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Christopher Owens ðŸŽµ with the 66th in his Predominance series.

"I seek the buildings blazing with moonlight/In Channing Way/Their very eyes seem to suck you in with their laughter/They seem to say/"You're all right now So stop a while behind our smile

In Channing Way." - Scott Walker


Horns up 

New Horizons



Icons of Filth – Time of the Signs

Often regarded as one of the most ferocious anarcho bands to have emerged in the wake of Crass, Cardiff legends Icons of Filth return for their first new album since 2002 (and the first without frontman Stig). As you’d expect, anger and ferocity are very much the keywords here with the band railing against everything from capitalism (‘Payday Loans’), war (‘Bombing for Democracy’) and zealots (‘Arseholier’). Musically, they’re as intense as they were in 1982.

The album can be streamed and purchased here.

Emma Ruth Rundle - These Killing Times

For her first solo LP since 2021’s ‘Engine of Hell’, Emma Ruth Rundle has returned to a band setting. This is a Very Good thing as the songs are ten times as powerful and feel fleshed out. ‘Catherine Weel’ has an “end of summer” vibe as well as referencing Charles Manson and the Weather Underground and ‘Human Kindness’ is a sinister and intimate number.

The album can be streamed and purchased here,

Vitamin X – Ride the Apocalypse

Running at under 30 minutes, the 17-track album from the Dutch legends is a short, sharp kick in the balls that’s needed in times like this. Nothing fancy, not reinventing anything. Just life affirming hardcore mixed with Stooges style solos and thrash riffing that gives you that extra stir to do that extra shift in the office for more flexitime no problem.

The album can be streamed and purchased here.


Golden Oldies



The Special AKA – In the Studio

Three years from the epochal single ‘Ghost Town’, Jerry Dammers returned with a stripped-down band and an even bleaker vibe (one that had been evident on the harrowing 1982 single ‘The Boiler’). Although songs like ‘Free Nelson Mandela’, ‘What I Like Most About You is Your Girlfriend’ and ‘Racist Friend’ became staples, don’t expect upbeat ska numbers.



MDC – Millions of Dead Cops

If you were to boil 80’s US hardcore down to a single album, it would be this masterpiece. Choc-a-bloc with ferocious riffing, seditious lyrics delivered by a rabble-rousing firebrand and an aesthetic owing much to the anarcho world, it remains utterly essential. ‘I Remember’ is the obvious standout but ‘Dead Cops"/"America's So Straight’ isn’t that far behind.



Easterhouse – Contenders

Mainly remembered for their support for the Provisionals as well as the Revolutionary Communist Party, Manchester based Easterhouse made two excellent albums that sat somewhere between post-punk and the jangle pop of The Smiths, best exemplified by ‘Nineteen Sixty-Nine' with its lyrics attack those who hide behind a Union Jack in Ireland.



The Sensational Alex Harvey Band – Next

Despite influencing a litany of post-punk, goth and metal bands, Scottish glam rockers SAHB aren’t discussed as much as they should. Yet, their version of Jacques Brel’s ‘Next’ terrified a generation of children when performed on the Old Grey Whistle Test and the astonishing ‘Faith Healer’ radiates such power; it’s no wonder it has been widely covered.


⏩ 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 and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.

Predominance 66

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Seventy Five

 

Religious Derangement Syndrome @ 13

 

A Morning Thought @ 3247

Aaron Edwards ★ Writing in Aide Memoire.

A new report by the Northern Ireland Development Group makes the case for 'total transformation' of loyalist paramilitary groups. It raises important questions worth considering in more detail.

The Northern Ireland Development Group (NIDG) have issued a new report in their ‘Reframing the Debate’ series looking at creative ways to chivvy along loyalist paramilitary groups in their (thus far) elusive quest for ‘transformation’.

The report, Completing Loyalist Paramilitary Transformation, is to be welcomed.

Anything that raises the level of debate in the search for practical ways to bring about the total disbandment of loyalist paramilitary groups is a worthy endeavour and should be applauded.

However, there are several questions raised by the report, which are not sufficiently answered. I will try to deal with each of them in this short article.

First, the NIDG outline a considered case for greater cooperation between political unionism, the British government and loyalist groups in the dismantling of paramilitary structures. They recommend this ‘concentrated process of engagement’ begin in 2028 to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.

Most people reading this might be asking themselves the same question: Surely loyalist paramilitaries have had enough time to transform? And besides, isn’t this idea of collaboration something they’ve been doing for years, even if it is largely on the basis of direct and indirect funding of community groups associated with paramilitaries?

