Friday 15 March 2024

The news media and the Ukraine war

 

Don’t you know there’s a war on? 

Journalists sent to cover anti-war demonstrations are familiar with the slogan ‘War, war, what is it good for?!’  They have an answer to give if the pacifists meant to yell it in any but a purely rhetorical manner, and that answer is: ‘News media, that’s what!’  If the general public can be persuaded at the outset that any particular conflict is in some way our business, then high levels of engagement with news media are practically guaranteed for the duration of a short war, and at least for some considerable time (a year or more) of a longer one provided the journalists are even half competent.  The Russo-Ukrainian conflict has, then, been a definite winner for newshounds of every stripe but, eighteen months on from the start of this phase of the conflict, public interest is on the ebb and both broadcast audiences and print readership are back down to pre-invasion levels.  It was good while it lasted but it is time now to move on – unless, that is, the media can come up with something to re-inject this old story with the excitement of last year.  The hunt – have no doubt about it – is on for that something.  

            This phase of conflict has been treated throughout as a media event, neatly packaged and edited to fit a certain already popular narrative and sold – very much the mot juste – to the public for their entertainment, or ‘infotainment’ as the fairly recent coinage has it.  A war, however, is a reality and not a fiction, and the only narrative concerning it is that known only to God. 

            There are some certain facts, but all facts are always open to interpretation; they may be set in one context or in another like a jewel in a tiara for a wedding or on a pendant at a funeral.  The most salient of those facts would seem to be these:

      That the fall of the Soviet Union was characterised by a comparatively weak and chaotic Russia contrasted with relatively well organised secessionary states under more or less (generally less) dynamic leaders with the weaker and less organised Republics remaining in a federal relationship with Russia    

      Consequently, that culturo-linguistic Russians tended to vote for the secessionary states in border polls on the basis of a transient desire for stability thereby, paradoxically, introducing structural instabilities into those states which then had to be recognised in their new constitutions, legislation and policy choices.  Fresh border polls have not been held even where Russian minorities have developed a clear and enduring aspiration to rejoin the Motherland, hence the secessionary conflicts within states that had themselves seceded from the post-Soviet iteration of the Russian empire: Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. 

      That, under its balanced post-Soviet constitution, the Ukraine voted for Victor Yanukovych on a manifesto promising to pursue trading links with both the European Economic Area and the Commonwealth of Independent States.  He was then re-elected having been ousted unconstitutionally, this time on a promise to negotiate the best deal available with both blocs or either should both demand an exclusive agreement.  Pres. Yanukovych then agreed terms with the EU, prompting the Russian Federation to offer better terms which he then accepted; exclusivity might have been implied but was never actually incorporated definitively into either agreement.

      That the second agreement triggered the colourful Euromaidan protests which culminated in a second putsch, again ousting Mr. Yanukovych and this time resulting in a change in the national constitution that removed all ambiguity by making a commitment to seek membership of the EU and NATO’s European arm, the WEU, which is formally designated as ‘the defence component of the European Union and as the means to strengthen the European pillar of the Atlantic Alliance.’  The most visible element amongst the Euromaidan protesters consisted of self-proclaimed Nazis who demanded EU and WEU membership for their country on the basis that these institutions are the latter day incarnation of the Greater German Reich for which their grandfathers’ SS battalion had fought.  Nazism has, however, enjoyed no prominence in the political culture of post-Euromaidan Ukraine even if the objectives its representatives demanded have been adopted by those who are responsible for the current regime.

      That cultural Russians, who had (unlike those in some other newly independent nations) accepted their post-Soviet constitutional and legal position in the Ukraine, rejected the post-Euromaidan regime and effected the secession of parts of the Donbas region prompting the Ukrainian regime to launch a vicious war against them.  The Russian Federation, which appears to have armed these areas surreptitiously, finally federated these territories to itself only last year following a referendum.  The Ukrainian war against them appears to be being conducted by the regular forces and militia with little reference to the political leaders of the regime, and the same might be said of the war against Russia.  Poroshenko and Zelensky might then escape conviction on charges of having had command responsibility for the crimes with which both wars have been characterised, most notably indiscriminate bombing of civilians, rape and pillage raids by militia units, and the extra-judicial killing of leading opponents of the Ukrainian regime.  In the current phase of conflict, and immediately prior to it, proponents of a negotiated settlement with either the Russians within the 1991 borders or with the Russian Federation have also been assassinated.  Political leaders refuse either to support peace negotiators or to condemn their murder.  Our media have been notably silent on this subject with the sole exception of the case in which the target was someone like them, a girl off the telly.

      That before last year’s invasion the Putin administration made only desultory attempts to negotiate a peace and appeared largely indifferent to the conflict in the Donbas.  The invasion of last year would appear to have been justified on the basis of a ‘right to protect’ the Russian enclaves. Although the Russian Federation effectively precluded itself from citing such a right by having argued vociferously against the existence of any such right or power to intervene when the Blair administration claimed to exercise such a right against Serbia over Kosovo, its lawyers nevertheless mentioned the prevention of genocide at the International Court of Justice while arguing that the Court lacked any jurisdiction in the case brought by the Ukraine.  The Ukrainian lawyers rightly replied that neither the Genocide Convention nor any other international Treaty included a right or power to intervene.  

