Gearóid Ó Loinsigh ☭ writing in Substack on 13-October-2025.


Donald Trump woke up to some bad news, that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee couldn’t bring themselves to debase themselves and crawl through the gutter to give him a Nobel Peace Prize. He was genuinely angry, the spoilt little rich kid, completely bereft of any sense of his own capabilities and achievements, thought he should get one just because he wanted it. You know how it is, spoilt rich brat shouts I want, I want, I want and the parents give it to them, whereas most of us got a clip round the ear for that type of behaviour.

The more intelligent right wingers and outright fascists in his government were just as nonplussed by what had happened. They wondered how a committee that had debased itself for most of its history and had given the prize to people just as unsavoury as Trump, couldn’t hold their nose one more time and do their master’s bidding.

The common view of the prize is that it is one that is awarded to those who have sought to make the world a better place. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth when you look at the list of winners. There are some exceptions to his rule, which I will look at and then there are the institutions that win it such as the Red Cross, the United Nations and laughably even the European Union, despite its member states regularly bombing just about everywhere. Then there are the individuals. Many of them represent the great and good in bourgeois society, heads of state, former heads of state, leaders of major institutions, those that have done the bidding of the imperial powers at various points in their lives and then of course there are the mass murderers, racists and upper-class thugs with their finger on the trigger. Such was it so, from the very beginning.

The first US citizen to win it and also the first of a number of US presidents was Theodore Roosevelt. He was awarded it in 1906, allegedly for his efforts to bring an end to the war between Russia and Japan. Whatever! This man was no pacifist by any stretch of the imagination, quite the opposite in fact. He defended the US invasion of the Philippines and it was he who stole the province of Panama from Colombia in 1903 and began building the canal. Prior to that, he had played a key role in the war with Spain. Nonetheless, he was given the prize as he brokered an end to a war in a manner which favoured his view of US imperialist interests. He was one of the first nasties to get it. Many of the others in the first part of the 20th Century were diplomats, politicians and the like who brokered or advocated the easing of tensions etc. They were rewarded as part of the Old Boys Imperial Club. The prize did not have the misplaced honour it has today as something given to “people” who contribute positively to humanity. It was generally speaking an inter-institutional pat on the back.

In the late 1950s and 1960s onwards other names began to crop up, which were seen as being outside the realm of governments and international institutions, though they were still a minority, amongst them Albert Luthull, the head of the then non-violent African National Congress who was awarded the prize in recognition of his non-violent struggle against Apartheid. Then came Martin Luther King, a surprising nomination and given the context of the time, one which angered many of the forebears of Trump’s MAGA movement. Though there was an institutional setting even for MLK, the passing of the US Civil Rights Act in 1964.

Then in 1973, came one of the nastiest of the nasties: Henry Kissinger. He was awarded it for negotiating a ceasefire as the first step in the US surrender to the Vietnamese revolutionaries who beat the most powerful empire the world had seen, though the Nobel Ctte. didn’t quite put it like that. They framed it in the usual institutional terms of previous winners. Kissinger, to be clear, was the mass murderer responsible for the clandestine carpet bombing of Cambodia,[1] then a neutral country, during the Vietnam war, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands with some estimates going as high as 500,000 - and shortly before accepting his prize, he also overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile. These were minor matters to the Nobel Ctte. Even today, this is how the Nobel Ctte. describes this criminal who should have swung from the gallows for his crimes. It is of course the speech given by Aase Lionaes, Chairperson of the Nobel Committee, at the ceremony itself.

Kissinger, on the other hand, places a great deal of emphasis on the fact that peace was bound up with an international order, based on universally accepted principles for the behaviour of states in their relations to one another. In those days, too, political systems differed widely, and the great powers had a great many conflicting interests. But by and large they respected these principles and rules, and on this basis they tried to prevent differences of systems and interests leading to war.

It was therefore quite natural that Kissinger should place very great emphasis on diplomacy as a factor for the promotion of peace as well, diplomacy both as a profession and as an art.

The overriding idea in Kissinger’s views on foreign policy is that peace must be based on rules to which all states, at any rate the great powers, adhere in their conduct. It is not sufficient for one single state, or a number of states, to do so.[2]

I think that is clear enough. There are no caveats on the Nobel page to that speech, no footnotes to mitigate their endorsement of a mass murderer. They give prizes to the vilest people on the planet and then wash their hands of it, falsifying the record in a style that would do Orwell’s 1984 justice. War is Peace.