Helpfully, the NIDG seem to anticipate this kind of response and make the case that whatever passed for collaboration in the past was all rather ad hoc and uncoordinated. They suggest we need more of a ‘structured and concentrated approach’ that draws on the so-called Declaration of Transformation (DoT) announced by the main loyalist paramilitary groupings in 2018.

Some loyalist groups like the Londonderry and North Antrim UDA appear to be excluded from central funding initiatives despite being nominally part of the LCC. This seems contradictory when using the unhelpful dichotomy of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ paramilitaries.


As I see it, the difficulty here is that all three prospective partners see the problems differently, and, significantly, have different ideas when it comes to offering solutions.

Perhaps more importantly the British Government holds firm to a policy assumption that paramilitary groups ought to transition entirely of their own volition.

And political unionism has thus far not really engaged as a corporate entity with the issue, even if individual members of the two main unionist parties have done so. They don’t see it as their problem.

The second issue is with ongoing paramilitary-related crime. It is widely believed that paramilitary leaders are complicit with a range of illegal activities and, therefore, deeply wedded to criminality. However, the NIDG do attempt to further delineate between ‘good paramilitaries’ and ‘bad paramilitaries’. The problem here is, as I have often suggested, what if the good and the bad - and the ugly for that matter - are one and the same? It is simply not good enough that paramilitaries dismiss this issue out of hand by crowing about “intelligence is not evidence” and this is “a job for the police”, while rhetorically asking the rest of us to believe them when they say “loyalists cannot be criminals” when there is ample evidence placed before the courts to the contrary.

During the Troubles it was easy to spot those motivated by profiteering over loyalist ideology. Jimmy Craig was the best known example but there were many more. Conversely, it was possible to identify those who were ideologically motivated and who seemed committed to military activity only in lieu of political solutions, with John McMichael being the best known. Indeed, even Andy Tyrie presented himself as a vigilante leader who believed in loyalist politics and was prepared to direct violence when he thought it advanced the UDA as a corporate body. I accept that there was certainly cross-over between the these three types of loyalist paramilitaries.

A mural commemorating Stevie McKeag on the Lower Shankill. Most gunmen
are either dead or left the scene years ago. Who is left to transform?

That being said, the argument I make in my forthcoming book on the UDA, Enemies Within, is that a new kind of loyalist paramilitary has emerged since the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, one who has DNA common to all these types of loyalist paramilitary. Therefore, it is much more difficult to disentangle how they have become involved in paramilitary activity, and, crucially, why they’ve remained in these organisational structures.

You cannot easily send this post-Agreement loyalist paramilitary to political education or ‘civics’ classes hoping that is enough to ‘end the harm’ they are causing to their communities.

Finally, there is what I call the ‘Sunk Cost Fallacy’, by which I mean the British Government has shown itself reluctant to deal with loyalist paramilitaries in any other way than what it has been doing for over over two decades now.

Summed up succinctly, it is as follows: Loyalist paramilitary leaderships, in whole or part, are committed to transforming their organisations but they do also have members who are heavily involved in criminal activity.

It is widely understood that the Paramilitary Crime Taskforce, which concentrates on several groups across six areas, is an essential state-based law enforcement tool for applying coercive pressure on the criminal element.

What we rarely hear talked about is how the state ‘engages’ with representatives of paramilitary groups in a bid to keep the ‘politicos’ onboard. With the benefit of hindsight we know this has been ongoing both covertly and overtly for over two generations. Indeed, successive IRC reports indicate significant funding has been directed towards the latter objective in a two track ‘carrot and stick’ approach.

The major issue with this fallacy is, as I have already noted in my second point, it is based on a false dichotomy. There may well be ‘good’ paramilitaries but, in several cases, they are one and the same as the ‘bad’ and plain old ‘ugly’ paramilitaries.

The East Belfast UVF is often seen as an example of a ‘bad’ paramilitary
faction when there is evidence of bad and ugly across all groups.

Notwithstanding these issues, the NIDG do raise good questions like:

1. What would the metrics for ‘total transformation’ look like?

2. ⁠In advocating for de-proscription, how does this sit alongside Legacy legislation concerning terrorist acts committed by paramilitaries in the past?

3. ⁠How can loyalists be expected to move towards what they call a progressive future / common good when the middle management and foot soldiers of paramilitary groups have become deeply implicated in criminality and in (non progressive) racial violence directed towards migrant communities?

To return to the NIDG recommendation of closer collaboration, there is an urgent need for all potential partners to rethink their understanding of the problems ensuring the persistence of loyalist paramilitary activity.

