White House puts immigration plans on hold after ruling

Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Juan Lozano in Houston

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration put its new deportation-relief program on hold Tuesday on the eve of its launch, complying reluctantly with a federal judge's order that roiled immigrant communities nationwide and seemed to harden an already-tense stalemate on Capitol Hill.

 

President Barack Obama promised an appeal and predicted he'd prevail. But for tens of thousands of immigrants in line to begin applying Wednesday for work permits and deportation stays under his directives, their plans were canceled, at least temporarily.

Talking to reporters in the Oval Office, Obama said he disagreed with the ruling by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen of Texas that the administration had exceeded its authority. But he said that, for now, he must abide by it.

 

"We're not going to disregard this federal court ruling," Obama said, but he added that administration officials would continue to prepare to roll out the program. "I think the law is on our side and history is on our side," he said.

On Capitol Hill, the Homeland Security Department stood 10 days away from losing funding, but Hanen's ruling made a compromise on that dispute look more distant than ever. Republicans are blocking funding for the agency unless Democrats agree to cancel Obama's immigration orders, and they seized on the ruling as validation for their position.

"Congress must reassert its waning power. We must re-establish the constitutional principle that the people's representatives control the purse," said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a leading immigration hardliner.

 

Yet Senate Democrats, who have been blocking a House-passed bill that would fund the department but also undo Obama's actions, said the ruling from Hanen did nothing to budge them.

 

"Democrats remain united in our belief that funding for the Department of Homeland Security should not be used as a ransom by Republicans, period," said Chuck Schumer of New York.

 

The agency's $40 billion budget runs out Feb. 27, and with Congress now on recess lawmakers will have only a few days to reach an agreement once they return to Washington next week. One possibility is a short-term extension of current funding levels, but House Speaker John Boehner said over the weekend that the House had done its job and he would "certainly" let a shutdown occur if the Senate didn't act.

If the political impasse seemed severe, so were the implications for millions of immigrants in the country illegally who have cheered Obama's executive directives in the face of congressional inaction.

 

"We feel powerless but not defeated, sure that it will all work out," 46-year-old Claudia Ramon, a native of Colombia, said at a rally in Houston, one of dozens nationwide where immigrants and their advocates vowed to continue with preparations under Obama's programs.

 

Obama's directives would make more than 4 million immigrants in the United States illegally eligible for three-year deportation stays and work permits. Mostly those are people who have been in the country for more than five years and have children who are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. Applications for the first phase were to begin Wednesday, when as many as 300,000 immigrants brought illegally to the country as children could begin applying for an expansion of Obama's 2012 program aimed at the younger immigrants known as Dreamers.

 

Yet there was also palpable anxiety, with their apparent White House gains under attack on Capitol Hill and in the courts. Advocates pledged to redouble their efforts to sign up as many people as possible.

 

"It's extremely important for the community to understand from a legal perspective it is on solid legal footing and actually the larger numbers of people who come forward to apply, the more likely we can protect the expansion," said Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center.

Hanen's ruling late Monday night, in a case brought by 26 states led by Texas, said that Obama and his Homeland Security Department lacked the authority to take the actions they did.

 

"No statute gives the DHS the discretion it is trying to exercise here," wrote Hanen, and he issued a stay blocking the actions from taking effect. His order was not a big surprise from a Republican-appointed judge who has showed a hard line on border issues.

The Obama administration could seek a stay of his order in addition to appealing to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that the Justice Department was deciding its next move.

 

He said, "I've always expected that this is a matter that will ultimately be decided by a higher court - if not the Supreme Court then a federal court of appeals."

The drama played out with the 2016 presidential contest getting underway and candidates of both parties eager to win over Latino voters. One potential Republican candidate, Jeb Bush, weighed in with a post to his Facebook page declaring that Obama had overstepped his authority and "hurt the effort toward a common-sense immigration solution."

"Now, more than ever, we need President Obama to work with Congress to secure the border and fix our broken immigration system," Bush wrote.

 

Comment:

The beat goes on. Where do we go from here? It seems that all parties agree that immigration reform is a necessary move that must be made sooner rather than later. Would it not be to the advantage of all of them to knock off the partisan nonsense and sit down and resolve the problem? That is what they were all elected to do and it is high time that they did it instead of shooting arrows across the aisle at each other.

