Irish Anti War Movement's delight at Obama victory

by Fred Johnston Tue Nov 18, 2008 14:08

This is the same Obama who appointed a right-wing Israel supporter to his cabinet and has promised Jerusalem to the Israelis! And if Obama wasn't born in the US, how can he be President? Hopefully he means change . . . but first indications should calm us down a little.

by MichaelY - iawm Tue Nov 18, 2008 16:21

It;s good to have somebody like Tom Eile watching us closely, noting our every move, commenting on everything our website carries. It keeps us on our toes.

Below please find the contents of our leaflet going out first time tonight to the Veterans meeting in the Abbey/
It tells, I think, another story of how we feel and the questions we have about Obama

Public Meeting
Monday Dec. 8th 19.30
Wynns Hotel
New US Administration —new US foreign policy?

SPEAKERS
Nehella Ashraf – Chair of the STOP The War Coalition (Manchester) and Stop the War Muslim Network—who has just returned from Pakistan
Julien Mercille UCD lecturer and a US Foreign Policy specialist

With a change in the White House, will there be a change in US Foreign policy?
Five and a half years on from the invasion of Iraq, seven from Afghanistan, the war on terror is purposeless and an ever greater human tragedy.
Over 700,000 people have been killed, andclose to 1,5 million seriously injured in Afghanistan and Iraq since the U.S. and coalition attacks.
In the midst of a major economic recession ,the war in Iraq alone is costing $340 million A DAY.

Will Obama stop this obscenity? Or will he just shift troops to Afghanistan?

by anti-war activist Tue Nov 18, 2008 17:20

Michael Y if you don't agree with the statement about Obama on the IAWM website then take it down. Obama is not opposed to the war in Iraq, he has consistently voted to fund that war, he supports the war in Afghanistan and has threatened to invade Pakistan and to attack Iran. Its a disgrace that the IAWM have this statement of support for Obama up on their site.

by MichaelY - iawm Wed Nov 19, 2008 09:28

Dear anti-war activist,

Thank you for your suggestion. This is exactly what I have proposed to the other members of the Steering Group. Fortunately, I, or anybody else for that matter, doesn't have the right to take down unilaterally.material posted and originating from a third organisation.

by Just guessing Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:26

Good luck with getting it removed Michael. I see the original statement comes from the Stop The War Coalition in the UK. Can't see the SWP members of the IAWM steering committee voting with you to remove something coming from the mothership.

by tomeile Wed Nov 19, 2008 14:22

" Fortunately, I, or anybody else for that matter, doesn't have the right to take down unilaterally.material posted and originating from a third organisation."

Would you please clarify ,Michael . The pro-Obama statement was indeed issued originally by the UK’s Stop the War Coalition ,but Dette McLoughlin from the IAWM posted it verbatim and without any critical introduction on the IAWM's website . Surely the IAWM doesn’t need the permission of any outside organization to remove material from its own site .

As the joint chair of the steering committee - which is the coordinating and organizing body for the IAWM - you say you can’t act unilaterally to remove the post .Perhaps that’s the case , but the steering committee’s other members are easily contactable by telephone .The IAWM membership was not consulted before the statement went up in the first place ,so I can’t see why you need to call an emergency general meeting of the whole group to take it down.

Obama did not endorse the invasion of Iraq it's true ,but the Iraq war didn’t end with the invasion . Nor did it end when Bush declared 'Mission Accomplished' from the deck of an aircraft carrier . It didn’t end with the recent surge either . It is an ongoing war of aggression which is still bringing terror (shock and awe) to Iraq in order to steal that nation’s oil reserves .And , as a previous poster noted , Obama has consistently voted to fund that ongoing predatory war . In my opinion that makes him complicit in Bush's war crimes . The IAWM statement expressing delight at his election to the presidency has been up for over a week now . It should be removed asap.

by MichaelY - iawm Wed Nov 19, 2008 20:11

Please note that the original statement by Dette has now been replaced by the originator.

