Bad Boy

Fallen Comrade of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement

Thomas Trainor
Member - Irish Republican Socialist Party
Staff Officer - Irish National Liberation Army
Assassinated on 8 March 1978

Aged 29, he was shot by a loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force gunman on a
motorcycle while walking along the Armagh Road in Portadown with his
brother Frankie and a friend, Denis Kelly (who was also killed in the
attack). Three thousand people attended his funeral.

He was threatened by the Royal Ulster Constabulary on numerous
occasions, including being told that the British Army's Special Air
Service "would get him."

His brother Ronnie (an INLA volunteer) and their mother Dorothy were
both murdered by loyalists in 1975.

He died as he lived: a Republican Socialist. Remember him with honour
and pride.

Interesting turn in this story....

Fyi, on a historical note, while Tohill served as an INLA prisoner of war,
he engaged in a hunger strike against the supergrass system, striking from
19 Dec 85-6 Jan 86 (19 days). His co-strikers were Gerard Steenson and Ta
Power.

While the strike itself was short-lived, its major impact was the erosion
of the supergrass sytem -- by Christmas of 1986, 24 of those convicted on
the word of supergrass Harry Kirkpatrick had been released, their
convictions quashed, and the debate was started to end the use of
supergrasses.

---

BELFAST MAN DENIES HE WAS ABDUCTED
02/23/04 13:21 EST

The man at the center of an alleged abduction attempt in Belfast last
Friday has said that he was not kidnapped.

The PSNI Chief Constable Mr Hugh Orde had said he suspected members of the
Provisional IRA were behind alleged abduction of Mr. Tohill.

Tensions ran high after police stopped a car at Castle Street in central
Belfast with Mr. Tohill and four other men on board. The four other men
were arrested and Mr. Tohill was taken to hospital suffering from a head
wound. He was released from hospital on Saturday.

Mr.Tohill is believed to have high-level links to the dissident "Real IRA"
and to have been targeted before by the republican movement.

"What we're talking about was an operation last night by uniformed officers
from a local police station, who arrested people who we would say are
connected to the Provisional IRA," said PSNI chief constable Hugh Orde.

However, in an interview with Belfast's Andersonstown News at his hospital
bed, Mr. Tohill accused the British government of using him as a "political
pawn".

Two hours before his alleged abduction last Friday evening the 45-year-old
told an Andersonstown News reporter he was being targeted by both the
Provisional IRA and loyalists.

However, despite claims to the contrary, he now claims Friday's incident
had nothing to do with a paramilitary dispute and was a fallout from a
drunken argument.

Legal experts said yesterday that Bobby Tohill's take on events had the
potential to collapse any case the PSNI may pursue.

"So long as the four men arrested have not made statements, Bobby Tohill's
refusal to press charges should wreck any case the PSNI might bring," said
a legal source.

Bobby Tohill admits his recollections of Friday night's events are unclear.
But what he is sure of is that he was not kidnapped.

"What I can remember is arguing and then fighting in Kelly's Cellars,"
explained Mr. Tohill.

"I have not and will not be making any complaint to the PSNI about this
so-called kidnapping affair. I will sign an affidavit confirming this was
not a kidnapping. The PSNI have been hassling me to make a statement, but
the only one I'll be giving is to my solicitor saying I will not press
charges."

Mr. Tohill insisted that reports carried in weekend newspapers claiming the
kidnapping was the work of the IRA were wrong.

"A newspaper photographer gained access to my room on Saturday and took my
picture while I was drugged," he added.

"This is the first full interview I have given to any newspaper after the
incident. All I want is to be left in peace and get on with a normal life -
something that I haven't had since first getting caught up in the conflict
as a 12-year-old boy."

In a statement at the weekend, Sinn Fein said details of the incident were
not clear.

It added: "Sinn Fein's position on this kind of activity is very clear. We
have consistently opposed it and will continue to do so."

Sinn Fein MP Martin McGuinness discussed the matter with Secretary of State
Paul Murphy at Stormont today.

Speaking afterwards, Mr McGuinness expressed annoyance about the chief
constable's remarks and said he believed it should be left to the courts to
decide.

"I don't know if Hugh Orde is correct or not - I am prepared to leave this
for others to decide and to see the outcome of this over the coming weeks
and months," he said.

The Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, said the incident
"underlines the on-going problem of paramilitarism" in Northern Ireland.

"The Republican political leadership needs to make it clear as to where it
stands and where the Republican movement as a whole stands on such
activity," he said.

The DUP's Ian Paisley junior said Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy
must shut Sinn Fein out of the political process.

He said: "Sinn Fein/IRA are calling to be included in the government of
Northern Ireland and yet it appears that the PIRA are engaged in terrorist
activities."

The four men arrested on Friday have appeared in court today charged with
the alleged false imprisonment of Mr. Tohill.

Gerard McCrory, 32, of Dermot Hill Road, Liam Rainey, 30 of New Barnsley
Crescent, Harry Fitzsimmons, 35, of St James Gardens and Thomas Tolan, 32,
of Ballymurphy Parade appeared before Belfast Magistrates Court on Monday.

They are accused of beating and unlawful imprisoning Bobby Tohill. They
were remanded in custody for four weeks.

Before the case began, the director of public prosecutions told the court
that a fourth charge of membership of a proscribed organisation, which all
four had faced, would not be proceeded with.

The court was told all four made no reply when charged.
__________________________________________________________

Paternity Fraud: Female Violence Against Men
February 10, 2004
by K. C. Wilson


Any fraud a man commits is called a crime. In forty-six states, the one exclusive to women is protected.

Your wife could have an affair, become pregnant, and tell you it's your child knowing full well it is not or may not be. She may even divorce you and have you pay child support. If you acquire DNA evidence that you and the child are the victims of deceit, not only is she not charged with an offense, the courts insist that she's right. The child is yours forever and you pay support, not the real father who could be found.

Estimates are based on limited data but range from 3% to 5% of all children may be fathered by someone other than who they call by that name. The June 3, 2002 Colorado Rocky Mountain News editorial describes such a case and takes the side of the offender:

"More than 11 years after a man agrees that he is the father of a child and will pay support, he decides he wants out of the deal because maybe, just maybe, he isn't the biological dad after all. Should he be able to cut and run? Of course not. It would wreak havoc on the life of a helpless youngster . . . at least not if he waited more than six months after the original decree."

Current laws were written before DNA testing and the divorce rate was 3%. No one could be certain of paternity in any case so the assumption had to be made. If a woman lied or was uncertain, there was no way to tell for sure. Men were held to account for anything their wives did. You're her husband; you're the father of all children.

Whether such a law should or should not continue in the face of hard evidence only now available is not up to the courts, but us, the public. This Colorado columnist likes the law just fine.

She calls fatherhood, "agrees that he is the father," avoiding reality and whether either man involved has a right to the same certainty about his parenthood as any woman. She asks whether a husband should be able to "get out of the deal" (making fatherhood a deal into which men are to be snared) on a "just maybe," then leaps into a case where everyone knows for certain.

She characterizes the man as heartless and irresponsible for objecting to being deceived, oblivious to the heartlessness it took to effect it. She uses the "helpless youngster" as the reason to pretend it didn't happen (using children for self-interest) when everyone now knows it did. She gives no thought that the child may be devastated by this trickery, to the devastation to both men (men should just take it), nor that a child might have a right to know his true parentage or at least not be lied to about it.

The net effect of her position is to preserve the mother's situation; everyone else's life is in ruins and should remain so. Justice is, "I tricked him fair and square. He had six months to risk our marriage by calling me a liar, now I've got it all, so should keep it." Justice does not lie in truth or honesty.

As to the relationship between the tricked husband and child, since society doesn't care about that in our divorce laws it's cynical to suddenly raise it here. Surely what becomes of that should be up to the un-father as we cannot legislate relationships.

How would that column have read if it was about a woman deceived by a bigamist? And a man cannot so easily hide a child he has outside of marriage.

But I am happy to go along with this. No, really I am. So long as when I murder my wife no one says anything nor puts me in jail lest doing so upset the children.

The forgotten protesters

It was barely reported that the IRA hunger strikes of
the 1980s involved women. Now a new film is to tell their story

Marina Cantacuzino
Monday February 9, 2004
The Guardian

The 1980/81 hunger strikes were one of the most
traumatic episodes in recent Anglo/Irish history. From the outset the
then British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, made it clear that
her government would "never concede political status to the hunger
strikers". As a result, 10 men starved themselves to death.
It is, however, little known that in 1980 it was not
just men who went on hunger strike. Three women at Armagh jail also
starved themselves. It was their last-ditch attempt to draw
the world's attention to the appalling conditions of Republican
political prisoners at that time. The same women had also joined
Armagh's much larger dirty protest where, having been refused
permission to slop out, the women joined their male counterparts in
smearing their excrement on the wall.

As a young teenager born and brought up in Belfast,
film-maker Maeve Murphy remembers being puzzled by the British
government's refusal to negotiate with the Republican prisoners, but had no
idea that women were also involved in the protest until, a
decade later, she came across a rare pamphlet written on the subject. "I
was shocked not only that there were women on these protests,"
says Murphy, "but also at the horrific and inhumane conditions in which
they were being kept. It was a chapter of history for Irish
women that had been hidden away."

The women's strike was barely mentioned in the British
press. The journalists at that time were all camped out in
Belfast's Europa hotel where the story fixed on the male prisoners.
"Male journalists tend to be more interested in men. War is, after all,
about men," says Murphy. Politicians were unwilling to bring it up
as "there was a feeling that the British didn't want women to die".

On Friday, Murphy's first feature film Silent Grace
goes on release in the UK. At its premiere it was received with
critical acclaim and tells the story of two women at Armagh jail during the
women's dirty protest and hunger strike of 1980. Silent Grace
attempts to shed light on the lives of women who believed they had a
right to take up arms and defend themselves against the British
"occupation".

Sinead Moore has not yet seen the film, but is proud
to have taken part in the dirty protest of 1980. As a teenager in
West Belfast in the early 1970s, she witnessed the British army enter
Catholic neighbourhoods and saw how men and women were interned
without trial. It fuelled a sense of communal solidarity among
the young and swelled the ranks of the IRA.

Charged in 1976 with possession of two revolvers, she
was sentenced to 10 years in jail. In Armagh she shared a cell with
Mairead Farrell, one of the three female hunger strikers who,
after her release, was shot dead along with two other members of
the IRA by the British SAS in Gibraltar. Pictures of Farrell's
Belfast funeral in 1988 were beamed across the world when loyalist
paramilitary Michael Stone opened fire on mourners at Milltown Cemetery.

Farrell entered Armagh in April 1976, and was the
first woman Republican prisoner to be sentenced under new
regulations which refused Republican prisoners special category status.
When Moore joined her nine months later, she too was categorised
a common criminal. Refusal by the authorities to grant special
category status, and the privileges that came with it, led
first to a "no work" strike (refusal to do mandatory prison jobs) and
then to the dirty protest of 1980.

During this time, women prisoners were also forcibly
subjected to repeated strip searches as a form of intimidation and
humiliation. Heightened brutality at Armagh saw warders conducting
raids to seize berets and black skirts, during which women were often
beaten, locked in empty cells and refused the use of toilet facilities.
This is what provoked 30 women to join the men's dirty protest.

"First we engaged in a 'no work' protest but then the
male screws started attacking us," recalls Moore. "We were thrown
into our cells and not allowed exercise or to use the toilet or get
washed. The windows and spy holes were boarded up and there was no
light."