 

Jack Meehan, National President Emeritus

Ancient Order of Hibernians in America

Sinn Féin abortion policy compatible with my Catholicism says Martin McGuinness

16 January 2015  

 Sinn Féin's support for a woman's right to an abortion in certain limited circumstances is not incompatible with Catholicism, Martin McGuinness has said.

He was responding to a comment from the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin.

Archbishop Martin had said any Catholic politician who supported abortion would not be "in communion with the church".

The deputy first minister spoke to BBC's Inside Politics on Friday.

"I try and be the best Catholic I can be," Mr McGuinness said.

"The Catholic Church is made up of people who have different opinions on different issues."

Mr McGuinness repeated that Sinn Féin is opposed to abortion on demand but said he had been moved by meeting Sarah Ewart, a woman from Northern Ireland who had to travel to England for an abortion because her baby had no chance of survival.

He said:"I think, in the context of my responsibility as a government minister and other government ministers who have a duty to pass legislation, when we're faced with the case of Sarah Ewart, we have to deal with that in the most compassionate way possible."

'Own choice'

Northern Ireland's Department of Justice is consulting on whether abortion should be made legal in cases of "lethal fetal abnormality" and pregnancy as a result of rape.

On Thursday, Archbishop Martin met Justice Minister David Ford to discuss proposals for amendments to two aspects of Northern Ireland's abortion laws.

He said the church remained against any change to the existing laws.

The deputy first minister said he disagreed with people who believed a change in the laws would lead to an "opening up of the floodgates".

He said: "I totally and absolutely contradict those people. I think what we need to do is recognise our responsibilities to support women when they make the choice.

"This is not about women being forced to do anything, they should be able to make their own choice. I absolutely respect the right of people to do that."

Comment:

It would appear that the Deputy First Minister of the Stormont government and oftentimes spokesman for the Sinn Fein party is somewhat confused about the Catholic Church's firm position on the issue of abortion. Essentially, as Catholics we believe that life begins at the moment of conception and any measures taken to terminate a pregnancy is murder. pure and simple.

Jack Meehan, National President Emeritus

Ancient Order of Hibernians in America

Knights of Columbus - 4th Degree

IRA informer names senior Provo in charge of gang who murdered Paul Quinn

Suzanne Breen, Sunday Life - October 13, 2014An informer within IRA ranks has come forward with crucial new information about the murder of South Armagh man, Paul Quinn, seven years ago.

The disillusioned Provo has told gardai the name of the senior republican from the border area whom he alleges led the gang who brutally beat the 21-year-old to death in a barn in Co Monaghan.

Sources close to the investigation said the IRA veteran has recently been quizzed by detectives leading the murder inquiry as a result of this information.

Paul Quinn died in hospital shortly after he was savagely assaulted on 20 October 2007.

His family and friends will gather in Cullyhanna next weekend for a Mass and commemoration to mark the seventh anniversary of his murder.

In an interview with Sunday Life, Paul's father, Stephen Quinn, accused Sinn Féin of continuing to shield his son's killers but he warned that the gardai investigation remained very active.

"We believe we'll secure justice. This isn't a case the gardai has put on the back burner. It's open and progressing all the time.

"Those who murdered my son may think they've got away with it but they shouldn't sleep easily in their beds. Their past will catch up with them," he said.

A source close to the investigation said the senior local Provisional went voluntarily to Carrickmacross garda station to be interviewed in the presence of his solicitor after hearing detectives had been searching for him.

"Information that this man led the IRA gang who beat Paul Quinn with cudgels and iron bars has been conveyed to gardai.

"They have been told he stood in the barn, giving the instructions to Paul's assailants," the source said.

The senior Provisional, who is in his 50s, has previously served a prison sentence and is well known in the south Armagh and north Louth area. He has held position within Sinn Féin.

Police on both sides of the border believe he was one of three IRA men involved in the November 1994 murder of Newry post office worker, Frank Kerr, but he has never faced charges in connection with that incident.

Kerr, the first person the IRA killed after its ceasefire, was shot in the head as he struggled with the gang robbing the mail office. They escaped with £130,000.

The republican questioned about Paul Quinn's murder is known as a 'heavy' for the Provos. He was one of those who knocked on the doors of Real IRA members to issue death threats against them in 1998.

Although more than 20 people have been arrested during the Quinn murder investigation – including Padraig 'Paudie' Treanor, a former driver of Sinn Féin Newry and Armagh MP Conor Murphy. None has been charged.