I look forward to the NIDG explaining how the British Government (or the British and Irish Governments jointly) are going to deliver what they want in the context of being unable to shift from a security to a development mindset.

This is particularly urgent in the afterglow of serious race-based disorder which has all the signs of being a perennial security and developmental challenge.

In this at least Northern Ireland is no longer a ‘place apart’.

All modern European states are reeling from the shocks of complex challenges such as unrelenting illegal immigration, a continuing nose dive in the standard of living and massive geopolitical shifts beyond the borders of the EU.

I commend the authors of the report. It is clear that we need to urgently move towards taking practical steps to grasp the nettle of paramilitary transformation once and for all.

Aaron Edwards is the author of critically acclaimed books, UVF: Behind the Mask and Agents of Influence: Britain’s Secret Intelligence War Against the IRA. His next book, Enemies Within, on the use of secret agents inside the UDA/UFF, will be published by Merrion Press in 2026.


The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Dixie Elliot ✊How long ago was that, 1988?


More political theatre from the Sinn Féiners which shows how devoid of ideas they are.
 
The purpose of all this is to give the appearance that they are leading the charge for a referendum on Irish Unity.
 
The Sinn Féiners know it won't it happen until the British and they alone decide it happens, because that's what they signed up to in the so called GFA.
 
As I've repeatedly pointed out, they recently signed up to a document in which the British made it perfectly clear that they were commented to strengthening 'NI's place in the Union and that they will never be neutral on this issue.
 
The document states that this is a position held on a broad cross-party basis in Parliament.
 
It also states that:

it is their belief following the restoration of the devolved institutions that NI's future in the UK will be secure for decades to come and as such the conditions for a border poll are unlikely to be objectively met.

The Sinn Féiners signed up on this in order to get the Unionists back into Stormont so that Michelle O'Neill could become the Colonial First Minister, knowing that it was ruling out any referendum for decades to come, if ever.

They are the party fighting the hardest to keep 'the devolved institutions' up and doing nothing whatsoever, so why should the British be concerned that they are pulling old ideas out of the sock drawer every so often as long as there's a sign of life in Stormont?

"Yes, ruling by fooling, is a great British art with great Irish fools to practice on." - James Connolly.

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

Inspired By The Hume-Adams Talks?

Caoimhin O’Muraile  ☭  Next month, September, an American private citizen will visit the Twenty-Six-Counties for, among other activities, a ‘curated journey through 18 holes’ which, in common parlance, means a game of golf. 

This private citizen will bring with him an entourage of approximately 1,000 people, some no doubt will be armed breaking Irish firearms law, others may not be but a small private army will no doubt be in attendance. The good people of Doonbeg, County Clare, will be delighted this US citizen is visiting and allowing them to see him -  what a fucking honour!! 

This citizen’s mental state is questionable having a look of lunacy about him and he was “found civilly liable of abusing writer E. Jean Carroll” (Irish Daily Mirror 7th August). The man has a history of legalised kidnapping under his belt and no world leader, including President Connolly, should consider themselves safe! He is also thought to have been a close friend of disgraced paedophile Jeffrey Epstein who reportedly hanged himself in his prison cell. 

I wonder if the good people of Doonbeg will still grovel before this man whose best mate, along with a British former Prince who was ‘de-Princed’ (my word), was a convicted child abuser! Had this US citizen been anybody else it is doubtful the twenty-six-county administration would have allowed him into the jurisdiction. The man’s name, if you have not guessed already, is Donald Trump and he is unfortunately the President of the United States but, and this is important, he will be here as a private citizen. This man is on tape saying “women enjoy being touched” going on to say “they love it” (source RTE news bulletin) and this was just before his 2016 election victory. Was this appropriate pre-election talk for a candidate? The US electorate must have thought so!

This visit by Trump is not an official state visit therefore no Red Carpet or guards of honour banquets or any other of the bullshit which accompanies state visits of world leaders is necessary. He is just another US citizen visiting for a game of golf and perhaps taking in the ‘Irish Open’ tournament of golf. There is therefore no protocol, as would be the case with an official state visit, required and no need for a Presidential meeting with Cathrine Connolly, the Irish President. The same applies to the twenty-six-county government who again are under no obligation to meet ‘US Citizen Trump’ but it appears despite being technically relieved of any requirement to roll out the Red Carpet the administration will do just that. 

