PUTTING BAGHDAD BOMBING INTO AN OMAGH PERSPECTIVE
Putting Baghdad bombing into an Omagh perspective
by Malachi O 'Doherty
YOU would think to read some people that there is no good reason for opposing the invasion of Iraq.
David Aaronovitch in the Guardian on Tuesday suggested that those of us who have rallied against the war have been motivated by a folk memory of GIs coming in and impressing our girls with nylons and sex.
There is little point in contending with the stupidity of that remark beyond quoting it but it seems likely to me that most of us have recovered from that shock and learned our way around a bit since.
Steven King explained on Wednesday that Northern Ireland society is divided in two; between those Catholic and Protestant liberals who, though mocked by Washington and London,'really do have a sense of responsibility for the wider world, and those who think violence can work wonders at home but is always to be op posed abroad.
By this logic, because I am opposed to this war I am to be lumped in with the Provos.
Steven wasn't the first to pull that stunt. Eoghan Harris has been at it too, describing the protest movement as a dart board with the Provos at the centre and a bunch of hapless impressionable saps gathered round them.
This is what I call playing dirty. It is name-calling for want of an argument and it is the worst kind of name calling, accusing those you oppose of paramilitary sympathies and of moral inconsistency.
Well two can play at that game.
I wonder what these champions of peace and democracy on earth feel this week after Baghdad has been delivered a Bloody Sunday and a couple of Omaghs.
What I am left wondering in the face of the silence of the pro-war lobby about these things is whether they are really as moral about terrorism as they sounded when it was their political enemies who were engaging in it.
In short, could it be that the politics of the bombers of Enniskillen annoyed them more than their methods?
The invasion of Iraq is, at best, legally questionable. We are the aggressors in it. From an international perspective it may be as unfounded legally as the campaign of the Provisional IRA was.
The Provos, like the British Government, checked their legal right to go to war according to the only legal system they observed � their own. When the children started dying in the crossfire and in bombings, they likewise explained that these were tragedies in a war for a greater good � the liberation of a people who, likewise, appeared unimpressed with the offer.
The simple fact is that before the invasion of Iraq there was a legal process in train, under the UN for disarming the country of its alleged weapons of mass destruction and that those who were competent to advance that process made it clear that they had not finished the job and needed more time.
The argument that Resolution 1441 authorises the war ignores the fact that support for that resolution was bought on an understanding that the matter would come back to the UN for a further resolution and that those appointed to make the judgement on whether Iraq was flouting the rules made no such report.
Those who sought this war, sought it from the beginning and were not sincere in using the UN as a possible alternative route. In the coming days, Tony Blair, who has the blood of innocents on his hands, will sit down with the leaders of Sinn Fein and other parties to discuss
the disarming of the IRA and the resumption of devolution in Northern Ireland.
Those in the IRA, who absolved themselves of blame for murder, will have every right to regard him as one of their kind. They are perhaps best placed to empathise with him.
It would not be out of order for one of them to take him aside and seek to assuage his worries and his guilt with a supportive word or two.
"Sure, we've been there ourselves Tony and isn't war a bloody business".
Unfortunately, if their assurance is that the pain eases when you get a political result, that might not be much use to him. He may end up with nothing but shame and disgrace and a shattered world order to show for his efforts.
My opposition to this war does not make me a Provo.
It does not make me a naive pacifist either. I supported the right of the Kosovans and Bosnians to defend themselves against an invader, as I support the right of the Iraqi people to do the same.
by Malachi O 'Doherty
YOU would think to read some people that there is no good reason for opposing the invasion of Iraq.
David Aaronovitch in the Guardian on Tuesday suggested that those of us who have rallied against the war have been motivated by a folk memory of GIs coming in and impressing our girls with nylons and sex.
There is little point in contending with the stupidity of that remark beyond quoting it but it seems likely to me that most of us have recovered from that shock and learned our way around a bit since.
Steven King explained on Wednesday that Northern Ireland society is divided in two; between those Catholic and Protestant liberals who, though mocked by Washington and London,'really do have a sense of responsibility for the wider world, and those who think violence can work wonders at home but is always to be op posed abroad.
By this logic, because I am opposed to this war I am to be lumped in with the Provos.
Steven wasn't the first to pull that stunt. Eoghan Harris has been at it too, describing the protest movement as a dart board with the Provos at the centre and a bunch of hapless impressionable saps gathered round them.
This is what I call playing dirty. It is name-calling for want of an argument and it is the worst kind of name calling, accusing those you oppose of paramilitary sympathies and of moral inconsistency.
Well two can play at that game.
I wonder what these champions of peace and democracy on earth feel this week after Baghdad has been delivered a Bloody Sunday and a couple of Omaghs.
What I am left wondering in the face of the silence of the pro-war lobby about these things is whether they are really as moral about terrorism as they sounded when it was their political enemies who were engaging in it.
In short, could it be that the politics of the bombers of Enniskillen annoyed them more than their methods?
The invasion of Iraq is, at best, legally questionable. We are the aggressors in it. From an international perspective it may be as unfounded legally as the campaign of the Provisional IRA was.
The Provos, like the British Government, checked their legal right to go to war according to the only legal system they observed � their own. When the children started dying in the crossfire and in bombings, they likewise explained that these were tragedies in a war for a greater good � the liberation of a people who, likewise, appeared unimpressed with the offer.
The simple fact is that before the invasion of Iraq there was a legal process in train, under the UN for disarming the country of its alleged weapons of mass destruction and that those who were competent to advance that process made it clear that they had not finished the job and needed more time.
The argument that Resolution 1441 authorises the war ignores the fact that support for that resolution was bought on an understanding that the matter would come back to the UN for a further resolution and that those appointed to make the judgement on whether Iraq was flouting the rules made no such report.
Those who sought this war, sought it from the beginning and were not sincere in using the UN as a possible alternative route. In the coming days, Tony Blair, who has the blood of innocents on his hands, will sit down with the leaders of Sinn Fein and other parties to discuss
the disarming of the IRA and the resumption of devolution in Northern Ireland.
Those in the IRA, who absolved themselves of blame for murder, will have every right to regard him as one of their kind. They are perhaps best placed to empathise with him.
It would not be out of order for one of them to take him aside and seek to assuage his worries and his guilt with a supportive word or two.
"Sure, we've been there ourselves Tony and isn't war a bloody business".
Unfortunately, if their assurance is that the pain eases when you get a political result, that might not be much use to him. He may end up with nothing but shame and disgrace and a shattered world order to show for his efforts.
My opposition to this war does not make me a Provo.
It does not make me a naive pacifist either. I supported the right of the Kosovans and Bosnians to defend themselves against an invader, as I support the right of the Iraqi people to do the same.
Further Information
Publisher: BELFAST TELEGRAPH
Ref: BT/0887
Published Date: 31-Mar-03
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