The gardai investigation reveals a high degree of planning on the day of the murder.

Phone records examined by detectives showed the mobiles of around eight key suspects were turned off at the same time that afternoon. They were then almost simultaneously turned on after 6pm following the beating.

The IRA targeted Paul Quinn for clashing with several local Provos over minor matters in the months before his killing.

After the murder, Conor Murphy MP said he had spoken to the IRA and was satisfied they weren't involved. He branded Paul "a criminal" and linked his murder to a feud among criminals.

Former Irish Foreign Minister, Dermot Ahern, and the SDLP both asserted that Paul wasn't a criminal. Stephen Quinn said: "Seven year's after Paul's murder, we appeal to Conor Murphy, as a politician and a father, to withdraw his disgraceful slur against our son."

Living in a small rural community, the Quinns regularly come face-to-face with the men who killed Paul, Stephen said: "There's not a day I don't meet those who were involved in some way. Whether they ordered or directed it or beat him, they all have blood on their hands."

He accused Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams of failing to help their campaign for justice: "These two could come to south Armagh and secure justice for us within an hour because it's prominent members of the provisional movement who murdered our son."

Breege Quinn is still haunted by the horrific memory of seeing her dying son in hospital seven years ago.

"Paul was lying on the bed with a ventilator tube protruding from his mouth, his eyes half open. His head was swollen and there were gashes on his face.

"His right ear was torn off. Every major bone below his neck was broken. The doctors said nothing could be fixed.

"What mother wouldn't be destroyed seeing the child she gave birth to and reared in that pitiful state? But I'd still rather be Paul's mother than the mother of the people who murdered him," she says.

Up to a dozen masked men wearing black military style clothing were involved in the savage assault in a farm near Oram, Co Monaghan.

From Paul's toes to his groin, they battered him with iron bars. They used nail-studded cudgels on his upper body.

Two friends of Paul's had been working at the farm that day. IRA members arrived, beat the young men and tied them up in a shed.

The lads were then forced to phone Paul and lure him to the farm by claiming they needed a hand shifting cattle.

Paul drove from south Armagh with another friend to help. When they arrived, Paul's friend was taken to the shed were the other two young men were tied up.

Paul was brought to another barn. His friends heard him screaming loudly as the beating began, begging for mercy. As the assault continued, his voice grew weaker and eventually faded away.

Paul had several previous run-ins with senior Provisional IRA figures, their associates and relatives.

He punched the son of the local IRA commander after he had forced Paul's car off the road. After the incident, the wife of the IRA commander threatened Paul with a hammer and warned: "There'll be a body in a bin bag at the side of the road for this."

Paul assaulted another IRA member who had insulted his sister in a taxi depot. He was told he would be shot for that.

Stephen Quinn said: "Had he been given a thump for clashing with the Provos, we wouldn't have complained. But what happened was wicked beyond belief."

 

Comment:

 

I have nothing but the highest level of sympathy and admiration for Paul Quinn’s parents and family. Conversely, I have nothing but the highest level of revulsion and disgust for the perpetrators of this heinous and cowardly act of cold blooded murder. I don’t care what their political affiliation or ideology is or anything else about them other than they are the lowest form of cowards and deserve to be hunted down and punished to the full extent of the law as should any of their enablers before or after the fact.

 

Jack Meehan, National President Emeritus

Ancient Order of Hibernians in America

Lifting the veil on Ireland's fastest-growing religion

Irish Independent – 20 Sept 2014

Lorraine O'Connor has had to get used to the "go back to where you come from" taunts. They occur more frequently than she cares to think about - on the street, in the park, at the supermarket.

But the Dubliner who proudly wears the Muslim headscarf, the hijab, every day never lets a verbal attack go unanswered. "I say to them 'I'm from Coolock. Where are you from?' You should see the look on their faces. They weren't expecting to have abused an Irish woman."

Lorraine converted to Islam 17 years ago at a time when Muslim numbers in Ireland were in the thousands rather than the tens of thousands of today. "There are definitely more of us now," she says. "And more and more Irish people are finding that Islam is what they have been searching for."