The dirty protest, which lasted for nearly a year at
Armagh, saw pots overflowing with urine and excrement emptied out
of the spy holes into the wing. Women did not wash or brush their
teeth. The stench clung to the cells as the women's health
deteriorated. Their hair was infested with lice, maggots crawled over
their bodies, many suffered weight loss, and infections spread rapidly.

Moore, who still lives in West Belfast and now works
for Sinn Fein, says that "despite living under such appalling
conditions morale was fantastic. We were locked in our cells 23 hours a day
away from other prisoners but after 9pm, when the screws left,
we'd shout at each other out of the windows, do quizzes and play
games; and some women gave language classes in Gaelic."

With the authorities refusing to bow to the women's
demands, on December 1 1980, Farrell, Mary Doyle and Mairead
Nugent went on hunger strike in united action with the men in the
Long Kesh H blocks. Like the men, their demands included: the
right to wear their own clothing; freedom of association with fellow
prisoners and the right to normal visits and recreational facilities.

They continued until December 19, when it seemed their
demands were being met, although the agreement was then retracted.
Finally, the dirty protest was also called off in preparation for a
second hunger strike in the H blocks on March 1 1981. Even though
the IRA women in Armagh were passionately committed, there were only 32
of them at the time. Their health had deteriorated after the
dirty protest and so it was felt they were in no physical condition to
join the men's strike. So it went ahead with men only and with
devastating consequences. Ten young men, including Bobby Sands,
died.

The fact that few remember the women's involvement in
the struggle is a matter of ignorance, says Marie Gavagan, who was
sentenced in 1974 to 22 years at Armagh, though she was released in
1979. "We were after maximum publicity but the big story was at
H block. It was media-driven and people were dying there."

Gavagan was no stranger to hunger strikes. In 1974 she
starved with six other women in protest at the British government's
proposals to bring back hanging. When the vote in parliament was
lost, the women called off their strike after 21 days. "It was a huge
decision for all of us," says Gavagan. "I was terribly worried
about how my parents would feel, but I was very clear in my own
mind that this was something I wanted to do because hanging is
inhumane and can easily lead to a miscarriage of justice. It was always
a last resort for us because it was a life or death issue - but no
one was forced into it."

Today Gavagan runs a pub in County Wicklow and, like
Moore, is fully behind the peace process and hopes no woman will ever
again have to go through what they went through. "My three sons have
grown up in a very different world. They don't know what it's like
to witness violence every day. For us, growing up with troops at
every corner was brutal. I was first arrested at 16 for trying to
stop a 10-year-old boy being beaten up by a British soldier."

Gavagan became politicised in her teens while working
in a cafe where RUC members refused to be served by a Catholic
waitress. When she was charged for conspiracy to cause explosions she
didn't put up a defence because she refused to recognise the British
courts. In prison strong friendships were defined and formed. As
Gavagan says, "it was us against the prison system. They would
try and undermine us and demoralise us but it didn't work. We
held on to our beliefs and if anything it strengthened us."

This is the substance of Silent Grace, which
highlights the humanitarian and human-rights issues as opposed to the
political circumstances that created them. As Murphy explains,
"I wanted to humanise these women and show that in a situation of
total deprivation, human beings endeavour to retain their dignity."

She expects some people in Britain to take a swipe.
"In Ireland, people are naturally more able to see these women as
women, whereas in England, the IRA were so demonised by the media
that it is hard for people to see them as people caught up in a
political movement they believed in. What I'm trying to say is that even
if we hated what the IRA did in Oxford Street or Guildford, this
still wasn't the way to treat them as prisoners."

· Silent Grace is released on Friday.

Fallen Comrade of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement

Mickey Kearney
Volunteer - Irish National Liberation Army
Assassinated on 18 February 1987

Aged 33 and a father of five, he was ambushed by the Irish People's
Liberation Organisation (a group of counter-revolutionaries whose
goal was to destroy the IRSM) as he slipped out of hiding to visit
his wife and children in Ballymurphy, West Belfast.

Like other victims of the IPLO, he had just been released from prison
before Christmas, having had charges against him withdrawn when the
appeals judge rejected the testimony against him by an informer. He
then found himself placed on an IPLO hit list.

A memorial to Kearney and another INLA volunteer, Patrick Campbell,
was dedicated in West Belfast in January 2003.

He died as he lived: a Republican Socialist. Remember him withhonour and pride.

Fallen Comrade of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement

Hugh Ferguson
Branch Chairperson - Irish Republican Socialist Party
Volunteer - Irish National Liberation Army
Assassinated on 20 February 1975

Aged 19, Ferguson was the first person to be killed during the
Official IRA's attacks on the newly formed IRSM. He was shot to death
at a building site where he was working in the Whiterock area of West
Belfast.

At the time of his death, he was the chair of the IRSP's Whiterock
branch and a volunteer in the INLA. He had been a member of the
Official Republican Movement prior to joining the IRSM.

A memorial to Ferguson and another comrade of the IRSM, Hugh O'Neill,
was dedicated in Whiterock on 23 February 2003.

He died as he lived: a Republican Socialist. Remember him with honour
and pride.

SWEET DEALS: THE PROBLEM WITH SUGAR IMPORT QUOTAS

Jobs in America's candy industry are jeopardized by
protectionism, which is always advertised as job protection. In
this case, the protectionism is an agriculture subsidy -- sugar
import quotas, which raise the price of sugar for 280 million
Americans, says George Will.

Some companies affected include:

o Brach's, which ended its production of hard candy on
Chicago's West Side and moved most of the jobs to Mexico
where it can pay the world market price of sugar, which is
one-half to one-third of the U.S. price as propped up by
import quotas

o Life Savers, which for 90 years were made in America, are
now made in Canada, where labor costs are comparable but
the yearly cost of sugar is $10 million less.

o Chicago's Ferrara Pan Candy Co., maker of Jawbreakers, Red
Hots and Boston Baked Beans, has moved much of its
production to Mexico and Canada.

Is protectionism lethal? Promoted by Democrats hawking their
compassion, protectionism could somewhat flatten the trajectory
of America's rising prosperity. But protectionism could kill
millions in developing nations by slowing world growth, thereby
impeding those nations from achieving prosperity sufficient to
pay for potable water, inoculations, etc. Developed nations
spend $1 billion a day on agriculture subsidies that prevent poor
nations' farmers from competing in the world market, says Will.

Source: George Will, "Sweet And Sour Subsidies," Washington Post,
February 12, 2004.

Union Knows All About Crime, but Nothing About Punishment
Patt Morrison

February 10, 2004

There's this one outfit operating in California's prisons that you
don't want to mess with.
They've got money, and they've got muscle. You squeal on them, you
better watch out. You run afoul of them, you better start looking for
another line of work.
I speak not of the state's 161,000 convicts — that's a different order
of dangerous — but of the union representing the men and women who
guard them.
The prison guards' union has managed to make old-line union bosses of
the Hoffa mold look wimpy and ham-fisted. This union goes by the
unwieldy acronym of CCPOA, California Correctional Peace Officers
Assn., and over two decades, the union's budget has been bumped up a
dozen-fold. Its freewheeling sick time and overtime policies have
turned time cards into ATM gold cards. Veteran guards get a "fitness
pay" bonus of $130 a month, but because they found actual fitness tests
demeaning, they now get the 130 bucks just on a doctor's say-so that
they're fit.
Where do I join?
Its membership is only a tenth of the size of the California Teachers'
Assn., which does business by rapping knuckles with rulers, compared to
the CCPOA's way of doing business.
Politicians who support the union get rewarded, like Gray Davis, the
notorious beneficiary of millions in campaign money. He returned the
favor by hefting union salaries by a half-billion bucks over five
years, something only one state legislator voted against. Before him it
was Pete Wilson, who also got handsome campaign checks with the union
logo on them, and whose idea of a lovely parting gift when he left
office in 1998 was an 11% pay hike for prison guards.
Politicians who dare to ask why it is the state keeps building prisons,
why guards take so much overtime and sick time, why Californians pay so
many millions in inmate-abuse lawsuits — well, ask an ugly question,
get an ugly answer. The union is willing to spend millions to reward
its friends, and to punish those who cross them. It's not quite leaving
a horse's head on the pillow, but it makes the point, especially if
it's the politician's own head that could be left lying there.
And that's nothing compared to what they evidently do when their own
guys in green turn on them and point out guards who step out of line.
Being called "rat" and "snitch" is the least of it. One associate
warden who's come down hard on his own operation has asked for
protection from the CHP.
So, there's nothing in it for Republicans to crack the whip on the
union. They're the law-and-order party, and who's more law and order
than a prison guard? And why tick off the one union that actually likes
them?
And there's nothing in it for Democrats to crack the whip, either; they
have to prove they're not soft on crime, and how can they be otherwise
if they're too hard on the fellows who patrol the prisons?
The public? Grilling the guards doesn't do much for voters who made
Three Strikes the 11th Commandment, who figure if a guard gets out of
line to keep some thug in line, more power to him.
So who's in charge here?
That's what a lot of pols would like to know, and a lot fewer have the
nerve to ask.

If you sped past the televised state Senate hearings as you went
trolling for Janet Jackson's breast or "reality" show results or any of
the clap and trap that pass for news, then you missed the real thing —
crime and punishment, life and death.
You missed a hearing conducted with more security than a Mexican Mafia
trial. You didn't hear tearful officials testifying to reprisals and a
code of silence. You missed learning about the guard who was ordered to
get rid of incriminating audiotaped remarks, and was demoted when he
refused. You missed the widow of a captain who was hounded after he
questioned his superior's judgment about a possible prison riot, and
who committed suicide leaving a note reading, "My job killed me."
Two Democratic state senators ran those hearings — Jackie Speier and
Gloria Romero. Today they will announce more hearings for Feb. 26, to
find out how rich deals have put some guards into top tax-brackets, and
whether union contracts obstruct investigations into wrongdoing.
In language that sounds like something from one of those Cagney-Bogart
prison movies where the inmates call the guards "screws" and talk about
being "in stir," someone, says Speier, has put the word to her
third-hand that she's "crossed the line."
For anyone considering running for state office in 2006, which is the
common wisdom on Speier, this could be bad, or it might be good. I'd
think it'd be hard for her to take such a threat seriously after what
she's been through. Speier was an aide to a congressman when she was
shot and seriously wounded, and he was killed, in the Jim Jones
Jonestown massacre of 1978. Her scars give her a kind of talismanic
authority on law and order issues. In a vote on assault weapons, a
fellow legislator asked whether she'd ever fired such a weapon. No, she
said — have you ever been shot by one?
The federal report on the deplorable state of California's prisons was
"the most damning public document I think I've ever read," Speier says,
and the state's hearings have only confirmed her suspicions of an
operation accountable to no agency but itself — "a prescription for
disaster," for the union, for the prisoners, and for the state that has
to pay for it all.

Six years ago, when Democrat Bill Lockyer was running against
Republican David Stirling for the attorney general's job, the state
prisons were a mess.
My Times colleagues were writing story after story about guards using
prisoners to discipline other prisoners, guards staging "gladiator"
fights for their own amusement, or punishing one inmate by locking him
in a cell with a prisoner they knew would rape him. California was the
only state where guards could use lethal weapons to stop nonlethal
fistfights.
My question back then, at a candidates' debate, was, who will police
the police?
Six years later, I'm still asking.

Dominic McGlinchey
Assassinated on 10 February 1994

Dominic McGlinchey was born in 1954 into a County Derry family with a
strong republican background.

