Ireland has been warned that it may face a backlash over the anti war stance of some public figures. Americans have been angered by attacks from many Irish politicians, commentators, students, political figures and RTE.

RTE, the Irish national broadcaster is on the receiving end of criticism for its refusal to refer to the attacks on the twin towers as ‘terrorist’ attacks and its references to Osama Bin Laden as a ‘Saudi dissident’, rather than terrorist.

The Union of Students of Ireland has received strong criticism for its passing of an anti war motion. The motion recognised the failure of the primary objectives of the American military campaign in Afghanistan and called for an immediate cessation of military actions against the Afghan people.

This broadside against the Irish anti war movement was led by New York based Irish publisher Niall O’Dowd, who wrote in an article ‘comments comparing Bush and any western leader who supports him to war criminals are viewed with utter disbelief’.

In his article he attacked a mindset plagued by a ‘certain moral superiority’.

O’Dowd’s broadside was backed by a number of letters published in New York’s Irish Voice newspaper.
Patricia Farrell of Long Island wrote ‘what fools we’ve been. Why did we keep the tradition alive here all these years? We must have been laughing stocks….’

Another wrote ‘those of us who supported Sinn Fein have been deceived-Sinn Fein is an enemy of the U.S.’.

Sinn Fein has come in for criticism from the American Establishment due to its identification of the September 11th attacks as a manifestation of the damage U.S. foreign policy and militarism has had on many of the most deprived peoples of the world.

The attack on Sinn Fein follows on from earlier attacks on the party from Tabloid papers at home and abroad. Many papers attacked the presence of former IRA man Dessie Ellis at the first anti-war rally and March in Dublin.

Labour TD Michael D Higgins has responded ‘friends should tell the hard things to each other’.
These attacks on the anti war movement follow on from an apology offered by An Taniste Mary Harney in an address to the Irish-American Institute. In the address she described a ‘rise in anti American sentiment in Ireland’ and expressed her apologies for this sentiment.

These attacks are a blatant ignoral of some fundamental truths regarding the global movement for peace. In Ireland some of the largest anti war voices are themselves American, with The American Citizens in Ireland Against the War Network playing an instrumental role in the building of the movement. On a wider level, globally many of the loudest anti war voices are themselves American with US film director Michael Moore asking ‘will we ever reach the stage where we realise we will be more secure if the rest of the world isn’t living in poverty?’

A recent article in the Guardian by an American journalist described the unofficial, yet heavy-handed pressure being put on the media by the Pentagon and the American Governmental Establishment to play Bushs line.

Since September 11th, we have seen attacks on Civil Liberties at home and abroad, arrests at peaceful peace protests and new legislation redefining terrorism which ultimately now allows it to incorporate the Anti-capitalist movement.

The attacks on the Irish Anti War movement are symptomatic of a wider attempt to silence any dissent against Bush’s War on Terror. An abstract war that as yet shows no signs of petering out…