The immigration of the Celtic Tiger years helped swell numbers to an estimated 65,000 (the 2011 Census lists the number of Muslims here at 49,204) but so too has the numbers of Irish who are now converting. Muslim leaders here insist that as many as 500 Irish are embracing Islam each year. "Like me, people are looking for a simple message and Islam provides that," Lorraine says.

The mother of four daughters - "they all wear the hijab, by choice" - is steeped in the country's new Islamic tradition. She is the founder of the Muslim Sisters of Éire - a group where like-minded Muslim women go swimming or for picnics together - while her husband, Abdul Haseeb, is the "project co-ordinator" of the Clongriffin Mosque development. If completed, this north Dublin mosque and conference centre will be the biggest of its type in Ireland with the capability of accommodating 3,000 people.

"When I converted to Islam, my family and friends were supportive and I would say that the majority of Irish people have a live-and-let live attitude to Muslims," Lorraine says. "But there are people on the street who think it's OK to shout 'terrorist' at a Muslim, for instance, or to assume that the behaviour of fundamentalists abroad is in some way supported by Muslims here."

She is also bothered by Islamaphobia of a more low-level variety, including those liberals who believe that the modest dress expected of devout Muslim women is a form of male oppression. "It's Western women who are oppressed," she says. "They feel they have to be size zeroes and show off as much skin as possible. I feel very liberated that I wear the hijab and those of my friends who wear the burka [the full head-dress covering everything except the eyes] also feel liberated. They are comfortable with who they are and they don't feel they have to conform to western norms."

It's a view shared by another Irish convert, Liza Caulfield, who is now known by her Muslim name Aishah. "I wear it because it's a sign of my devotion to God," she told the Irish Independent recently. "It shows humility with my husband and with the male members of my family. It's a way of sharing your faith with people, of saying: 'Don't be afraid of us - we're all human, we all come and go the one way'.

"I always dressed modestly. I was never comfortable with showing the figure off. We're living in a society where people feel threatened because I choose to not show my body, whereas you have girls as young as 11 or 12 looking at Rihanna. She has a video and she's barely covering her nipples. And there are ladies twerking and pole-dancing. Girls are looking at that and going: 'Yeah, I'm going to get a husband if I do that.' You should be valued for your soul and your personality, not because of how much flesh you show - that's private, and that's your beauty."

Thanks to the hijab, women tend to be more readily identified as Muslim than their male counterparts and that has made them more susceptible to Islamaphobia. James Carr from the University of Limerick has extensively researched discrimination against Muslims in Ireland and notes that a greater proportion of females to males suffer abuse. "I visited 14 towns and cities in Ireland as part of this work and found that 44pc of Muslim women said they experienced hostility directed to them as a result of their faith as opposed to 28pc of Muslim men.

"While men get called 'terrorist' and 'suicide bomber', women are sometimes called 'Osama's wife'. I spoke to two younger Muslim women who had been physically attacked by a group of young men. They had been approached by the group and asked if they were upset that their father was dead - they were referring to Bin Laden because this happened in the days following his death."

Carr says the abuse tends to be verbal but it can go beyond that too. "People have had bottles thrown at them and women have had their hijab pulled from their faces.

"Another thing that I often hear is the sense that many Muslim people do not feel as though their identity is valued in Irish society. You also find Irish people who have converted to Islam have difficulty being accepted by other Irish people, some of whom taunt them with the 'terrorist' line."

Since the beheading of American journalist James Foley at the hands of Isis jihadists, some Muslim men in Ireland have experienced a heightened rise in the abuse. Two north African men who worship each day at the Dublin Mosque on the city's South Circular Road agreed to speak to Weekend Review on the condition of anonymity.

"Most people are good to me," one says. "But every single day I get called a terrorist by someone, usually someone in a car who pulls over as I walk down the street. It has got a lot worse this year because of Isis and it's particularly bad now that they are executing Western people.

"I am a man of peace and I abhor what Isis is doing, but some people are looking at these fundamentalists and thinking that all Muslims are like that. And nothing could be further from the truth."

His friend says he has been asked straight out if he agrees with Isis practice by members of the public.

"People have stopped me in the street and asked if I will condemn the murders. They are almost surprised when I say 'of course I do' - Isis are barbarians who do not represent all true Muslims and, what's more, it is mainly other Muslims who they are killing. What is very worrying though is the fact that this organisation seems to be able to reach out to disaffected Muslims in the West as we can all see on the news when we hear this guy 'Jihad John' speak."

