WikiLeaks and British lies in Ireland

The British army's role in the deaths of civilians in Afghanistan will come as no surprise to the people of Northern Ireland

Gerry Adams
guardian.co.uk, Monday 2 August 2010

"In June I stood in the Guildhall Square in Derry and watched as the relatives of the 14 innocent victims of the British Parachute Regiment expressed their delight at the Saville report's conclusion that the 14 were innocent victims. After Bloody Sunday, the British system and, to its shame, much of the British media, accused those who had been shot of being "gunmen" and "bombers". Lies were told and a cover-up concocted and the British establishment closed ranks to defend the actions of its army. That lie persisted for decades.....

Will the publication of the battlefield and intelligence documents by WikiLeaks make a difference? "None," according to the British foreign secretary, William Hague. His retort could just as easily have come from the mouth of Reginald Maudling or William Whitelaw or Roy Mason or Tom King or any of the previous British ministers who had responsibility for prosecuting the British war in Ireland, and whose policies sustained a conflict that could have ended much earlier.

But then should we be surprised? Should those of us who survived Britain's war in Ireland be taken aback by the stupidity of the British military and political mind? A former commander of the British army in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, recently claimed that the British army won the war in Ireland. If Kemp, who presumably was the British army's key strategist in Afghanistan, could get it so wrong in our country, why should anyone expect him to get it right in Afghanistan? And if he and William Hague are reflective of British thinking today, then the British are destined to make the same mistakes in that part of the world they made here."