by Jim Thu Nov 20, 2008 10:51

The idiots who voted for Obama expecting a change from the Bush administration must now explain why the Al-Qaeda organisation is now targetting Obama? Obama is after all the face of a new cuddly America that is committed to negotiation not war and multi-lateralism not war, ending the war in Iraq and getting rid of torture etc etc.?
The truth is the liberal progressive branch of Democratic Party among which Obama is easily the most liberal progressive is pro-gay, pro-women, pro-abortion, pro-religious tolerance, pro-democracy, anti-war, anti-impewrialism, pro-socialism etc etc.
This is completely against the philosophy of Al-Qaeda which is homophobic, misogynist, religiously bigotted, anti-democratic, advocates global jihad and is backed by oil rich Arab nations who dream of conquering the world for Islam and putting to death infidels.
The Democrats are going to learn with astonishment that they will be forced to adopt the same hawkish hard-line militarist approach of the Bush administration.

by tomeile Thu Nov 20, 2008 12:34

Michael ,the statement is still up on the iawm site.

by MickNed Fri Nov 28, 2008 16:44

The SWP is the IAWM

OK theres a few tag-alongs who are not SWP but everything that matters is always SWP and thats all it takes to make that particular cap fit.

Dette McLoughlin is of course an SWP apparatichik from Galway.

What a parody of the truth Michael. You know you do not have the power to remove that post because I bet you have no access to the website. I bet that is monopolized by the SWP , it always was in the past .

They have refused to take it down no doubt.

Any post which did not agree with SWP policy would soon be taken down I bet.

by tomeile Sun Nov 30, 2008 16:10

You’d wonder why the SWP is hanging Michael out to dry on this all the same. I believe that Michael was probably sincere when he said that the post had been removed from the IAWM site . He should have checked first of course . That post expressing the anti war movement's delight at the election of Obama is still up on the IAWM site today even though the IAWM must know that the new Obama administration will be stuffed full with the old war hawks .

Joe “ I am a Zionist “ Biden will be Obama’s vice president . Speaking in a televised debate in Iowa in 2007 Biden , who favours the partition of Iraq into rival religious and ethnic blocs , warned the audience against the notion : “that there is any possibility in the lifetime of anyone here of having the Iraqis get together, have a unity government in Baghdad that pulls the country together. That will not happen.... It will not happen in the lifetime of anyone here.”

Obama’s “ new” Secretary for Defense will be none other than Robert Gates the man who is now serving in that post under Bush .The appointment of Gates should have sent a clear message to the world -as it was intended to do - that there would be essential continuity with the policies of Bush under the new administration . The only people who don’t seem to have got the message is the IAWM .
Two months ago Hilary Clinton threatened to obliterate Iran . She will be introduced as Obama’s Secretary of State tomorrow . If Obama were to somehow find a way of appointing Bush as his new head of Homeland Security , I wonder whether the IAWM would take the post down

by Celia S Sun Nov 30, 2008 18:22

From éirígí's website:

Flags, Balloons & Bullshit

15/11/08

The election of Barack Obama to the office of President of the United States of America has been hailed by many as an indication that that country is about to set itself out on a radically new political course.

A definite sense has emerged over the last number of months that the incoming Democratic Party administration is going to be fundamentally different from the outgoing Republican administration that it will replace in January 2009.

Although it must be acknowledged that there is a particularly heightened sense of expectation this year, it is a variation of the same theme that re-asserts itself every four years, or eight years, in the US. This is the notion that through the one solitary ‘democratic’ act afforded to US citizens (that of choosing between two almost identical candidates), that somehow the politics of the US can or will be radically and positively transformed.....