Interpol believes up to 25 Irish jihadis may have joined the ranks of Isis at present, but one of Ireland's Muslim leaders, Dr Ali Selim, insists that "every effort" is being made to ensure that impressionable, disaffected young Irish Muslims are not seduced by the organisation's sophisticated propaganda.

"The actions of Isis are reprehensible and cannot be justified in any way. They have caused huge damage to how Muslims are perceived around the world and their use of the phrase 'Islamic State' is an outrage."

Dr Selim insists that the Muslims he meets every day are appalled by the actions and hope that non-Muslims can see that "the behaviour of these extremists bears no relation to the lives of Muslims here".

He says Irish people have been "very accepting" of the Muslim way of life which has been borne out in the international surveys that point to this country as one of the most tolerant in the world for being Muslim.

"Your country never invaded anywhere else and your people have emigrated for many years," he says.

"People here are welcoming because they themselves may have gone to make a living in another country or seen a loved one emigrate and know how challenging it can be.

"For those who are fearful, don't be: we come in peace."

 

Comment:

 

This article should open the eyes of anybody in the Irish diaspora who continues to believe that Ireland remains the way it was in the “Quiet Man days”. The days when nearly every family in Ireland, especially in rural areas, went to Sunday Mass together are fast disappearing. Immigration to Ireland by people of other faiths and the growth of secularism have had a profound effect on Irish Catholicism in a country that was considered the most Catholic in Europe only a generation ago. Attendance at Sunday Mass is dismal at best, All Hallows Seminary which sent Irish priests all over the world is now closed and it was reported in the news just last week that it is being sold. Times are changing in Ireland and many who claim Irish heritage would be of the opinion that the changes are not for the better.

 

Jack Meehan, National President Emeritus

Ancient Order of Hibernians in America

Shed no tears for a man who spent years fuelling hatred

Thursday 18 September 2014

It was a simple, unceremonious and dignified end to a momentous and turbulent life. Paisley was one of the most divisive, complex and iconic political figures on this island.

The tributes were fulsome this week but for many, particularly people of my generation, for years he cast a dark, sinister and ominous shadow.

Paisley railed against most supposed 'evils' he saw in the modern world - sexual permissiveness, homosexuality and the Pope.

But he reserved his most vicious and hateful tirades for Catholics in the North. Time and time again this so-called man of God used his office as a church minister to denigrate and vilify Catholics.

 

Shameful

 

Who could ever forget or forgive the shameful stunt he pulled in the European Parliament when he disrupted the speech of Pope John Paul II?

For almost all of his public life, until his late conversion, his implacable and unrelenting crusade fanned the flames of hatred and bigotry against Catholics.

I have no doubt whatsoever that his inflammatory and hate-filled rants incited murderous reprisals on innocent Catholics and nationalists by Loyalist paramilitaries.

Far from being the peace maker of the DUP, a role he played in latter days, for years he attempted to destroy every initiative to bring peace.

He destroyed the attempts of Prime Minister Terrence O'Neill to forge closer relations with the Republic, he helped bring down the Sunningdale Agreement in 1974, and he accused David Trimble of treason in the latter's attempt to end The Troubles.

Then, in 2007, he performed an extraordinary volte-face and became First Minister. It was the power he had no doubt dreamed of and lusted for all his political life.

 

Enemies

 

Now that he had achieved the ultimate reward, he was prepared to sit with his lifelong enemies - becoming a 'chuckle brother' to the ex-IRA commander Martin McGuinness.

It was an extraordinary odyssey for this fire and brimstone preacher. I can't help thinking that had Paisley achieved his political ambitions years earlier, many innocent lives would not have been lost.

Despite all the bouquets and accolades that have been showered on Paisley since his death, I for one will shed no tears on his passing.

May god have mercy on his soul and may he rest in peace.

 

Comment:

 

Regardless of the misplaced words of kindness and friendship offered by the other half of the “chuckle brothers”, I am compelled to agree with the writer of this article. For several decades, Ian Paisley was an arrogant, belligerent, bellicose, anti Irish, anti Catholic loudmouth who never hesitated to spread his venom to anyone who was willing to listen. A couple of years of attempting to change his image do not begin to forgive his many years of fomenting ethnic and religious hatred. The mere fact of his death does not change the image that he worked so hard to project for all those years. He will not be missed by those who remember his very obnoxious past.