Kissinger was jointly awarded the prize alongside the Vietnamese negotiator Lê Đức Thọ. Thọ refused the prize. Lionaes said in her speech that:

Le Duc Tho has informed the Committee that at present he is not in a position to be able to accept the Prize, giving as his reason the present situation in Vietnam[3] 

And went on to say they would hold the prize for him for a year. Not so, he outright rejected the prize. The reasons given, tell us everything you need to know about the prize and why it is not surprising that a Venezuelan escuálida won it this time. He stated:

Unfortunately, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee put the aggressor and the victim of aggression on the same par. ... That was a blunder,’

And in his letter to the Nobel Ctte. he said:

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the greatest prizes in the world… But the United States conducted a war of aggression against Vietnam. It is we, the Vietnamese people, who made peace by defeating the American war of aggression against us, by regaining our independence and freedom.[4]

He did the right thing and turned it down and prevented the Nobel Ctte. from rewriting history. The Yanks lost to a militarily, logistically and economically weaker force, but one that like the Palestinians had the advantage that they were not strangers in a strange land stomping through it. The Nobel Ctte. frequently warps, distorts and rewrites the history of conflicts, in such a manner that favours imperialism. Thọ afforded them no such opportunity in the case of Vietnam. A bloody murderous empire was defeated in the paddy fields by the peasant farmers who planted rice in those same fields. Tenacity, courage, and mass support won the day.

Kissinger wasn’t the last of the nasties. There were others to come. Barack Obama is just one of them, though when they gave him his prize, it was pre-emptive and he hadn’t yet set the custom of afternoon tea on Tuesdays to choose which Pakistani wedding his drones would bomb. The terrorist Menachem Begin got it as he convinced Egypt to surrender and collaborate fully with the Zionist project. This Polish Zionist was another mass murderer and his record on the matter was in the public domain at the time. He went on to invade Lebanon and his minister for defence, Ariel Sharon (Scheinerman) was responsible for the massacre of Sabra and Chatila, in which 3,500 civilians were murdered by his henchmen. Other Israeli murderers would win it.

Yitzhak Rabin was one such criminal. As Israeli Minister of Defence it was he who introduced the Iron Fistpolicy in the West Bank of detention without trial, demolishing houses, censorship, deportations and beatings, including the infamous Breaking of Bones, made notorious through the filming of Israeli soldiers doing exactly that to young Palestinians, beating them with rocks. His criminal record is much longer than that though. He played a key part in the Nakba and gave Ben-Gurion the go ahead to expel 70,000 Palestinians from the cities of Lydda and Ramle.[5]

Shimon Peres (Perski) was another. He and Rabin both got their prize for their role in getting Yassir Arafat to surrender to the Zionists at Oslo. Arafat was also included and gleefully accepted and wallowed in the cesspool of betrayal, he was no Lê Đức Thọ. But then neither was Mandela, he accepted his prize alongside the criminal FW de Klerk whose Apartheid role was, if you’ll pardon the expression, whitewashed at the Nobel ceremony.

Of course, some might say I am being unfair, that lots of decent people won it. Yes, there have been some, not lots, but they never won it just because their cause was just. One of the first was Carl Von Ossietsky, a German activist who was imprisoned by the Nazis and died of tuberculosis whilst in prison. In 1936, he was awarded the prize for his work against German rearmament and militarism, or as they put it “for his burning love for freedom of thought and expression and his valuable contribution to the cause of peace”. He was a worthy winner, but the problem is that he had been campaigning for years, long before Hitler came to power with no support from the great and good who get to decide such matters. Some support before Hitler had come to power may have helped him and others. Rigaberto Menchú, the Guatemalan indigenous leader won it in 1992, long after the genocide of some 200,000 indigenous people in Guatemala in the early 1980s[6] and after her father Vicente was murdered in 1980 along with 37 other people including some Spanish diplomats when the Police set fire to the Embassy following a protest occupation.[7] When she got it, the writing was on the wall, the URNG was going to do a deal with the regime. It no longer mattered that much.

