLIN MEETING

Varoufakis referred to Ireland as though the nation had won its independence, as was the case with every speaker that followed (with the exception of Lowkey).

A member of the audience was heard to remark ironically to another that he was grateful he had attended as heretofore he hadn’t been aware of Ireland’s ‘independence’.

Lowkey, the British-based rapper, tore the illusion of Irish state neutrality to tatters by recounting the use of Irish airports not only for US Army flights under Air America through Shannon, but also airlines run by the CIA and others using other airports in Irish state territory.

*Lowkey, anti-imperialist rapper from London, speaking at the meeting in Dublin.* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

The rapper exposed the ‘neutrality’ of the Irish government in training soldiers going to fight in Ukraine and also in its continued support for the Israeli State and was cheered when he declared that, as an Iraqi, he was proud that his country had “kicked the ass of the British”.

In a masterful exercise in research-backed criticism, Lowkey went on to strip the pretence of independence and impartiality from the Government-founded “Consultative Forum”, exposing the imperialist and even NATO background of the main panel members and its chairperson.

All the members of the Neutrality Who Cares panel were effective speakers and made useful points although it was curious to hear one of them denouncing “Russian fascists” without commenting on the fascist units in the Ukrainian regime’s national army.

Medea Benjamin, founder of Code Pink, speaking at the *Neutrality Who Cares* meeting on Saturday (*Photo:* Rebel Breeze)

It was Lowkey who drove the sharpest and longest nails into the verbal crucifixion of the Irish Government’s drive towards NATO and who brought the loudest cheers from his mostly Irish audience.

Even celebrated speaker Daly did not come very close, though she too exposed the propaganda of the Government and pro-NATO cheerleaders. The MEP debunked the excuse of protecting underground communication cables, pointing out that 25% of them are out of action regularly.

The Irish MEP also lampooned the idea of any underwater cable being protected by NATO, considering where the responsibility for the blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipeline lies!⁷

Finally she warned the audience to be on the look out for an attempt to remove the Triple Lock under some kind of excuse as a first step to permit the Government to enter a military alliance.

Clare Daly MEP speaking at the *Neutrality Who Cares* meeting on Saturday (*Photo:* Rebel Breeze)

A PART OF IRELAND ALREADY IN NATO

It was left to a youth member of the audience in the Q&A section, reading a statement on behalf of the Anti-Imperialist Action organisation, to point out that a part of Ireland is already in NATO, viz. the Six Counties, occupied by Britain and a part of the United Kingdom.

The youth called for a broad front to unite around opposition to becoming part of an external military alliance and imperialism (see full statement in appendix). Small flyers advocating the same course of action had been distributed inside the meeting earlier.

The People Before Profit party also distributed leaflets against joining NATO to people attending the meeting.

Indeed, it is hard to see why the presence of NATO in a part of Ireland should be so markedly missing from the panel’s speeches. Since it cannot have been accidental we must ponder what the rationale for its omission could have been.

Do those on the panel agree with the colonial occupation of a part of Ireland? That seems hard to believe, at least of some of them. Or perhaps they believe its discussion would be a distraction from the neutrality issue and if so, how can that be?

Or is it that they seek the support of sections of Irish society who are comfortable with the continued occupation and partition of Ireland? If so, they are seeking to build the movement against Irish membership of NATO in terms they think acceptable to timid sections of the middle class.

When resolute action becomes necessary or when reaction starts to bite, those sections will fade out of the anti-NATO movement. For practical as well as for ideological reasons, the campaign must appeal to the working class on an unashamedly anti-colonial and anti-imperialist basis.

Protest banner at Government’s Forum for International Security meeting in Cork while Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister, on far left of photo) was speaking (*Photo sourced:* Internet)

Wherever the Government’s Forum has gone, it has encountered public opposition. It was picketed at its Cork and Galway venues, while inside the former, an anti-NATO banner was unfolded and many in the audience denounced the Government’s direction.

Even after the protesters had been hustled out, another stood up to denounce the chairperson’s speech before he too was manhandled away.

In Dublin Castle, venue for the Forum on Monday and Tuesday with a long history as administrative centre of British occupation, people against NATO, war or militarism and for Irish independence displayed banners and placards of protest and flew national flags.

Protesters inside a Dublin Castle courtyard against the Government Forum on International Security held inside the complex this week. (*Source photo:* Anti-Imperialist Action)

AIA Tweet featuring National TV broadcaster RTÉ quoting Irish Government leaders’ ridiculous comments on the display of Irish Republican flags by protestors outside main pedestrian entrance to Dublin Castle in the city centre.

IN CONCLUSION

The general mass media silence on the Neutrality Who Cares meeting in Dublin and in downplaying the protests against the Forum at all its locations is part of the Irish Gombeen class drive to join NATO, despite the well-known opposition of the wide Irish population.

It is not forgotten that when tens of thousands thronged Dublin streets marching against triple water service taxation and privatisation, how the mass media reported participation merely by “several thousand” or even “hundreds”.

Nevertheless the comments of the President of the State and remarks by some journalists in the mass media do reveal that even in their own sections, the Gombeens do not have it all their own way. In the general population, however, the mood is clearly for non-militarisation of Ireland.

If the anti-NATO movement remains active and militant and adopts a generally broad anti-imperialist stance, going to most sections of society but especially to the working class, the Gombeens’ drive towards participation in PESCO and NATO will be decisively defeated.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Permanent Structured Cooperation is the strange name of this proposed European Union-wide military alliance.

2As described by Clare Daly.

3Syriza is a Left social-democratic coalition party that was elected to government in Greece in 2015 on a promise to implement necessary social and economic reforms in the teeth of EU and other imperialist resistance. However, once the EU and the ECB began to tighten the screws, the resistance of the party’s leadership disintegrated. Varoufakis had been appointed finance minister and to give him his due, he tried to rally his cabinet colleagues around a program of non-compliance with EU diktats but was unsuccessful. Although it remains the main social-democratic opposition in Greece, the party has continued to slide in popularity in elections since.

4Irish UN peacekeeping forces exceeding 12 personnel have been sent overseas with those three conditions satisfied to many conflicts around the world, most notably Lebanon, where they have suffered some casualties and to the Congo, where they suffered many.

5The Irish Government is a coalition of two traditional main oppositional parties, Fianna Fáile and Fine Gael, with the Green Party. The Labour Party does not have a noticeably different position on external military alliance and Sinn Féin recently dropped their decades-long opposition to Irish membership of NATO and the EU.

6Barrett is a Teachta Dála (member of the Irish parliament) and member of the People Before Profit left-wing political party. Frances Black, with a successful career in singing, is an independent Senator in the same parliament who has sponsored a Bill to ban products from the illegal Israeli settlements. The Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 was passed in full by the Senate in 2018, and passed its first vote in Dáil Éireann in early 2019. It was then sent for detailed scrutiny in the Oireachtas Select Committee on Foreign & Affairs and Trade. This review took place over several months, hearing from expert testimony and input, and in December 2019 the Committee also voted in favour of the bill. Since then the Government is delaying bringing it forward.

7Although direct proof is not yet available, circumstantial evidence points towards US armed forces’ responsibility and journalist Seymour Hersh (Pullitzer Prize winner for exposing the US military massacre in Mai Lai, Viet Nam and its subsequent attempted cover-up) has confirmed the US military’s responsibility on the basis of inside knowledge from his contacts.

APPENDIX

Text of statement read out during Q&A period of Neutrality – Who Cares public meeting in Dublin 24 June 2023:

Anti Imperialist Action Ireland hold the revolutionary position that Britain, NATO and any other imperialist power is not welcome in Ireland. Anti-Imperialist Action have been active in opposing all forms of imperialism in Ireland and have been to the fore in opposition to NATO.

NATO is a great threat to Ireland and the Irish People, and in realisation of that, we urge and call on everyone here to vocally oppose the presence of NATO in Ireland whether you be an anti-war activist, a Socialist Republican, an anti-Fascist, a trade unionist, or just against the presence of a foreign power in Ireland, get behind this position and ensure that your sons and daughters aren’t sent off to be slaughtered in illegal wars of conquest.

