Irish Mercenaries Training Syrian Death Squads

 In its weekend supplement devoted to geopolitics French daily Le Monde published 8 March, 2013 a report entitled “Syrie : à Atmé, entre révolution et désenchantement” – “Syria: A tme, between revolution and disenchantment”- Christophe Ayad, a regular embedded journalist with NATO’s mercenary forces in Syria, reports on the mixture of despair and chaos that reigns in “rebel” controlled territory.  One of the “rebels” tells the French reporter that “three former soldiers of the Irish military elite” provided training to Syrian “rebels”. It is claimed the Irish soldiers were acting as “independent mercenaries”.  These “former soldiers of the Irish military elite” are acting in violation of international law.

The 1981 UN Declaration on the Inadmissibility and Intervention in the Internal Affairs of States stresses the “imperative need for any threat of aggression, any recruitment, any use of armed bands, in particular mercenaries, against sovereign States to be completely ended, so as to enable the peoples of all States to determine their own political, economic and social systems without external interference or control.”

According to the Constitution of Ireland (Bunreacht na hÉireann), the Irish republic maintains a policy of military neutrality. This policy has been a foundation stone of the Irish state for many years. What relation do these former Irish military have to the Irish defense forces who are soon  to be deployed as ‘peace-keepers’ in the Golan under a UN mandate?

All Irish retired military have state pensions and often maintain close links with military personnel in active service. If the deployment of Irish troops is approved by Dáil Éireann (the Irish Parliament), what guarantees are there that Irish troops will uphold international law, given the report above which shows that military personnel are already violating international law by training so-called ‘rebels’?

The Irish media have been trying to drum up public support for the deployment of Irish troops to the region by bumptiously claiming that the Irish presence will once again show that Ireland is ‘punching above its weight’. The Irish Herald, for example, claims that an Irish presence in Syria “will do our country proud”, referring to our “long peacekeeping tradition”. But  what guarantee is there that Irish troops will behave in a neutral manner when former military elites are training some of the death squads overrunning the country and committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, while blaming those crimes on the Syrian government?

The ultra-reactionary Fine Gael party is pushing for Irish deployment in the Golan Heights but their labour partners are showing signs of possible hesitation over fears that the deployment would violate Ireland’s neutrality. The question of Irish military training one side in the conflict, confirmed by the Le Monde report, should be raised when discussing this issue.

As for Sinn Féin, they have behaved like cowards and traitors since the NATO war on Libya in 2011. Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi had always been a supporter of Sinn Féin, supplying the IRA (Irish Republican Army) with arms during the 1980s, yet the Irish ‘nationalist’ party turned its back on him and the Libyan people as NATO’s “black and tans” slaughtered all before them, reducing Africa’s richest and most promising country to ruins.

If the Sinn Féin leadership had had any courage or intelligence, they would have supported the proposals of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez for a ceasefire, a commission of inquiry into the allegations of war crimes by the Libyan government and the initiation of a peace process. Instead, Sinn Féin cowered in silence and went along with NATO’s neo-colonial war, a despicable position they have upheld since NATO’s war came to Syria.

Irish Child Soldiers and the failure of our schools

This is not the first report of Irishmen fighting alongside, and indeed training, NATO death squads in Syria. German daily Die Welt claimed there were Irish jihadists among the fighters in Syria.

The Irish Times reported that there were up to 20 Irish jihadis fighting in Syria. It also claimed that ‘senior figures in Ireland’s Muslim community’ were trying to discourage the young men, some of whom are children, from going to fight in Syria.  Yet, no prominent imams are mentioned.

The Irish Times article makes no mention of the influential European Council for Islamic Fatwa And Research, based in Dublin, whose president is Yusef Al Qaradawi, a fanatical and sectarian imam who has been openly calling on all Muslims to fight in Syria.

“Every Muslim trained to fight and capable of doing that (must) make himself available”, said the president of Dublin’s European Council for Islamic Fatwa and Research. So, who are the ‘Senior figures in Ireland’s Muslim community’ who are against the injunctions of the bigot Qaradawi?

Algerian deputy and former wife of Qaradawi Asma ben Kada revealed in 2012 that Qaradawi was working for the Israeli Mossad (secret service).

Have Irish authorities investigated the activities of this man and his council for Islamic research and fatwa?

Mehdi Al Herati, a Dublin-born jihadist, was a key player in NATO’s Blitzkrieg on Libya in 2011.  In 2012 a sixteen year old child Shamseddin Gaidan from Navan, Co Meath, Ireland was shot dead in Syria.

Shamseddin Gaidan was only 16. How did a child from Ireland end up fighting alongside NATO mercenaries in Syria?  The principal of St Patrick’s Classical School in Navan, Colm O’Rourke, told the Irish Times ‘“He was a good student who got on with everyone,” Mr O’Rourke said. “He was keen to go fight with the rebels. In 2011 he talked about wanting to join the Libyan revolution.”

Mr. O Rourke seems to be aware that one of his pupils expressed a desire to join in the “Libyan revolution” as he puts it. Shamseddin moved to Ireland from Libya in 2001 and is said to have gone to Syria after spending his holidays in Libya in 2012.  This is rather odd. Given the absolute chaos and violence currently reigning in Libya, it is odd that Shamseddin’s parents would allow their child to spend his summer holidays there, just months after a massive war!

Regardless of whose side they were on in the Libyan war, it is bordering on irresponsible to allow your child to spend his summer holidays in a war zone! Yet, none of this seems to bother the reporters of the Irish Times, who make no effort to find out why the child’s parents let their son travel to Libya. Another question that should be asked here is: how did Mr. O Rourke know that Shamseddin wanted to fight in the Libyan “revolution”?  This suggests that the child spoke about his dream in school and the idea probably came from the non-stop war propaganda of the mass media. Here, one should also point out the responsibility of teachers to educate themselves about the complex world we live in.

Source: global research

B.N