The state has earmarked reportedly upwards of €20 million for Garda overtime on security for this private citizen, good job this is not applied to every US citizen visiting the country! Two women who survived sexual abuse, Sophie Brady and Hazel Behan, said; “they are disappointed that the red carpet will be rolled out for Trump” (Irish Daily Mirror 7th August). Speaking of President Connolly and Taoiseach Micheal Martin campaigner Hazel said: “Every public figure has an opportunity to demonstrate the values they stand for”. By this she obviously means the President and Taoiseach have a golden opportunity to show their abhorrence of Trump and his policies to say nothing of his private behaviour including misogyny. 

Will they take this opportunity? I doubt it very much but things are not quite as clear cut as they initially appear. It could be easy to fill the Presidents diary with appointments around the time Trump is visiting so she would not have to meet him, Catherine's left-wing credentials are under the spotlight here. It might not be that easy for Micheal Martin and the government. I am not one to let the twenty-six-county administration off the hook and I’m certainly not trying to find a way out of this for them. I am not a parliamentarian in its liberal democracy sense, I believe in true democracy, socialist democracy, but this is not an ideological debate. Micheal Martin and Simon Harris, Taoiseach and Tanaiste respectively, are, as parliamentarians, in a tricky position regards to meeting Trump as a private citizen.

Under liberal democracy and this applies to all countries where this con-trick is practised, most jurisdictions adopt this form of limited democracy. The government, and here is no exception, are elected to manage the affairs of native capitalism and the capitalist class, for the capitalist class and on behalf of the capitalist class. The bourgeoisie who these government lackeys interests, both economic and political, represent are primarily about 1%-10% of the population and t'hey own the lion’s share of the state’s wealth. The top 10% of households own around 50% of the wealth in the state so as can be seen by these figures Micheal Martin and Simon Harris will be jumping through hoops for a handful of people, that’s your fucking liberal democracy! Martin and Harris, and don’t mind the crap you are fed at election times, are there to further benefit the wellbeing and economic interests of the twenty-six-county bourgeoisie. They are not, despite what voters may think, in the Dail to represent the interests of the majority, the working-class, including the ‘neo-proletariat’ or, for that matter, the petit bourgeoisie (small business class, shopkeepers, small builders, solicitors). 

The opposition parties in the Dail the major opposition being Sinn Fein but the Social Democrats, Labour, and the so-called Greens would do exactly the same if they were in government. Perhaps only people Before Profit may, and I emphasise may, be different if they were to form an administration. Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Fein leader, can rant about Trump being a war monger, a murderer of Palestinian women and children, and a kidnapper of foreign leaders, and she would be absolutely correct in her description of the madman. She can shout from the opposite side of the chamber like opposition football fans in the 1970s and 80s in the visitor’s enclosure hurling abuse at the home fans about why Micheal Martin and Simon Harris should not meet this Citizen. She would again be correct no question about that but if she ever gets to be Taoiseach how would she react to the demands of a situation like this? No doubt exactly the same with a few less than convincing explanations.

The fact is every government in the western hemisphere are terrified of Trump, private citizen or otherwise, and have no desire to upset him. He is a very vindictive man and demands total loyalty from his subordinates who he considers other governments, including the administration here, to be part of. He is a man who bears a grudge and would harbour such for many years to come. Like Hitler, argument is not on the agenda: it is do as you are told or else face the consequences. Unlike Hitler he does not yet have total power over the life or death of those who dissent but don’t hold your breath, 2029, the next scheduled presidential election, is a few years away! The Czechoslovakian government of Edvard Benes were terrified of Hitlers tanks, understandably, and Michael Martin is terrified on behalf of twenty-six-county capitalism of Trump's financial penalties should he offend the great man, he brings the terror with him akin to that of a Werewolf (as in An American Werewolf in London)!

Trump in vindictive mood and if he feels the twenty-six-county government have not grovelled enough before him could take a very hard line on ’undocumented’ (illegal) Irish citizens living in the US. He could order mass deportations in retaliation for Micheal Martin and Simon Harris’s naughty behaviour. Micheal Martin may not particularly like Trump but he, on behalf of the twenty-six-county capitalist class, is duty bound to grovel to him. In fact if Trump ordered Martin and Harris to undress in public and perform circus acts then that is what they must do on behalf of the bourgeoisie! It may be easier for President Catherine Connolly to make her apologies and not meet the US tyrant but would Trump accept any excuse for her not to be present before him? Or would he see such a move by the President of Ireland as a humiliating snub and react accordingly? After all what could possibly be more important than meeting him? 