While all the focus has been about the push towards NATO for the 26 Counties we cannot forget that the Six Counties are already occupied by NATO by virtue of Britain’s illegal occupation. Only a militant broad front of progressive forces all across the 32 counties can make a firm stand against NATO’s presence in Ireland. Everyone has a part to play in such a broad front which Anti-Imperialist Action and others are working hard to establish.

Reject NATO. Britain and NATO out of Ireland now!

SOURCES & FURTHER INFORMATION

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/irish-people-overwhelmingly-support-military-neutrality-in-latest-poll-1290604.html

Anti-Imperialist Action statement on line: https://anti-imperialist-action-ireland.com/blog/2023/06/21/the-free-states-imperialist-circus/?fbclid=IwAR27Y7HSZOJKgLe_oivFx828jHfUMFa4mNXADUY1jhFh1KaDsoxGmsxhN1Q

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230622-ireland-s-debate-on-neutrality-derailed-by-anti-nato-protest

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/06/22/ireland-should-not-be-squeamish-over-security-issues-micheal-martin-tells-ucc-forum/

https://www.gov.ie/en/campaigns/e2a6b-consultative-forum-on-international-security-policy/

ABDUCTION OR EVACUATION? PROPAGANDA WAR AMIDST BULLETS AND MISSILES

On April 7, 2023April 8, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Imperialism, Mass Media Criticism, NATO, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 4 mins.)

Currently the International Court of Justice¹ has accused Premier Vladimir Putin and the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights of responsibility for the “forced abduction” of Ukrainian children and their adoption by Russian couples.

The charge implies ethnic cleansing and forced assimilation taking place during war and therefore would be classed a war crime. The Russian side denies the charge saying that instead what has taken place has been voluntary evacuation of families and evacuation of children from orphanages.

The western mass media (wsm) confines itself to repeating the charge and accusatory statements from western politicians, mostly from countries that are part of the NATO military alliance and briefly stating that the Russian leadership denies the charge. Is anyone actually investigating?

Well, Associated Press, a western media agency, says it has and that Russia is guilty. In that case, let’s see the evidence. And we’d have to wonder why a spokesperson for United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) states that it has seen no evidence of Russian abduction of children.

The wsm has only informed us of UNICEF’s position recently in the course of reporting an informal UN Security Council meeting where Maria Lvova-Belova not only denied the charges of abduction but gave actual hard figures on whole family and orphanage children evacuation².

Ms Lvova-Belova, said that since February 24th, 2022, Russia has taken in more than five million Ukrainians, including 700,000 children — all with parents, relatives or legal guardians except for 2,000 from orphanages in the eastern Donbas.³

To date, she said, about 1,300 children have been returned to their orphanages, 400 were sent to Russian orphanages and 358 were placed in foster homes⁴.

Lvova-Belova speaking at the informal UN Security Council meeting (*Photo sourced: Internet*)

Ms Lvova-Belova said her office has met with representatives of UNICEF, Refugees International and the International Committee of the Red Cross and “provide all available information about the situation of children” and are “coordinating with the Red Cross on reunification,” she said.⁵

The NATO countries declined to send their ambassadors to the meeting while chief NATO state representatives present, e.g. of the USA and UK, walked out of the meeting without listening, accusing Russia of using the situation for propaganda purposes.

Well maybe, UK and USA representatives, but everyone has been issuing propaganda in this war! Anyway why not answer the Russian case with your own counter-evidence? If you actually have a viable case that stands up to scrutiny?

Some war-time children’s evacuation examples

The war damage inflicted in the Donbas region by both sides in this war since 2022 — and by the Ukrainian state alone since 2014 – would make concern for children’s lives a natural motivation for relatives anxious to get their children to somewhere safe.

During the anti-fascist war in Spain, sympathetic families in Britain took in children from the Republican side for their safety from the advancing Spanish military-fascist forces and allied German Nazi and Italian Fascist military.

Later, as defeat loomed for the Spanish Republic, families with children fled to many countries (a few even to Ireland) and yes, to the Soviet Union. In fact a Basque descendant of that evacuation has passed a year in Polish jail accused of spying for Russia without presentation of any evidence.⁶

Basque and Spanish children, refugees from Spanish Anti-Fascist War (*Photo sourced: Internet*)

During WW2, children from British cities were sent to homes in rural areas for their safety. Whatever the issues around how they were treated in their new or temporary homes, nobody speaks of “abduction” of Basque, Spanish or British children⁷.

Well, actually, some children were abducted in Spain, from their murdered Republican parents or from working class women who were told their baby had died in childbirth. The fascist State and the Catholic church presented these children for adoption to rich and loyal childless couples.⁸

One of the reasons for abduction of children in those cases was to satisfy the needs of childless couples loyal to the regime and required the massive collusion of a number of health and social care agencies, all of which were exposed later. Does this seem a likely risk for Russia to take?

Ukrainian families with children evacuating to Russia (*Photo crdt: Wall Street Journal*)

Well what about the other objective, social engineering, of creating fascist children, or for example “Germanisation” but in this case “Russification”?

Hardly, the children are from the Donbas region, an area already largely Russian in language and culture and, since attacks of the Ukrainian forces on it since 2014, already hostile to the Kyiv regime and mostly sympathetic to Russia.

The Ukrainian State leadership, one of the main accusers of Russia’s alleged abduction of children, frequently issues population figures of towns and cities in the Ukraine War zone, comparing pre-war with current figures, showing a huge drop between both sets.

Presumably the fall in numbers of inhabitants in towns under their control could not have been carried out by Russia. So are we to accuse the Kiyv regime of the “abduction” an “ethnic cleansing” of thousands of Ukrainians, its own citizens? Or more reasonably, of their evacuation?

Returning to the question of actual evidence, an issue of apparent little importance to the wsm and NATO country states, surely an international agency responsible for children would be expected to have a reasonable handle on this?

Or is UNICEF to come under the accusation regularly thrown at those of us who don’t swallow everything NATO says, i.e. of being “putinistas?

The Target of the Propaganda

It’s worth considering who the targets in this propaganda war might be and the reasons therein. The state intelligence agencies of NATO countries presumably have a fair idea of which are truths and which are lies. So the target is not the heads of states.

THE MAIN TARGET OF THE PROPAGANDA IS US, i.e. the ordinary people in the western world, whether in NATO (which most are) or not. The objective being that we should support our governments in backing US/NATO’s confrontation with Russia.

And that if it should come to world war, which seems increasingly likely, that we support our governments and suffer the consequences, including dying in millions to support their objectives. Without rebelling.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1The western mass media makes a point of telling us that Russia does not recognise the authority of the ICC but rarely adds that nor does the Ukrainian regime. And nor does the USA!

2An interesting exercise to evaluate wsm bias is to put “Russia denies abduction of children” in a mainstream search engine and see how many hits one gets for UNICEF’s statement.

3 UNICEF: No Evidence on Russia’s Abduction of Ukrainian Children | News | teleSUR English

4As above

5As above

6Pablo Gonzalez, a journalist working for Spanish media, was born in Russia, grandson of such a refugee. He was covering the Ukraine war when detained by their state intelligence service and advised to leave the country; meanwhile Spanish state security visited and interviewed his family, his mother and friends. He left Ukraine but went to Poland and was arrested by their state intelligence service as he was accompanying other journalists crossing back into Ukraine. To this date well over a year later Gonzalez has had no evidence of spying presented against him. Unlike a journalist detained in Russia whose case elicited public concern from western politicians within days, none of them have mentioned the case of Pablo Gonzalez.

7 Evacuation of children in the Spanish Civil War – Wikipedia

8See Sources: The same thing occurred under the fascist Pinochet dictatorship of Chile, war in El Salvador and by the Nazis in Poland during WW2.

