And this is why I think you're the most annoying pissant and smear merchant in all the forum. How is WWII relevant? It isn't. But it's a good excuse for you to spout off your Churchill loving anti-Irish bullshit. All I get is a generic encyclopedia article talking about the leader of the blueshirts. Nevermind that the blueshirts never did much actual fighting and were turned back to Ireland after a friendly fire incident. Anyway I don't get why you bring up the blueshits since it's an example of Irish anti-fascism in that the government banned the organization, leading to its rapid decline in the 1930s.

Ireland was a neutral country. I know you like to regurgitate everything that drunken oaf of a Prime Minister ever said about Ireland and are quite humiliated that De Valera bested the bastard in his legendary response to Churchill's pathetic 'victory' speech, but they had good reason to fear an invasion if they decided to join the Allies. The book of condolences is a whole lot about nothing. Ireland was following protocol. Germany was defeated. In De Valera's own words, not visiting the German ambassador would " would establish a bad precedent. It is of considerable importance that the formal acts of courtesy should not have attached to them any further special significance, such as connoting approval or disapproval of the state in question or of its head."

Furthermore, the German ambassador had certainly acted more friendly to Ireland than the US Ambassador, who had repeatedly threatened invasion.

"to have failed to call upon the the German representative would have been an act of unpardonable discourtesy to the German nation and to Dr Hempel himself. During the whole of the war, Dr Hempel's conduct was irreproachable......in marked contrast with Gray".

Portugal also signed the Book of Condolences, and they have always been a British puppet. So that action is more surprising. A couple of other countries were also expected to do this, but they didn't, which left Ireland in an isolated position.

Ireland provided more aid to the allies than any other neutral country, including assistance with the D-Day invasion (allied flight crews were also regularly returned, while Axis flight crews were detained). This is despite the anti-British feeling on the island and despite the fact that Churchill and the Americans treated Ireland like a colony during the war.

Anyway on the Blueshirt "participation" in the civil war.

http://books.google.com/books?id=hEd-U36Wv30C&pg=PA3&dq=franco's+international+brigades&hl=en&ei=jCGLTr2HOYXQgAfLy820Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Ireland&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=hEd-U36Wv30C&pg=PA3&dq=franco's+international+brigades&hl=en&ei=jCGLTr2HOYXQgAfLy820Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=we%20want%20madrid&f=false

Around 122-123 in particular, it goes into detail about how little the blueshirts did in the war. The contingent remained in their comfortable barracks in Caceres for three months (Nov. 1936 to Feb. 1937). It goes over how O'Duffy protested when he received an order to go to the Jarama front and got the order rescinded, and then details a friendly fire incident between the Blueshirts and some Carlists. When the Irish finally did engage in some fighting at Titulcia, they quickly retreated. O'Duffy was so panicked that he quickly when he was ordered to have his men to go to the front again, he again refused. (page 125-126).

In 1937, Franco himself visited the Irish volunteers, and wrote a scathing letter speaking of their lack of contribution to the war effort overall, and their lack of discipline. (p. 126). According to some reports, the Irish then decided to return to Ireland after they had learned that Moorish troops had executed Republican POWs, and they had heard the sound of British and cockney voices among the Republicans. They feared they'd be executing their own countrymen.

This WWII baiting of Ireland is all the more rich considering Britain and the West in general's reprehensible record of collaboration and connivance with fascism in the 1930s. In particular but not limited to Neville Chamberlain's shameless groveling before Hitler during the British-Nazi pact at Munich, and his shameless groveling before Mussolini as well. Not to mention the bogus "non-intervention" policy re: Spain which blocked aid to Republican Spain while allowing German and Italian aid to come to the fascists, and the similar policy the "allies" had in China. Finally I would be remiss without mentioning their repeated refusals to enter into an anti-fascist alliance throughout the 1930s and especially when the Czech and Polish crises occurred.

The whole sorry record of Britain in the 1930s was a hell of a lot more helpful to the fascist cause than the couple of hundred scared and sick Irish volunteers who went to Spain only to return home at the first sign of real fighting.