He was interned from August 1971 to June 1972 in the British prison
camps of Ballykelly and Long Kesh. He was imprisoned again in 1973 on
arms charges.

Following his release, he joined an independent paramilitary unit in
South Derry along with Ian Milne and future Provisional IRA hunger
striker Francis Hughes (some members of the independent unit
would later join the PIRA). Their activities led the Royal Ulster
Constabulary to take the unusual step of issuing wanted posters.

In the midst of his paramilitary career, he married Mary O'Neill on 5
July 1975. The couple would have three children: Declan, Dominic,
and Marie (who died as an infant). Mary would later join the Irish
National Liberation Army with her husband.

McGlinchey was arrested by the Irish police in 1977 and charged with
hijacking a police vehicle, threatening a police officer with a gun,
and resisting arrest. While serving time in Portlaoise Prison,
he clashed with the PIRA leadership and ended his affiliation with
that organisation.

He joined the INLA in 1982 as Operations Officer for South Derry and
within six months was promoted to Chief of Staff. He made an immediate
impact, putting an end to dissension within the organisation and
building the organisation up throughout the country.

Actions carried out during this period included the bombing of the
Mount Gabriel radar station in County Cork, which was providing
assistance to NATO in violation of Irish neutrality; the bombing of
the Droppin' Well Bar, which catered to British military personnel;
and numerous other attacks on British military personnel, RUC
personnel, and loyalist paramilitary figures.

McGlinchey was arrested on St. Patrick's Day, 1984 in County Clare,
and was extradited to the North of Ireland the same night, where he
was convicted on a murder charge and given a life sentence. In
October 1985, the Belfast Appeals Court overturned the conviction on
the grounds of insufficient evidence and McGlinchey was returned to
the South, where he was sentenced to ten years in Portlaoise on
firearms charges.

While he was in prison, his wife, Mary, was murdered on 31 January
1987 by unknown assailants.

After his release from prison in March of 1993, he began
investigating claims that the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force was
involved in money laundering with Irish criminals. He also began
working with Bernadette Devlin McAliskey. In June of that year, he
survived an assassination attempt by UVF member Billy Wright (who
would later be executed by the INLA).

On 10 February 1994, McGlinchey was making a call from a phone box in
Drogheda when two unknown men got out of a vehicle and proceeded to
shoot him fourteen times.

http://www.irsm.org/fallen/mcglinchey/dominic.html

"He was the finest republican of them all. He never dishonoured the
cause he believed in. His war was with the armed soldiers and police
of this state." - Bernadette Devlin McAliskey

very bad news. "satellite bosters" == "peacetime ICBM research"
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,61794,00.html? tw=wn_tophead_7

Iran Plans Satellite Launch


Wired News Report Page 1 of 1

11:16 AM Jan. 05, 2004 PT

The Iranian defense minister said his country will launch a locally made
satellite within 18 months, the official IRNA news agency reported. No
details on the type of satellite were given.

Russian news agency Interfax said in August that Moscow planned to discuss
with Tehran the possibility of resuming a project in which Russia would
build Iran a telecommunications satellite.

It quoted Russian Aviation and Space Agency chief Yuri Koptev as saying
Russia had designed a project that Iran accepted on technical grounds, but
it had been put on ice due to contractual concerns on Iran's part

Neil McMonagle
Volunteer - Irish National Liberation Army
Killed on 2 February 1983

Born Eugene Cornelius McMonagle, he was a 24 year old native of
Coshquin, a small housing estate in Derry.

He was unarmed when he was shot and killed by an undercover member of
the British Army's Special Air Service, acting on information from an
informer, in what was recognised as another in a long list of shoot-
to-kill "incidents."

Two years earlier he had read the oration at the funeral of INLA
hunger striker Patsy O'Hara.

A memorial plaque was placed in his honour on 9 November 2003 in the
Shantallow area of Derry where he was killed.

He died as he lived: a Republican Socialist. Remember him with honour
and pride.

http://www.irsm.org/fallen/mcmonagle/

Fallen Comrade of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement

Gino Gallagher
National Organiser - Irish Republican Socialist Party
Chief of Staff - Irish National Liberation Army
Assassinated on 30 January 1996

Gino Gallagher was an extremely charismatic and popular republican
socialist activist, admired across republican lines and within the
broader working class community. He was assassinated on 30 January
1996 by a mercenary criminal acting on behalf of a small group of
counter-revolutionaries.

He was a West Belfast native who joined the IRSM's youth wing,
the Patsy O'Hara Youth Movement, after the 1981 hunger strikes.
Imprisoned by the British on three separate occasions, he emerged
as a very dedicated, very well-read activist.

He was credited with helping to re-establish the IRSP, renovating
and reopening Costello House (the IRSP's national office in West
Belfast), and pushing the primacy of politics in the tradition of
Seamus Costello and Thomas "Ta" Power.

He was also credited with helping to restore the reputation of the
INLA, having been personally responsible for several assassinations
of loyalist paramilitary figures within their own community
strongholds and by ensuring that the INLA remained subordinate to
the political direction of the IRSP.

He died as he lived: a Republican Socialist. Remember him with
honour and pride.

IRSM Fallen Comrades page for Gino Gallagher:
http://www.irsm.org/fallen/gallagher/

Mary McGlinchey
Assassinated on 31 January 1987

Mary was a former member of the Irish National Liberation Army,
the wife of former INLA Chief of Staff Dominic McGlinchey, and a
mother of three children. She was shot in her home in Dundalk by
unknown assailants while she was bathing her two sons.

http://www.irsm.org/fallen/mcglinchey/mary.html

US use tactical nuclear weapons in Iraq war

Iraq justified returning in the same coin



AGHDAD: The United States kept its �honor� of being always first by using in Iraq tactical nuclear weapons for the first time in the history of the mankind. The new generation of its troops, who never felt bad about the disasters to humanity unleashed by their predecessors in the World War II by using the Atom bomb, can now take the pride that they have killed hundreds, if not thousands, of Iraqis � civilians as well as soldiers, using the tactical nuclear weapons for the first time.

The use of these devastating weapons was kept under low profile by the Pentagon but the US press was bold in availing this opportunity to prove the superiority of the United States on Iraq. Interview of the US soldier who fired these shells, perhaps for the first time in Al Kifl, were carried as a hero who has done some great job for the humanity.

These weapons which are commonly known as Depleted Uranium Bombs, work like a Hydrogen bomb. There is no difference except that the radiation of these bombs is lesser in degree and quantity. However, the devastating effects of this radiation on the people are as serious as the H-Bomb.

Although US had used depleted uranium bullets and shells in previous Iraq war and in Bosnia, but the bombs based on this lethal material were only used in Afghanistan and Iraq. Daisy Cutter, a semi-nuclear bomb was excessively used in Afghanistan.

According to a report these bombs were used in Al Kifl a small town south of Baghdad where Iraqi soldiers had attacked the advancing American forces a few days ago. The American troops, when found themselves stranded among the attackers who had literally besieged them after a fierce battle, unleashed the terror of the nukes.

�In the opening battle, the tank unit fired two 120 mm high velocity depleted uranium rounds straight down the main road, creating a powerful vacuum that literally sucked guerrillas out from their hideaways into the street, where they were shot down by small arms fire or run over by the tanks,� said a commander of tank unit as quoted by the MSNBC.

About a thousand dwellers of the town were killed by the suffocation and then firing by the American �liberating� troops. A British journalist in Baghdad described the incident as a �massacre not a war.�

These weapons create vacuum of such a great intensity that even the blood and flesh comes out of the mouth. It was not enough. The brave US soldiers ruthless fired on the civilians who were sucked out of their homes by the vacuum created by these tactical nuclear weapons. And yet their media brands this war as the war for the freedom of Iraq�

Iraqi leadership had already expressed the fears that a losing United States could turn to use of weapons of mass destruction. But, before even the much trumpeted final round of the battle for Baghdad could be staged, the US troops were keen to resort to these weapons as they found that nothing could stop Iraqis from defending their land.

It may be mentioned here that there was a movement in the United States for years to force their administration to stop manufacturing and use of these tactical nuclear weapons. But, the Zionist expansionists who control the Pentagon kept manufacturing this devastating weapon for their ulterior motives.

It is strange that one of the many reasons that the Pentagon and White House have been giving to justify the war against Iraq was their fear that Iraq could use weapons of mass destruction. But, ironically, Iraq that is facing day and night bombardment since the outbreak of war has not used any chemical, biological or nuclear weapon where as the United States has claimed the �honour� to use these weapons against the humanity, once again.

The incident proves that the real rogue nation in the World today is the United States. The real threat to the World Peace is the Bush Administration and the only country who could use the nuclear weapons against any real or perceived enemy is the United States.

Knowing this fact, if the World community still keeps quiet and allows the United States to implement its agenda in Iraq, then they should be rest assured that the day is not far when they will be facing the same threats and catastrophes.

Subject: Response by the Maghaberry POW�s to the �Compact proposals for
Separated Prisoners�
Date: Friday January 15, 2004

******Please forward widely.******

The Prisons Service has announced a new regime for Republican prisoners
at Maghaberry including:

� Loss of education, recreation, exercise, free association, canteen
facilities, and religious practice
� Daily cell and full body searches
� �Rehabilitation� examination by clinical psychologists, same as given
to sex offenders, prior to any paroles

Republican prisoners at Maghaberry recently won separation from loyalist
death squads-- who they were housed with on the same landings, and in
one case in the same cell-- following repeated assaults and death
threats to the Republicans. Intransigence on the prison
administration�s part led to a prolonged dirty protest by the Republican
prisoners last year to obtain segregation and safety.

The Irish Freedom Committee joins the Republican prisoners in condemning
this most recent tactic of �criminalization� as it cannot solve the
ongoing problems inside the jails, but indeed will only further
exacerbate them.

Following is the full statement from the Maghaberry Republican
Prisoners.

The Irish Freedom Committee�
www.irishfreedomcommittee.net

************************************************
Subject: Maghaberry Statement
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 01:50:36 +0000

Response by the Maghaberry POW�s to the �Compact proposals for Separated
Prisoners�.

Maghaberry POW�s wish to draw public attention to our concerns regarding
future conditions at the gaol. Following recent protests the prison
authorities agreed reluctantly for a Republican Wing set apart from
those occupied by criminals and pro-British paramilitaries. This
decision was made in line with the government sponsored Steele Report.
Subsequently the �Northern Ireland Prison Service� has announced its
intentions to launch a new regime for the Republican Wing entitled
�Compact for Separated Prisoners�.

Bearing in mind the tendency of the British authorities to act in bad
faith when dealing with Republican prison protests, the POW�s felt the
need to look upon the proposed regime with caution. On closer inspection
it appears our concerns were well-founded. At the heart of the compact
document lies the prison authorities intention to deny normal everyday
activities such as education, recreation, exercise, regular association,
canteen facilities and even religious practice to prisoners on
Republican wings. The denial of these rights is to be accompanied by
daily cell and full body searches. It
is our opinion that these proposals amount to no less than punitive
sanctions against those Republicans who choose to live in safety on
their own wing.

Of equal concern is the prison service intention to enforce upon
Republican prisoners a rehabilitation scheme under the title �The
Home-Leave Resettlement Boards� as a pre-condition to successful parole
applications. The system will require prisoners to undergo formal risk
assessment which will rely upon input from the PSNI, Probation service
and clinical psychologists and will look for evidence that the prisoner
has been �addressing his offending behaviour while in gaol�. This
programme is mandatory for criminals and sex offenders and to impose it
on Republicans is no less than a calculated insult to political
prisoners who know full well
they do not need to be rehabilitated from anything.