            Our media have little interest in facts, and practically none in justice or in peace.  All mainstream British media outlets have volunteered to serve the interest of the Ukrainian ministries of propaganda and economic warfare (and volunteered is the word, our friend Umberto was right on there being no need for a bribe) not because there is any good reason to take their side – there is none – but because taking sides increases public engagement.  “My enemy’s enemy is my friend.”      Quite so, but the Russian Federation need be no enemy of ours, although a lazy presumption that it is our eternal enemy can be induced by conflating the Russian Federation with the Soviet Union which maintained, as today’s Russia does not, an ideological imperative to effect the universal domination of its own interpretation of Marxism-Leninism.  By creating a myth of Russian hostility our media have created a previously non-existent enmity.  The long history of British relations with Russia is one of an intermittent friendship dating back to the marriage of Waldemar of Novgorod to Gytha the daughter of Harold II Godwinson, and based upon a shared interest in maintaining a balance of powers across the European continent.  We have fought the Russians only once, in Crimea, over colonial interests which no longer apply, principally Black Sea access to the Eastern reaches of the Empire.  Public opinion now demands an anti-Russian foreign and military policy which our political class feels obliged to adopt against the true interests of our nation.

                This state of affairs is not the result of outright identifiable lies told by journalists – far from it, almost everything said to demonstrate the brutality, venality and politically corrupt illegitimacy of the current Russian regime is true, and much of what has been said concerning Russian conduct during the present conflict is likely to be true although one always does well to discount the most lurid claims on both sides without altogether dismissing them – rather it has been achieved by a partial selection of facts over this conflict and in earlier coverage of foreign and military policy.  Everything to the detriment of the Russian Federation has been publicised while similar facts concerning life under the Ukrainian regime have gone without mention, or have been given too muted a mention to reach the public consciousness.  Russophobes have been selected for interview on a regular basis while believers in a non-interventionist foreign policy have joined Russophiles in exclusion from the airwaves and the pages of our major newspapers.  Journalists who have given up reporting in favour of presenting programmes spent the months after the invasion making trips to Kiev and Lvov to present their shows from out would be ally’s territory.  They earnestly put the case – a case proposed to them by the Ukrainian authorities – for joining the war in support of the Ukraine to every (carefully selected anti-Russian) expert commentator and every politician they interviewed.  Those demands that we actually go to war stopped only when the public had seen several, say six to nine, month’s worth of footage of the fighting.  Since then the whole thing has been treated much like a spectator sport in which we must cheer our guys to the rafters and give a boo and a hiss to the pantomime baddies on the other side.  That is a media strategy it is not a means of framing international public policy.  The problem, however, is that we no longer have serious politicians doing serious politics, we have instead the men and women of our national regime’s political apparat playing party games and taking their lead from the media rather than from any kind of philosophical or moral theory or principles as they strive to distinguish themselves from each other. 

            There is no national interest whatsoever in any measure of British involvement in this Russo-Ukrainian conflict, a war between two brutal and corrupt regimes at a continent’s distance from us.  To the contrary, our interests have been directly damaged by the interruption of trade with the Russian Federation.  The national interest lies in maintaining amicable relations as far as is possible with as many nations as is possible while safeguarding the requirements of the British people at home and abroad, from which it necessarily follows that wide-ranging military alliances are undesirable.  The First World War resulted from big bloc alliances, and British involvement in the second from a military guaranty unwisely given, but our NATO obligations today go much further than any undertaking given then.  At present, any NATO member might provoke an attack, demand British participation in its defence, and then attempt to use joint command protocols to veto use of the nuclear weaponry that would very likely be necessary in a war against the Russian Federation as this country would be a nuclear target.  Of course, it would always be possible to renege on those obligations, but a clear repudiation of them at this stage has the potential to avert such a war while a later withdrawal might not even suffice to prevent our being drawn into the fighting.  We must defend our near neighbours against our enemies (if we have enemies at all and we must strive not to), whether they like it or not, and must work with others to maintain the freedom of the seas; beyond that there is only unnecessary expense and risk to life.  I admit that this sounds like little more than a cynical working out of the implications of Uncle Matthew’s celebrated dictum: that “abroad is unutterably bloody and foreigners are fiends”; but there is a philosophical robustness underlying a position grounded in national sovereignty and the national interest provided, of course, that it is not pursued without reference to moral principle and the very nature and purpose of government itself.

            We are all familiar with just war theories and with the argument that no such theory can be applicable today given the nature of modern warfare.  It is, however, difficult to see how the latter point can do more than modify the conduct of warfare: or indeed how it may do even that if ‘battlefields’ are not discrete areas and occupations are carried out by civilian populations rather than combatants, and when the majority of wars for which a ‘just war’ argument is advanced have some defensive character to them such that they may be described as the unavoidable reaction to an act of aggression.  A government acts unjustly, which is to say immorally when it precipitates or prolongs a war; hence to send weaponry into a war zone (whether for profit or not) is always immoral as it permits a continuation of hostilities beyond the point at which want of materiel would have forced combatant parties into peace negotiations.  The ‘just war’ argument is both personal and national, requiring on the one hand that the individual ask him or herself whether any participation in a specific conflict is justifiable and whether complying with each set of orders is justifiable in the context in which they are given, and requiring also on the other hand that national authorities and each individual serving within them should ask whether initiating a conflict or continuing to conduct one once started is justifiable.  What it is not is an open invitation to come along and join in the fun; when it is not personal and immediate it is merely abstract.  Everybody can always examine any conflict and form an opinion as to who, if anybody, was in the right and who is in the wrong, who were the most and least honourable combatants and suchlike questions.  These might be academic discussions or just bar room talk, but they are no more than that – questions debated as subjects for debate by people who are not parties to the conflict and have no standing to enter the hostilities.  At the national level, the appropriate response to an outbreak of hostilities is to embargo military supplies to all belligerent parties, declare neutrality and offer any desired assistance in negotiating a peace.  If a conflict is prolonged, it might be necessary for a nation to forgo the benefits of trade with the belligerents and extend the embargo to all trade in either direction and quite possibly even to intern belligerent nationals.  It must, however, be remembered that the scope of a government is by nature limited; it is national in character rather than global, and limited further by its relations with those it governs and the intermediary and parallel institutions of society.  While peace between nations benefits everybody to a greater or lesser extent, and is therefore a suitable aim for a country’s diplomatic endeavour, it is not the business of His Majesty’s Government to stop foreigners killing each other, only to stop them killing us.  A government goes beyond its mandate in any excessive involvement in the affairs of other nations especially as it is likely that any such involvement would prove counterproductive for its own people as well as those of the other nations involved.  Neither a negotiated peace nor one achieved through a military victory can be imposed from abroad but only by the combatant parties under the pressure of their circumstances. 