SOURCES

UNICEF says no evidence Russian abduction of children: UNICEF: No Evidence on Russia’s Abduction of Ukrainian Children | News | teleSUR English

Russian charged with war crimes says Ukrainian children can go home (breakingnews.ie)

Abduction and relocation of children by fascist regimes:

Thousands Of Children Stolen During Franco Rule : NPR

Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany – Wikipedia

‘I knew in my heart she was alive’: Families in El Salvador are finally reunited with children abducted during the country’s civil war | The Independent | The Independent

Stolen at Birth, Chilean Adoptees Uncover Their Past – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

IMPERIALIST NARRATIVE IN ‘OBJECTIVE REPORTING’

On October 9, 2022 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Mass Media Criticism, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 4 mins.)

“Palestinian gunman wounds two Israelis in Jerusalem shooting” proclaims the headline. We don’t have to worry trying to figure out whose side we’re expected to be on, who’s in the wrong and who in the right. It’s right there in the headline.

“Gunman” is a heavy clue and the fact that the two he wounded are just “Israelis” – we are led to believe just ordinary civilians – does the rest of the job. That is, if indeed we are not somehow already prejudiced against Palestinians and in favour of Israelis.

However, should we bother to read further, we find that two of the wounded were far from being harmless civilians but in fact an Israeli soldier and a security guard, certainly armed for their job (even Israeli Jewish civilians are routinely permitted to carry firearms).¹

The² report tells us that the soldier was a woman. Why is this relevant? Like male soldiers, she was a serving member of the Israeli Zionist occupation armed forces, misleadingly named “Defence Forces”. Zionist female soldiers are present at all levels and all theatres of war.³

It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that this is being inserted in order to mitigate the impact of revelation that it was a soldier who was shot, which might possibly lessen sympathy for the victims on that score.

Perhaps the fact that the Palestinian in question appears to have initiated the incident justifies the appellation of “gunman”? OK, when Israeli armed forces initiate an action, do we ever see “Israeli gunmen open fire on Palestinians”?

Scene of shooting of two Israeli Zionist armed forces on Saturday in Jerusalem, one fatally (*Photo credit: PA Images*)

Certainly not in mainstream western media. And not just because of bias towards state armed forces, because even when the shooters are Israeli Zionist civilians, they are never called “gunmen”. And such incidents occurred on a monthly basis recently.⁴

MOTIVE, BACKGROUND, CONTEXT

Moving away from the actual incident, what about the background and context? “Israel already has been carrying out daily arrest raids in the occupied West Bank since a series of Palestinian attacks last spring killed 19 Israelis” the report informs us.

So the Palestinian “gunman” could have had an understandable motive in responding to Israeli Zionist oppression and repression but in case we should sympathise with him, we are reminded that “Palestinian attacks last spring killed 19 Israelis.”

After conditioning with that paragraph, the report gives us more recent possible motivation for the attack (even then, note the attempted justification for actions of “Israeli forces” fighting “gunmen” and “militants”).

“Earlier on Saturday, the Israeli military shot and killed two Palestinian teenagers during an arrest raid in the Jenin refugee camp, the site of repeated clashes between Israeli forces and local gunmen and residents. The camp is known as a stronghold of Palestinian militants.”

Body of 16-year-old Palestinian Ahmad Daraghmeh killed by Zionist Israeli soldiers carried in protest mourning. Also killed with him were Mahmoud as-Sous, 18. (*Photo credit: Agence France Press*)

“Palestinian officials said soldiers entered the camp early on Saturday and surrounded a house. In videos circulated on social media, exchanges of fire could be heard. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported two dead and 11 wounded, three of them critically.”

And let’s put that “killing of 19 Israelis” last spring in context too: Last year, “as a result of the violence, at least 256 Palestinians, including 66 children, were killed … In Israel, at least 13 people were killed, including two children”⁵. A search of any year will find a similar or worse story.

SOME OF THE TRUTH

Occasionally, we are supplied with truth, as when the report informs us that “Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed the area in a move that is not recognised internationally.”

“It considers the entire city, including east Jerusalem, home to the city’s most important holy sites, to be its capital. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.” Nor is East Jerusalem the only area occupied by Israel judged illegally by “international law”.⁶

But even this is partial truth because, whether “recognised internationally” or not, the whole territory of the state of Israel is an occupation by force of Palestinian land by European settlers in 1948, backed by some world superpowers and a constant source of conflict there ever since.

MAKING SENSE OF CONFLICTS

Context is crucial to understanding events but justification is a moral and practical judgement⁷ according to the standpoint of those doing the judging and evaluation. Clearly the standpoint of an occupier and a person displaced — an occupier and the oppressor – can never be the same.

It follows that those who support the occupier and more certainly invest in its support, are going to be biased against the displaced, the oppressed and repressed. The world’s biggest superpower, the USA, supports Israel hugely militarily, financially and politically.

The states of the world and their controlling elites are well aware of the balance of power and, for the moment, most support the superpower. This is even more so in the case of the geo-political area designated “the West”, location of most mainstream media agencies’ headquarters.

The bias is clear if we take the trouble to analyse and we’ll find it not only in the reporting on the Israeli Zionist state and the Palestinians but on all other conflicts, to greater or lesser degree. What stand we take depends on whether we align ourselves with the oppressor or the oppressed.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1See “Gun-carrying for Israeli citizens” in Sources.

2She has since died and headlines are now including her gender.

3“ … today women make up only about 40% of conscript soldiers and 25% of the office (sic officer?) corps.” This despite Orthodox Jewish men objecting to serve in the company of female soldiers https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/israel-defense-forces

4See “Absence of “gunman” when an Israeli Zionist civilian is the shooter” in Sources. Note that all these reports were taken from media sources one might suppose not sympathetic to Israeli Zionism; a quick search of Reuters only brought up a 2012 reference to such an incident and of Associated Press, not even one on the first search page.

5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Israel%E2%80%93Palestine_crisis#:~:text=As%20a%20result%20of%20the,were%20killed%2C%20including%20two%20children.

6Syria’s Golan Heights are one such as are the settlements on lands grabbed after the founding of the Israeli state: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/israels-55-year-occupation-palestinian-territory-apartheid-un-human-rights

7Moral, as in do we think it wrong or right according to moral principles; practical as in whether we can show it works.

SOURCES

The report being analysed: https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/palestinian-gunman-wounds-two-israelis-in-jerusalem-shooting-1374673.html

Gun-carrying for Israeli citizens: https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/israel-has-successful-gun-control-policy-gun-control-p-248-251-1992

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/9/12/israels-eased-gun-laws-palestinian-fear-over-new-gun-permits

Absence of “gunman” when an Israeli Zionist civilian is the shooter: https://www.dci-palestine.org/israeli_settler_soldier_shoot_and_kill_palestinian_boy

Israel settlers shoot Palestinians near Ramallah

https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/130104

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestinian-boy-shot-dead-israeli-settler-east-ramallah

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-palestinians-israel-violence-idUKBRE84P0BE20120526

Female Israeli Zionist soldiers: https://www.lawfareblog.com/female-service-idf-challenge-integrated-army

Recent background to current incident report: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-62445951

A RELEVANT BLAST FROM THE PAST – WAR PROPAGANDA IN IRELAND 1918

On September 12, 2022 By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, History, Human Rights, Imperialism, Ireland, Irish Republicanism, Mass Media Criticism, Political Analysis1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 6 mins.)

Propaganda is employed in wars and finds its most widescale application through the mass media. The belligerents want their own populations to support their war effort and to have other states support them.

IRISH REPORTING ON THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

The hierarchy of the Catholic Church infamously mirrored the propaganda of their corresponding religious officials in the Spanish State in backing the fascist-military uprising against the elected Popular Front Government in 1936.

Irish newspapers and radio reporting on the whole followed the line of the Church hierarchy. The resulting conflict gave the Spanish state the greatest number of known mass graves in Europe and anywhere in the world, in fact, outside of Cambodia.

Clipping from Irish Press, not a fascist sympathising editorial line, November 1936 (*Image sourced: Irish Newspaper Archives, Irish Press*)

The Catholic hierarchy declared the fascist-military to be fighting a religious crusade against “Godless communism”, repeated propaganda of the fascist side, denounced real and imagined crimes of the Republican side.