In keeping with our integrity as Irish Republicans, the well-being of
future POW�s, not to mention the sacrifices of past POW�s on our behalf,
we reject the �Compact for Separated Prisoners� document.

Our men have been instructed not to sign any document in relation to it.
The onus will now be on the prison service to produce arrangements which
will not attempt to criminalise us by the back door, the intention of
the compact proposal.

Any such attempt will as always be resisted.

Maghaberry POW�s.

Hessy Phelan
Murdered on 21 January 1996

A former member of the Irish Republican Socialist Party and the Irish
National Liberation Army in Derry, he had moved to New York City to
get away from the Troubles in the North.

On 21 January 1996, a friend of Hessy's asked her boyfriend, a New
York City police officer with a record of excessive force complaints,
to take Hessy to his apartment.

Once there, according to witnesses and trial testimony, the boyfriend
shot Hessy in the head. He was convicted of manslaughter in 1999.


John O'Reilly
Chief of Staff - Irish National Liberation Army
Assassinated on 20 January 1987

The 26 year old from Eliza Street in South Belfast began his career
as a republican activist in the 1970s as a member of the Official
IRA's youth wing, Na Fianna Eireann. As an adult, he joined the INLA,
where he was instrumental in securing their European arms supply
network and eventually succeeded Dominic McGlinchey as Chief of
Staff.

In 1986, individuals who had resigned or been purged from the INLA
came together as the Irish People's Liberation Organisation with a
single goal: to destroy the IRSM.

O'Reilly, along with Thomas "Ta" Power and two other members of the
INLA, went to Drogheda to meet with representatives of the IPLO to
discuss a means of preventing a conflict. The IPLO used the meeting
as a ruse to carry out an attack on the four INLA members, killing
O'Reilly and Power.

http://www.irsm.org/fallen/oreilly/

*******

Thomas "Ta" Power
Staff Officer - Irish National Liberation Army
Assassinated on 20 January 1987

Aged 34, he was from Friendly Street in the Markets area of South
Belfast. He had been a member of the Official IRA but joined the INLA
in 1975 while in Long Kesh Prison.

His brother, Jim, was an INLA staff officer who was killed in 1981.

Noted for having spent the longest time on remand (four years, four
months) on the word of informer Harry Kirkpatrick, he was also held
on the evidence of five different informers, and had just been
released from Crumlin Road Jail a short time before he was killed.

Respected in republican circles, he was widely regarded as a thinker
and theorist, having drawn up a plan while in prison for the
reorganisation of the IRSM. This ambitious plan, which placed all
sections of the movement subordinate to the political direction of
the Irish Republican Socialist Party, had been adopted by the INLA
shortly before his death.

He was assassinated in Drogheda, along with INLA Chief of Staff
John O'Reilly, by the Irish People's Liberation Organisation.

The "Ta" Power Document:
http://www.irsm.org/history/tapowerdoc.html

http://www.irsm.org/fallen/power/ta_power.html

*******

They died as they lived: as Republican Socialists. Remember them with
honour and pride.

"Ireland Unfree Shall Never Be At Peace"


This war is to the end. There will be no interval
where we put away our guns, Britain will be out of
Ireland and an Irish democracy will be established in
the 32 counties with a national government.

PIRA New Year Message 1984

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

13 January 2004

The following is the text of a statement supplied to the Republican
Socialist Publicity Bureau:

Action Taken Against Ardoyne Thug Necessary - INLA (Irish National Liberation Army)

It was with great reluctance the North Belfast Irish National
Liberation Army took punitive action against Ardoyne RUC/PSNI
informer, thug and hood Eamonn Clarke for persistent and long term
attacks against his own community.

We would take this opportunity to set the record straight following
unfounded allegations by his family in the British gutter press
unfortunately repeated by some Irish newspapers who should know
better than to print unfounded allegations.

Eamonn Clarke apart from his final punishment was neither abused nor
tortured. If his family think that somehow he is above any
responsibility to the local community for his actions let this be a
salutary lesson.

###

Republican Socialist Publicity Bureau
392 Falls Road, Belfast, BT12 6DH, Ireland
Tel/Fax: 028 90 330786

I've been neglecting this thing for awhile now. Life was happening to me, & I had to deal with it. Now that that's all been taken care of I should be around more often.

Even though I'm a Marine (inactive), I get no joy in all the problems the Army has been having. The thing is, it all seems to be self inflickted. The Army has some of the best, & some of the worst Generals of any branch of the services.

I think one of their problems is just the sheer size of the the Army. When you have that many Divisions, & youy need the number of Generals, & senior officers that they need, well, there are only so many of the good ones out there. There is another problem, & that is to become a Major or Lt. Col., you have to be a sort of politician, & some of the traits that make a good military leader, don't tend to lend themselves to the political arena.

A few years back the Army decided to change how they operated. They turned al their senior NCO's, & officers into managers, & not leaders. When it's time to go to war, you need leaders, not managers. With all these managers in high positions, they only promote other managers. This leads to generals trying to manage a war instead of leading men in fighting it. This leads to many bungled operations. The war in Afghanistan is the prime example. The Marines wanted no part of that mess, so they split & let the Army run the show. Can you imagine Schwartzkopf fighting his war from Tampa Bay? The Army screwed up so bad, Rumsfeld was livid. No matter how many times you hear someone say things went great, it was perfect, etc, etc., doesn't know what they are talking about. Afghanistan in general, & operation Anaconda specifically were a mess. Most people in the military & people who dig past the FOX News snow job, (Hey, I like FOX, but they are a little right wing conservative which is fine with me) will tell you this. The after action reports, & the lessons learned, don't paint a good picture. It validates my concerns when all this war business started. Our soldiers are the best in the world, but they are being managed by men who will get them killed.

One of the crown jewels in the Army is the position of "Supreme Allied Commander, Europe". This was once held by Eisenhower during WWII, & is always staffed by an Army General being positioned to move to the Joint Chiefs. This position has historically been an Army General. To punish the Army for screwing up, he has appointed a Marine General to this position. He has also been replacing Generals & Col's at a rate never seen before. It's like one guy told me, "The way Rummy is going after the Army, youd think some soldier stole his girlfriend". It is true, that Rumsfeld would have made these changes in the Army any way, Afghanistan just gave him a reason, & excelerated the pace.

Then, to top it all off, you would have thought these clowns would have learned something from the Afghanistan mess, & they would have done better in Iraq. Things were so screwed up that they tried to use & manipulate this sweet innocent little girl, so they could get some good press. People don't know just how lucky the Army got in Iraq. With their supply line streatched so thin they were very vulnerable to a counter attack. They broke rules every Lt. learns at OCS.They also got lucky with that push into Bahgdad. They only sent in a few tanks, & soldiers, & these guys had no back up. Does Somalia not fit in these guys memories. Again, they got very lucky. Well, luck & a completely inept Iraqi Army. True to form though, they sure made a mess of the peace.

So, we should all support Rumsfeld in his mission of trying to transform the Army, & The Pentagon into organizations that serve this country better than they do now.

As for the Corps, The Marine Corps is still the greatest fighting force in the world. Yet it too must transform itself, & change with the times. They must learn to get along with others. The Corps is famouse for not operating with other organizations. It's famouse for it's go it alone attitude. I understand where this comes from. No one knows what Marines are going through on the battlefield, or what they need than other Marines. Marines on the ground know that that Marine in the air is trully their brother, & will do their damndest to help them out. Every Marine Corps pilot knows what it's like to be a grunt. Those men on the ground are his brothers, & he will risk his life to help them, & they know it. The reason Force Recon is the only srecial ops group not under SOCOMs control is that Marine Generals are very reluctant to put their men under the command of non-Marines. I fully understand, & support this philosophy, yet there has to be a way they can still operate with the other services, especially the Army, better than they do now. You really can't speak bad about the Marines, they do so much so well, & if you do decide to criticize the Corps, leave your name & number, & I'll personally come over to show you my feeling about that, LOL.

Military staffers are busier than PX cashiers on payday evaluating the lessons learned from the recent fireworks in Iraq. And that process is important. The stakes are too high not to get this long-term fight with terrorists dead right.

A case will soon be made for smart hardware and weapons to at least partially replace the current level of active-duty soldiers. While the right smart stuff is, of course, the way to go, if Cold War submarines and fighters such as the F-22 aren't culled from the weapons cache, it might well be goodbye ground troopers and the continuation of contracts for too many obsolete, gold-plated war toys. And it will be happy days for the war merchants, their always-available-at-the-right-price porker pals and the bean counters, who are more into systems than warriors.

Hopefully, our system of checks and balances will kick in, and Congress will ask if the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are correct models to use for drastic changes to our force structure before Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his civilian slashers seriously weaken the time-tested force that defends our country.

Let's face it: Not only were both ragtag enemy armies incapable of really fighting back, vast money transfers also convinced many Afghani and Iraqi senior commanders to cut and run. And with Iraq, it wasn't just a 30-day bombing campaign that prepared the field. So many missions - more than half a million - were flown over that country in the decade before we pre-empted Saddam Hussein from doing whatever he planned to do with his infamous inventory of yet-to-be-found doomsday weapons, it was a surprise to some that there were any targets left to "shock and awe."

But, as always after major operations, there are scores of basic lessons that must not be ignored, no matter what surgery the Pentagon bureaucrats and dilettante reformers ultimately perform. And one critically important lesson that has nagged at me for years is the inability of our Joes and Jills who bring up the rear to fight as infantry.


Since George Washington, all U.S. Army soldiers have always been trained first as riflemen. That skill has kept a lot of people in the rear with the gear alive and won a lot of fights, from our War of Independence to Korea - where "Scooter" Burke led his unit's cooks in a counterattack that saved his company - to Vietnam - where Hank "The Gunfighter" Emerson dispatched his battalion's clerks and mechanics to save a company of besieged paratroopers.

In Iraq this time around, there were no neat front lines. The guerrilla enemy was everywhere - ambushing convoys and striking hard at our Army's soft underbelly. And many of these attacks proved the fallacy of one of the U.S. Army's frequently touted maxims: "We fight as we train."

Too large a number of Army rear-echelon folks failed the course when put to the test because they weren't trained to fight as grunts in Initial Training or when they joined their regular units. In many noncombat units today, this kind of live-or-die training gets brushed off by leaders who say: Who needs this grunt stuff - we're ordnance, maintenance or transportation. Even during large training exercises, these vital survival skills are too often given only lip service.

No question the 507th Maintenance Company could've used the "more sweat on the training field, less blood on the battlefield" infantry training on that shameful day when its nine-vehicle convoy of ordnance troops took a wrong turn and bumped into a small enemy force in two pick-up trucks. Gun for gun, the 507th outnumbered the Fedayeen, but still got clobbered to the tune of nine dead and five prisoners of war. Few 507th soldiers fired back because their weapons were clogged with dust. Hello? A soldier's weapon on a battlefield clogged with dust?! And those who weren't killed or captured straightaway ran liked scared jack rabbits - led, sadly, by their fleet-footed captain.

Congress is presently investigating this sorry display of cowardice and incompetence. Let's hope it has the smarts to conclude that the Army must return to the standard where every soldier truly is a rifleman first.

The Marines still follow this rule, and when their support units in Iraq bumped into stay-behind fanatics, they did what Marines have been doing well since 1775: killed the suckers and moved on.