            We all know how far short of the required response His Majesty’s Government’s response has fallen.  Its decision to ignore the Ukrainian war against the secession in the Donbas – and it is difficult to see how an antisecessionary war or any other conflict to seize or retain territory against the wishes of its inhabitants could ever be justifiable -and then to join with the EU in encouraging Ukrainian opposition to the Russian Federation was objectively wrong, but clearly resulted from an apparent public demand for such a position.  Yet that demand was entirely manufactured by the media, the same media who now reject the idea of peace negotiations and who would have had our own forces fighting now if their early ideas had gained sufficient traction.  These people are utterly ignorant, irresponsible and indifferent to human suffering.  Reject the siren voices, and urge legislators to choose a foreign policy in which the national interest is the international interest namely the rejection of foreign wars and the containment of conflicts to the initial combatants.  Reject the false narratives and refuse to promote them by adopting partisan positions.  Above all, in every personal decision (media choices, shopping, travel etc.) choose Christ. 

 By Prayer Crusader St Philip Howard

 

Saturday 24 February 2024

Media pressure for Ireland to ditch its neutrality?

 


Beating the Battle Drums

 

On St. Bartholomew’s Day the BBC broadcast a radio drama under the title A Dog in the Fight, written by Hugh Costello and produced by Eoin O’Callaghan (Big Fish Media). Perhaps a reader in Ireland could tell us whether it has also appeared on RTÉ; but even if it has not it will have been available to analogue listeners in the eastern counties and to all listeners anywhere in Ulster and also in Louth.

 

            Like many of Mr. O’Callaghan’s productions it had an informative and cleverly written script replete with political ambiguity concerning the subject at issue such that it would be entirely possible for either the writer or the production company to deny having taken any position on the relevant questions.  Nevertheless drama is drama, and the veil of fiction does not so much conceal as reduce that which it covers to outlines and contrasts.  The position promoted was, of course, that taken by the character presented as the most reasonable and likeable, i.e. in this case the wife.

 

            The story concerns a Dublin couple who had moved to the country to give their troubled marriage a fresh start.  A Russian drone is shot down in their garden; and a civil servant comes to collect it, claims that they are obliged to keep the matter secret, and offers to make the wife’s temporary teaching job permanent in return for their co-operation.  Enter next a neutrality campaigner seeking evidence of the drone’s existence.  He explains that only Official Secrets Act signatories are bound by its provisions; and also that Ireland is no longer genuinely neutral but is in a ‘Partnership for Peace’ with NATO, making its skies open to NATO aircraft.  The husband agrees to appear in an internet video on the subject.  This brings the civil servant back to tell them that the campaigner is an extreme nationalist responsible for a racist attack upon a direct provision hostel.  This, incidentally, is far from plausible.  While some ethno-cutural nationalists do prize neutrality, they seldom campaign actively on the issue; neutrality campaigners are generally pacifists using the subject to combat militarism without reference to Irish national identity.  The wife feels obliged to support her husband publicly while urging him to break with the campaigner.  Her character emerges as one calculated to appeal to an educated, urban audience with liberal modern mores.  The husband, on the other hand, for all that they had come from the city, soon degenerates into something of a rustic stereotype, enjoying manual labour and talking about neutrality as a key element of national identity.  The play culminates in the wife’s declaring her sympathies with the Ukrainians whose children she teaches, and claiming that as Ireland is entirely bound up with the fortunes of the western world (NATO and the EU) it is not and should not pretend to be neutral but should, in effect, go all in with its allies. 

 

            This was propaganda with a purpose, and it came in the context of concerted efforts over many years to overcome Ireland’s formal commitment to neutrality.  To start with, it must be said that that commitment is a good deal less definite than is generally imagined and that, in practice, it has been greatly diminished in recent decades.  The Constitution of Ireland is a curious document full of contradictions and giving full play to the paradoxes of political life in its balance between a variety of claims, interests, visions and objectives with the intention of creating a secular state culturally grounded in Catholic social teaching without actually saying so explicitly.  The word ‘neutrality’ does not appear in it and neither does the concept.  What does appear there is a commitment to peace:

 

     ARTICLE 29

   1 Ireland affirms its devotion to the ideal of peace and friendly co-operation amongst nations founded on international justice and morality.

    2 Ireland affirms its adherence to the principle of the pacific settlement of international disputes by international arbitration or judicial determination.

 

    3 Ireland accepts the generally recognised principles of international law as its rule of conduct in its relations with other States.

 

Countered by the vaguely worded grant to the State of a capacity to act in concert with other nations that does not rule out military activity:

 

    4.2 For the purpose of the exercise of any executive function of the State in or in connection with its external relations, the Government may to such extent and subject to such conditions, if any, as may be determined by law, avail of or adopt any organ, instrument, or method of procedure used or adopted for the like purpose by the members of any group or league of nations with which the State is or becomes associated for the purpose of international co-operation in matters of common concern.

