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April 7,
2003
Oddsmaking in Dublin
Will
Bush Shake Gerry Adams' Hand?
By JIM DAVIS
Friday night in Dublin's Long Haul pub, the news
has just come in. Bush and Blair will rendevous in Belfast. Aznar
and his Azores retreat are forgotten in favour of Hilsborough
Castle and an informal book is opened in the pub. 3 to 1 against
Gerry Adams shaking Bush's hand. Punters are divided along gender
lines, the ladies insisting that Gerry will do it while the gents
prefer to think he wont, or rather he cant. There is little question
that this poses an enormous problem for Adams. Sinn Fein, the
party he leads and the new kids on the block in the southern
Dail, have assumed a stridently anti war position. Yet second
on the agenda for the war summit is the Irish peace process and
Gerry will be loath to publicly snub the leader of the free world.
Are ye with us or against us Gerry?
Blair must have bolted upright during
a sleepless night when the inspiration for this stunt occurred
to him. So clever does it appear, unassailable in fact, that
little thought seems invested in it. It's a great shit idea.
By Sunday the British papers were predicting that the IRA would
'stand down' within the week. Bush, they imagined, would put
it up to Adams that he must initiate IRA decommissioning fortwith
lest the North be left behind the great wave of democratisation
sweeping across the Atlantic and beyond to Basra.
Meanwhile the news of Bush's visit to
the north was greeted with open disgust across the Island. Bad
enough that the country's second airport, Shannon, has been press
ganged into service but that the peace process is to be turned
out in similar manner seems an intolerable insult to most. Whats
more, the president of the United States will be welcomed to
Ireland by a British Prime Minister. Regardless of the general
disdain for Bush the land of a thousand welcomes will not thank
anyone, never mind the leader of Sinn Fein, for being party to
a monstrosity such as this.
The Anglo-American idea appears to be
that the worlds public will register the Irish peace process
in the same moment as the invasion of Iraq and so conclude that
the two are comparable. If that's the case then we can look forward
to little more than robust dialogue, healthy disagreement, intransigence
and strong doses of Anglo-American democratic maturation. The
hearts and minds campaign of British paratroopers in Basra will
lead, in short order, to a free press and peoples councils. Unfortunately
a similar campaign by British forces in Ireland lead to 30 years
of Bloody Sundays, plastic bullets, torture, assassination, censorship,
terrorism and guerilla warfare.
Unbelievably the summit coincides closely
with the release of the Stevens report. After more than 10 years
of investigations into police and British army collusion with
loyalist death squads in the North Sir John Stevens (a British
copper) will issue his report next week and is expected to recommend
the prosecution of up to 20 senior police, intelligence and
army officers who were attached to the 'ultra-secret' Force Research
Unit (FRU). Their activities included the targeting of perceived
enemies of the state for assassination. The victims included
the celebrated Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane who was shot dead
by loyalists in 1989. During the period in question the FRU was
headed by Brigadier Gordon Kerr, now serving in Iraq and presumably
still busy with hearts and minds 'ops'.
Few in Sinn Fein will relish becoming
hostage to Blairs sordid propaganda effort and fewer still who
voted for the party or would do next time round will be impressed
by Adams choosing the pragmatic path of least diplomatic resistance
and embracing the Hilsborough war council. Thousands will travel
from all over Ireland and Britain to protest the meeting. It
could prove to be Gerry Adams finest hour but the women's money
suggests otherwise.
Jim Davis is a filmmaker. He can be reached at: jamesdavisfilm@hotmail.com
Yesterday's
Features
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell's Shame
John
Chuckman
Was Einstein Right About Israel?
David
Krieger
The Meaning of Victory
Tom
Gorman
The Mantra of the Troops: Support
or Treason?
Adam
Federman
The Absence of War
Vijay
Prashad
There Are No More Arguments
Tom
Stephens
The End of the Innocence
Mickey
Z.
Makes Me Sic (Sic): Copy Editing
Bush Speak
Pierre
Tristam
War Coverage: a Dishonest Reality
Show
Hammond
Guthrie
The Deadly Mihrab
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/04
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