Should the twenty-six-county administration take the avoidance course and refuse to meet Trump, even though they are not obliged to, it is highly unlikely US firms would pull out of the country based on such a rebuff alone. They are here for one reason and one reason only, to make huge profits and low corporation tax and any friction between the administration here and Trump to these companies would be purely academic. That would not be an end to the matter though. In fact it could only be the beginning, as Trump could for badness impose huge tariffs on Irish goods going for sale in the US produced by US companies based here thus making them think twice about remaining in the twenty-six-counties. Officially he would need the support of Congress to do this but there are ways around this inconvenience. For example Trump could use ‘Federal Contracting’ which involves directing agencies to withhold lucrative government controls from ‘non-compliant firms.’ ‘Public Pressure’ is another avenue of retaliation against US companies operating and refusing to pull out of the twenty-six-counties should, in Trump's eyes, the situation demand. This involves utilizing the ‘bully pulpit’ to publicly belittle companies thus affecting their ‘stock prices and reputation’. Irrespective of these avenues open to the US President his party, the Republican Party, control Congress so getting such tariffs through would not pose a great problem. US firms operating here could relocate to a country who have not upset the lunatic should Martin and Harris offend the great man by not meeting him! He could also penalise US firms for continuing to do business here after his humiliation and some of the small to medium size companies may well buckle to any kind of pressure like this. Irish Pharmaceutical companies trading in the US could be hit very hard by a vindictive Trump and all this must be the first consideration of any capitalist lackey government, twenty-six-counties included.

Should the President and government, for whatever reason they may give, refuse to meet Trump and lavish upon him gifts and a banquet it is likely he would hold it against them for the rest of his presidency and beyond! He could do much damage to trade for the twenty-six-county bourgeoisie the top 1% of the population, the ones whose economy it is, the ones who when speaking of the “national interests” it is they who the government speak of. These are the people, not the majority, who constitute ‘the nation’ in real terms though no government would ever admit to that, certainly not publicly, whose interests any government serve. So, even though there is no requirement for the President and government to meet this US private citizen it could cause irreparable damage to the economic interests of the bourgeoisie if they don’t. 

Personally I think Micheal Martin and Simon Harris along with Catherine Connolly should ignore this private US citizen but I’m not a parliamentarian in its present format. I could not care less for the economic interests of the top 1% and therefore would act accordingly. If we had a Sinn Fein/Social Democrat/Labour coalition, would they meet Trump? You bet your last euro they would no doubt whatsoever! I suppose the question for President Connolly is; does she put her left-wing credentials above the interests of the bourgeoisie? This may well be a litmus test of those credentials!

After all the above excuses, legitimate or otherwise, have been exhausted as reasons to meet Trump Micheal Martin and Simon Harris could show the same backbone the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, has recently displayed. Trump has repeatedly said he will impose tariffs on Canadian goods to which Carney responded, bring it on, Canada will retaliate “dollar for dollar to these tariffs”. Now, and given the fact Canada is right on the US border, Carney has shown guts and leadership so why don’t you Micheal and Simon? 

Come on lads, show a little backbone, tell this US private citizen some home truths, make a name for yourselves!!
 
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

An American Werewolf In Ireland!

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Seventy Four

 

A Morning Thought @ 3246

Jim Duffy ✍ A fascinating, thorough analysis by retired General Ben Hodges, a widely respected analyst. 

He served as Commanding General, US Army Europe. He has been the Senior Advisor to Human Rights First (formerly known as Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights) since June 2022 and also serves as the NATO Senior Mentor for Logistics. He previously held the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis.

The video uses an AI-generated image of him and AI-generated version of his voice for practical purposes as he constantly travels and so cannot do a real recording, but the analysis is his, voiced by AI. So there are a lot of illogical breaks in sentences and wrong pauses.

He also uses verified sources, and media outlets regarded by the media as factual and neutral. It also includes casualty numbers, whether the casualties by deliberate targeting of civilians (which is a war crime) or unintended casualties caused by debris, etc.

His reports are of the sort a professional analyst would produce.

As I have said before, Ukraine is fighting a strategically brilliant war, redesigning technology in ways unexpected to achieve intelligent goals. Various experts have said that Ukraine's use of drones has arguably reinvented the methodology of war, producing a paradigm shift as significant as the invention of the heavy machine gun in the late nineteenth century or the invention of the tank in World War I. Paradigm shifts in war effectively create a before and after, with everything changed utterly by the paradigm shift. Ukraine's change of methodologies of war is so profound that wars of the future will be fought differently to wars before Russia's war in Ukraine. For example, the appearance of heavy machine guns and tanks entirely changed war, making the traditional cavalry obsolete. (Poland fought against the change, still trying to use cavalry in World War II before finally realising it was now obsolescent.)

Neither Ukraine nor Russia invented the use of drones, but Ukraine's radical re-imagining of their use will be copied by all militaries in the future. Indeed Iran in its war against the US studied Ukraine's tactics and learned from it, whereas the US did not.