Pfc. Jessica Lynch recently was awarded a Bronze
Star Medal, a Purple Heart
and the POW Medal. The BSM citation reads: "For
exemplary courage under fire
during combat operations to liberate Iraq, in
support of Operation Iraqi
Freedom. Private First Class Lynch's bravery and
heart persevered while
surviving in the ambush and captivity in An
Nasiriya."

A BSM for "bravery" and "surviving in the ambush
and captivity"!

The Army's official After-Action Report said she
was in a vehicle that
crashed while hauling butt trying to escape an
enemy ambush. She was knocked
unconscious and woke up at a nearby Iraqi
hospital receiving special
attention from some super-caring Iraqi doctors
and nurses.

This was probably the first incident in U.S.
military history in which an
American soldier was awarded our country's
fourth-highest ground-fighting
award for being conked out and off the air
throughout a fight.

BSMs citing bravery typically read: "Moving his
machine gun to a forward
vantage point, he covered the advance of the
infantry with a heavy volume of
effective fire. Repeatedly exposing himself to a
devastating small-arms
automatic weapons and mortar barrage .. " Or:
"(He) voluntarily acted as
point man and ... when the platoon was fired upon
... charged the (enemy)
position .... Through his courage, determination
and devotion to duty, he
saved his patrol from suffering casualties and
captured a prisoner who later
provided important information."

It's no big surprise that I've been bombarded by
thousands of angry e-mails
from vets protesting this assault on our
country's sacred award system.

"She wasn't wounded in action, nor did she do
anything to deserve a Bronze
Star," writes Arch McNeill. "We have hundreds of
valiant soldiers here in
the 3rd Division who far more deserve more than
she received but in many
cases didn't receive anything."

"I'm going to send all my awards back to the
president and tell him where he
can shove them," says a genuine war hero, Jack
Speed, a former Army Raider.

Trust me, the troops - past and present - are
unhappy.

So I rang the Pentagon and asked Col. Jeff Keane,
"Why the bravery bit?"
Finally, when the standard Army propaganda drill
wasn't going down, Keane
told me, "It was for her bravery in the
hospital."

But all this flimflam wasn't Jessica Lynch's
doing. She was used right from
the first - a frail prop in the Pentagon's
public-relations campaign to sell
the war to the American people and to encourage
their daughters to join up
and be heroes.

To keep the truth under wraps, the Army concocted
another whopper: "She
suffers from amnesia."

A senior officer from V Corps (the unit that
eventually awarded her the
BSM), who has asked to remain anonymous, comments
that there was "tremendous
pressure right from the get-go to award Pvt.
Lynch a Silver Star. But the
high brass here concluded, 'There was no evidence
of heroism on her part,'
and told the pushers to back off."

But when the propagandists conned the highly
respected Washington Post into
reporting on how Lynch was shot and stabbed but
continued to kill Iraqis
until her last round was spent, heroic stuff that
would make Audie Murphy
look like a slacker - which the Post then took
several months to correct -
other media were fast to pick up the fairy tale,
and the Army was besieged
by proud Americans demanding that Jessica be
awarded the Medal of Honor.

Of course, many of us now know that a high-priced
flack in Tommy Frank's
headquarters came up with this tall tale and then
duped the Post.

According to retired Marine Lt. Col. Roger
Charles: "There's nothing they
won't stoop to spin. The Army needed a female
hero to boost female
recruiting and PR efforts, so they went and
invented one."

And that's the root of the problem. The elevation
of Jessica to Joan of Arc
status is to recruit more women, even though
thousands of female soldiers
couldn't deploy with their units to Iraq because
of pregnancy, no sitters
for single moms' multiple kids and other
problems.

And poor Jessica Lynch has become the unwitting
poster girl for an Army of
One that's fast becoming an Army of Two - since
apparently more than half of
the women deployed to Iraq are now pregnant.

So bury himm and let him lie
And play your brass tattoo.
But write above his marble stone
'Here lies a stinking screw.'
For if men knew what he'd done,
They'd turn their backs and spew...




And blessed is the man who stands
Before his God in pain
And on his back a cross of woe
His wounds a gaping shame.
For this man is a son of God
And hallowed be his name...


They chop your neck then walk your back
Spread-eagled you like a pelt.
For private parts their special arts
Are sickeningly felt.
They squeeze them tight with no respite
'Till a man cries for the womb
That gave him birth to this cruel earth
And torture of that room...

New Years statement issued on behalf of the National Executive by Mr Francis Mackey, National Chairman.

As we enter 2004 we are mindful that on 21st January 85 years ago, the elected representatives of the Irish Nation declared their freedom through the Declaration of Independence.

The historic election of December 1918 formed the first Irish Parliament, Dail Eireann, and was the clear democratic wish of the Irish people to end British rule in Ireland. The Irish people have been denied that right to this day.

In commemorating this historic event the 32 County Sovereignty Movement looks forward with patriotic principle to uphold and defend the democratic right of the Irish people. We emphasise the responsibility of all republicans to uphold the principle of the 1916 leaders, the first Dail Eireann and the Sovereignty of the Irish Nation.

We look forward to advancing the search for real peace with justice and we question why the British Government insists on continuing their illegal claim to the occupied six counties.

Reflecting on the past year, the 32 CSM are convinced now more than ever that our decision to oppose the modernisation and normalisation of British rule in Ireland through the 1998 agreement was the correct route for republicans. That agreement was based on a flawed analysis and failed the Irish people, Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter. It is sectarian by its very nature and fails the people on this island.

The agreement has not addressed the British government�s illegal claim to part of Ireland and it is our firm belief that Unionism will not be persuaded to address their needs within the island as long as such a claim exists.

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement asks the Protestant people, particularly those in working class areas, to look seriously at the similar circumstances in Catholic areas and see the deprivation that affects both equally. We pose the question, can your needs be met with the continuance of sectarian conflict which the British Government is content to allow to continue in order to safeguard their interests and divert attention from the real reason why they are holding on to their illegal claim?

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement believe all our needs to alleviate the deprivation and hidden poverty that exists can be more effectively addressed in an all Ireland context without the diversion of the British Government and the frustration that creates in both communities.

The GFA cannot be all things to all people and the inherent flaw on the issue of National Sovereignty allows for the agreement to flounder as we have witnessed over the past years with the constant suspension of the Assembly at Stormont. This process is doomed to failure, and will continue to fail the people of this island.

The process of moving forward is made more difficult by both the British and Dublin Governments, when they use negative propaganda against groups like ours for opposing the Stormont arrangement as if our opinion was not equally valid.

This vilification should not be taken lightly and under analysis does not stand up to scrutiny and is indeed a weak attempt to hide their failure, which we continuously expose.

We will never allow a British Government or indeed anyone else to criminalize us and we challenge the Dublin Minister of Justice Mr Mc Dowell on his blatant lies on the 9th December 2003 when he stated on RTE that the 32CSM were associated with drugs and criminal activity.

Such allegations are unfounded and without a single shred of evidence and I challenge Mr Mc Dowell to produce the evidence to substantiate his claim. If he doesn�t, which we are certain he cannot, it will be taken for what it is, lies. In the meantime I will be seeking legal advice to address such unfounded allegations and the slur he has cast on myself and members of this movement.

The past year has also witnessed the framing of republicans based on corruption within the RUC/PSNI. This was evidenced in the cases against Noel Abernathy, Martin Brogan and Mark Carroll, with the use of contaminated evidence to attempt to secure a false conviction.

This type of injustice is nothing new in the armoury of the British Government against Irish citizens and we have noted the silence of the Dublin administration and the constitutional parties in Stormont. Obviously such injustices are not part of their brief within the confines of what they agreed with the British government.

The 32 CSM repudiates such injustice and we call for all prosecutions under the corrupt British judicial system to be rescinded.

The past year has revealed claim and counter claim in the investigation into the Omagh atrocity 1998. Given the revelations that sinister state forces were involved resulting in the horror of that bomb, it is my firm belief that only a full independent public enquiry will come near establishing the truth of what happened leading up to and on that fateful day.

The 32 CSM are committed to pursuing our peaceful path through international arbitration at the United Nations and will increase our endeavours to have Ireland�s case heard to uphold the Irish people�s democratic rights and to protect Irish National Sovereignty.

It is clear that the proscription of the 32 CSM in America is based on falsehood and is unconstitutional within the laws of that country. It is our intention to increase our efforts to prove to the US administration our bona fides as a peaceful organisation upholding Irelands rights as a Nation and that our challenge to the British Government is a legitimate position for the Irish people.

In the year ahead we call for a full debate amongst the Irish people on the Sovereignty of the Irish Nation and call for a continued effort to have our challenge answered at the UN. It is time for the British government to decolonise Ireland or to answer why they continue to hold on to their illegal claim.

We take this opportunity to wish all our supporters at home and abroad, a peaceful and happy New Year.

We extend New Year and solidarity greetings to Irish POWs at home and abroad. We salute your courage and determination in refusing to allow the British Government to criminalise you and your determination to force the Government to implement segregation within Maghaberry Gaol.

The British Government have conceded that political prisoners exist in Ireland and by conceding on this issue admit that the issue of Sovereignty which has historically led to conflict remains unresolved.

The Irish people must now demand their democratic right to uphold and protect National Sovereignty and we in the 32 County Sovereignty Movement will continue to give leadership with our challenge, via the UN, on this basic principle.

T'was two weeks before Christmas, And all through Iraq,
The people still worried that Saddam would be back.
The soldiers went out on their nightly patrol,
Capturing the bad guys was always their goal!
With raids seeming endless in the triangle Sunni,
We hoped that not all of Iraq was so looney!
We gathered the tribe of Saddam, in Tikrit,
And suddenly now they all started to snit!
They told of a farm where Hussein just might be
Odierno then called on our boys- from the great 4th ID!
More rapid than Baathists our soldiers they came,
And he whistled and shouted and called them by name
Now Delta, Now Rangers, Now Cavalry too!
On Green Hats, on Pilots, I need all of you!
Go to that farm and secure it right now!
Capture his ass- you guys know how!
Off went our soldiers under cover of night,
So stealthy, so quiet with no trace of light
While we back at home were eating our lunches,
Our boys on the ground were following hunches!
And then it was time for the raid to begin.
The first target came up -empty within!
Could it be our Intel was wrong once again?
No! Somewhere nearby is the wolf in his den!
And then, in a twinkling, camouflage torn away
In a hole in the ground did their quarry lay
Dazed and confused, right at them he looked,
Did the stupid old fool know his goose was now cooked?
He was dressed all in rags from his toes to his head,
And his beard was as matted as 12 day-old bread!
How the mighty had fallen, could this be Hussein?
One look in his eyes was to know he's insane!
Our boys got their man - how proud we all are
The relief in our country is felt near and far
A bath he has had now -yet he'll never be clean
Forever tainted with mass torture and his Fedaheen
To our soldiers we give our undying respect
You always give more than we ever expect
We hope you can have now a night with some fun
Your loved ones back home say- JOB **** WELL DONE!
From National 4th Infantry (IVY) Division Association

These are the five most dangerous things you'll ever hear in the military.
1. A private saying, "They taught me this in basic..."
2. A second lieutenant saying, "It's been MY experience..."
3. A sergeant saying, "Trust me sir..."
4. A captain saying, "I have an idea..."
and the most dangerous of all...
5. A warrant officer saying, "Hey! Come here and watch this..."


MILITARY WISDOM

"A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit." -Army's magazine of preventive maintenance.