When it suits western governments is a key component. In Ireland, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan won the prize in 1976. The Peace People was presented as a pacifist movement and yet it had little to say about violence from Loyalist groups nor the British state either. In fact, it completely ignored the circumstances that gave rise to their organisation being founded, the deaths of the Maguire children following the shooting dead of IRA volunteer Danny Lennon by the British army which caused his car to veer off the road into the children. They blamed the IRA. After winning the prize and even before, they wined and dined with the powerful, everyone from the English queen, Elizabeth Windsor to the Pope. After they got the prize money, Betty Williams stuck to her principles, took the money and ran off to live in the USA and soon looked like she had a walk on role in Dallas. As she infamously put it herself, she needed the money.[8] Well, who doesn’t?

Which brings us to the latest winner María Corina Machado. They didn’t feel they could give it to such an obvious eejit as Donald Trump, he wouldn’t have the intellectual gravitas for the ceremony and the decorum of the event is important to the Norwegians. So, they did the next best thing, they gave it to one of his acolytes and as with many past nasty winners, like Kissinger, they painted a picture of a living saint. She is portrayed as a peaceful campaigner for change in Venezuela.

According to the Nobel Ctte:

she is being awarded it due to her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.[9] 

In their press release they cite her as saying “It was a choice of ballots over bullets.”[10] This is the same woman who shortly after winning dedicated it to Trump. She has supported Trump’s military build-up in the Caribbean and even his attacks on sea boats, murdering migrants.[11] But the Nobel Ctte. felt that someone who supports murder on the open seas in breach of international law is a worthy peace prize winner.

She is an ardent Zionist and supporter of the genocide and had previously called for Israel to take military action against Venezuela.[12] Hardly the words of a pacifist. She is also in favour of privatising Venezuela’s economy including the state oil company. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, and Norway is one of the largest oil producers and exporters in the world. I am sure Machado will thank them with a few contracts and oil fields when the day comes.

Ever since Chávez came to power in Venezuela, the opposition, aptly referred to locally as Escuálidos (weaklings) have campaigned against the government, complaining about everything from poor people getting free medical care (I kid you not) to educational programmes. These are the people who had run Venezuela with an iron hand, they are the same people responsible for the Caracazo massacre in 1989 carried out by the Venezuelan state in which up to 3,000 people were murdered.[13] A watershed moment in Venezuela which would eventually lead to Chávez taking power.

She is as deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize as Henry Kissinger i.e. she fully deserves it. It has almost always been awarded to people intrinsic to the system and when given to critics they are always the safe option at that point in time. The prize is ignoble, one we shouldn’t pay too much attention to. When Neville Chamberlain was nominated, a Swedish anti-fascist E.C.G. Brandt nominated Hitler as a sarcastic satirical comment on Chamberlain’s peace in our time surrender of the Sudetenland and the annexation of Austria by Hitler. His mocking letter to the Nobel Ctte. is not all that different in tone to much of the stuff spouted about other winners, such as Kissinger and the latest abomination to win it. He said of Hitler

Authentic documents reveal that in September 1938 world peace was in great danger; it was only a matter of hours before a new European war could break out. The man who during this dangerous time saved our part of the world from this terrible catastrophe was without no doubt the great leader of the German people. In the critical moment he voluntarily did not let weapons speak although he had the power to start a world war.

Sadly, there still are a great number of people who fail to see the greatness in Adolf Hitler’s struggle for peace. Based on this fact I would not have found the time right to nominate Hitler as a candidate to the Nobel Peace Prize had it not been for a number of Swedish parliamentarians who have nominated another candidate, namely the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. This nomination seems to be poorly thought. Although it is true that Chamberlain through his generous understanding of Hitler´s struggle for pacification has contributed to the saving of world peace, the last decision was Hitler’s and not Chamberlains! Hitler and no one else is first and foremost to be thanked for the peace which still prevails in the greater part of Europe; and this man is also the hope for peace in the future.

This nomination was brilliant satire, but as with much satire, very close to the bone. What he says of Hitler in his mocking letter sounds eerily similar to what the Nobel Ctte. itself has said of many of the winners, including the nasties. I know that sometimes we think well wouldn’t it be great if Francesca Albanese won it. But that is to place your trust in the enemy. It is, by and large, with few exceptions a reward for service to the system. It is a credit to Albanese that she didn’t win it and we should stop participating in this nonsense.

[1] BBC (02/12/2023) Henry Kissinger’s Cambodia legacy of bombs and chaos. Ouch Sony & George Wright. 

[2] See.