They denied or ignored news of crimes of the fascists, which occurred from the first days and for years after Franco’s victory, in the course of which they denounced even priests who spoke out about the fascist crimes.

Whether the Spanish Republican Government had its own propaganda (I’m sure it did) or whether all its supporters were squeaky clean or not is besides the point. The overwhelmingly pro-fascist forces propaganda affected us in Ireland and most of it was fallacious.

Even the Irish Press, paper of De Valera who had banned the Blueshirts earlier: …. “These idealistic young men also saw their participation in the Spanish Civil War as helping to solve political divisions in Ireland and ultimately Irish unity. Interviewed in Dublin prior to his departure for Spain, Capt. P. Quinn from county Kilkenny, made the following statement: I believe that if an Irish Brigade succeed in reaching Spain, and there fights against Communism and all its terrors ….”

This had a practical effect in Ireland at the time and later, assisting religious and other fascists to attack socialists, communists and other progressives.

It helped create the atmosphere in which alternative writers were censored and hounded and the Irish State could actually expel an Irish citizen – Jimmy Grailton – for the crime of being a socialist community activist.

In turn, this anti-socialist, anti-communist atmosphere created a poisonous environment for social progress, whether championed by revolutionaries or social democrats.

It also helped create a wall shielding the ongoing endemic mental and physical – including sexual — abuse of women and children which seemed impermeable to control or even criticism for decades.

BRITISH WWI PROPAGANDA

The British imperial cant of “defence of small nations” or of “defending civilisation” in its war against Germany during WW1 while simultaneously suppressing the 1916 Rising and repressing many peoples around the world is well known.

The media related invented German atrocities, gave one-sided reporting, censored or demonised alternative views (I know, beginning to sound familiar).

That is the general, well-established picture. However, I’d like to focus on a specific incident and how it was treated: the sinking by German submarine (U-Boat) of the Howth fishing trawlers St. Michan and Geraldine on 31^st of March 1918, with the loss of five Irish lives.

A Howth fishing vessel in past years
(*Photo sourced: Internet*)

No question of who’s in the wrong there, you’d think. The Irish unionist media (admittedly under war powers control) jumped to accuse the German Uboat crew of a “Howth atrocity”, an “Act of Murder” and that they “Shelled without warning”¹.

I am grateful to Phillip O’Connor for his exploration of the incident) in his Road to Independence (2016) [Howth Free Press] on the involvement of Howth, Sutton and Baldoyle communities in the struggle for independence and social progress (and his source on the incident, Seán T. Rickard’s MA).

WAR CONTEXT OF INCIDENT

WWI was fought on land, air (even then) and sea. The British Navy was the most powerful in the world and imposed a naval blockade on Germany, bottling up the latter’s navy but also preventing supplies of any kind entering by sea. Unusually, the blockade included foods.

Germany took the position that Britain was trying to starve the German population and responded with its submarines attacking UK shipping which at the time included Ireland’s.

The British responded by concealing guns on merchant ships so that a German submarine surfacing and demanding surrender could in turn by sunk by the merchant ship in question. Indeed the British used fishing boats as mine-sweepers and even armed some too.

This had the effect of encouraging German Uboat captains on occasion to sink merchant ships without warning rather than run the risk of being sunk themselves.

However the U90, the submarine in question concerning the Irish trawlers in March 1918, appeared not to have been doing that and O’Connor quotes the case of the Greek ship SS Salaminia, of which the entire crew had been given time to get into lifeboats before being sunk.

Indeed, the eight captain and crew of the Michan all got into their “punt” and were picked up alive by a British Navy patrol. Tragically, the Geraldine had no additional boat, having set some of its crew ashore on Lambay Island to gather whelk for long-line hook-baiting.

Whether Captain Jess of the U90 believed the Geraldine was being defiant, playing for time or anything else is not known but his Uboat sank the vessel and there were no survivors.

The dominant newspapers in Ireland at the time condemned the German Uboat along the lines outlined above but also went further to make political capital out of it against the Republican movement.

They – and politicians they quoted – used the incident to attack Irish Republicanism, one going so far as to refer sarcastically to the Republicans’ “gallant allies”, lifting the quotation from the 1916 Proclamation of Independence.

There were rules of war agreed at the Hague Convention of 1907. Attacks on civilians are ruled as a war crime by the Geneva Convention but that was not composed and agreed until 1949.

However, its applicability to all the situations of conflict at sea were not codified until much later and, even then, are not binding on the signatories².

It needs also to be noted that violations of humanitarian regulations and laws by most states have been documented during their wars with other states and in suppressing uprisings. The British did arm merchant ships during WW1 and also used them in a mine-sweeping capacity.

Looks like a drawing of the sinking *RMS Leinster* produced for a newspaper of the time (image sourced: *https://www.postalmuseum.org/blog/the-centenary-of-the-sinking-of-rms-leinster/*)

Also the Leinster, for example, sunk by German Uboat torpedoes on 10^th October the same year as the Howth fishing boats, was carrying military personnel and armament and therefore in war terms a legitimate target.³

However, it is difficult to see how the fishing boats could be suspected of being armed merchantmen or even as ships supplying Britain and therefore equal to any ships attacked for breaching the Royal Navy blockade of Germany.

I am grateful to O’Connor for supplying me with the reference⁴ to the UK’s war-time restrictions obliging fishermen to ply their trade at 15 miles or further from its main ports, which included Dún Laoghaire and Dublin and therefore affected the Howth fishing fleet.

The U90’s captain may have suspected the British were using them as “spotters” for submarines in the area but even so, it is difficult to justify sinking without verifying radio equipment on board and especially without a dinghy to take the crew to safety ….!

German UC-1 class submarine surfaced with crew (*Photo sourced: Internet*)

In that respect it seems the U90 might have been in violation of agreed measures for the protection of civilians at sea in time of war by destroying civilian fishing vessels.

On the question of warning, although there were no survivors of the Geraldine, the available evidence is that the Captain of the U90 did warn before sinking shipping and had done so in a number of cases including another fishing boat on the same day.

But all was grist to the British war propaganda media and even, especially in the case of Ireland, to its colonial purposes in attacking its main anti-colonial opponents of the time, Irish Republicans.

Of course too, left unmentioned was the fact that the UK was attacking German civilians through blockading food imports⁵ and threatening and impounding any blockade-breaking ships (except those of the USA⁶).

Blockades and sanctions have cost many lives over the years – the UK blockaded the Spanish Republic during the Anti-Fascist War which did not impede Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy hugely supplying arms, aircraft and men to the military-fascist troops.

The USA imposed sanctions on Cuba for decades and Iraq for some years; in the latter case, by 1996 an estimated half million children had died as a result, a figure justified by Madeleine Albright, then USA Ambassador to the UN⁷.

Israel is permanently blockading Gaza in Palestine by land, air and sea – Egypt is participating too with its control over one gate. NATO sanctioned Russia which is now retaliating with some measures also.

Interestingly, O’Connor records that British war propaganda had little effect in 1918 on majority Irish opinion and even the Howth fishermen’s representative condemned the UK Admiralty for the mortal danger in obliging fishermen to ply their trade beyond 15 miles from shore⁸.

The UK General Election results in Ireland six weeks later would be a convincing illustration of how the vast majority of the population was thinking.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1It would be interesting to know whether it entered the heads of any editors that the British military had bombarded the city centre of Dublin with a number of land and sea-born artillery pieces just two years earlier, without any attempt of warning to the civilian population whatsoever.

2 https://casebook.icrc.org/law/naval-warfare

3The Wikipedia entry on the sinking of the the Leinster, while acknowledging the nearly 500 military personnel on board, does not common on this negation of the ship’s civilian status. It does not mention the gun mounted on it either, which is noted in this record https://www.rmsleinster.com/sinking/sinking.htm

4See Appendix for details on this (thanks to Phillip O’Connor).