"Aim towards the Enemy."
-Instruction printed on US Rocket Launcher

"When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend.
-U.S. Marine Corps

"Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate. The bombs are guaranteed to always hit the ground." -U.S.A.F. Ammo Troop

"If the enemy is in range, so are you."
-Infantry Journal

"It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed." -U.S. Air Force Manual

"Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons." -Gen. Mac Arthur

"Try to look unimportant; they may be low on ammo."
-Infantry Journal

"You, you, and you . . . Panic. The rest of you, come with me." -U.S. Marine
Corp Gunnery Sgt.

"Tracers work both ways."
-U.S. Army Ordnance


"Five second fuses only last three seconds."
-Infantry Journal

"Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last, and don't ever volunteer to do anything." -U. S Navy Swabbie

"Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid."
-David Hackworth

"If your attack is going too well, you're walking into an ambush." -Infantry
Journal

"No combat ready unit has ever passed inspection."
-Joe Gay

"Any ship can be a minesweeper... once."
-Anon

"Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do." -Unknown Marine Recruit

"Don't draw fire; it irritates the people around you."
-Your Buddies

"If you see a bomb technician running, follow him."
-U.S.A.F. Ammo Troop

A large group of Taliban soldiers are moving down a road when they hear a voice call from behind a sand dune. �One U.S. Special Forces soldier is better than ten Taliban.�

The Taliban commander quickly sends 10 of his best soldiers over the dune whereupon a gun battle breaks and continues for a few minutes, then silence.

The voice then calls out �One U.S. Special Forces soldier is better than one hundred Taliban.�

Furious, the Taliban commander sends his next best 100 troops over the dune and instantly a huge gunfight commences. After 10 minutes of battle, again silence.

The American voice calls out again �One U.S. Special Forces soldier is better than one thousand Taliban.�

The enraged Taliban Commander musters one thousand fighters and sends them across the dune. Cannons, rockets and machine-guns ring out as a huge battle is fought. Then silence.

Eventually one wounded Taliban fighter crawls back over the dune and with his dying words tells his commander, �Don't send any more men, it's a trap. There's actually two of them.�

Ronnie Trainor
Member - Irish Republican Socialist Party
Volunteer - Irish National Liberation Army
Assassinated on 15 December 1975

Aged 17, he died from injuries received when his home at Ballyoran
Park, Portadown, was bombed by the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force.

His mother, Dorothy, had been murdered by loyalists earlier in 1975.
His brother, Tommy, an INLA staff officer, was also killed by the
UVF three years later.

He died as he lived: a Republican Socialist. Remember him with
honour and pride.

http://www.irsm.org/fallen/trainor/ronnie_trainor.html

From the Commanding Officer at MWSS-171 to his Marines.


Marines and Sailors,

As we approach the end of the year I think it is important
to share a few thoughts about what you've accomplished directly,
in some cases, and indirectly in many others. I am speaking about
what the Bush Administration and each of you has contributed by wearing
the uniform, because the fact that you wear the uniform contributes
100% to the capability of the nation to send a few onto the field to
execute national policy. As you read about these achievements you are
a part of I would call your attention to two things:

1. This is good news that hasn't been fit to print or report on TV.
2. It is much easier to point out the errors a man makes when he makes
the tough decisions, rarely is the positive as aggressively pursued.

Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...

... the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty.

... over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.

... nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning.

... the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.

... on Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts-exceeding the prewar average.

... all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open,
as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.

... by October 1, Coalition forces had rehab-ed over 1,500 schools - 500
more than scheduled.

... teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.

... all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.

... doctors salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.

... pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700
tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.

... the Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccinations to
Iraq's children.

... a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's 27,000
kilometers of weed-choked canals which now irrigate tens of thousands of
farms. This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and
women.

... we have restored over three-quarters of prewar telephone services and
over two-thirds of the potable water production.

... there are 4,900 full-service telephone connections. We expect 50,000 by
year-end.

... the wheels of commerce are turning. From bicycles to satellite dishes
to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major cities and
towns.

... 95 percent of all prewar bank customers have service and first-time
customers are opening accounts daily.

... Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.

... the central bank is fully independent.

... Iraq has one of the worlds most growth-oriented investment and banking
laws.

... Iraq has a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.

... satellite TV dishes are legal.

... foreign journalists aren't on 10-day visas paying mandatory and
extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for "minders" and other
government spies.

... there is no Ministry of Information.

... there are more than 170 newspapers.

... you can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street corner.

... foreign journalists (and everyone else) are free to come and go.

... a nation that had not one single element - legislative, judicial or
executive - of a representative government, now does.

... in Baghdad alone residents have selected 88 advisory councils.
Baghdad's first democratic transfer of power in 35 years happened when the
city council elected its new chairman.

... today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and professional
organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.

... 25 ministers, selected by the most representative governing body in
Iraq's history, run the day-to-day business of government.

... the Iraqi government regularly participates in international events.
Since July the Iraqi government has been represented in over two dozen
international meetings, including those of the UN General Assembly, the Arab League, the World Bank and IMF and, today, the Islamic Conference Summit. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs today announced that it is reopening over 30 Iraqi embassies around the world.

... Shia religious festivals that were all but banned, aren't.

... for the first time in 35 years, in Karbala thousands of Shiites
celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam.

... the Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects, large
and small, as part of a strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq.

... Uday and Queasy are dead - and no longer feeding innocent Iraqis to the
zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force cooperation,
torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games, or murdering critics.

... children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with
the government.

... political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed, or
are forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam.

... millions of longsuffering Iraqis no longer live in perpetual terror.

... Saudis will hold municipal elections.

... Qatar is reforming education to give more choices to parents.

... Jordan is accelerating market economic reforms.

... the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for the first time to an Iranian -- a
Muslim woman who speaks out with courage for human rights, for democracy and for peace.

... Saddam is gone.

... Iraq is free.

... President Bush has not faltered or failed.

... Yet, little or none of this information has been published by the Press
corps that prides itself on bringing you all the news that's important.

Iraq under US lead control has come further in six months than Germany did
in seven years or Japan did in nine years following WWII. Military deaths
from fanatic Nazi's, and Japanese numbered in the thousands and continued for over three years after WWII victory was declared.

It took the US over four months to clear away the twin tower debris, let
alone attempt to build something else in its place.

Now, take into account that Congress fought President Bush on every aspect of his handling of this country's war and the post-war reconstruction; and that they continue to claim on a daily basis on national TV that this conflict has been a failure.

Taking everything into consideration, even the unfortunate loss of our brothers and sisters in this conflict, do you think anyone else in the world could have accomplished as much as the United States and the Bush administration in so short a period of time?

These are things worth writing about. Get the word out. Write to someone you think may be able to influence our Congress or the press to tell the story.

Above all, be proud that you are a part of this historical precedent.

God Bless you all. Have a great Holiday.

Semper Fidelis,

CO

This information is provided by PURE PURSUIT as a service to members of the Military and Air Defense Community with the purpose of offering relevant and timely information on defense, aviation, emergency, and terrorism issues.? Posts may be forwarded to other individuals, organizations and lists for non-commercial purposes.

Fallen Comrades of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement

*******

Colm McNutt
Volunteer - Irish National Liberation Army
Killed in Action on 12 December 1977

Aged 18, he was killed in a car park near the main gate in Derry, on
the edge of the Bogside, by a British Army undercover squad.

Circumstances suggested McNutt was victim of a "shoot to kill" policy.

http://www.irsm.org/fallen/mcnutt/

*******

Seamus Grew
Volunteer - Irish National Liberation Army
Assassinated on 12 December 1982

Aged 31, Seamus Grew was killed along with Roddy Carroll when the car
they were in was fired on by members of the Royal Ulster
Constabulary's E4 anti-terrorist unit at a checkpoint in Armagh City.

Both men, who were unarmed, were killed instantly. The RUC had been
led to believe by an informer that their real target, INLA Chief of
Staff Dominic McGlinchey, would be in the car as it crossed the
border from an INLA meeting in Co. Monaghan in the 26 Counties.

In 1979, Grew had been shot in the throat, captured, and sentenced to
four years for INLA activities. He was released after serving two
years and survived an assassination attempt by loyalist gunmen two
months before he was killed. His brother, Dessie, was a Provisional
IRA member killed by the British Army's Special Air Service at
Loughgall, Co. Armagh, in 1990.

RUC Constable John Robinson was put on trial for his role in the
murders but was found not guilty. He claimed the RUC officers thought
they had been shot at. When challenged with evidence that Grew and
Carroll were unarmed, Robinson claimed instead that the two men had
crashed through a roadblock and the RUC officers were fearful of
being run down by the car.

The judge said he was not concerned with an RUC cover-up, only
whether Robinson was guilty or not. Not surprisingly, he ruled that
Robinson "honestly believed he was fired at and his life was in
danger."

http://www.irsm.org/fallen/grew/

*******

Roddy Carroll
Volunteer - Irish National Liberation Army
Assassinated on 12 December 1982

Aged 21 and claimed by security forces as the INLA's top gunman in
Co. Armagh, he was killed along with Seamus Grew when their car was
fired on by the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

http://www.irsm.org/fallen/carroll/

*******

They died as they lived: as Republican Socialists. Remember them with
honour and pride.

I've never been married, & I doubt I ever will be. There is nothing in it for a man to get married, & many draw backs to it. Men are getting screwed in the battle of the sexes. On top of that you have the radicle feminist telling lies, trying to vilify men. They look at men as the enemy. Some of their claims are being shown to be false, & they are losing many educated women from their ranks, because they too see the lies.

A new study by the Independent Women's Forum has concluded that Women's Studies textbooks "ignore facts in favor of myths," "mistake ideology for scholarship," and encourage students to "embrace aggrievement, not knowledge." The study, Lying in a Room of One's Own: How Women's Studies Textbooks Miseducate Students, examined the five most popular Women Studies' textbooks in the United States.

The study's author, scholar Christine Stolba, used the textbooks because she sought to examine academic feminism's mainstream, instead of its oft-criticized fringe. She divided her study into three main categories, "Errors of Interpretation," "Errors of Fact," and "Sins of Omission."

The "Errors of Interpretation" occur in large part because the textbooks construe every study, statistic, or piece of evidence to mean that women are miserable and oppressed, and that men are privileged oppressors. Among the "truths" that the textbooks tell us are: women are under siege from virtually all sectors of society; little has changed for women in the past three decades; believing that women have achieved equality is "modern sexism"; and most women are not naturally attracted to men but are the victims of "compulsory heterosexuality" maintained through (male) "social control."

The textbooks also depict motherhood as a "burden for women, something to be overcome" and portray women who choose to remain home with their young children as dupes who buy into oppressive traditional female roles. In addition, bad fathers are described as the rule rather than the exception, the prevalence of sexual abuse and molestation are wildly exaggerated, and students are told that fathers represent a "foreign male element" that mothers and daughters must often unite against.

Among the many "Errors of Fact" Stolba cites are the belief that the government has ignored women's health needs at the expense of men's, and that the gender wage gap is a direct result of discrimination.

The women's health claim was made famous in 1990 by Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), who generated national headlines when she cited the fact that women-specific health research comprised only 14% of the budget of the National Institute of Health (NIH) and labeled it "blatant discrimination." However, only 6.5% of the NIH's budget went to male-specific research--the vast majority of the NIH's research was (and is) addressed to health issues affecting both sexes. Since 1990 the disparity favoring female-specific NIH research has grown even wider.