[3] Ibíd.

[4] UPI (17/12/1986) Personality Spotlight: Le Duc Tho: Vietnam’s poet-revolutionary. 

[5] Electronic Intifada (25/09/2025) Why is AOC honoring an Israeli war criminal?. Ali Abunimah. 

[6] Barbara M. Recinos (17/12/2024) Genocide in Guatemala: The Massacres of the Ixil Region. 

[7] GHRC (n/d) The Burning of the Spanish Embassy Case. 

[8] Irish Times (18/03/2025) Death of peace campaigner and Nobel Laureate Betty Williams. Gerry Moriarty. 

[9] See.

[10] See https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2025/press-release/

[11] New York Times (10/10/2025) Peace Prize Winner Has Supported Trump’s Military Actions in the Caribbean. Julie Turkewitz.

[12] Times of India (12/10/2025) Supported Israel? Why Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado is facing backlash; old posts resurface. 

[13] Venezuela Analysis (01/03/2016) Venezuela’s Caracazo: State Repression and Neoliberal Misrule. 

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

The Ignoble Nobel

Europe Solidaire Sans FrontièresWritten by Kavita Krishnan.

The ’anti-west’ left ignores China’s complicity in Israeli occupation and genocide.

The issue isn’t if China can do more for Palestine

The question is will China stop actively enabling Israel’s genocide and occupation.

China is the top exporter to Israel - at 17% way ahead of the US at 11%. What does it export? Chinese state-owned giant corporations build and run infrastructure - highways, power plants, ports - all over Israel and in occupation settlements in the West Bank. These include projects with strategic military importance like the Haifa Port. In India, we target Adani for its stake in Haifa but not China.

Worst of all, Chinese AI tech companies guide drones to evict Gazans, and provide surveillance, facial recognition and data collection in the West Bank - Israel buys this because it’s impressed by China’s success in using such tech in Xinjiang against Uyghurs.

Why doesn’t BDS focus on China as a target?

If China wanted it could, by ending its own complicity, bring Israel to a grinding halt in one stroke to force an end to the genocide. But it won’t.

Continue @ ESSF.

Why Does The Left Ignore Chinese Support For Israeli Colonialism?

Christopher Owens 🎵 Being an Irish based band can be a thankless task.


Despite an endless pool of talent and outlets covering such talent, there are limited opportunities here. While the advent of the internet has helped tremendously, bands still need to get in front of an audience to build support. This means having to get the ferry constantly to tour England, Scotland and Wales if you want to get to a certain level of notoriety. Even the most remarkable of acts have fallen foul of being constrained in this country’s limited gig circuit.

The Sons of Robert Mitchum were one such band.

♫♫♫♫


Beginning around 2009, the Sons were the brainchild of Morgan Moore (born and raised in South Africa but whose parents were originally from NI), Jack Forgie (ex-Ruefrex) and drummer Marcin Sobzcak. Although trumpet player Thomas Behringer was a quick addition to the ranks, they went through a few bassists before landing on Andrew Thompson.

Being gentleman of a certain vintage and with an internationalist membership, they were destined to stand out in the NI music scene. It did help that their music was unlike anything else was producing at the time and that it stands tall well over a decade later.





‘Build My Gallows High’ is a remarkable opener. Sobzcak’s china cymbals set a foreboding mood and Moore’s refrain of “build my gallows high/don’t leave me hanging” manages to be both amusing and troublesome. When the whole band kicks in, the overall effect is a cross between Morricone style spaghetti western music and Scott Walker defiant lament. It’s especially notable for just how much a spectacle is being made of the narrator’s plight whose only act of defiance in this zoo is to yell.

I’ve said in the past that ‘Soviet Hotel Dressing Gown’ is the finest song to have emerged from Ireland in the last 20 years and I stand by that claim 100%. A slow burning atmospheric number that sounds like Mark Lanegan if he had been in Weimar Germany, it paints a mysterious portrait of a woman who doesn’t like questions but loves Leonard Cohen. Magical.

‘A Song for Ella’ could very well be about the same woman as the narrator is struck by her beauty and her world, but this time the music is much more spacey and wistful, hinting at intense longing that is ultimately doomed. While lacking the coolness of ‘Soviet Hotel…’ and the darkness of ‘Build My Gallows High’, the song adds a romantic mood to the record and shows that there is a beating heart behind the cynical mouth.