5The 1994 San Remo Manual states:

102. The declaration or establishment of a blockade is prohibited if:
a) it has the sole purpose of starving the civilian population or denying it other objects essential for its survival.…

103. If the civilian population of the blockaded territory is inadequately provided with food and other objects essential for its survival, the blockading party must provide for free passage of such foodstuffs and other essential supplies.

6Vide O’Connor The Road to Independence (2016) [Howth Free Press]

7 https://www.newsweek.com/watch-madeleine-albright-saying-iraqi-kids-deaths-worth-it-resurfaces-1691193

8The Road to Independence (2016) [Howth Free Press], p.52.

SOURCES

The Road to Independence (2016) [Howth Free Press]

British naval blockade of Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Germany#:~:text=The%20British%2C%20with%20their%20overwhelming,to%20be%20a%20war%20zone%2C

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions

Merchant shipping in wartime: https://casebook.icrc.org/glossary/merchant-shipping

https://casebook.icrc.org/law/naval-warfare

Sinking of the Leinster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Leinster
https://www.rmsleinster.com/sinking/sinking.htm

APPENDIX

To regulate the security risk of fishing around Ireland during the war the Admiralty thought it necessary to divide the coasts into security zones. These zones had various levels of regulation and protection. Areas were either licensed by special permit, which allowed fishermen to fish these areas under restriction or were simply designated as areas where fishing was prohibited. Orders directly issued by the Admiralty were passed on to the fishermen through the D.A.T.I. via Notices to Mariners (NA G/12 (1917) & G/20/5 (1918).

Fishing was generally prohibited several miles from headlands, as it was a favourite spot for lurking U-boats. It was also prohibited around minefields, which were used to protect the coast and divert traffic into safer zones for escorts. It was also prohibited around naval bases and near convoy meeting points. And traditionally it was always prohibited in sea-lanes where there was heavy sea traffic. It was prohibited in many areas between sunset and sunrise, (a term still used in modern Rules Of the Road) and also known as “dark hours”. If any security measure presented itself, fishing could also be prohibited at short notice for whatever reason by word of mouth on the local naval authority shoreside or naval authority at sea. The Admiralty also had the right to commandeer vessels and/or cargo space also at short notice. The Admiralty later ordered that if the fishermen sighted enemy submarines they were to stop their fishing activity and go immediately to inform the closest naval authority whether at sea or ashore. This made fishing more difficult, costly and dangerous and particularly annoying to Irish fishermen with national sentiments.

The Admiralty even warned that a failure to comply might lead them to be fired on by naval vessels. Immediately affecting Howth fishermen was the prohibition of fishing within fifteen miles of Kingstown. This area roughly to the NW of Kingstown and roughly a few miles off Howth Head was a favourite bait procurement ground for Howth fishermen but also fell within range of most of their local fishing grounds.

In March 1917 the following rules affected fishermen fishing the East coast of Ireland but in particular Howth fishermen were as follows:

All decked and motorboats fishing anywhere between Ballywalter, Co. Down, and Howth, or anywhere between Wicklow Head and Loop Head, must carry official permits to fish. Between Ballywalter, the Isle of Man, and Howth, such boats may fish by day and by night at any distance from land within the limits of their permits.

They are forbidden to be stopped in or to pass during dark hours through waters where no fishing is allowed.

Moored nets may be left out at night, provided that the head ropes are kept five feet or more below the surface.

(Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland. Notice to Fishermen. Effective 1 March 1917. Wt.-865. 250. 2/17)

Later rules came into effect in 1918 for the locality, one of which was fishing could only be conducted within daylight hours in this area.

WHO IS RISKING A NUCLEAR CATASTROPHE FOR WAR GAINS?

On August 29, 2022August 29, 2022 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Mass Media Criticism, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

According to the media, the nuclear power plant in Ukraine is controlled by the Russian military and being bombed by artillery.

The Ukrainian state spokespersons accuse the Russians of bombing it themselves while the Russian state spokespersons blame the Ukrainian military. Both warn of the danger of a nuclear disaster.

Amidst the trading accusations, about what can we all be sure?

Well, really only of a few things about which there is (or seems to be) agreement:

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, although it is being maintained in operation by the Ukrainian State’s employees is within the area occupied by the Russian military very soon after the Russian invasion.
The plant is being bombed by someone.
Due to the bombing, there is a danger of nuclear disaster, initially in the Donbas region where the plant is located but quickly affecting large areas of at least the Ukrainian and of the Russian states and ultimately affecting other areas of Europe¹.
The bombing of the plant should stop immediately and all possible efforts should be expended in that direction.

To go beyond that and arrive at a reasonably safe conclusion about who is doing the bombing, we need to employ critical deductive analysis and to set aside as far as we can our prejudices. We can’t help but have those but we can set them aside for a moment.

Using critical deductive analysis means looking at aspects like what is logical, who benefits from what, what other evidence is available ….

Russian or Donbas military Guard Outside Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Russian-controlled Enerhodar City Zaporizhzhia Region, Ukraine August 4, 2022. *REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko/File Photo*

CRITICAL DEDUCTIVE ANALYSIS

Who could benefit from the bombing? In theory, either.

The Ukrainian authorities say the Russian do because they wish to blame their opponents.

Since the Ukrainians have demanded the Russians – apart from withdrawing their military entirely – remove themselves from the area of the nuclear plant, presumably the Ukrainians would benefit from blame attaching to the Russians.

Interestingly, “The US, United Nations and Ukraine have called for a withdrawal of military equipment and personnel from the nuclear complex, Europe’s largest, to ensure it is not a target.”²

The Ukrainian state already has US/NATO and the western mass media on its side but a threatened nuclear disaster would inject much greater urgency into the Ukrainian State’s regular calls for more and greater weapons.

Presumably the Russian state, if they were seen to be innocent of this bombing, could use the danger of nuclear disaster to rally greater support within its state and among its allies too.

Who faces the greatest risk in the continued bombing?

Both face a risk of a nuclear disaster, initially and later from fallout. However, initially at least, it is the Russian military in the immediate area, along with the Ukrainian staff of the plant at greatest risk.

But very close behind that in high risk come the civilian population of the Donbas, from which Luhansk militia are drawn – in other words, friends, families, relations, lovers of the Luhansk militia.

Who knows the truth?

Undoubtedly, in the immediate first instance, the Ukrainian military, the Russian military, the people of the locality including the Luhansk militia and, presumably, the staff of the nuclear plant. But also the intelligence services of US/NATO.

The mainstream western media is not publishing interviews with the people of the locality and have slanted their general reporting against Russia, which leaves the Ukrainian State side with the most impact³ in the controversy.

And the intelligence services of US/NATO, who have kept quiet on this issue.

Another accusation which the Ukrainian authorities have made against the Russian side is that they have installed artillery around the nuclear plant from which they have been firing at the Ukrainian military.

This would be against rules of conflict that military should avoid installing their personnel, weapons or material in or around civilian facilities.⁴

Accusing the Russian military of installing artillery around the site would also seem to provide the Ukrainian military with a reason for shelling the area themselves.

There is a strong inconsistency in the Ukrainian accusation, ignored by the media. We are asked to believe that the Russian military is shelling the facility but also firing from next to it?

One of a number of aerial photos published after missile strike very near the nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe (*Image sourced: Internet*)

Is it possible? Fire from the position, move all the weapons and personnel out, then bomb it themselves, repeat the whole operation and repeat again? Hardly.

And such movements would surely show up in intelligence reports of US/NATO but they are not confirming it. In fact, the Russian side showed their satellite photos of the site in which no artillery could be seen and also pointed out that the US had their own satellite images but was saying nothing.

Satellite imagery was published recently showing smoke from artillery strikes on the site and would surely be available to show alleged Russian artillery installations there and, in fact, their firing from there⁵.