Ireland was completely defense against potential Axis bombing, which is made all the more apparent by the fact that Belfast was bombed, with 750 dead (more than Coventry), and Belfast was much more defensible than the south of Ireland. The fact of the matter is that Britain didn't need Ireland in the war, but they used this as an excuse to discredit the Irish government to make sure that there would be no diplomatic pressure to eliminate partition after the war.

http://www.examiner.ie/opinion/columnists/ryle-dwyer/so-we-should-have-sided-with-the-allies-in-1942-thats-nonsense-101862.html

http://tcbh.oxfordjournals.org/content/18/2/194.full

There were also Irish who fought with the Republicans during the Spanish civil war (fought with the Americans due to nationalistic reasons) Connolly's battalions I believe

I almost forgot about Fulham's predictable attacks on Sean Russell. Here's an article by that fascist rag, Indymedia, explaining Russell's background (and Frank Ryan, who also is inexplicably deemed a "Nazi collaborator" by IRA haters).

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/68249?print_page=true

@putin, seems odd you're so anti-Churchill and at the same time, so angry at the people he was criticizing (Chamberlain et al). Don't you at least have to give him some credit for being right about fascism?

Churchill was for fascism before he was against it, and then after the war he was for it again. You don't have to look hard for laudatory speeches praising Mussolini's fascism for being the "perfect antidote" to the "Russian poison". As late as 1940 the drunk was calling Mussolini a "very great man". Then after the war he had no problem using captured Nazis to suppress partisan movements in Greece who had fought heroically against the fascists. There's also that whole matter of plotting with the pro-Nazi King Edward VIII to bring down the Baldwin government. See, Churchill had no problem with fascists so long as they helped bring him glory.

Churchill was an ideological chameleon, the only thing constant about him was that he was a shameless self-promoter and an aggressive imperialist of the first order.

"“I could not help being charmed, like so many other people have been, by Signor Mussolini’s gentle and simple bearing and by his calm, detached poise in spite of so many burdens and dangers. Secondly, anyone could see that he thought of nothing but the lasting good, as he understood it, of the Italian people, and that no lesser interest was of the slightest consequence to him. If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism. I will, however, say a word on an international aspect of fascism. Externally, your movement has rendered service to the whole world. The great fear which has always beset every democratic leader or a working class leader has been that of being undermined by someone more extreme than he. Italy has shown that there is a way of fighting the subversive forces which can rally the masses of the people, properly led, to value and wish to defend the honour and stability of civilised society. She has provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison. Hereafter no great nation will be unprovided with an ultimate means of protection against the cancerous growth of Bolshevism.”

Furthermore, there is little daylight between Churchill's policies and statements re: the people of the India, the Arabs, the aboriginals of Australia, and the indigenous nations of North America and that of the fascists.

The thing I like most about Putin is his seeming immunity from the prevailing bias of history. More often than not he is able to pull away the curtains of popular history to reveal truths (ok, often exaggerated truths) that have been conveniently forgotten. And yet he goes on to let himself down by doing exactly the same kind of cover up job with his (generally speaking left wing) group of the day.

A shame, really.

You admire him for his immunity to biased history....and then admire him for his exaggerated truths....i.e. unpopular biases. So....er.....that is idiotic on the face of it.

Then again....so is Putin.

Well, I'll leave it to Octavious to act as the responsible counterweight to myself when it comes to the supposed 'cover up' jobs I have done for the left. We can be the Media Matters & Media Research Center of popular history, how's that?

@ krellin: Admire is such a strong word...

@ Putin: Be honest, Putin, when you decide to throw your weight behind some under rated group from history you tend to be ever so slightly completely one sided. Alas, as much as being your counterweight would be amusing, due to my fundamental laziness there is no way I'd find the time.

I take Putin's predictable ad hominem response (I think you're the most annoying pissant and smear merchant in all the forum) to be a complement. I have most definately found, particularly with Putin, that the greater the disgorged invective, the less rationale response is being made to the argument.

On Spain and the blueshirts my first comment stands undisputed:

''Also let's not forget that Ireland was the only non-fascist country to send more volunteers to Franco than to the Spanish republic.''