We’re back in familiar terrain with ‘Down by Law’ which recounts how a night on the lash ended up with six months in the cell. Behringer’s trumpet work really gives this song a dirty, jazzy edge a la Gallon Drunk that makes it seem the song is set in some illicit New Orleans prison cell. Worth it for the line “I’ve got the voice of Morgan Freeman narrating every move.”

‘David Contemplated’ is glorious. Narrating the story of a serial killer, the song is a perfect mesh of post-punk, jazz and beatnik sensibility. Tom Waits could sing this, and no-one would think it was a cover. Moore’s delivery of the lines “She took a ride with the killer inside/No longer will the cagebird sing” thrills even the most apathetic of listeners.

The heaviest song on here (musically and thematically), ‘Darwin’s Nightmare’ is a menacing number about an army invading a town and committing war crimes akin to My Lai. This is where Forgie shines as his guitar lines rumble along (akin to an incoming tank) and the main riff feels like bombs going off. The power and righteous anger on display here is second to none.

Closing the record is the instrumental ’28 Amelie’s Later’ (a neat mesh of 28 Days Later and Amelie). Originally composed for a student short film, it’s akin to The Stranglers ‘Golden Brown’ if it was set in post-apocalyptic Paris. Rich in pathos, atmosphere and a little bit romantic at the same time. It’s an odd finish but one that works surprisingly well.

♫♫♫♫


Although released in 2015, the album is a combination of two previously released EPs from 2010 and 2011. Amazing to think that the record flows so well, but there was a reason for such a move.

Despite building up a substantial name for themselves in Ireland and even touring Poland (leading to them being featured on Polish TV), they suffered a blow when Forgie quit in 2013 (not long after a Record Store Day set I saw them play in Dragon Records) and while they carried on with James Reid, it was never the same. Reid is a brilliant guitar player, but he was more of a Clapton/Beck style guitarist (which never suited the Sons at all). He left and the band went quiet.

There is another album of recorded material that has yet to be released (as I have heard a few numbers from them) but with the band’s last gig being 2019, it seems the chances of seeing them released (as well as new gigs) are slim.

A crying shame as this music stands up. Often, unsigned local music ends up being reduced to an anecdote as part of beer-soaked memories of misspent youth. But the Sons music can’t, as they stood apart from the scene, created their own thing and we are much richer for that.

Pay homage to the masters.


Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist.

From The Vaults 🎶 The Sons Of Robert Mitchum ‘Soviet Hotel Dressing Gown’

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Eight Hundred And Fifty Five

 

A Morning Thought @ 2928

 

A Morning Thought @ 2927

Azar Majedi ✊The Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to a Venezuelan fascist who has called on the US and Israel to attack her country.


She is a staunch supporter of the Palestinian genocide and has announced that she will move the Venezuelan embassy to Jerusalem when she comes to power. While the media was busy speculating about Trump winning the prize, the prize was awarded to his political ally in Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado. And she presented the prize to Trump. The Nobel Committee indirectly awarded the prize to Trump.

While the US amasses firepower near the coast of Venezuela, attacking boats and intending to occupy the country, the French military has also joined the US under the pretext of combating "narco-terrorism" and there is talk of other European countries joining in. The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to this woman who calls for regime change. This prize is a declaration of the Nobel Committee's support for the US attack on Venezuela. This is a prize for war and occupation, not peace. 

Machado was awarded the prize:

for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.

This is a seal of approval for the regime change and the “Iraqisation” of Venezuela. War criminals being awarded by the Nobel Committee is nothing new. So far, three Israeli prime ministers, perpetrators of genocide and cleansing of Palestinians and rulers of a religious apartheid system have received the Nobel Prize: Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres. Henry Kissinger, responsible for the killing of millions in Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor and the organiser of the coups in Colombia in 1971, Chile in 1973 and Argentina, de Klerk the president of apartheid South Africa, Al Gore, Clinton's vice president, responsible for the killing of 1 million Iraqis, the bombing of the former Yugoslavia and the war in Somalia, and Barack Obama, responsible for the killing of millions and the displacement of millions more in the Middle East and the destruction of Libya and Syria, have won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Western imperialism had succeeded in portraying itself as the champion of democracy, freedom, human rights and international law to a significant part of the world. And Noble peace committee has been an instrument to push this narrative. The role of this committee has been to buy prestige and credibility for Western war criminals and launch subsequent criminals and pawns of regime change. The Nobel Peace prize is an important ideological instrument. Last year, the US organised a regime change exploiting the youth uprising in Bangladesh, and 2006 Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was appointed as the head of state. The Nobel Committee is also active in the regime change project in Iran.