 

Indeed, this ability to adopt the methods of procedure employed by any group or league of nations with which the State is associated, was used as the legal basis for Irish participation in the suppression of Katanga and in subsequent UN ‘peacekeeping’ operations some of which have also involved active combat.

 

            It is the basis for membership of NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme under which non-members cooperate with NATO across as many of a wide range of operational areas as they care to choose.  Here it is clear just how unclear – in the absence of any constitutional or other legal definition – the concept of Irish neutrality really is.  Although working closely with NATO which appears to be one ‘side’ or ‘pole’ of a divided world – howsoever one might care to demarcate the division – would appear to be a clear renunciation of any neutrality policy that might have operated previously, governments of or led by both major parties claim, and have claimed since joining up in 1999, that Ireland operates within the Partnership for Peace framework, on the basis of its military neutrality.  It is possible that such a claim might have been made in good faith in 1999 on the assumption that the world after the Cold War was, and would remain, unipolar and that Russia might take up the suggestion that it join NATO while Chinese membership of the WTO led the PRC into a non-confrontational relationship with other nations.  Those ideas were certainly in the air at the time, but they are not now.

 

            Another possibility is that America could be viewed as one side and Russia (or Russia and China combined) as the other, and either everybody else or ‘Europe’ (the European Union) in particular as the neutral third party.  This idea belongs to a Gaullist concept of the nature and destiny of Europe as a united continent led – and this is unspoken but at the heart of the idea – by France and powered by Germany working in a Carolingian union.  President Macron spoke in just such terms in November 2018 when discussing a European army to defend against America, Russia and China without explaining how such a force could be squared with membership of a defensive alliance including America.

 

 On this reading NATO is not led by America as its funding model would suggest; it is, rather, a union of European nations, the Western European Union, acting in partnership with its transatlantic allies America and Canada.  The WEU officially redefined itself in a 1991 declaration: “WEU will be developed as the defence component of the European Union and as the means to strengthen the European pillar of the Atlantic Alliance”.  Hence the Partnership for Peace operates through the WEU and within the European Union context in which Ireland generally conducts its international politics. 

 

            As part of the negotiations leading to accession to the Treaty of Nice the Constitution was amended to preclude (26th Amendment) Irish participation in what the Treaty on European Union, referred to as a ‘common defence’ by which it means its own armed forces with Circle of Stars cap badges.

 

    Article 29.4.9 The State shall not adopt a decision taken by the European Council to establish a common defence pursuant to Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union where that common defence would include the State.

 

While the keenest of EUrophiles, the federalists, might well want something of that sort as an integral element of national sovereignty which the EU must have if it is ever to be recognisable as a country in its own right, it is not in any way necessary that it exist in theory for the reality of it to exist in fact.  This external ambiguity builds upon the ambivalence characteristic of Irish legal culture to result in a situation under which Ireland’s commitment to peace stands alongside commitments inexorably leading to military preparation and cooperation with those actively engaged in warfare even if Irish troops stay at home.  Ireland actively participates in every step intended to lead to the establishment of the ‘common defence’ as described in the Treaty on European Union

 

    Article 42. 1. The common security and defence policy shall be an integral part of the common foreign and security policy. It shall provide the Union with an operational capacity drawing on civilian and military assets. The Union may use them on missions outside the Union for peace-keeping, conflict prevention and strengthening international security in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter. The performance of these tasks shall be undertaken using capabilities provided by the Member States.

 

    Article 42.2 The common security and defence policy shall include the progressive framing of a common Union defence policy. This will lead to a common defence, when the European Council, acting unanimously, so decides. It shall in that case recommend to the Member States the adoption of such a decision in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.  The policy of the Union in accordance with this Section shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States and shall respect the obligations of certain Member States, which see their common defence realised in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), under the North Atlantic Treaty and be compatible with the common security and defence policy established within that framework.

 

It shares in the common security and defence policy and, in so far as it exists, the common Union defence policy, if not precisely as such then through the Partnership for Peace.  Because the WEU has been effectively incorporated into the EU there is, in practice, no distinction between acting on the basis of one or on that of the other.  The EU’s words about NATO in Article 42.2 (above) and 42.7

 

 

If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States.  Commitments and cooperation in this area shall be consistent with commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which, for those States which are members of it, remains the foundation of their collective defence and the forum for its implementation.

 

and in the official European Council notification on PESCO

 

 A long-term vision of Pesco could be to arrive at a coherent full spectrum force package – in complementarity with Nato, which will continue to be the cornerstone of collective defence for its members.

 

can be understood only in that light. A Union action, even one of a ‘common defence’, could equally be described as a NATO ‘coalition of the willing’ in circles where that would be more acceptable e.g. in NATO friendly but EUrosceptic nations.  How else could the British be persuaded to fall in behind the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy post-Brexit?Ireland joined the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) initiative under Article 42.6:

 

   Those Member States whose military capabilities fulfil higher criteria and which have made more binding commitments to one another in this area with a view to the most demanding missions shall establish permanent structured cooperation within the Union framework. Such cooperation shall be governed by Article 46. It shall not affect the provisions of Article 43.

 

in 2017 and its military expenditure has grown by over 27% to meet that commitment.  Article 42.7 respects peace and neutrality policies at least in principle while not ruling out a demand that obligations under the clause be fulfilled in some not necessarily military manner; but PESCO is for volunteer nations willing to participate in ‘European external action in the military field’ and Ireland has joined up not been conscripted.  In January 2018 an Taoiseach told the European Parliament how broad Ireland’s contribution to PESCO would be:

 

A Europe worth building is a Europe worth defending. With the launch of PESCO in December, which Ireland was pleased to join, we are coming together to deal with new threats in an inclusive way. The threats we face in the 21st century include cyber terrorism, cyber attacks, international terrorism, uncontrolled mass migration, natural disasters, and drug and human trafficking. We want to be involved in European actions against all of these.

