The Lesson from Ulster, Kevin Toolis

Opinion, June 2003, Al-Jazeerah.info

The Lesson from Ulster,

Kevin Toolis

The Daily Mirror, 6/28/03

THE enraged gunmen who slaughtered six British military policemen in Amara were sending us all a stark but simple message - Go Home!

For the families of those servicemen killed it is a terrible loss. But their deaths should also weigh heavily on the conscience of the Prime Minister who blindly led us into war.

Iraq is fast turning into another Northern Ireland. A war without purpose and a war without end. Saddam is gone but there is no one to hand over power too.

There is no way to ensure that without coalition troops bloody civil war would not break out tomorrow. That doesn't make the Western invaders popular. How many times have senior officers invoked Northern Ireland as a role model for Iraqi peacekeeping? But far from being a role model for peacekeeping, Northern Ireland was a disaster.

At the height of the Troubles the British Government stationed 35,000 troops in Ulster to control a population of around 1.5million.

Meanwhile the Government built the best council homes in Western Europe. But the troops and the bribes made no difference.

The Irish hated the guts of every British soldier and we never defeated the IRA. Iraq is not Ulster. For a start the population of Iraq is 24 million. The real lesson from Ulster is far more chilling. No one, if they are Irish or Iraqi, wants a foreign occupation army in their town bossing them around, breaking their doors down. Sure, lots of Iraqis are glad that Saddam has been overthrown. But that welcome is inevitably wearing out. Our troops will be in helmets and full body armour from now on. And next time they'll be shooting first and worrying about hearts and minds later.

Harsher tactics will provoke counter-attacks from disgruntled Iraqis and the cycle of conflict will escalate.

You need a real political plan to hand over power to a viable Iraqi regime. But that is the one thing the Americans never thought of when they dreamed up their invasion of Iraq.

Nor, it seems, did Tony Blair.

Kevin Toolis is author of Rebel Hearts: Journeys Within the

IRA's Soul, Picador, £7.99. email: kevintoolis@hotmail.com

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).