U. S. FOREIGN POLICY; HOW SECRETARY KERRY CAN MAKE A MISSION OUT OF A MESS

Posted by Jim on February 5, 2013

IRISH AMERICAN UNITY CONFERENCE

 

Where to begin for our new Secretary of State?  There is no short list, only  a long one,  of  foreign policy  issues in need of some serious review, reversal or, as many have suggested, a  pivot.  The challenge, as Secretary Clinton made clear in her farewell address, is to “…make sure America is secure,that our interests are promoted and our values are respected.”  In our view this puts  Ireland on  the short list.

 Why?  The U. S. did cajole the British to sign a  peace treaty with Ireland  in 1998 but the U. K.  has worked to undermine it.   America has rebuked other nations for human rights abuses while those of the  British in Ireland.   America’s laws, security and foreign policy positions   have been flouted  by corrupt British interests.  British banks like Standard & Chartered  defy  U. S. sanctions against Iran.  UK  judges have refused U.S.  extradition requests; most recently to return a fugitive pedeophile.  Barclays, the Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC  accepted a Deferred Prosecution Agreement and were fined a fraction of their profits from  their  laundering of Mexican  drug cartel money.  Moreover,  Britain has abused our  Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) by  using  Attorney General Holder  to conduct a fishing expedition into the Irish archives of Boston College.  As Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations, Senator Kerry was the first to raise the alarm over  the  subpoenas served on his alma mater.

 Are these the unsubstantiated assertions of those who have opposed Britain and   the 1998 Accord?  On the contrary.  Our support of the pact has been known from the day it was signed but unfortunately there are forces at work in Britain including the ‘deep State security and  intelligence services’ and the fascist  British Nationalist Party that  would welcome its demise as well as an end to the Scottish independence movement.  We also recognize the value of  British partnership and cooperation but in recent years this has meant Ireland has become a stepchild of British politics.   

 Therein lies the challenge for Secretary Kerry.  How to confront and respond to  Britain’s mockery of the Belfast Agreement and U. S. laws and policies while retaining British support in other areas of interest.  In recent years a failure to do strike a balance  has signaled to those who do NOT  support democracy , human rights and the rule of law that America is not serious about them or is willing to look the other way especially when England is the offender.    Consider: 

 

• U. K. unilaterally dismissed the  Irish Treaty obligation  for a public inquiry  into the murder of attorney Pat Finucane and produced  a sham review of government documents to conclude there was no conspiracy to murder.  Surprise.  Surprise.      There was plenty of “shocking ” collusion with loyalist terrorists to make sure it happened but no accountability.  Not a whisper of admonition  from the White House or Foggy Bottom.  Meanwhile China and Russia are publicly chastised for use of violence against lawyers and they understandably have taken exception.  The Irish government rarely recognizes when it is insulted.  Not so  China and Russia who must be weary of America’s blindness to british treachery.     

 

 

• Also under the terms of the Belfast Agreement  investigations were to be conducted into  nearly 1000 killings, mostly Catholics.  The British, however, stripped the Police Ombudsman of a role; claimed insufficient funds for the work;   and  then has the chutzpah to hire retired officers to investigate many  killings  which  are suspected of police collusion.  Really?  When this happens in South America, Africa or Asia official protests are lodged.  Not a word of concern from the Department of State.  On the other hand, when  the murder investigation of Rafik Hariri, Prime Minister of Lebanon, was being obstructed by the  Hezbollah…not unlike  Britain’s moves with the Finucane murder…the U. S.  paid $30 million dollars to finish the  investigation.  No such expression of support was offered by the Obama administration to Britain to provide justice to the hundreds of Catholics murdered in N. I.

 

 

• A solitary  political  prisoner in N. I., Marian Price, has experienced every imaginable legal sorcery the British can muster to keep her behind bars.  She is old, in poor health and needs a wheelchair.  Whitehall  refuses to disclose the reasons for her continued confinement.   A $175K bond was required to allow her  to attend  her sisters  wake. In contrast, when Secretary Clinton visited Myanamar to visit with  democracy activist Daw Aung San Suu Kyii,  the military  junta freed 1000 political prisoners as a gesture of good will.  There was no such gesture of good will  by the British to free Price or other political prisoners like Gerry McGeough  when President visited Ireland and England last year. The British can find  a way to spring the Lockerbie mass murderer  but not Irish political prisoners.    England’s  hubris and hypocrisy  does not go unnoticed by  regimes  whose political prisoners number in the thousands. 

 

 

• In 2011 Britain passed along to Attorney General Holder subpoenas requesting tapes from  a research project that were held in Boston College.  They  used a  Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT)  intended  for  major money laundering, drug trafficking and terrorist crime prosecutions  not a politically motivated fishing expedition.  The subpoena sought information on a 40 year old killing of a British informer as British paratroopers were marauding Catholic communities in the North.  The request was  a shameless attempt to smear Gerry Adams and interfere in the political process of Ireland.  More importantly, the subpoenas are  a contradiction of the assurances given by the the British to  none other than Senator Kerry and others regarding the purpose of the 1998 peace pact.   Prime Minister Cameron knows that the man behind the subpoenas is  Norman Baxter, a retired RUC officer  with  ties to both the corrupt  Special Branch Unit and MI-5  often cited  in the Stevens and Stalker reports for lawlessness.   Surely now the U. S. must  question both the subpoenas and  Britain’s committment to peace and justice in the North.   

 

The British will push back any effort by Secretary Kerry to raise these  issues.  They can not afford to have any more of their dirty war in Ireland  exposed.  Their use of the Ulster Defense Association as Murder Inc.  like Assad uses the Shabibas  would portray the response of the  IRA sympathetically.    On the other hand, England’s  ‘successes’ of late   trashing America’s laws, policies and the Irish peace agreement  may embolden them  to  trust  Deputy Secretary of State, William Burns, an Oxford graduate,  to carry the ball for them with Kerry.   

Secretary of State Condi Rice once canceled a trip to Egypt after Mubarak jailed Aman Nour a freedom activist.  Would Secretary Kerry do the same to protest the murder of Finucane or the imprisonment of Ms Price?  The British would prefer to address such matters away from probing  media.  But isn’t that the way a message is sent to other nations who would abuse American trust and undermine our  polices in support of things like the Belfast Agreement, Iranian sanctions and Mexican drug trafficking?  Soon we will know whether there will truly be a new era at the Department of State. 

 

Michael J. Cummings, Member

National Board

12 Marion Ave

Albany, New York 12203

518-482-0349, 447-4802 & 505-2851

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