Ireland also has a proud history of military neutrality, participation in UN Peacekeeping Operations, EU Common Security Defence Policy Operations and non-membership of NATO. So, we will participate in PESCO in ways consistent with those traditions.

 

‘Military neutrality’, ‘non-membership of NATO’ and the constitutional prohibition on joining the as yet non-existent common defence have little practical effect or meaning; Ireland conducts economic warfare through the international sanctions regime; it refuels warships and military aircraft; it provides battlefield medical and nursing services, using its new Casa CE95 aircraft for evacuations from war zones; it provides counter-terrorism training; it sent troops to Kosovo and to Afghanistan as part of KFOR and ISAF;  and has now, as of September, signed up to provide intelligence and cybersecurity services.  It would not, then, be a great change of direction for Ireland to abandon any pretence that it is thoroughly militarised and far from ‘neutral’ as many people now understand that word.  To make such a declaration would, however, open to public debate that which is customarily settled by private agreement, allowing the possibility of a public rejection of the political class’ negotiations and even of the political class itself.  The policy of ‘neutrality’ has always rested exclusively on political declarations issued to meet the expediencies of a passing moment and was only ever really intended to paper over the cracks arising from the differences between nationalists in the degree to which they recognised the realities of geography and sought either a cultural and political separation from Britain, or else sought a fantasy of independence by forming alliances with Britain’s enemies.  As a term of political art, it could mean anything or nothing depending on the circumstances, but the word ‘neutrality’ secured peace between the people of Ireland in Ireland itself, and might objectively be said to have served its purpose in that. Its time, however, is not done yet as, while they might debate ‘redefining’ it for ever, the politicians fear that, it having been for so long a watchword for many believers in independence (however that might be understood), dropping it might rally people to put all the sterile debates of the past behind them and set out on a new path under new leadership.  I fear that their fears are unrealistic. 

 

            This fear of public debate, with a fear of the public itself behind it, is the hallmark of politicians who wish to lead us where we do not wish to go.  They want us to think we want it too, and to take responsibility for it to escape being held responsible themselves; use of the referendum under Art. 47 of the Constitution allows this in Ireland.  Relentless EUrophile propaganda might persuade Ireland and other EU nations to make a formal commitment to a federal Union; but even if it does not, the reality of one will be created without officially naming it as such just as the European Constitution rejected under the referendum of 2001 on the proposed 24th amendment came back as merely another Treaty and with some frightening words taken out for incorporation into an Bunreacht under the 26th amendment the following year, and just as the constitutional PESCO is none other than the unconstitutional common defence wearing not even a different hat, just a different badge on it. As pro-life campaigners know from old battles, Ireland’s Supreme Court is neither, in the American parlance, ‘originalist’ nor ‘constructivist’ but merely literalist, so the verbal distinction makes all the difference.

 

While absolute pacifists must be respected in the integrity of their convictions, a nation cannot pursue a policy of pacifism in practice, but what it can do is to limit its military commitments to those necessary to defend its own interests without being drawn into wider alliances.  A realistic assessment of Ireland’s defence requirements would be that, firstly as an importing nation, Ireland must act in concert with other countries to safeguard the freedom of the high seas with freedom of passage and freedom of trade; and secondly, that Ireland must work closely with the United Kingdom in the defence of our shared archipelago.  The first is principally a diplomatic task but might well involve naval activity against either state or non-state parties.  The second is largely fulfilled already by Irish volunteers within the British armed forces, but formalised defence and intelligence cooperation with an explicit territorial limitation is highly desirable. On the strength of what I have already said, I must add that the only way for Ireland to reject the big bloc alliances that lead inexorably to war, and to fulfil the ‘international vocation in support of peace and security’ to which  the amendment seeking to stall accession to the Partnership for Peace referred all those years ago would be for Ireland to reject the European Union in favour of open and peaceable relations with the world at large.  

 

The Constitution with its ambiguities, verbal gymnastics, get out clauses and general two facedness is unworthy of its preamble which should be a constant inspiration to us all:

 

In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred,

We, the people of Éire,

  Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial,

 

Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation,

And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations,

Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.

Which should be a constant inspiration to us all.

 

When the election comes make your vote worthy of it and reject the siren voices; remember your obligation to our Saviour; follow your duty to promote the common good with due observance of prudence, justice and charity; and observe your own calling to seek peace at home and abroad.  In all your choices, electoral, social and personal choose Christ.  Vote only for candidates who support Irexit as part of your commitment to peaceable relations between, sovereign nations, and to the level of independence that should be the natural concomitant of Ireland’s geographical, historical and cultural circumstances.    

 

By Prayer Crusader St Philip Howard

Wednesday 21 February 2024

Up-Date From Ireland - Part two


 

RTE upsets Catholic Ireland (again)

Part Two

                    Presenter Ryan Tubridy has dominated the printed media and other media outlets. It has been said if a story is on the front pages for nine days in a row, it sticks. For example, if a minister or some high profile person is in the main news for nine days on the trot, it can usually result in them resigning from their post. This situation has been on the headlines of every single national newspaper for nine days on the trot. This is the tenth day, and on the headlines of all newspapers, save one, leading with a budget coming up. It has trumped every other consideration or event. In five newspapers on Sunday morning, there are 50 stories relating to the RTE/Tubridy affair. Twelfth day now, and it is still the headline in all the newspapers. For another anomaly of this saga I was somewhat bemused to see a photograph on the front page of the Irish Times of the RTE staff out protesting outside of RTE’s studios. They held banners stating things such as ‘truth matters,’ etc.; I was wondering if they had gone to the Pro-life office and asked them for a loan of their banners, they would be useful for the day. 