No amount of diversion about military effectiveness etc. can diminish the significance of that fact.

2) On Russell. Putin's put up article main defence, going by the reference he supplies from the staunchly republican author Pádraig Ó Ruairc, appears to be - '' Russell was a devout Catholic and a traditional physical force Republican, his ideology was minimal, and he regarded himself as a soldier not a politician.''

This is an old and tired knee-jerk response which bears little examination. Here is what the Hanley reference, which I originally gave, has to say on the matter:

Furthermore, the argument that Russell and the IRA could have had no idea of the nature of Nazi policies is spurious. That Nazi Germany was a one-party dictatorship was not a secret. The banning of political organisations and the jailing and murder of opponents by the Nazis during 1933 and 1934 was widely reported in Ireland, not least in the IRA’s own press. The November 1935 Nuremberg Laws, which stripped German Jews of citizenship rights and forbade physical relations between Jew and ‘Aryan’, were not a closely guarded secret. The support given to Franco by Germany and the destruction of Basque Guernica by Nazi bombers in May 1937 was actually condemned by An Phoblacht. The Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938 that saw the murder of 100 people, the destruction of thousands of homes, businesses and synagogues and the jailing of 26,000 Jews was international news. By 1940 the Nazis had invaded and occupied a large part of Europe. That these occupied countries did not desire foreign occupation should have given pause for thought to a movement claiming to seek national self-determination.
Seán Russell may have been uninterested in political debate but he was hardly unaware of these matters. That he was happy to take up residence in Berlin as a guest of the Nazis, meet their high command and propose plans for military action in support of a German invasion was collaboration, whatever his private motivation. Is there not something perverse about an Irish republican enjoying special privileges in the capital of a state that was embarked on a mission to conquer all of Europe?

http://www.historyireland.com/volumes/volume13/issue3/features/?id=113841

3) On Dev. There is so much to say but I will restrict myself to two points:

a) It is intersting that you regard the signing of the condolensce book for the death of Hitler at the Germam/Nazi embassy as ''a whole lot about nothing''. Sweden and Switzerland spring to mind as other significant neutral counrtries and no such expression of condolence for the death of Hitler was made by their leaders. Indeed, Putin scrapes the bottom of the barrel by bringing up the example of fascist Portugal as a butress for Dev's actions, is that all he can find?
Hempel, the German ambassador, who Putin says behaved with such good manners, was a member of the Nazi party. It is astonishing that the argument is being put forward that Dev had more respect for him than the tens of millions of the victims of the Nazis.

b) On the 1922 Irish election here are the votes - Out of a valid poll of 620,283 votes, the pro-Treaty part of the Sinn Féin party won 239,193 votes and their anti-Treaty rivals secured 133,864 votes. The other parties and independents (see above) all supported the Treaty and secured a further 247,226 votes.
Younger, Calton "Ireland's Civil War" Muller, London 1968; p.304. Quoted in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_general_election,_1922

Devs view on the matter can be best summed up with his view expressed after the Dail backed the treaty: ''the majority have no right to do wrong''

The Blackwell companion to modern Irish culture By W. J. McCormack, Patrick Gillan. P164

Hence, the civil war which followed.

Such is the man that my great Irish friend Tom, who ''wore the uniform'' of the British army in World War Two, hated with a passion. I am grateful to him for enlightening me.

White House Refuses To Offer Any Proof That Anwar Al-Awlaki Was Involved In Terrorist Activity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElITlV3nZgo&feature=player_embedded

Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, that is the inalienable right of all humans. Everyone has this right no matter how many people say how a particular person is bad and no matter how bad that may be. That is irrelevant. There is never a reason to compromise on this principle otherwise incrementalism will set in and eventually someone in power of the state will begin to chip away at other rights, for the "good of the state". Incrementalism is the road to tyranny.

While i agree wholeheartedly that "There is never a reason to compromise on this principle"

Incrementalism is some false logic. It is not necessarily true, it is possible for huge changes to happen suddenly, and it should be enough to say that basic inalienable rights should always be respected.