One radical change Ukraine has perfected has been the use of drones to hit locations far from the battle front, disrupting critical supply chains and funding chains in ways not previously used. That has turned one of Russia's biggest advantages, its size, into a weakness as it cannot protect everywhere from attack.

Often in asymmetric warfare, the smaller state is forced by necessity to move away from traditional tactics where it is at a disadvantage to radically new ones that the larger state is unprepared for. One example was in the Irish War of Independence, where Michael Collins' Flying Columns reinvented tactics that Britain struggled to cope with.

In traditional warfare, the battlefield was central. Arguably, Ukraine has made battlefield less important if not obsolescent. Ukraine's drone wall has effectively made it since March almost redundant, as Russian soldiers cannot advance without each soldier being hunted down and killed by drones.
Instead the war has moved to oil fields, ports, individual shadow fleet vessels and warehouses - throwing Russia's export of oil into chaos, so disrupting the income flow Russia is critically dependent on.

Hodges mentions attacks by Ukraine last weekend on a major Baltic Sea port and on shadow fleet vessels, their significance and the complexity of hitting targets in the Baltic Sea, given that it is almost totally controlled by NATO as only two small pieces of land around the Sea are not controlled by NATO.

What Ukraine has effectively done is lock the battlefields down with drones and instead opened new battlefields all over Russia.

Though he didn't mention it, one possible though outside chance is that the attack on Wildberries warehouses could collapse the Russian banking sector, as much of the sector's debt is tied in with that company. Its failure could pull down the banking system and so Russia's economy and state. The war would end as the ability of the state to fund it would collapse.

It is a long shot, but one example of the remarkably innovative thinking in Ukraine - as it spotted that the sheer size of Wildberries meant its failure might collapse Russia's banking system. Think of Wildberries as potentially being the Anglo-Irish Bank of Russia.

Even long-time cheerleaders for the war of Russia are now deeming Russia's war "unwinnable". The most decorated Russian soldier in the war, praised as a hero by Putin, two months ago said "the war is lost" in an interview. A retired Soviet general now living in the west said the same. He said that at worst for Ukraine, the war is a stalemate. But he reckoned the war is "advantage Ukraine." He said Ukraine was fighting an "astonishing war" whereas Russia had fought an "incompetent" one.

Russia's long term advantage, that due to its size it can "outbreed and outbleed" rivals no longer applies. Firstly Russia is facing its worst demographic crisis in two hundred years, meaning it has far fewer men of fighting years. It is now recruiting up to 15000 men fewer than it is losing every quarter. In addition the Ukrainian zone wall means the average soldier's lifespan on the front line is thirty-five minutes. Massive payments to soldiers are failing as men won't join up if all they have are thirty five minutes to enjoy being wealthy.

Recruitment numbers are now falling quarter by quarter, while casualties rise.

In addition in the last ten days Russians have been withdrawing their money from banks as they fear Putin is so running out of money that Putin may try to seize their savings. They judge it safer to have their money under their mattresses than to have it in banks where Putin could seize it

⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.

Ukraine Is Fighting A Strategically Brilliant War

Anthony McIntyre ☠ Israel has closed its investigation into the IDF murders of seven aid workers in 2024. 


The murdered workers, three British citizens, a dual US-Canadian national, a Polish citizen, an Australian, and a Palestinian, belonged to the World Central Kitchen. The reason for their murder - delivery of food aid to Gazan civilians being starved by Israel.

And to rub salt into the wound the Israeli announcement came on World Humanitarian Day. It was a demonstrable flip of the bird by Israeli to international law in which it demonstrated its contempt for the international legal institutions which on paper at any rate exist for the purpose of holding to account those guilty of Nazi-like atrocities.

The governments of the UK, Australia and Canada issued a joint statement in which they said that the IDF announcement 'that it would not pursue criminal investigations into this strike, without further explanation, is shameful."

The World Central Kitchen which employed the murdered aid workers called the Israeli decision "inconsistent with the full truth and deeply offensive."

This move comes in tandem with an acknowledgement by the IDF of something that  everybody else has known since 2024. For the past two years the IDF has lied, claiming to have had no forces in the area of the mass murder that saw the deaths of six year old Hind Rajab who:

was found dead inside a car riddled with hundreds of bullets in Gaza City alongside six members of her family, days after she desperately called for help during an hours-long phone call with the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Hind Rajab's remaining family members have expressed no confidence in the Israeli promise to investigate as has the Hind Rajab Foundation in Brussels which rightly pointed out that:

Investigations into violations committed by Israeli forces overwhelmingly end without meaningful examination, prosecution, or punishment . . . In the small number of cases in which soldiers have been convicted of crimes, the punishments imposed have often been exceptionally lenient or administrative in nature.