The Politicians, too, are wagging their fingers. With elections looming in the not too distant horizon they have to be seen to be doing something given that RTE receives taxpayers money. Plus, its good for the image to be seen speaking tough on something on which they know they have the wind at their back (they're so brave, these Irish politicians), though they have to thread someone lightly as it's the media, especially who have given them their oxygen of publicity and most likely enabled them to be where they are. There is no mention of the oversight the government should have had in how RTE handled its financial affairs, as the taxpayers fund about 50% of its revenue. So, many of RTE's management and presenters and their managers will be hauled before the Oireachtas Committee on Finance (somewhat similar to the Parliamentary Committee on Finance). There is also the possibility of a Garda inquiry as the top managers had their slush fund to enable them to go to the top sporting events, etc. Other issues are coming to light as well.  You may accuse me of gloating and being gleeful; well, you would be right. Or maybe another way of putting it, I'm glad that everything that has been covered is now being uncovered, and I'm hoping that justice will be done. However, I don't think my 'gloating' is on a firm basis if I'm hoping for effective results, that is. What do I mean by effective results, that RTE and staff would see Christianity as part of the Irish Heritage, even their own heritage? Basically, they would get right with Jesus, and if not at least, have respect for  Christian values and those who profess them. A hard ask given that media sees sensation as their bread and butter. How things have turned that they are providing the sensation at the moment. Those whose task it is but the Politicans and RTE are part of the same circle. Even Conor Mc Gregor has come out and called the rte set, posh yahoos and Irish politicians lizards. He may have  a point.

                              It’s even possible that things could go from bad to worse. Its claimed that 15% of people don’t pay the licence fee. I don’t know where they got that 15%,  is it 15% of the whole population over 18 or 15% of households. Also a poll done by one newspaper arrived at a figure of 30% of people saying they will not pay their tv licence. They are assuming that everyone is glued to RTE and those not paying Ryan Tubridy’s  hidden bonanza oh er sorry tv licence are getting a free ride on the backs of the compliant television licence fee paying cohort, so it has been speculated that they will bring in a compulsory household broadcasting charge,  just another step to bring in their totalitarian agenda.

                   The biggest anomaly to me in all this is that a nation is up in arms, politicians and the media over 375,000 euros paid covertly to a presenter. These politicians and jounalists who have spared no effort using every subterfuge to have abortion introduced into Ireland hoodwinking the citizens with spurious arguments to have the people vote for the barbaric murder of young children while still in their mothers wombs are worked up over 375,000 euros. 31,000 young babies murdered by the death squads of the political and media class since the introduction of abortion in Ireland.   375,000 euros couldn’t even begin to compensate for the loss of one of these vulnerable innocent lives. 

By prayer Crusader St Rita 

Dublin              

                   

Friday 9 February 2024

Up-Date From Ireland - Part one

 



RTE upsets Catholic Ireland (again)

Part One

I don’t know if you have heard of the goings on at RTE (Public Irish broadcasting channel). It is said that they are going through their greatest crisis since its foundation. As I have virtually turned off the Irish media I’m just going on from what I have gleaned from newspaper headlines as I walk past shops and the occasional news on the radio. I have listened back in to RTE a bit see how they are reporting the situation.

From what I have gathered, it turns out that their star presenter Ryan Tubridy was paid 375,000 euros more, over a five-year period, than his stated earnings. The management at RTE had done a backdoor deal with Tubridy called bartering, where they would prop up his salary to the estimated cash that he would have received from promos, advertising, etc, that he couldn’t engage in due to having to remain impartial to these products services, etc. Apparently, it was legal, but the clandestine nature of the deal caused the problem. They seem like rabbits caught in the headlights. Tubridy even denied that he knew anything about these payments to his account. One wonders if he had been docked 375,000 euros over that time, would it have similarly gone unnoticed? It also seems to be that it was only the rte director general Dee Forbes who knew about and signed off on the deal (but that all has to be investigated). She has been suspended from her position. In short, she’s gone for good. In 2021 he was involved in a sacrilegious play in which a news presenter in a ‘Christmas play’ made an in which he referred to God raping Our Lady. There was understandable outrage, and Dee Forbes stood over the mockery and would not apologise for it. Many people went, myself included, to have a prayerful protest. Eventually, she was forced to back down and apologize after so many complaints, probably the highest number of complaints they ever had. I wouldn’t think it was anything to do with the fact that she had done something wrong (though we can never be sure; maybe the prayer had some effect) but more to keep her job.

There are many angles and questions to the story. One is the people are suffering in the cost of everyday living while this presenter has an annual salary of over 440,000 euros, it was as high as 495,000. The optics haven't gone down well with people. While licences are rising and people are constantly threatened, fined, and even imprisoned, this celebrity is rolling in at their expense. It hasn't gone down well with the lower staff and journalists at RTE either; it appears that they are fuelling much of the backlash. While they have been told to cut down on costs in each department, they have been told to cheap lodgings if they go to report on a matter, etc., to make savings. It's going to top up Ryan Tubridy's bank balance. It must be said that Tubridy too has his supporters. Listeners for whom he can do no wrong, saying that he's a great presenter, he deserves it, and that we are a nation of begrudgers. Totally swept off their feet with stardom. It should be noted that Tubridy and one of his guests, a 'comedian', mocked the Holy Eucharist on his show, calling the Eucharist haunted bread with Tubridy's approval. God usually has his ways of sorting things out.  