And very clear satellite imagery was readily available and published in the media to support the Ukrainian authorities’ claim that Russian planes in the Saky airbase in the Crimea had been destroyed on 9^th August.⁶

Aerial Photos Crimean Airbase Before & After Ukrainian Missile Strikes Ukraine War August 9 2022

Another inconsistency of the allegation that the Russians are risking a nuclear disaster is in reconciling it with Russian state war aims.

The Russians say they invaded to prevent the Ukrainian state from becoming an outpost of the US/NATO offensive military alliance along their border and b) to protect the largely Russian-speaking population of the Donbas area from attacks by the Ukrainian fascists and military.

The Ukrainian State, backed up by US/NATO and the media⁷ say that all of it is to do with Russian imperialism and land-grabbing.

In either case, is it likely that the Russians would risk nuclear contamination of the whole area they wish to occupy or to defend? And is it likely that the Luhansk militia, drawn from the people of the area, would permit their homes and family to be put in such a terrible risk?

CONCLUSION:

Having employed critical deductive analysis of the available evidence, the logical conclusion must be that

The nuclear facility is being bombed by the Ukrainian military
They are bombing it hoping to force the Russian military evacuation out of the area and/or to accuse the Russian military of doing the bombing and to employ it in propaganda against the invading Russian military
and to create a sense of environmental danger from the latter
in which they are accustomed to expect uncritical cooperation from the mainstream western media and from US/NATO
to assist in having states within NATO send them more and more weapons

WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN?

Clearly, the Ukrainian military should cease bombarding the nuclear installation immediately
and to assist in that, the western media should make clear who is responsible.
And the International Atomic Energy Agency should send as neutral a team as possible (including perhaps officials and experts from China, Iran and India) to inspect the site and publish their results⁸.
The USA/ NATO should break their silence on their satellite surveillance and photos of the site.

This process and conclusion will be difficult for a number of key players and for many commentators. The process will expose the Ukrainian military as having been engaged in activity with potential to cause an environmental disaster.

It will expose their political leadership as having lied while trying to blame their opponents. The US/NATO block and their allies will be put in an awkward position for having supported the Ukrainian authorities while they were engaged in that activity.

The whole affair may switch – or at least weaken — wide western public sympathy away from the Ukrainian state. Many people may have to reappraise their positions in part or even completely.

Difficult, yes – but is that any justification for collusion in the possibility of a nuclear disaster?

End.

IAEA Mission Setting Out for Nuclear Power Plant Ukraine 29 August 2022 (Source image: IAEA’s website)

FOOTNOTES:

1Although assessments of the likely affected range of the disaster differ strongly (see Sources)

2 https://www.rte.ie/news/ukraine/2022/0829/1319298-ukraine-russia/ (emphasis in bold is mine)

3At least in the Western world

4Both sides have been accused of violating those rules but in terms of hard evidence, mostly the Ukrainian military, as was revealed in the recent report of the more usually pro-western Amnesty International.

5See image with https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/russia-and-ukraine-trade-claims-of-nuclear-plant-attacks-1356286.html

6Not only that but before and after the explosion images https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/11/russian-warplanes-destroyed-in-crimea-saky-airbase-attack-satellite-images-show

7And large sections of Western liberal and Left opinion.

8As I write this I read that a IAEA team has begun their journey there but without information about its composition https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iaea-support-and-assistance-mission-sets-out-to-zaporizhzhya-nuclear-power-plant-in-ukraine

SOURCES:

A recent media report which on this subject is unusually even-handed: https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/russia-and-ukraine-trade-claims-of-nuclear-plant-attacks-1356286.html

Satellite imagery of and report on strikes against Russian airbase in the Crimea: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/11/russian-warplanes-destroyed-in-crimea-saky-airbase-attack-satellite-images-show

Extremely biased report on degree of danger of and from nuclear fallout, emphasing the danger to the local area: https://www.politico.eu/article/how-real-is-the-danger-from-ukraines-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant/

Also biased report but claiming much greater danger: https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/52459/nuclear-hazards-zaporizhzhia-plant-ukraine-military-invasion/

IAIA team departs for inspection of the plant: https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iaea-support-and-assistance-mission-sets-out-to-zaporizhzhya-nuclear-power-plant-in-ukraine
https://www.rte.ie/news/ukraine/2022/0829/1319298-ukraine-russia/

Wikipedia entry on the IAIA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Atomic_Energy_Agency#Criticism

REPORTING & COMMENTING GUIDELINES FOR WAR IN UKRAINE

On August 10, 2022August 23, 2022 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Mass Media Criticism, Political Analysis, SatireLeave a comment

By Sharoos Iroewin

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Conflict reporting requires special skills, especially when doing so far from the the actual battleground (as is often the case and usually with western media reporting on the conflict in the Ukraine). Also journalists naturally want to eat, pay their mortgages and university fees for their children etc so it is important to write what is likely to get published which, in the last analysis and usually the first, will be decided by the editors of the news media paying them.

I’ve put together some dos and don’ts to help with that from my experience. Social media also plays an increasingly important role in public opinion and I’ve also provided some brief guidelines for interaction there.

MEDIA REPORTING

DO NOT give any credence to constant reports of Ukrainian military using Ukrainian civilians as human shields. Now that Amnesty International has verified that pattern, publicise all the politicians and military criticising that report.
LOOK FOR and repeat quotes of politicians accusing the Rusians of “targeting civilians”, practicing “terrorism” or even “genocide”.
Any DAMAGE TO CIVILIAN HOMES or other buildings by artillery must always be by the Russian military to the Ukrainian state side of the conflict, never to the other side by Ukrainian artillery. Your editors do not want to read or hear about damage to the other side’s homes or civilian buildings.
However, IT IS GREAT TO REPORT damage to Russian military or Donetsk People’s Militia and Luhansk People’s Militia, because it makes the Ukrainian state forces (and NATO weapons) look good.
DAMAGE TO UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES claimed by the Russians may be reported but always as an unverifiable claim, unless confirmed by Ukrainian state sources.
DAMAGE TO RUSSIAN ARMED FORCES claimed by Ukrainian state sources should always be reported in as fact-seeming a manner as possible (though from time to time some agencies will insert the caveat of being “unable to verify the claims of either side at this time”).
HUMAN INTEREST and emotional stories should always be from the Ukrainian state side. Dog-saving stories did very well but might have been overdone. Refugee or otherwise victim children, old people and women tend to make sympathetic subjects. Your editors are not interested in dogs, children, old people or women from the other side; they will only confuse the picture for readers.
ALWAYS REPORT HUMANITARIAN SUPPLY OR EVACUATION corridors as at Ukrainian or external initiative and if failing, should always be reported as with Russian culpability.
ALWAYS refer to the Donetsk People’s Militia and Luhansk People’s Militia as “pro-Russian” forces and never as defensive in origin.
ALWAYS reference the conflict as beginning in 2022 with the Russian invasion.
IF USING AN EARLIER TIME reference, write that it began with the “annexation of Crimea by Russia” in 2014
NEVER refer to the Russian-speakers in the Donbas region being attacked in 2014 by Ukrainian fascists and military and in some areas successfully defending themselves.
NEVER refer to the Russian-speakers in the Crimea holding a referendum in which a huge majority voted to ask to become part of Russia.
AVOID REFERRING to political parties banned in Ukrainian state territory, reporters arrested or threatened, news media censored or closed and films and books banned. The same can however be freely reported when the Russian state is the one doing it.
ALWAYS refer to the Ukrainian state as a democracy and the 2014 riots and abrupt change of government as a democratic one, never as a coup nor with reference to attacks on LGBT people, Roma, Left-wingers, Russian-speakers or any other group. Do not under any circumstances mention the burning alive of 42 people in a trade union hall by Ukrainian fascists.
ALWAYS precede any reports on Russian military advances as being a response to “setbacks” or “failure” in a supposed “attempt to capture Kyiv”. Never give any credence to claims that the Russian military advance on Kyiv was in order to limit the Ukraine state’s ability to direct, supply and support Ukrainian state military elsewhere in the region. Or that Russia had nowhere enough troops there to try to take Kyiv.
AVOID mentioning the Azov Regiment when possible (this was not possible when reporting on Mariupol, of course, since they were the core of the Ukrainian state forces there) but if doing so, NEVER call them “fascists” or “fascist-led”. It is of course permissible to refer to them as “nationalist” and sometimes as “having some far-Right members”.
ALWAYS refer to Ukrainian state military fighting as “heroic” and any defeats due merely to Russian military equipment superiority. NEVER mention that the Russian invading force were outnumbered by Ukrainian military by four to one OR that the Russian military were not battle-hardened while the Ukrainian military had been fighting the defensive Russian-speaking areas’ militia for eight years.
OCCASIONALLY refer to “demoralisation” or “war-weariness” among the Russian military (NEVER among the Ukrainian armed forces, least of all about their desertions).
FREQUENTLY quote Premier Zelenski at length and Putin, if unavoidable, in brief.
FREQUENTLY quote heads of state and prominent public figures etc of NATO countries, especially its leader, the USA in support of the Ukrainian state and against Russia.
NEVER QUOTE public figures of those same states in criticising NATO or the Ukrainian state – doing so will only confuse people.
ALWAYS present NATO as “a defensive military alliance which is no threat to anyone”.