For more visit: http://www.eirigi.org/latest/latest151108.html

by MichaelY - iawm Mon Dec 01, 2008 21:34

I am not going to enter the debate of whether those of us not in the SWP in the iawm Steering Committee are fools, SWP apparatchiks or tag a- longs.
Dette's post was a statement by the UK based Stop the War Coalition - they were within their right to put it into our website as a reflection of their politics. There was never any suggestion that the statement reflected our position.
After Tom's comment I spoke to the comrade who manages the website, who is not in the SWP, and agreed to take it off the main page but leave it to the left corner under other contributions. And that's what happened. And that's where it is.
Our Public meeting next Monday Dec 8th is when we are going to publicly discuss the issue of Obama's victory. All those who have an opinion on the subject are welcome to attend.

by tomeile Tue Dec 02, 2008 15:05

The people who have posted on this issue are entitled to be taken seriously and should not have their contributions dismissed as "bull" by the co-chair of the Irish Anti War Movement .
Regarding what what Michael has written above :

1 . The statement expressing delight at Obama's victory has never moved from the main page of the IAWM site . It has over the past three weeks moved down the left-hand recent news column where it first appeared as newer items have gone up . It will hopefully disappear soon , but it is still there .

2 The Stop the War Committee is a separate organization to the IAWM and has no right to post on the IAWM site any more than the IAWM has a right to post on the STWC site. But the STWC didn’t post the statement : the IAWM’s Dette McGloughlin put it up , and the IAWM must therefore take responsibility for it .

Dette, as a member of the IAWM , was surely within her rights to post the statement , just as she is entitled to post statements from anti- war groups “based” anywhere else in the world . But the fact that she posted it without any critical introduction , and that there has been no criticism of the post , nor any other clear statement at all regarding Obama’s victory from the steering committee since , can only suggest that the IAWM and Dette do approve of the statement and are as delighted by Obama’s victory as the STWC is .

by Starstruck Tue Dec 02, 2008 20:06

Cnat believe the political naivity , expected it from the Labour party but to see the anti-war "movement" pull the wool over their own eyes is disgraceful.
Obama v Bush Coke v Pepsi

by non-voter SBU - SBU Thu Jul 08, 2010 15:06 thackeraddy at gmail dot com

“The Stop the War Coalition is delighted that Barack Obama has won the US Presidential elections. “ Mon, 10 Nov, 2008

“I trusted Prime Minister Netanyahu since I met him before I was elected president. He is dealing with a very complex situation in a very tough neighborhood.” ……..President Obama ,July 6 2010

“If you look at every public statement that I’ve made over the last year-and-a-half, it has been a constant reaffirmation of the special relationship between the United States and Israel; that our commitment to Israel’s security has been unwavering”…….President Obama , July 6 2010

http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans-english/2010/July/2....html

Tale of two sackings

The Sacking of Octavia Nasr

CNN has sacked Octavia Nasr ,its senior Middle East editor , after she wrote on Twitter that she "respected" senior Lebanese cleric Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, who died last Sunday.
Neither Nasr’s claim that she had been referring to the cleric’s "pioneering" views on women's rights in her statement ,nor the fact that she had worked twenty years at CNN , were enough to save her from the chop - the ayatollah was considered to have been the spiritual leader of the anti-zionist resistant movement , Hezbollah.
In a blog post on Tuesday, Nasr wrote: "Reaction to my tweet was immediate, overwhelming and provides a good lesson on why 140 characters should not be used to comment on controversial or sensitive issues, especially those dealing with the Middle East."

Octavia Nasr’s offending Twitter post has since been deleted.

The IAWM still has the2008 statement praising Obama up on its website
http://irishantiwar.org/node/292

The Sacking of General Stanley McChrystal

On Wednesday 23 June, President Barack Obama sacked his Afghanistan commander , General Stanley McChrystal .

In his 2008 electoral campaign Obama had already made his support for what he termed ” the good war” in Afghanistan perfectly clear. Eighteen months since taking office ,despite a massive and deadly expansion of the war and despite thousands of civilian Afghan casualties , NATO has failed to defeat the Taliban insurgency . Obama sacked Gen. Stanley McChrystal as military commander in Afghanistan two weeks ago and replaced him with General David Petrateus ,the man who was George Bush’s choice for the 2007-2008 Iraqi surge . McChrystal’s right wing critics had insisted that the general’s “rules of engagement” with their “undue concern” for Afghan civilian casualties were “handcuffing” US troops in their butchery ..

General Petrateus has promised to review McChrystal’s rules of engagement with urgency.
The IAWM still has the 2008 statement praising Obama up on its website.
http://irishantiwar.org/node/292