By Prayer Crusader St Rita

Note this post was written in 2023


Here is a link to a Catholic Herald article critical of RTE 

https://catholicherald.co.uk/the-last-priests-and-nuns-in-ireland-a-missed-opportunity-to-move-beyond-the-same-old-tropes/


Friday 12 January 2024

Africa stands against same-sex blessings

 

The Magisterium of the Media


They're not on the side of Christianity


As we have studied the media over the past twenty years, it has become even more evident that the media controls society and the churches. The Main Stream Media tells us what we can say, do, and think or believe. In addition, traditional Christian and especially Catholic teachings are vilified. We are not allowed to teach or believe the time-honoured moral teachings of the Church, for they are considered hateful. The media at virtually all levels and genres are totally in sync; there are core beliefs one cannot cross or express views contrary to. These core beliefs of the secular media go against moral theology, that abortion is health care and a woman's right to choose; homosexuality is a lifestyle choice and must have the same moral standing as any other people in society. Feminism is a modern virtue for a woman. However, the whole gender issue and its impact on women's sports that is putting young girls off sports is the girls' fault and not the men in their space. Women's toilets and changing rooms are no longer for just biological females, and we are told that it is hateful to exclude biological men.

The Catholic Church has been targeted like no other by those who run and operate in the media; they are relentless, and they double down on their core values. To oppose these views is a modern hate-filled heresy. Is this why we have so many Woke bishops and even a Woke Pope? The MSM elected them? Who is responsible for Fiducia Supplicans? Well, yes, this pope and his Prefect of the CDF (We've come a long way from Pope John-Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger); however, who made it possible? I'm not letting Francis off the hook; he and his sidekick should not have been so spineless in the face of mass media opposition and the German Church.

Nevertheless, although many faithful Catholics are hurting and disturbed by these recent events, they try not to be and stay in the Church. I'm hearing of people leaving for the Eastern Orthodox; however, they have many problems. They may be united against Same-sex blessings (and indeed, this has ruined Francis' wish for unity with them), but that's about all they are united about. 

 

The African bishops are making a stand against Fiducia Supplicans consider writing a letter of support to their bishop's conference; you can bet the extremely active alphabet lobby people will be sending loads of hate letters to them, and the media are already attacking the Africans, doubling down on supporting Same-Sex everything.

 

Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu

Show your support to the African bishops:

Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu

Cathédrale Notre-Dame du Congo

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Congo

Kinshasa, KINSHASACongo-Kinshasa

Congo

 

Prayer Crusader St Philomena

Wednesday 20 December 2023

Pope allows same-sex blessings

 

Rome has Fallen

Woke Pope goes for Broke.

As this is our Christmas Post, I was hoping to write something on the media and Christianity at this festive time. The media has celebrated a Christian festival for at least over a month. It's been everywhere: on the TV, on the radio, in the shops, and in schools. Alright, but I hear you say this is mostly the secular side of Christmas; however, it is all underpinned by the birth of Jesus Christ, God-made-man, and people know it.

However, on the eighteenth of December, the Prefect for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released the declaration Fiduca supplicans allowing the blessing of couples in an irregular situation and couples of the same sex. Although it purports not to change any doctrines, it actually does. Many clergy on the left, for example, Fr James Martin, say that, in effect, it is a game changer. For it explicitly allows the blessing, not of individuals but of couples, together, of the same sex, who are in a relationship! It comes with forty-odd pages of notes that state that these blessings are not marriages, liturgical, etc., etc., blah bla bla. The usual worm-tongue speck of this pope.

It appears that from the beginning of Pope Francis' Pontificate, he has been trying to change the church's teaching on all the major moral issues. Particularly on homosexuality, he seems obsessed with it. He has actually failed to do that through the various synods he has called; for example, on the family 2014, it failed to get approval on irregular families, so he turned to young people and had a synod on youth, again, was unable to get young Catholics to endorse homosexuality. The Synod on Synodality just passed, even failed to do it when it seemed loaded in that direction. It seems the Africans, Eastern Europeans, and Asians resisted the woke mob, led by the Cardinal Tobin and Cupich and the likes of Fr James Martin, the fanatical Gay everything priest. Fr. Martin was quick off the mark and has already committed to a same-sex blessing. So, having failed to get this through the Synod, Francis did it anyway. It's as if the Catholic Church is now run by a gangster junta in the Vatican led by a banana republic styled dictator!

Fr James Martin gives a blessing to a same-sex couple.

It is indeed a wicked act to drop this on the faithful the week before Christmas; I am seeing so much hurt and upset on faithful Catholic social media sites. The hurt being expressed by faithful Catholics is palpable, as is the gloating of the mainstream media, The BBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Guardian (although Fiduca supplicans does not go far enough for this hideous destroyers of civilization).

So the Vatican is changing church practice but claiming that they are not changing doctrine, which is hypocritical. "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness" (Isaiah 5:20).

It is an arrogant act indeed to allow these blessings. This has not happened in the history of the Church; what makes Bergoglio think that he knows better than the saints, the teachings of the Church, Sacred Scripture, and Jesus Christ? At the very least, there is utter confusion, and who is the author of chaos, Satan!

Although this is sad new indeed to end the year, remember that God came into the world and became man to save humanity from sin. Therefore, being loyal to the historic teaching of the Church that stream back to Jesus and remaining in the Catholic Church no matter what will save us. So despite the bad news I wish you a merry Christmas and a Woke free New Year.

Prayer Crusader St Philomena

Thursday 7 December 2023

The Three Musketeers on the Index

 The Past Isn’t Even Past

A fond farewell to Catholic Truth and its Catholic Truth (Scotland) blog after twenty-four years fighting for the Faith; it will be sorely missed. “Ae farewell and then for ever.”