SOCIAL MEDIA COMMENTING GUIDELINES ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE

ANY TIME someone posts an item which shows the Ukrainian regime in a nasty light, respond by posting comments

attacking them personally as “Putinistas” or “Putin whores”
as pro-Russian imperialism or as “Russian shils”
or attack their sources as of “Kremlin origin”, “Russian-funded”, etc
or post links to articles attacking Russia’s conduct in the Ukraine conflict as a reply.

RIDICULE any consideration of Russian claims that NATO has been steadily circling Russia ever-closer (despite the maps appearing to show this is what has been happening). Respond to the person making those claims

attacking them personally as “Putinistas” or “Putin whores” or as “Russian shils”
as pro-Russian imperialism
or post links to articles attacking Russia’s conduct in the Ukraine conflict as a reply.

ATTACK any reference to fascist forces such as the Azov by claiming

that they are just “nationalist” or
they have been broken up and spread through the rest of the forces (not to “infect” the rest, of course not)
accuse the commentators of being “Putinistas” or “Putin whores”
and pro-Russian imperialism or as “Russian shils”
or counter with reference to Russian use of the Wagner group
or post links to articles attacking Russia’s conduct in the Ukraine conflict as a reply.

JUSTIFY BANNING AND CENSORSHIP of journalists and media platforms

by saying they are “Russian shils”
or liars
“not real journalists”
or “because there’s a war on”

A DIFFERENT PICTURE SLIPS THROUGH THE PROPAGANDA

On July 14, 2022July 14, 2022 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Mass Media Criticism, NATO, Political Analysis, US Imperialism1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

We are being constantly reminded by the western press on a daily basis, quite rightly, of civilians being killed in the Ukraine conflict¹. On the Ukrainian side. Somehow, the Ukrainian military never fire at the Russian side – or if they do, they somehow never manage to kill civilians.

Amazing, really, in a war which the media keeps telling us is ferocious.

The Russian side is rarely quoted but when it is, its statements are dismissed. They say that the Ukrainian military plant themselves among civilian housing and fire artillery from there. Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they and anyway, the Ukrainian State denies it.

The Russian military are, according to the Ukrainian State, not so much careless about the the targets of their bombardment but deliberately aiming at civilian structures.

Why they would do that when, according to the same sources, they want to extend the Russian empire there, is not explained. It’s all about terrorism, according to Zelensky, the Ukrainian premier and media figure.

The Russian State story, not so easy to come by, is that they never target civilian areas deliberately, unless the Ukrainian military are using them to fire from – which according to the Ukrainian State, quoted without question by the western media, the Ukrainian military never do.

BOMBARDMENT AND CIVILIANS

Yesterday’s issue of Breaking News Ireland carried a very unusual photo. It was unusual because it was taken during actual military action, whereas we normally only get photos of damaged buildings and occasionally Ukrainian military standing firm.

Ukrainian Soldiers run after missile strike in residential area of Kramatorsk, Donetsk Region, Eastern Ukraine (posted 13 July) (*Cred: Nariman El-Mofty/AP*)

But the photo was more unusual than that because it showed Ukrainian soldiers running for cover after a Russian artillery strike, naturally enough but a less-than heroic image for public consumption. The caption tells us it’s in a civilian area in the Donetsk region.

WAIT A MINUTE! In a civilian area? So the Ukrainian military were in a civilian area and got fired on by Russian artillery? Doesn’t that coincide with what the Russians have been saying? Were those Ukrainian military perhaps even firing from that area? We don’t know.

We don’t know because we get hardly any western media coverage from the actual battlefronts, just quotations from the Ukrainian State and, from time to time, commentary from US/ NATO sources. And never any detail from the Russian side.

If we want a more realistic picture, we have to go to sources banned or at least not promoted in the West.

One of those sources is Patrick Lancaster, reporting on the war. In a recent video, he interviewed wounded civilians in a hospital in Izium, Kharkiv region, an area the Ukrainian military left a couple of days earlier and which is now under Russian military occupation.

So refreshing to watch.

Some interviewees blame the Russian State, some blame the Ukrainian State, some seem impartial or keep their own counsel – as one might expect, really, if one thought about it past the propaganda line, which is that everyone there — except the “Russian separatists” — blames the Russians.

And actually, the Breaking News article reported the reluctance of many to leave Sloviansk and Kramatorsk as they are being publicly encouraged to do by the Ukrainian Donetsk Governor, presumably as those areas are going to be pounded by artillery (but by Ukrainian or by Russian?)

This too is interesting, because even anti-Ukrainian State or pro-Russia interviewees (not always the same thing) interviewed by Patrick Lancaster in the Izium town, said that the Russian artillery had hit their town “very hard”.

But then some also stated that Marchenko, the pro-Ukrainian Mayor of the city had announced publicly that the city had been evacuated. All lies, according to one, “only five buses here …. and 50 taxis (but) from Kramatorsk.”

So if the advancing Russian military believed that only Ukrainian military remained in the city …..?

This is a military conflict and of course both sides are firing and, as well as soldiers, civilians are being inevitably killed on both sides. When that happens, is it likely that either side is killing civilians deliberately?

Certainly less likely by the Russians in the Donetsk area, which is a largely Russian-speaking region that has been attacked by Ukrainian right-wing military since that state’s abrupt change of government in 2014².

By the Ukrainian military side, probably more likely on the basis of the previous eight years, or at least of being more careless.

The article I’ve quoted showed a range of attitudes to the call of Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukrainian State’s Governor of the Donetsk region, for civilians to leave and to head into Ukrainian State-held territory — and also of different attitudes to the forthcoming Russian occupation.

Some are going, including a teacher of Russian, which is interesting, because another doesn’t want to go precisely because of the anti-Russian-speakers attitude of the State (and even more so of some of the Ukrainian military).

Some just don’t want to give up their homes and/ or be jobless (or elderly without support) in Ukrainian State territory. Some think they’ll be ok under the Russians while others think they’ll be no better off on the Ukrainian State side.

So, naturally enough a mixed picture but certainly very different to the one being projected day in, day out by the western media. How this article and photo slipped through that blockade is certainly curious.

DOES IT MATTER?

But at the end of the day, does it really matter much to us here in Ireland whether we are being subjected to inaccurate propaganda about the conflict in Ukraine?

Well, if that conflict was sparked by the expansion towards Russia’s borders of the NATO military alliance³, then it does.

If that conflict is part of the shaping up by US/NATO for a war against Russia and China (and possibly India), then it certainly does. Not just because all of those on both sides are nuclear powers and radiation can end up anywhere.

But also because the ruling elite of the British colony in Ireland is part of NATO and the ruling class of the Gombeen state is trying to push it into NATO — or at least into an EU military alliance, which would of course soon enough line up with NATO.

I don’t believe either side in this conflict without proof and analysis. But I do resent the completely one-sided propaganda coming from the western media. Maybe it’s the same in Russia with their own propaganda.