 

Jack Meehan, National President Emeritus

Ancient Order of Hibernians in America

The Northern Ireland Executive: A wasteland of mutual veto?

Terry Wright - Published - 27 August 2014
 

If people who endorsed the restoration of Stormont in 1998 were to vote again in 2014 would they vote the same way?

Recent election results indicating a large number of absentee and unregistered voters suggest that the turnout would be significantly reduced.

If this trend is not reversed then elected politicians will govern without a credible mandate.

They have only themselves to blame. No party is exempt for they choose to live in a world of denial and intentional amnesia.

We have seen high profile sporting events, Titanic, and the Game of Thrones. Jobs are beginning to trickle through but alongside this, millions of pounds have gone to waste as too many initiatives have stalled, only to be abandoned.

Unpleasantness and rage are the order of the day as fractious debate replaces co-operation and consensus on pivotal issues.

Ministers who administer overpayments that become underpayments cling on to office. In an age of austerity and fragile economic recovery it is simply wrong to pay huge amounts for over-indulgent expenses and hospitality.

Presently, we have Ministers driven by party interests verbally kicking each other on the shins over the present impasse on welfare and ensuing budgetary implications.

Both of the bigger parties have manufactured crises. Leaders of smaller parties speak of dysfunction but action to challenge this is required not words which state the obvious.

Courage and conviction come to mind for it is unacceptable that Stormont continuously meanders through the debris of democratic accountability.

As MLAs come to the end of the Summer-break and prepare to return to the Chamber and the committees, something is broken and in need of repair.

David Ford MLA Minister for Justice and leader of the Alliance party has spoken of the need for a reboot. He is not the only one who thinks this way. Perhaps the better term is transform in terms of the quality of leadership, the spirit of governance, relations and focus.

Re-modelling and review sit with these in terms of process and structure.

It is a debate that will not go away, as a political process agreed as a lifejacket for democracy becomes a straitjacket for progress.

Between them, the two main parties are creating a wasteland of mutual veto, sectarian trade-off and populist policies as they jointly move in tortuous fashion, towards a shared future but one defined only by their willingness to act out of self interest rather than for the common good.

It is producing mediocre politics and government.

For the smaller groupings to believe that they can work within this process is old thinking and a defence mechanism against having to risk the fresh and new.

Eventually, it manifests itself as self-deception. It becomes stifling and ultimately static and seeks solutions through operational but compensatory and tainted Ministerial portfolios that do not enjoy the same influence as those held by the DUP or Sinn Fein.

There is need for challenge, change, good sense and a new bolder way of thinking.

To embrace it the smaller parties will need to throw off their reticence in favour of courage and vision. They have to assume leadership for the bigger parties are interested only in pursuing party agendas grounded in a shameful past of tribal interests.

To embrace it they must move beyond any self-doubt or indecision that curtails their ability to operate as effective stewards of the process and the mandate to make Stormont work.

Delay and failing to act will serve only to undermine their capacity and ability to challenge and create. It is a catastrophic strategy that limits the expression and application of the fertile ground of talents and resources at all levels of their parties, not least that of the MLAs within the NI Assembly, many of whom work tirelessly at constituency level.

The electorate in Northern Ireland is tired of petty political bickering. It wants its representatives to address and shape for the better, issues that affect everyday life.

Some party spokespersons have hinted tentatively at Opposition. But too often this bears the hallmark of point scoring and a jealous and frustrated desire to hold the reins of power. This is merely to turn the bus around but continue to travel in the same direction.

Opposition is not about this. It is about robust and informed positive engagement, frankness and openness. It is about the positive experience of full participatory politics and in the Northern Ireland context, the extent to which this can be achieved within the Assembly.

It is about challenge and critique and will create a dynamic where there will be true accountability to the electorate. The bar of standards that the electorate expects from representatives will be raised.

Any MLAs who govern and who have been promoted beyond their abilities will be exposed for they cannot hide behind the cosy protection of those respective power blocs which exercise power and compromise over the other parties who play the minor and subservient role at the table of the Executive.

Voters who have become sceptical and disenchanted and who mistrust the political process in Northern Ireland will have found a voice and may be persuaded to return to the ballot box.

The parties will require trust in each other and the electorate.