             The newsletter once published a letter in which I replied to a priest who had said he could never make any sense out of why The Three Musketeers had been on the Index of Prohibited Books.  We learn what we learn in the course of our formal education – and even that in itself is subject to the vagaries of an individual’s schooling – then we forget much of it if not quite all.  What might remain to us is a general impression that can serve as a broad foundation for our future prejudices; but in many cases we do not retain even that, and the entirety of our attitude to any particular subject will be formed on the basis of our cultural environment, which is to say our media environment.

             Having mentioned historical fiction we must give it some further consideration because it is necessarily the most vivid and engaging material that sticks in the memory and shapes our understanding of history, and that will very often be fiction whether written or broadcast.  Who controls the past controls the present: who controls the present controls the future because the past isn’t really even past as our interpretation of history underpins our social, political and cultural attitudes.  Indeed, much of our political development in the nineteenth century may be traced to the embrace by conservatives under the n--- D--- of the Catholic alternative to the Whig interpretation of history understood as a Tory version. We are who we are because we think we were who we think we were, and that includes being a ‘we’ in the first place as well as what ‘we’ might think of ‘them’ whoever ‘they’ might be.

             Returning to my example, The Three Musketeers is a work the contents of which are generally transmitted to British youth at an early age while the details of French history are not.  That transmission might possibly include reading the book itself, or extracts from it, in the mid-teens, but more often does not.  There are simplified texts and illustrated versions for the under-tens along with films and television series so children encounter it repeatedly.  Was that your experience? 

             The condemnation of the amatory fictions of the Alexandres Dumas, père et fils, along with the younger Dumas’ pamphlet advocating divorce, was not due to their ‘amatory’ nature – censorship on the basis of decency was a matter primarily for the secular authorities – but because such beguiling and exciting works draw readers into their creators’ mindset or general outlook.  That is more true of broadcast works than written material because they are usually imbibed in a more passive manner with less discernment on the part of the consumer.  Hence works proceeding from the dangerously flawed mentality of undesirable types like the Alexandres Dumas should be avoided as simple entertainments – and should be consumed only warily if at all. 

             The Dumas were Bonapartists, (the father even joined the self-proclaimed emperor’s meritocratic aristocracy) and their works were shot through with all the attitudes and opinions that that implies.  If you had the experience I described of an early introduction to The Three Musketeers, might I ask how much of it you believed, and how much of it sticks in the memory?  The book presents the court of Louis XIII as having been a thoroughly decadent nest of intrigue with a weak and ineffectual cuckold of a king, a flighty adulteress of a queen and a scheming villain of a minister; a regime, in short, ripe for revolutionary overthrow even then in the days of French glory.  Yet these were among the greatest figures in the history of France!  Of course, there is an implication that what had been true of one branch of the traditional monarchy was true also of that reigning at the time of publication in the 1840s.     

             As was normal under a Catholic polity, and had been the case with our own Lords Chancellor before Henry VIII’s time, the first minister of France (the keeper of the king’s conscience) was ordinarily a bishop made a cardinal as a mark of papal approval of the close connection between Church and State, and with it between secular and divine law, under such an arrangement.  To depict Cardinal Richelieu as a scheming villain amounted to an attack upon the clergy (backed up by the characterisation of various other clerical figures across the Dumas’ oeuvre) and not an argument but rather a certain measure of pressure in favour of disestablishment.

             The Dumas did not promote the excesses of the Revolution but its general objectives and its outcome as realised, in their opinion, under their supposedly imperial hero.  Similarly, in our own day, popular historical fictions such as Dame Hilary Mantel’s (adapted for stage and small screen) Wolf Hall Trilogy, tend not to endorse the contentious actions of their protagonists, but by their choice of heroes and villains, their characterisation of people real and fictitious, and their interpretation of events by which they impose an artificial narrative arc upon carefully selected facts they make clear where their creators’ sympathies lie and they insinuate all manner of ideas deep into the intellectual subconscious of the consumer.

             As we all know, the imposition of an ideologically contrived narrative is not restricted to material presented as fiction but transforms narrations of historical events, objective facts, into effective fictions.  While events as they occur certainly have a coherence in the light of divine providence, the coinage of eternity is not spent in a television studio packaging the past in neat and tidy parcels congratulating today on having evolved through history into a wonderfully enlightened present.  Written history may be flawed in many ways, but one definite advance in modern practice is that in print the inclusion of footnotes indicating sources, and giving at least some clue as to where facts and their interpretation can be distinguished, has become almost universal.


             It is quite clearly possible to create historical narratives, whether of fact or fiction, in which that which is believed to have occurred is presented in a manner compatible with Church teaching by rejecting the Pelagian myth of constant moral progress under the weight of human effort, or the alternative of natural evolutionary development in the direction of freedom from antiquated moral norms.  It is also possible to create narratives in which the ‘boo and hooray’ words and names accord with the perspectives of faithful Catholics in wherever the narrative is set.  The EWTN films we promote do exactly that.  What is not possible, however, is a narrative that is both narrative and a neutral presentation of life as it actually happened.  ‘The past is another country’ we do not have a visa to visit; historiography is not only possible but obligatory if we are to achieve an understanding of history that might allow us to build the future we want to see, but history itself is irrecoverably impossible to grasp.  The past remains ever with us in its moral, social and political effects precisely because we can only ever see it recreated one way or another, interpreted for us or against.

             Preciosa in conspectu Domini. Mors sanctorum ejus

            Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints

While the media decry the Ugandan legislation and demand retribution from the international community and individual western nations, I can see only the blessed fruit of the life and faithful witness in death of St. Charles Lwanga and his companions in martyrdom by which their country has been brought to this happy liberation from the horrors of their history.  

By Prayer Crusader St Philip Howard