Maybe, but isn’t it the boast of the West that their democracies are superior, with free speech and press?

And if the western media is following the same propaganda line in its reporting out of common interest with US/NATO and EU, is the end result any different from the media in Russia saying what they are told to say?

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Would that they would equally well inform us of those beling killed by the Saudi proxy war in the Sudan or by the numbers of migrants being killed on a regular basis as they try to access safety or just a better life in western states – the same states that are usually responsible for their plight in the first place.

2Yes, eight years prior to the Russian invasion. On the rare occasions when the western media refers to this (they did in the Breaking News Ireland article) it is always portrayed as a problem caused by “pro-Russian separatists” without recording that those areas were attacked as Russian-speaking by Ukrainian fascist and far-Right military units, including the Azov Battalion and the people organised themselves in defence, then received Russian supplies and now, eight years later, a Russian invasion. The origin of the Crimea situation is a similar story.

3For those who think this is a ridiculous claim, type “NATO states in Europe map” into a search engine. Also look up “Minsk Agreement”.

SOURCES

Breaking News Ireland report: https://www.breakingnews.ie/ukraine/why-should-i-leave-some-ukrainians-refuse-to-flee-areas-caught-up-in-war-1334032.html

Patrick Lancaster reporting from Izum, Kharkiv region, 120 Km/ 75 miles southeast of Kharkiv city (random civilian interviews + civilians wounded in hospital): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iFv5jxInOc

From Sirotino, Luhansk, now controlled by Russian an Luhansk People’s Militia (interviews with residents): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRKNBYqb5DQ

Patrick Lancaster, December 2016 (yes, SIX YEARS AGO) in Luhansk People’s Militia trench, under Ukrainian shelling (breaking Minsk Agreement): https://youtu.be/DAo7go-4l0g

Senior Irish politicians thinking about joining a military alliance: https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2022/06/08/ireland-would-not-need-referendum-to-join-nato-says-taoiseach/

THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER RE-WRITES HISTORY

On June 5, 2022 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, History, Mass Media CriticismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

In an article by Virginia Harrison on May 16^th, in a context of praising the resistance of Ukrainian forces in Mariupol and in which she stated that the Azov Regiment had in the past (italics mine) had “nationalist far-right affiliations” (as distinct from fascist), she went on to state the following: “The regiment …………….. was a militia formed to fight the Russians after the invasion of Ukraine in 2014 but has become a unit of the Ukrainian national guard.”

Apart from failing to inform readers when and how the Azov allegedly dropped their “far-right affiliations”, the Guardian journalist is claiming the unit was formed to resist a Russian “invasion of Ukraine in 2014”!

*Donbas resistance fighters near Donetsk Airport May 26, 2014. (photo credit- AP/Vadim Ghirda). According to the accompanying text, the Ukrainians hit the defenders with airstrikes.*

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED

Russia invaded Ukraine early this year, 2022. The armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine began in 2014, i.e eight years before the Russian invasion. Prior to the time of the Russian invasion in early 2022, over 14,000 people had already been killed in the conflict.

It was not Russia that began that conflict but the Ukrainian far-Right and fascist forces supported by a section of the Ukrainian oligarchy after it had overthrown another section in the “Maidan Revolution” (sic) in February 2014. Those forces began to impose a fascist and racist agenda, attacking LGBT people, left trade unionists, Roma, Greek Russian minorities and Russian-speakers in general. The new Ukrainian Government also removed any official status or support for Russian – even as a regional language — although the language is spoken by 29.5% of the population, or approximately one for every two speakers of Ukrainian¹.

In response to the official and unofficial attacks of the Ukrainian Right, the residents of the Crimea held a referendum on 16^th February 2014 in which 90% voted for secession and for incorporation into Russia, which in turn formally annexed the Crimea two days later on the 18^th.

11 September 2014 — Funeral of Ukrainian officer — note not only Ukrainian flags but red-and-black of ideological followers of the fascist Stephen Bandera (*Credit: Yurkevych-Andriy-pohoro*n)

At the same time, Russian-speakers began to organise themselves for defence in the Donetsk and Luhansk areas, heavily industrialised regions also known collectively as the Donbas. For eight years before the Russian invasion, Ukrainian government forces including in particular the fascist Azov Battalion, now incorporated into the Ukranian National Guard attacked the Russian-speakers who, in the course of this declared their intention to secede from the Ukraine and asked for support from Russia. A number of fierce battles in 2014-2015 ended with one third of the regions’ territory, its most urbanised part, occupied by two statelets calling themselves the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

During this period Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany signed several versions of the Minsk agreements, which eventually stopped troop advances and reduced fighting significantly. But the Ukraine government never implemented the agreements and the governments of France and Germany failed to push for implementation from the new NATO-supported Ukrainian government.

April 2019 — Damage to Donetsk airport in the battle for its control by the Ukrainian armed forces and the Donbas resistance (*Photo sourced: Interne*t)

The fighting became a trench war, with roughly 75,000 troops facing each other off along a 420-km-long front line cutting through densely populated areas. The territory became one of the world’s most landmine-contaminated areas, its heavy industry and economy ruined, destroyed many houses and public buildings and infrastructure and caused the relocation of millions. All of which occurred before any Russian invasion.

A female of the Donbas resistance as part of a guard force escorting Ukrainian prisoners in 2014.

WHAT THE GUARDIAN PRETENDS

The newspaper, while asking us to “Support the Guardian”, stated:

“The truth, they say, is the first casualty of war. With correspondents on the ground in Ukraine covering the war, as well as throughout the world, the Guardian is well placed to provide the honest, factual reporting that readers will need to understand this perilous moment for Europe, the former Soviet Union and the entire world. Free from commercial or political influence, we can report fearlessly on global events and challenge those in power.

“We believe everyone deserves equal access to accurate news. Support from our readers enables us to keep our journalism open and free for everyone, including in Russia and Ukraine.

“Support the Guardian from as little as €1 – it only takes a minute. Thank you.”

In its mission statement, The Guardian continues:

“Of course, in a serious age, the appetite for thoughtful, clever features beyond the news is possibly greater than ever. Our readers want to be nourished – by meaningful journalism about technology, economics, science, the arts – not fattened up with junk. They want useful, enjoyable reporting on how we live now, spotting trends, catching the mood, understanding what people are talking about – life-affirming, inspiring, challenging. We can be fun, and we must be funny, but it must always have a point, laughing with our audience, never at them. Their attention is not a commodity to be exploited and sold. ……………………

“We will give people the facts, because they want and need information they can trust, and we will stick to the facts. We will find things out, reveal new information and challenge the powerful. This is the foundation of what we do. As trust in the media declines in a combustible political moment, people around the world come to the Guardian in greater numbers than ever before, because they know us to be rigorous and fair. If we once emphasised the revolutionary idea that “comment is free”, today our priority is to ensure that “facts are sacred”. Our ownership structure means we are entirely independent and free from political and commercial influence. Only our values will determine the stories we choose to cover – relentlessly and courageously.”²

Great words, Katherine Viner, Editor-in-Chief – a pity that despite some good journalists on the staff and as correspondents, the Guardian regularly falls short of its own proclaimed ideals. Falsifying history, biased war reporting and obscuring fascist affiliations hardly matches your high moral tone.

End.

FOOTNOTES

12001 Census, quoted in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Ukraine Also from the same source: “An August 2011 poll by Razumkov Centre showed that 53.3% of the respondents use the Ukrainian language in everyday life, while 44.5% use Russian. In a May 2012 poll by RATING, 50% of respondents considered Ukrainian their native language, 29% Russian, 20% consider both Ukrainian and Russian their mother tongue and 1% considered a different language their native language.”

2Katherine Viner, November 2017: “In a turbulent era, the media must define its values and principles” etc.

SOURCES

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/16/hundreds-of-ukrainian-troops-evacuated-from-azovstal-steelworks-after-82-day-assault

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Ukraine

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/16/a-mission-for-journalism-in-a-time-of-crisi