It is shameful that after two years of Israeli genocide in Palestine, when millions of people around the world have taken to the streets to shout their disgust with Israel and their solidarity with Palestine, the Nobel Prize is being awarded to a supporter and ally of Israel and genocide. This act demonstrates the futility of all the gestures of recognition of Palestine by some Western governments.

However, the Noble committee shot itself in the foot. In the current international situation, the Nobel Committee has lost even the last shred of dignity. The eyes of even the most delusional believers in "Western civilisation", democracy, human rights, international law and the United Nations have been opened. All masks have been torn off. The lies and hypocrisy of the "rule-based world" (the name they have given themselves) have been exposed.
 
We are witnessing the complete death of democracy and human rights in the West. The United Nations has lost all credibility. Fascism is rapidly rising in the West. Civil rights and freedom of speech in America, the "cradle of democracy", have been shattered, similar to countries under dictatorship. Racism is rampant in the West. Arrests of even the elderly, disabled and children during peaceful demonstrations have become an everyday occurrence. Police brutality has grown exponentially. The award to a fascist for defending democracy is a historical joke and the final nail in the coffin of the Nobel Peace Committee.

Asar Majedi is a Member of Hekmatist Party leadership & Chairperson of Organisation for Women’s Liberation.

The Nobel Committee Shot Itself In The Foot! 🪶 Green Light For The Occupation Of Venezuela

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Eight Hundred And Fifty Four

Caoimhin O’Muraile  ☭ United States President, Donald Trump, is hailed as some-kind of super hero in the Middle East due to what is termed his peace plan which he says will “end the war” between Israel and Hamas. 

Before he left for the region he warned Russian President, Vladimir Putin, that he will now seriously consider supplying Ukraine with long range Tomahawk Cruise Missiles capable of hitting targets more than 1,600 Kilometres away if Putin does not “stop the war soon”. Mr Putin responded that such actions would be seen by Russia as an escalation of the war with “direct US involvement” and the Russian leader expressed the possibility of a nuclear response to such a move. 

There is no doubt about it if Ukraine had access to Tomahawk Cruise Missiles, they would be a game changer and with Russian ground forces struggling as it is such weapons could even be a match winner. Moscow have already stated the use of nuclear weapons in such an even is a “strong possibility”. The questions are, should the US supply Ukraine with these deadly missiles, and what does Putin mean by ‘nuclear retaliation’? Does he mean he will bomb the US? Does he intend to possibly Nuke Ukraine only? If he did go for the latter what would the response of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) be? Ukraine is not a NATO member so therefore is not entitled to the protection of article five of the organisation’s constitution. However if Moscow bomb New-York then the USA are entitled to use said article five as they are the leading NATO member state. All getting potentially very nasty indeed.

If Putin nukes Kyiv would the US supply Ukraine with nuclear warheads to fit to the Tomahawk Missiles? That would certainly prompt Putin to launch an attack using his huge nuclear arsenal on Washington DC and other major US cities. Russia possess the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons of any single country, at 5,580 weapons, and if China were to enter the conflict their 600 missiles would take the number to over 6,000 missiles and countless warheads. Enter Britain and France, the other two nuclear armed countries in the NATO bloc, who would even the balance by adding their albeit smaller stockpile to those available to the USA. This is assuming NATO do not enter the conflict directly! Could Putin be banking on attacking Ukraine with ‘limited nuclear missiles’ therefore not giving NATO any excuse to implement article five? If this is the case and though, technically, he may be right in this assumption it is a very dangerous game to be playing. Ukraine borders Poland who are NATO members and one over flight, no matter how small, could trigger a full NATO response with devastating consequences for all of us.