It is Israel's Nazi-like belief that it is above and beyond international law and that it can murder at will with no fear of accountability that allows Israeli Security Minister Ben Givr, to invoke the Nazi concept of untermesch to advocate that:

targeted assassinations should be carried out in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night . . . Not just those who pose an immediate threat . . . There are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn't live. They're not even people.

Yet there are those who would not be upset by that statement but would claim to be deeply offended by, and squeal antisemitism at, others for describing the author of such a heinous statement as a Nazi.

This is what makes the decision to fire International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan an alarming development with Jonathan Cook warning that with his dismissal 'the elimination of the war crimes court is near-complete.'

If Khan is guilty of sexual harassment of a woman named only as Sarah, then there is no appropriate response to his dismissal other than goodbye and good riddance. Yet as Cook points out:

A fact-finding body carried out a lengthy investigation of Sarah’s allegations over more than a year; its thousands of pages of evidence were then evaluated in detail by three senior judges. Though you would not know it from the media coverage, they concluded that there was no evidence to suggest any kind of misconduct by Khan, sexual or otherwise.

He continued that:

an entirely political body called the Assembly of States Parties, comprising diplomatic representatives of the 125 states signed up to the ICC, entirely ignored the legal findings and dismissed Khan. Paradoxically, it was the Assembly of States Parties that appointed the judges who had concluded that there was no evidence of misconduct or breach of duty by Khan. That inconvenient judgment was simply reversed, despite the Assembly members being in no position to weigh the evidence themselves.

Khan was previously told by a British-Israel lawyer with connection to Netanyahu “they will destroy you and they will destroy the court' if the arrest warrants for Israeli leaders were not rescinded. 

The same determination to evade accountability in the ICC was in play when Fatou Bensouda the Ghanian legal figure was ICC prosecutor for nine years. Bensouda reported that she was also the subject of intense pressure from a strategic initiative launched by Mossad. The Mossad aim according to an Israeli official speaking to the Guardian was 'to compromise the prosecutor or enlist her as someone who would cooperate with Israel’s demands.'

We know the truth behind the murder of the aid workers and the Hind Rajab massacre.  It is a truth we assemble at this spot every Saturday as Drogheda Stands With Palestine, to proclaim. The message that rings out from this spot and others each time people of conscience gather in solidarity with the murdered of Gaza and the West Bank is you may have got rid of Khan, but getting rid of the truth - No Khan do. We steadfastly refuse to allow you.

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No Khan Do

Catherine McGinty ✏ writing in Derry News.

Taken to a secret interrogation centre in the North, the men were subjected by British forces to the ‘five techniques’

On this, the 55th anniversary of Internment (August 9, 1971), the names of 14 internees, out of the 342 people arrested and detained that day, are particularly significant.
Derry's Micky Donnelly One of the 14 'Hooded Men' tortured during Internment - Reporter


Jim Auld, Joe Clarke, Michael Donnelly, Kevin Hannaway, Francie McGuigan, Paddy Joe McLean, Sean McKenna, Gerry McKerr, Patrick McNally, Michael Montgomery, Davy Rodgers, Liam Shannon, Pat Shivers and Brian Turley - known collectively as ‘The Hooded Men’.

Taken to a secret interrogation centre in the North, the men were subjected by British forces to the “five techniques” - a group of interrogation methods developed by Britain during the twentieth century and currently regarded as a form of torture.

The “five techniques” were: hooding, stress positions, continuous white noise, sleep deprivation, and food/water deprivation—alongside severe physical beatings. The 14 were also thrown to the ground from low-flying helicopters.

Speaking to The Derry News about being one of the ‘Hooded Men’ Michael Donnelly, who lived in the William Street area of the city at the time, said he never thought the British Government would introduce Internment. “I thought it would be a big mistake,” he added.

Recalling the morning of Internment, Mr Donnelly, who was 22 and married with one child at the time, said:

I heard a bang and as I was getting out of bed the room filled with soldiers. There must have been six or seven and they were all crammed in.
So I was taken away and there was a corporal, he was very enthusiastic, he started throwing punches at me. I was taken in a landrover down to Victoria Barracks and held there for a while.
I just remember it was dawn. It was quite cold. I was wearing a tee-shirt and trousers.
There was nobody else there, then they brought in Micky McNutt. We were held there for a while. There was a lot of activity - landrovers and saracens going in and out of the barracks.
I had a soldier standing in front of me with a rifle and the sergeant major said, ‘If he moves, shoot him. You have my permission to shoot him.