The claim that men are paid more than women for the same job has been refuted by studies by liberal, dissident feminist, and conservative organizations, all of whom have found that single men do not earn more than single women. The gender wage gap is caused by the career sacrifices that mothers make for their children, and the personal sacrifices fathers make (longer work weeks, more consecutive years of service, more hazardous jobs, etc.) in order to earn the money to support those children. Surveys which take these factors into consideration have shown that, for the same job, women earn within 2% of what men do.

In "Sins of Omission" Stolba notes that the textbooks airbrush all heroines to remove their flaws. For example, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, is extolled, but her well-documented racism is not mentioned. Similarly, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is praised uncritically without noting her administration's corruption.

Powerful or heroic women who happened to hold conservative beliefs, such as Florence Nightingale, Golda Meir, and Margaret Thatcher, are either ignored or are portrayed as sellouts who "turned from other women." The power wielded by first ladies is praised in the wives of Democratic presidents and ignored in the wives of Republican presidents. Feminist dissidents, an increasingly numerous and vocal group, are dismissed briefly, if they are mentioned at all.

Alice Graves, a UCLA graduate familiar with Women's Studies, agrees with Stolba's depiction. She says:

"Much of what is taught in Women's Studies panders to us and insults our intelligence. I want to learn the truth about both women and men, the good and the bad. I want all women's voices to be heard, not just those who toe the party line. Do my professors believe that I can't be trusted to think for myself


Women are under siege and oppressed, while men have it easy. This is the unmistakable message of Margaret L. Andersen's Thinking About Women: Sociological Perspectives on Sex and Gender, one of America's most popular Women's Studies 101 textbooks.

The mischaracterizations and distortions begin in Chapter One on page one, where Andersen speaks briefly of the progress which women have made, but soon cautions the reader that "there's still a long way to go" for women to achieve equality. To support her point, she tells us:

1) "In the 1990s, women college graduates who worked full-time earned, on average, 70 percent of what men college graduates earned working full time";

2) "Each year five million women experience some form of violence, two-thirds of it committed by someone they know";

3) "Employed women" work 13 hours a week more than "employed men" on "household tasks."

All three of these statements are extremely misleading. Yes, full-time employed women do earn less money, on average, than full-time employed men do, but they also: work 400+ hours a year less than men do; work only a tenth as many overtime hours; have 25% less overall work experience; comprise only 5% of workplace fatalities (because they do not do the hazardous jobs which necessarily pay better); and are far less likely than men to work nights, weekends, have long commutes, or to travel for their jobs. Surveys which take these factors into consideration have shown that, for the same job, women earn within 2% of what men do.

The "five million women experience some form of violence" statistic is misleading because it is driven sharply upward by domestic violence studies which lump trivial acts which women do as often as men (such as swearing at or insulting your partner, slamming doors or stomping out of rooms, etc.) with serious violence. Whenever two-sex surveys of domestic violence are taken, women are shown to be just as likely to initiate and engage in spousal abuse as men, and roughly 75% of all violent crime victims are male.

Women may do an extra 13 hours a week of "household duties" but the average full-time employed man works eight hours a week more than the average full-time employed woman. Andersen's survey allows for the inclusion of people who are "employed" but who don't work full-time, and since most part-time workers are female, this pushes the disparity in hours worked between men and women in the survey even higher. Together with the fact that men spend more time commuting and work more physically strenuous jobs than women do, what the survey really tells us is that the overall labor of a household is, in fact, being divided evenly between men and women, a finding consistent with most research on the subject.

The book also spins myths about "deadbeat dads" (actually, over 80% of the men who have jobs and can see their children pay their child support in full), women's supposedly ignored health care needs (the government at every level spends more on women's health than men's, even though it is men who dominate in most diseases and it is women who live longer), and numerous others.

Andersen urges readers to notice women's role both in society and in everyday life--good advice, except that she instructs women to look only for female suffering and male privilege. For example, she counsels readers to look at the "bright lights shining in the night skyline" and see that they "represent thousands of women...who clean the corporate suites."

Fair enough, but what about the thousands of men who risked their safety and even their lives (including yours truly) to build those same skyscrapers? What about the men who pick up the trash, crawl through the sewers to make repairs, or who work on power lines 50 feet up in the air? In Andersen's book such men are as invisible as she imagines women to be.

Like most Women's Studies textbooks, materials, and lectures, Andersen's text ignores the growing number of strong, articulate female scholars, researchers, writers, activists, and leaders who call themselves "equity feminists" and support feminism's basic goals but oppose the rampant distortions and out and out man-hating of the established feminist movement. These include: Canadian Senator Anne Cools, a former shelter director and a pioneer of the battered women's movement who is now a fathers' rights advocate; author/activist Erin Pizzey, who set up the first battered women's shelter ever in England in 1971 and now advocates for abused men; Camille Paglia, the legendary author and cultural observer; author and ‘60s feminist icon Doris Lessing, who says that in modern culture men are "continually demeaned and insulted by women without a whimper of protest"; Cathy Young, co-founder of the Women's Freedom Network and author of Ceasefire: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve Equality, author and columnist Wendy McElroy, founder of Independent Feminists (ifeminists.com); Christina Hoff Sommers, author of Who Stole Feminism?, former Women's Studies professor Daphne Patai, author of Professing Feminism; crime journalist Patricia Pearson, author of When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence; and countless others.

Instead, Andersen chooses to trot out the standard collection of cranks and hate-mongers such as Catherine MacKinnon (who wrote that under the conditions of our society, "all heterosexual sex is rape"), and Andrea Dworkin (who wrote "marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice").

Andersen also cites numerous discredited feminist researchers such as Diane Russell, who arrives at high numbers of female victims in her surveys by classifying consensual sex as rape and hugs and horseplay from male relatives as incest, and Carol Gilligan, whose baseless and unscientific research led in part to the myth that girls are silenced and oppressed in the classroom. Ms. Gilligan's scholarly reputation was permanently laid to rest by Christina Hoff Sommers, in her chapter "Gilligan's Island" from her book The War Against Boys.

American college students (male and female) need a balanced textbook which includes dissident feminist voices and which looks honestly at the many challenges women face as well as the many advantages they enjoy. Instead, they are saddled with factually-challenged propaganda tracts, which are allowed to exist because of PC intimidation mixed with an unspoken, condescending university atmosphere which says, "don't argue with the little ladies--you can't expect those gals who teach Women's Studies to keep their facts straight."



Since October is "Domestic Violence Awareness Month", I'll mark the occasion by examining four of the most prevalent feminist myths about violence in families.

Myth #1: In violent heterosexual relationships, the aggressor is almost always the man, and the victim is almost always the woman.

Serious research on domestic violence overwhelmingly asserts that domestic assault is committed by both men and women and that, by using weapons and the element of surprise, women are abusing their male partners as often as vice versa. Only about 1/4 of violent heterosexual relationships fit the feminist "man/aggressor, woman/victim" model--about the same percentage as fit the "woman/aggressor, man/victim" model. Roughly half of all violent heterosexual relationships are mutually abusive, and domestic violence rates between men and women are comparable from small violence to serious violence, including murder.

The mutual nature of domestic violence has been attested to in voluminous research. For example, veteran domestic violence researchers Richard Gelles, Murray Straus, and Susan Steinmetz, who were once hailed by the women's movement for their pioneering work on violence against women, were initially surprised to find equal levels of male and female violence. Since then their studies have confirmed it repeatedly.

Cal State Long Beach professor Martin Fiebert compiled and summarized 117 different studies with over 72,000 respondents which found that women initiated domestic violence as often as or more often than men. Studies conducted by the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire in 1975, 1985, and 1992 found that abuse rates were equal between husbands and wives and that abuse of wives by husbands is decreasing, while abuse of husbands by wives is increasing.

Studies by researchers R.I. McNeeley and Coramae Richey Mann show that
women are much more likely than men to use weapons and the element of
surprise. These weapons often include guns, knives, boiling water, bricks,
fireplace pokers and baseball bats.

Myth # 2: When women are violent, it is usually in self-defense.

As a general rule, neither men's nor women's violence is usually committed in self-defense. According to Straus, for example, roughly 10 percent of women and 15 percent of men perpetuate partner abuse in self-defense. Dr. David Fontes, author of Violent Touch: Breaking Through the Stereotype, and the director of Stop Abuse for Everyone (SAFE), has also found that only a small percentage of female abusers are acting in self-defense.

Myth #3: Domestic violence is committed almost entirely by men, and lesbian relationships are gentler and provide women a refuge from male patriarchal dominance and violence.

Actually, the evidence is virtually undisputed that domestic violence is at least as common in lesbian relationships as it is in heterosexual ones. For example, a 1997 survey of 1,099 lesbians found that 52% of the respondents had been abused by a female lover or partner and that 30% admitted having abused a female lover or partner. Of those who had been victims of abuse, more than half (51.5%) reported that they also had been abusive toward their partners.

In a survey of lesbians who had had previous relationships with men, 45% reported that they had experienced physical aggression from their most recent
female partner alone, while only 32% had ever experienced any aggression from any male partner.

According to St. Joseph's University sociology professor Claire Renzetti, lesbian batterers "display a terrifying ingenuity in their selection of abuse tactics, frequently tailoring the abuse to the specific vulnerabilities of their partners" (Violent Betrayal: Partner Abuse in Lesbian Relationships).

To their credit, even the UCLA Clothesline Project, whose website and public materials contain scores of discredited lies about men and domestic violence, cites Renzetti's research findings that "Violence in gay/lesbian relationships occur at about the same frequency as violence in heterosexual relationships."

Over the past 30 years feminists have often played an admirable role in pushing for societal acceptance for gays and lesbians. However, feminists have shamefully turned their backs on battered lesbians, and have stifled the attempts of activists to address lesbian domestic violence.

Myth #4: Mothers are children's "first line of defense" against child abuse.

In reality it is mothers, not fathers, who commit the overwhelming majority of child abuse, neglect, and parental murder. According to the US Department of Justice, 70% of confirmed cases of child abuse and 65% of parental murders of children are committed by mothers, not fathers.

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, adjusting for the greater number of single mothers, a custodial mother is five times as likely to murder her own children as a custodial father is. A study of confirmed child abuse cases published in the Journal of Child Abuse and Neglect found that mothers abuse their children two and a half times as often as fathers. The Third National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (1996) found that children are 88% more likely to be seriously injured from abuse or neglect by their mothers than by their fathers.

Twenty-five years ago feminists played a heroic role in advocating for abused women and publicizing the despicable crime of wife-beating. Today, unfortunately, their refusal to acknowledge violence by women stands in the way of eliminating domestic violence for everyone--not only women, but men and children as well.

Thanks to Glen Sacks for some of my information.

Some more things I ran across:

Since When Is Non-Spying a Crime?
"Army Chaplain Faces Non-Spying Charges"--headline, Reuters, Dec. 9

Did Pepsi Write This Headline?
"Coke's Daft Calls for Industry Effort on Obesity"--headline, Reuters, Dec. 8

What Would Wal-Mart Do Without Experts?
"Wal-Mart Isn't All Bad, Experts Say"--headline, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dec. 9

The Reactionary Left
"Gore Says Dean Is Candidate to 'Take America Back' "--headline, Reuters, Dec. 9

What Would We Do Without Lieberman?
"Lieberman Says Gore Is Endorsing Wrong Man"--headline, CNSNews.com, Dec. 9

What Would We Do Without Polls?
"Polls: Dean's Strength Is Among Liberals"--headline, Associated Press, Dec. 8

DETERMINATION AND FINDINGS RE: U.S.-FUNDED REDEVELOPMENT CONTRACTS
IN IRAQ
(December 5, 2003)
Deputy U.S. Secretary Of Defense Paul Wolfowitz Issues A
'Determination And Finding' That Bids On Redevelopment Contracts
In Iraq Will Be Limited Only To "Companies From The United States,
Iraq, Coalition Partners, And Force Contributing Nations," With A
List Of Countries Eligible For Bidding On U.S.-Funded Contracts
[PDF]
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/redevelop120503rfp.pdf

If you have worn the uniform this one will get you!!!