One of President Putin’s main objectives, so he claimed, in invading Ukraine was to ensure that country would never become a NATO member. I can see his rationale in this because at the moment the response time Moscow have for an attack by the West is five minutes, and vice versa. If Ukraine were to become members of the Organisation that time would be reduced to two minutes which is nowhere near long enough for Russia to respond! Therefore the balance of power would sweep dramatically in favour of the West and against Russia. However, this rationale for invasion has been diluted somewhat by Trump's claim, when asked, that “Ukraine would never be allowed into NATO” - statements which some leading British politicians have endorsed, not least Michael Gove when the Conservative and Unionist party were in government. Perhaps Putin should use these guarantees as a pretext for ending the conflict. perhaps keeping the Crimea and captured Russian speaking Eastern Ukrainian provinces where, according to Moscow, the peoples there wish to be governed by Moscow and not Kyiv. Could this be a way out thus averting possible nuclear war? For this to happen Putin should demand the assurance in writing having it enshrined in so-called ‘international law’ and an element of trust must be involved by all concerned. What could the Ukraine get out of this? Well, not NATO membership but perhaps added assurances of Western assistance in defence, not offence, and a guarantee of European Union membership, could this be a way out?

Should all this fail and the worst possible scenario erupt, nuclear war, it could spread easily. India are a small but significant nuclear power and friendly towards Moscow. Pakistan, India's neighbour, are also a nuclear power and more inclined against Moscow, and the pair of them have been at loggerheads for years. Could these two get involved in such a conflagration of nuclear destruction? The possibilities are endless and the sooner we have a world free of nuclear terror the better, the problem here being, the ‘wheel cannot be dis-invented’! Plus what of the majority of countries which are not nuclear powers, including the majority of NATO countries? In a war between Russia and her allies and NATO all countries, nuclear or not, would be fair game for Moscow which is frightening to say the least. Where would such a conflict leave neutral Ireland? Well, though not a target and not being a NATO member we sound safe enough. This is, in fact, not the case because we would be destroyed by nuclear radiation fallout after Moscow bomb Britian, and that is assuming they would not attack the Six-Counties?

The best way to avoid this nightmare scenario is for Trump not to supply Ukraine with Tomahawk Missiles, as Russia do not possess an equivalent system, leaving Putin with little option. Putin should start listening to guarantees Ukraine will never be accepted as a NATO member and, subject to written assurances, perhaps begin a withdrawal. Ukraine may well have to give up Russian speaking territories including the Crimea, all once part of Russia, and settle for Western guarantees of military protection in the event of further Russian aggression. 

Trump may well have scored a limited success in the Middle East, though he has not ‘ended the war’ but in the Russian Ukraine conflict much still needs to be done. Supplying Zelensky with Tomahawk Missiles is not a good start from a man who said, remember, he would have the war stopped within “twenty-four hours”. On this one he has definitely failed but surely now it is time for all concerned to sit down and talk before nuclear annihilation of planet earth becomes a reality?
 
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Tomahawks Or Nukes?

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Eight Hundred And Fifty Three

 

A Morning Thought @ 2926

 

A Morning Thought @ 2925

Micheál Choilm Mac Giolla Easbuig ★ The Catherine versus Heather Presidential battle is not really about either women. 

It is not even about what they did or did not do in the past or, indeed, in the future. But the ongoing smear campaign against candidate Catherine Connolly doesn't really care about that. All those behind it want to do is protect the status quo. And the status quo is the support for war, the support of ending Ireland's Neutrality and the support for capitalism and imperialism; especially of the Yankee sort. 

And most of all to ensure the sleeveen support for the Zionist genocide in Gaza and the West Bank in Palestine. That Catherine Connolly would dare to support the retention and strengthening of our Neutrality is seen as a threat and anathema to the ruling class i mBaile Átha Cliath.

That Catherine would have the temerity to speak about National Liberation is considered abominable by the same ruling class. But the darling of the Pale, Heather, is feted at every opportunity. Not for her to support National Liberation, or a condemnation of the attack on whatever neutrality and sovereignty we have left. No chance that she will condemn the Zionists or the Yanks or the EU/NATO/PESCO war mongers. She is the epitome of the establishment candidate. And therein lies the truth. 

The smear campaign against Catherine Connolly is about protecting the capitalist status quo and and all that, that entails. Once you ask for peace, sovereignty or even human justice, you are then a target for attack by those in power who fear Catherine's calls for a new dispensation in Éireann. Maybe Catherine will be the Impetus for the beginning of the building for a sovereign, peaceful and liberated Ireland; a 32 county Socialist Republic. Beir Bua.

Micheál Choilm Mac Giolla Easbuig 
is an 
independent councillor on Donegal County Council.

 

Smearing