The task is to build consensus but on the basis of shared values and the integrity of accountable and agreed solutions to crucial social, health, economic and educational issues and not the populism and spin which currently operates without opposition and serves to embed a system where one power bloc decides what is right and what is wrong.

Within Northern Ireland such a power bloc, operating without critique and meaningful scrutiny, disenfranchises those who differ and sacrifices the electorate to the sectarian nature of those who govern.

A guaranteed place in government coupled with the ability of the bigger party Ministers to take advantage of and trade on the desire of their main partner’s desire to sustain power and lack of effective scrutiny is flawed.

It shows a lack of courage to perceive what is right and fail to do it. To see what is wrong and fail to address it is to cling to false hope. The smaller parties need to look within to find an alternative way and a better way. It is an imperative on which they should not turn their backs. The present state of affairs is not what it was supposed to be. Review of the institutions is over-due. It should be root and branch.

 

Comment:

 

A lasting peace entails a great deal more than merely the absence of violence. The Northern Ireland Executive, aka the Stormont Government is a study in incompetence. Since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, the only thing that they seem to be good at is running up huge expense accounts for their globetrotting efforts to promote N.I. as an ideal place for international investors to setup operations. In the meantime, while they fiddle, Stormont burns. Time to roll up their sleeves and get down to governing and effectively conducting the people’s business as they were elected to do.

 

Jack Meehan, National President Emeritus

Ancient Order of Hibernians in America

British Muslims Joining Jihad in Large Numbers

The news that British Prime Minister David Cameron has cut short his vacation after the video of an alleged British subject beheading Irish American journalist, James Foley became public is certainly dramatic. Britain suddenly finds itself with an 'enemy within' – the almost 500 citizens who have left the UK to fight for a caliphate or an Islamic world order. The beheader of James Foley was clearly one of those, speaking in an obvious London accent. Experts say the British fighters are among the most extreme. Jihadi expert Shiraz Maher, a senior research fellow at London University, told the "Today" radio program, "Unfortunately the British participation in the conflicts now raging in both Syria and Iraq has been one of full participation, one that has seen them at the front lines, taking part in the conflict in every way. "So we have seen British fighters out there operating as suicide bombers; we have seen them operating as executioners.

 

"Unfortunately, they are amongst some of the most vicious and vociferous fighters who are out there. That is unfortunately just a part of their radicalization."

 

Guardian columnist Michael White says there is a perception that Muslim leaders like Catholic leaders at the time of the IRA campaign were not doing enough “As with the IRA during the Troubles there is usually a thread of ambiguity among some co-religionists, priests and mullahs, which the media prefer to focus on. ”The father of one of the known British fanatics, 20-year-old Nasser Muthana, said his son was lost to him. Ahmed Muthana said his son had wanted to be a doctor, but chose "to go with these wrong people.”  “I think, 'Am I going to see him alive again?' Maybe we won't even see the coffin – we'll just see on the news they're dead," he said.

 

Bizarre that, the contrast between a young man one day thinking of becoming a doctor, the next a Jihadi fanatic and then choosing the latter. .Another British terrorist – Abu Osama – told the BBC he utterly rejected his home country. He told the Guardian that Britain was "pure evil," and said he would only return "to raise the black flag of Islam over Downing Street, over Buckingham Palace, over Tower Bridge and over Big Ben."

 

Even young women have taken to Jihad. Manchester twin sisters Salma and Zahra Halane are said to have traveled to Syria in June. They were described as "deeply religious "Many Muslim leaders are doing their best to stem the tide. The Guardian reports that more than 100 imams have called on British Muslims not to travel to Syria and Iraq and have written an open letter urging local communities "to continue the generous and tireless effort to support all of those affected by the crisis in Syria and unfolding events in Iraq." but to do so "from the UK in a safe and responsible way."

 

Judging by the fanatic hearts of those who have already left it may be too late.

 

Comment:

 

This article contains some very frightening information on the transformation or “radicalization” as they choose to call it of young British Muslims. The infiltration of Muslims into Ireland during and since the Celtic Tiger years would cause one to wonder and, indeed worry, if it will not be long before the same thing might develop there. Irish society has undergone some drastic changes in recent years, not the least of which is the burgeoning number of Muslims emigrating into the country. Could Ireland be the next breeding ground for young, radical Islamists?  I certainly hope not but it is definitely not out of the realm of possibility.

 

Jack Meehan, National President Emeritus

Ancient Order of Hibernians in America