AMERICAN BREXIT COMMITTEE
America’s relationship with Britain, at least since the end of WW II, has been referred to as “special”. There is, however, a dark side. It is called Northern Ireland which was unilaterally created by Britain despite the democratic vote for independence in the 1918 British run General election. It was the first and bravest crack in the British empire but was not going to be tolerated. Britain’s Conservative Leader Bonar Law treasonably conspired with and armed loyalist anti-Catholic bigots to disrupt Parliament tradition. The U. S. failed to defend the 1918 Irish vote for independence or urge small nation status for Ireland in the Treaty of Versailles. The result was an ‘overnight’ partition of six Irish counties. It has cast a shadow on U. S., U. K. and Irish foreign policy to this day with Britain still killing innocent, mostly Catholic, Irish citizens in NI. To date no official U, S. expression of concern from the Department of State and no demand for accountability.
Partition, maintaining a sectarian State and thirty years of armed conflict has eroded British democracy and the rule of law in their Irish patch. The New York Times recently identified 12 markers that are indicative of a drift to authoritarian rule. We focus on two: stifling free speech and dissent and persecution of political opponents.
Britain’s preference in dealing with dissent in NI is to assassinate or imprison political opponents. The blunt instruments of bombings were messages sent to the Irish politicians. The Dublin Monaghan (1974) and Omagh bombings were deep state warnings: NO to the civil rights protests and NO to the Good Friday Agreement (1998). Those alone took the lives of 65 women and children and injured and maimed hundreds. The murders of attorneys Patrick Finucane and Rosemary Nelson along with 5 elected Sinn Fein Councilors and 9 Sinn Fein campaign workers were similar warnings.
After 40 years of British lying about Bloody Sunday murders and smearing the innocent. the Saville Report revealed the truth. To make sure the truth never again arises in a public inquiry Parliament adopted the Public Inquiry Act of 2005. Joshua Rozenweig of the GUARDIAN explains how the truth will likely never emerge from such an inquiry because Ministers are now empowered: a) to cancel the terms of reference; b) to cancel the funding; c) to ban the publication of evidence; and d) empowered to restrict media attendance.
Former U. S. Ambassador to Britain, Raymond Seitz (1991-1994) claimed in his book OVER HERE (1994) that British diplomats freely moved like staff about the Department of State. A special ‘desk’ was created to ‘handle’ Northern Ireland and America’s Irish policy was principally worked out with Whitehall. After Ireland became a Republic in 1949 documents from a British Cabinet meeting revealed a military assessment that Britain should not return 6 counties to Ireland “even if the residents voted in favor of doing so.” Seitz vigorously opposed President Clinton’s granting a visa to Irish political leader Gerry Adams, an elected Member of Parliament. He betrayed an American free speech principle in favor of the attempt of Her Majesty’s Government’s to censor Adams views. One attempt to kill him had failed.
In 2006 a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on NI heard the Department of State representative claim “…our steadfast partnership with the UK is threatened by misguided fears and misleading assertions.” Senator Dodd was not amused. In the UK section of the 2019 Department of State there is this reference to NI: “there. were “no human rights abuses, no delays in prosecutions, and no reports of the government or its agents committing arbitrary or unlawful killings.”
By joining in Britain’s preposterous schemes of lies and cover-up of crimes, America will have failed the Irish peace process and instead perpetuated and ‘perfected what Max Hastings, former Editor of the Evening Standard & Daily Telegraph, called “the monstrous injustice” of Ireland’s partition.