I did not say that huge changes don't happen. Nor did I say that incrementalism is always what happens. I was using it in relation to the current situation with the assassination of an American citizen and its public disclosure of such by the President as something he is allowed to do legally. He is not and if he is allowed to get away with such a completely illegal action, it will set a presidence and thus act as an incremental chipping away of all Americans fundamental rights. For so long as the government says your a terrorist, they can kill you without having to prove it. No false logic here.

So Fulham ignores all inconvenient facts and gets his information on Irish affairs from one of the 60,000 Irish soldiers and 120,000 Irish workers who fought for the Allies in WWII, a fact which he ignores in his rush to paint the whole of Ireland as fascist in a weird scheme to deflect from British actions in Northern Ireland.

I'm sure you'd regurgitate the same kind of smears against India's Bose (and Gandhi for that matter). After all, Bose had the audacity to think his imperial overlords were his biggest problem, and not Britain's johnny come lately war with Germany over territory. Bose is regarded as a hero in India, because he did whatever it took to advance the cause of Indian independence. Bose had no ideological affinity for National Socialism, and his ideological heirs are Marxist-Leninists. Bose was horrified that Germany invaded the Soviet Union and realized that Germany wasn't much interested in helping India liberate itself from British rule. But he'll be smeared by the imperialist running dogs just the same. I can't wait to see what Fulham has to say about them. Naturally, India and Ireland's proper place is under the heel of British domination, and it is baffling to him that while under British domination, people would not regard the defense of British interests with the same ardor that the British do. Especially considering the fact that the British were busy starving Bengalis on a massive scale. But I suppose we should ignore British atrocities, right?

Russell was a smaller version of Bose. He went to America and the Soviet Union for aid against Britain. But is he called a communist? No. Much better to paint him as a fascist. Even Fulham can't really defend this smear, and is forced to simply whine that "but but but he should have known about Nazi atrocities!". Because obviously with British atrocities against his own countrymen fresh in his memory, and with knowledge of the fact that Irish collaboration with the British in WWI gave them absolutely nothing in terms of promised rights and independence, that should have been his primary concern. Because obviously fascist atrocities were Britain's main concern when they were kowtowing before Hitler at Munich, or praising Mussolini all their mollycoddling could no longer prevent him from siding with his protege, Hitler.

"On Spain and the blueshirts my first comment stands undisputed:"

Right, so we can ignore the fact that Franco turned down volunteers from other non-fascist countries. We can ignore the fact that the blueshirts were cowards who quickly went home and the fact that Franco had contempt for them. We can ignore the fact that Oswald's BUF operated without restriction until 1940 and the war made that untenable, whereas neutral Ireland banned the blueshirts far earlier. Anything that is inconvenient for your "Ireland = fascist" smear is ignored.

"Sweden and Switzerland spring to mind as other significant neutral counrtries and no such expression of condolence for the death of Hitler was made by their leaders."

So what? De Valera collaborated extensively with the British in WWII, whereas Switzerland collaborated with the Nazis. The signing had nothing to do with De Valera's views on the leader of the country, and had to do to respect for Hempel (who was *not* a Nazi at the time he was appointed to his post in Ireland and pressured his own government to back off Ireland despite Ireland's transparent pro-British posture). Your bogeyman De Valera went out of his way to praise Roosevelt when Roosevelt died, claiming it was a "loss to the world". Flags were lowered and parliament was dismissed out of respect. Yet this is absolutely never mentioned by anti-Irish bigots because it's inconvenient.

And Treaty vote is another random non sequitur that has nothing to do with what we're talking about. You go from one anti-Irish rampage to the next and the only common thread is you'll say anything to demonize the country. Nevermind that the actual treaty only managed to muster 64 votes to 57 when put before parliament. No of course let's mislead people by posting the election results of the party factions. Let's ignore the fact that the forces that fired the first shots were the Free State forces, with British artillery. Collins happily turned into a British puppet. Extra-judicial executions of Republican prisoners I'm sure will escape your criticism. After all, anybody doing the bidding of the British can do no wrong.

It's also funny that Fulham brings up the parliament elections when he elsewhere started a thread which said that just because something is legal doesn't make it right, and is also a strident proponent of jury nullification.