After what he thought was half an hour, Mr Donnelly was put in the back of an army lorry. Mr Donnelly, who was taken to Sea Eagle at Ebrington Barracks in the Waterside said:

A whole pile of soldiers came in and threw me on the floor and they all cocked their rifles and started jabbing me and Micky McNutt. There were six or seven rifles all pointing at us, stuck into us, jabbing us said 

He added\: 

I remember them saying, ‘You better hope we don’t go over a bump. 
In there there was a whole pile of people and they all stood in a line outside. I remember Barney Gilmore being brought in. He was an elderly man. They held him in the back of a landrover while they drove about raiding and they fired a rubber bullet into his stomach at point-blank range.
Myself and Joe McGlinchey, they threw Barney Gilmore down at our feet, so we went to help him and both of us were hit with rifle butts. Eventually they dragged Barney away and he went to Altnagelvin. Apparently he had a serious operation and his health wasn’t great for then on.
We went into Ebrington Barracks. There was a big, long line. There were Brits all around with batons and rifles. We went down into this portacabin and there were two Special Branch men sitting, and there was an army blanket with a slit in it hanging up.

Mr Donnelly, who finished up in the back of a furniture removal van, with “a dozen or two dozen others” and was driven to Magilligan, said:

We marched in and the Special Branch man spoke to the blanket. ‘What about this one?’ he asked, and whoever was behind the blanket disguised his voice and said ‘Yes’. The Branch man turned to the Brits and said, ‘Take him out. We're keeping him.’

At this stage, Mr Donnelly had still received nothing to eat or drink. He recalled:

They started taking people down and questioning them. You were marched down to another hut, between policemen, and they said, ‘We’ll make you an offer. Tell us what you know. You are going to jail but tell us what you know. If you tell us a little, you’ll be in jail for a long time but if you tell us a lot, you’ll not be too long’. “I said, ‘You’ve the wrong man’ so they marched me back up again but I still think to this day there was somebody giving them information.
Gradually people started going away and the numbers in the huts were getting smaller and I finished up in a hut on my own. At roughly nine o’clock at night, I was taken out and put in another hut with Paddy Joe McLean, Pat Shivers and Mickey Montgomery.
The Brits started battering the hut with their batons and shouting in and telling us what they were going to do to us. As the night went on we didn't get any sleep and we still hadn’t got anything to eat or drink.

Mr Donnelly added: 

Paddy Joe McClean said ‘Boys, I think they’ve separated us for something special, you better prepare yourselves. This went on till three or four in the morning, . . . then we could hear helicopters starting up outside.

Michael Donnelly's wife Martina immortalised in a poster for Derry's annual
radical  bookfair from an old black and white photograph. | Submitted

RUC Chief Inspector Singleton called a Constable Hood and he came down behind me and pulled a hood over my head and started punching me. I was handcuffed behind my back and dragged out and dumped into a helicopter and somebody was dumped on top of me.
I could feel the wind because the door was open. I heard it opening when we were up in the air. Somebody was shouting and getting dragged over to the door. Then they pulled my hood up a bit. I could feel his hand against my ear. They dragged me to the door and said, ‘Are you going to talk?’ and I said, ‘Up the Republic’.
So they held me at the door. There was a hand behind my head. I was spun round and threw out of the helicopter. I’m guessing it was maybe eight or ten feet up in the air. I didn’t know how high up we were. I landed on my back.

“I was then dragged over rough ground into a hut with the hood still over my head,” Mr Donnelly said said who added he saw a doctor and an orderly when his hood was accidentally pulled up a little.

Mr Donnelly was then made to stand facing against a wall in a stress position and subjected to continuous noise, in between Special Branch interrogations. The torture continued for days.

Michael Donnelly was interned from August 9, 1971 until January 1974.

None of the ‘Hooded Men’ were ever convicted of any offence.

In 1976 the European Commission on Human Rights (ECHR) heard an application by the Irish Government on behalf of the Hooded Men and ruled they had been tortured. The Court found the torture ‘showed a clear resemblance to those methods of systematic torture which have been known over the ages…’

According to Mr Donnelly, he named some of the RUC personnel involved in the torture ot the ‘Hooded Men’ when he was told by the PSNI it was unable to locate any records relating to those responsible.

“This information has not been followed up, as far as I am aware,” said Michael Donnelly.

⏩Catherine McGinty is a journalist covering the North West.

'Hooded Men' Still Fighting For Justice For Internment Torture

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Seventy Three

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