A little background - The German Army is at Gates of all military
installations in Germany providing entry control on a 24 X 7 basis
to relieve US Forces that are in middle east..

A different perspective on our German allies. Our governments may be at odds
over Iraq Policy - but Military understands Military

Here are our Allies!

Sunday, 30 March 2003

As usual I was running late. So, you can imagine my frustration level as I
approached the main gate of Ramstein Air Base only to find traffic backed
up! Nearing the checkpoint I realized that not only was there a long line of
cars, but traffic had come to a complete stop as a result of all entrance
gates being closed. Over the past 18-months, there have been many
opportunities to practice our patience as we have had to "hurry up and wait"
as a result of heightened security. While we realize the necessity, it's
still frustrating at times for even the most easy-going folks. This was one
of those times for me! I needed to be where I was going, and I needed to be
there NOW! The German soldiers, the ones manning the entrances of American
military installations here in Germany, were just milling around, chatting
as if those of us in line had all the time in the world.
Things seemed to go from bad to worse! The German gate guards began
walking among the stopped cars, asking us to turn off our engines and
headlights. I realized that no traffic was exiting or entering the Air
Base. My feelings of frustration began to turn to ones of concern. Just
what was going on? A few minutes later I noticed blue lights approaching
from the direction of the air terminal. Close behind were two military
medical buses with their RED CROSS . Lights were on in the buses, and I.V.
bags could be seen hanging. It was then that I realized that these were
more of our wounded warriors being transported from the battlefields to
Landstuhl Regional Medical Center for treatment.
I certainly wasn't prepared for what happened next. All of the German
soldiers, our gate guards, began walking toward the concrete barriers that
divide the inbound and outbound lanes of traffic. As the blue lights
neared, more German soldiers seemed to appear from nowhere, lining the road,
shoulder to shoulder. Right on cue, without a word being spoken, these
soldiers snapped a sharp salute as the buses drove pass, rendering arms
until well after the last bus had passed.
Needless to say, I was speechless and deeply moved. What a show of
respect for fellow soldiers! (Angie McLean)

--- Soldier to Soldier, rendering honor and respect! Our allies, our
comrades, those who know the price that some have to pay for freedom did not
have to be asked or prompted, it came from their character and soldiering
heart! May God bless and watch over all soldiers and their loved ones as
they stand in harm's way for us! Blessings and Peace,


One more little note to this...Two AM in the morning, a single C-17 lands at
Ramstein with one patient on board
19 year Pfc. Jessica Lynch, and who shows up to escort the ambulance to
Landstuhl...over 100 German Politzi cars
and entire Germany Army contingency assigned to Ramstein..



With one phrase, Lt. Col. Tim Collins, commander of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish, summed up the task in hand for the British forces waiting to remove Saddam Hussein from Iraq.

Collins was addressing his 800 men, an arm of Britain's 16 Air Assault Brigade, at Fort Blair Mayne, a Kuwaiti desert camp 20 miles south of the Iraqi border. Here is as much of his extraordinary speech as has been reported.

"We go to liberate not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Show respect for them.

"There are some who are alive at this moment who will not be alive shortly. Those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send. As for the others I expect you to rock their world. Wipe them out if that is what they choose. But if you are ferocious in battle remember to be magnanimous in victory.

"Iraq is steeped in history. It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham. Tread lightly there. You will see things that no man could pay to see and you will have to go a long way to find a more decent, generous and upright people than the Iraqis. You will be embarrassed by their hospitality even though they have nothing. Don't treat them as refugees for they are in their own country. Their children will be poor, in years to come they will know that the light of liberation in their lives was brought by you.

"If there are casualties of war then remember that when they woke up and got dressed in the morning they did not plan to die this day. Allow them dignity in death. Bury them properly and mark their graves.

"It is my foremost intention to bring every single one of you out alive but there may be people among us who will not see the end of this campaign. We will put them in their sleeping bags and send them back. There will be no time for sorrow.

"The enemy should be in no doubt that we are his nemesis and that we are bringing about his rightful destruction. There are many regional commanders who have stains on their souls and they are stoking the fires of hell for Saddam. He and his forces will be destroyed by this coalition for what they have done. As they die they will know their deeds have brought them to this place. Show them no pity.

"It is a big step to take another human life. It is not to be done lightly. I know of men who have taken life needlessly in other conflicts, I can assure you they live with the mark of Cain upon them. If someone surrenders to you then remember they have that right in international law and ensure that one day they go home to their family.

"The ones who wish to fight, well, we aim to please.

"If you harm the regiment or its history by over-enthusiasm in killing or in cowardice, know it is your family who will suffer. You will be shunned unless your conduct is of the highest for your deeds will follow you down through history. We will bring shame on neither our uniform or our nation.

"[Regarding the use by Saddam of chemical or biological weapons] It is not a question of if, it's a question of when. We know he has already devolved the decision to lower commanders, and that means he has already taken the decision himself. If we survive the first strike we will survive the attack.

"As for ourselves, let's bring everyone home and leave Iraq a better place for us having been there.

"Our business now is north."


1st Marine Division (REIN)

Commanding General's Message to All Hands

For decades, Saddam Hussein has tortured, imprisoned, raped and
murdered the Iraqi people; invaded neighboring coutnries without
provocation; and threatened the world with weapons of mass destruction. The
time has come to end his reign of terror. On your young shoulders rest the
hopes of mankind.

When I give you the word, together we will cross the Line of
Departure, close with those forces that choose to fight, and destroy them.
Our fight is not with the Iraqi people, nor is it with members of the Iraqi
army who choose to surrender. While we will move swiftly and aggressively
against those who resist, we will treat all others with decency,
demonstrating chivalry and soldierly compassion for people who have endured
a lifetime under Saddam's oppression.

Chemical attack, treachery, and use of hte innocent as human shields
can be expected, as can other unethical tactics. Take it all in stride. Be
the hunter, not the hunted: never allow your unit to be caught with its
guard down. Use good judgement and act in best interests of our Nation.

You are part of the world's most feared and trusted force. Engage
your brain before you engage your weapon. Share your courage with each
other as we enter the uncertain terrain north of the Line of Departure. Keep
faith in your comrades on your left and right and Marine Air overhead.
Fight with a happy heart and strong spirit.

For the mission's sake, our country's sake, and the sake of the men
who carried the Division's colors in past battles - who fought for life and
never lost their nerve - carry out your mission and keep your honor clean.
Demonstrate to the world there is "No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy" than a
U.S. Marine.

J. N. Mattis
Major General, U.S. Marines
Commanding
--------------------

Fallen Comrade of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement

Joe Craven
Volunteer - Irish National Liberation Army
Assassinated on 5 December 1983

Aged 26, Joe Craven was assassinated by an Ulster Volunteer Force
gunman (claimed under the cover name Protestant Action Force) who
opened fire from a motorcycle, killing him and wounding his two
brothers as they walked home from the Department of Health and Social
Services office in Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim.

At his funeral, the priest refused to accompany the coffin to
Milltown Cemetery in West Belfast, where the INLA were to provide
military honours.

The Royal Ulster Constabulary moved in, trying to prevent the display
of a black beret and gloves atop the coffin outside the Craven home,
and clashes occurred between the mourners and the RUC. The family
refused to bring the coffin out until the security forces moved back.
When they finally did move away, the coffin was brought back out, but
the RUC immediately moved in again. Two men were arrested in the
subsequent scuffle.

The coffin was eventually carried away by mourners with the beret,
gloves, and Starry Plough flag on top.

He died as he lived: a Republican Socialist. Remember him with
honour and pride.

Recuperating from thanksgiving. I’m not a big celebrator. I don’t do birthdays, anniversaries, Valentines Day, or any other occasions most people celebrate. I do however celebrate Thanksgiving, & Christmas. The reason I don’t celebrate these other days is many. Firs, I resent being told I have to buy something for someone on a specific day, or it means I don’t love them. Some people even go to the extent of equating how much you spend to how much you love them. In some cases, this is true. I don’t want anything on my birthday, & I found out the best way to get people to stop buying me birthday presents is to stop buying them birthday presents. I give things to people during the year when it hits me to. When I see something they would like. Doing this out of the blue means much more than doing it when you’re told to do it. Like I said I don’t buy things for people on any of these special days, yet all of my friends & family know I love them, & they receive gifts from me when it really means something. I take a lot of heat for believing this, mostly from women. That’s ok, because I take a lot of heat from women for many of my beliefs.


I’m going to be commenting on the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, & the general War on Terrorism. So, I should probably get my beliefs out on the table. I’m for the war on terrorism, but this Patriot Act really has me worried. I was for the War in Afghanistan, but my concerns were about the Army’s generals that would be prosecuting the war. My fears were realized. The Army screwed it up. Then there is the War in Iraq. The reasons for going to War were dubious, & there was a lot of intelligence that questioned the extent of Iraq’s WMD programs. It seems certain intelligence was ignored in favor of other intelligence, for no other reason than to promote a policy. Many are now decrying the horrible intelligence before the war. The fact is, the intelligence wasn’t horrible. The intelligence was there. One of the golden rules of intelligence analysis is that you never look for intelligence to prove your point. Never go in with a preconceived notion. Chances are you will find it, but that doesn’t mean the intelligence is right. Such is the case about WMD, & Iraq.
Now, we still have some of the same generals who screwed up in Afghanistan, leading men in Iraq. Our soldiers are heroes. The best the world has. They also have the best equipment of any army. It’s a shame they are saddled with bad leadership. Rumsfeld has been doing his best to correct the problems with, & in the Army. He has made many changes, but he is up against one of the largest bureaucracies in the government. He is not only taking on the Army, but the whole Pentagon. If any one can do it, he can. He won’t get everything changed that needs to be changed, but he will get far.

Fallen Comrade of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement

Michael "Micky" Montgomery
Died on 1 December 1984

Montgomery was a former Irish Republican Socialist Party
spokesperson, Irish National Liberation Army officer commanding, and
elected member of the Derry City Council representing the working
class area of Creggan.

He joined the Irish Republican Army in the 1950s and participated in
the Border Campaign of 1956-62, at one point being on the run from
British authorities for several years. He was interned without trial
in 1971 and was one of the men later known as "the hooded men" who
were subjected to sensory deprivation as a form of torture after
their arrests.

He died of natural causes at the age of 48 and was laid to rest next
to INLA hunger strikers Patsy O'Hara and Michael Devine in Derry City
Cemetery.

He died as he lived: a Republican Socialist. Remember him with
honour and pride.

I guess this is where I should introduce myself. I don't want to reveal too much. It's not that I'm keeping secrets, it's just that it will all come out in it's due course. I will say, that I was born & raised a Catholic in the mid-west. I have done many years in jails & prisons. I have done just about every drug a man can take to get high. I became addicted to opiates, so I am now on methadone maintenance to keep me off the illegal stuff. I have had several long term relationships, but never been married. I currently am single. I have a good job I go to Mon-Fri. I am now a tax paying, law abiding, member of society. I'm fairly intelligent, & have had many life experiances that have taught me many lessons.