Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 09:35:35 +0000
From: Richard Bos <Richard.Bos-AT-hagcott.meganet.co.uk>
Subject: M-I: Brit psy/ops in full swing


The state propaganda machine never lets up! This article is about the
British government in Ireland, but the same techniques of black
propaganda are used by imperialism all around the world.
 
                                *******

Brit psy/ops in full swing

by Christy Mac an Bhaird (for the Irish People)

The British government's psychological operations are in full
swing with the American public being the primary target.

A willing British media and a somewhat naive U.S. press have
pushed the British line on issues from the death of the peace
process to the makeup and control of the IRA. In recent weeks,
Jean Kennedy Smith, the U.S. ambassador to Ireland, has also been
a target of British black propaganda.

But perhaps the most outrageous fork in this multi-tonged
campaign to undermine Sinn Fein has been the repeated attempts of
Downing Street through the press in the north of Ireland to
target Sinn Fein supporters in the U.S. by claiming there is an
Internet site based in Chicago that is poisoning the minds of
American children by instructing them  how to construct "IRA
bombs."

One of those who has made this outrageous and unsubstantiated
claim is the Rev. Peter Robinson, deputy leader and right-hand
man to the Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of the pro-British Democratic
Unionist Party.

Robinson has made wild claims that an American support group
based in the Windy City is furnishing bomb-making information
that is available to America's school children.

Repeated and extensive efforts to locate and log on to the site -
Robinson has yet to provide the site's Internet address - have
come to nothing, and many American supporters of Sinn Fein see
Robinson's efforts as an attempt to undermine support here and to
close legitimate Internet web sites that are winning support
among America's millions.

The psychological war now being conducted by the British is
apparently aimed at the increase in American support for peace
with justice in Ireland.

The current phase of the British campaign began some months ago
when British newspapers reported that Martha Pope, a well
respected senior aid to former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, was
having an affair with leading Sinn Fein negotiator Gerry Kelly.

Pope denied the allegations, as did Kelly, and she settled a
legal suit out of court for a sum believed to be around $200,000
with an apology printed in the Sunday Mail, the paper that
originally raise the allegation. Kelly was not compensated and
did not receive an apology.

At the time of the smear, U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) cited the
apparent involvement of Britain's MI5 as a cause of great concern
to the American people.

King has since called on the International Relations Committee of
the U.S. Congress to hold hearings on the matter, saying he
thought the attack on Pope may very well have been a British
effort to keep Sen. Mitchell from the post of U.S. Secretary of
State, a position he was being considered for at the time.

Additional smears have appeared in the British and American
press, including the claim that senior leaders of Sinn Fein are
on the IRA Army Council. Membership in the IRA is illegal in
Britain and Ireland and anyone found to be a member could receive
a jail term of up to 10 years.

The sudden emergence of British super agent Sean O'Callaghan is
also seen within Republican support circles in the U.S. and
Ireland as a further effort to undermine support for Sinn Fein.

O'Callaghan has received a visa to visit the U.S. in the coming
weeks and is likely to be interviewed widely on TV and in the
print media.

He was sentenced to 539 years by a British court after admitting
to the murder of a member of the Ulster Defense Regiment, now
know as the Royal Irish Regiment, a division of the British Army
occupation forces in Ireland.

Oddly enough, O'Callaghan, has also admitted to the murder of a
County Cork man in 1985, but has not been charged with that
killing by the Irish government. O'Callaghan says he worked for
both the British and Irish governments as an informer after he
became disillusioned with his comrades in the IRA, which he
served in since he was 15.

O'Callaghan is entering the U.S. as a writer for the Rupert
Murdoch-owned Times of London. Murdoch is a well-known supporter
of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the woman who
stood by as 10 men died on hunger strike in Long Kesh in 1981
and, in 1988, orchestrated the murder of three unarmed IRA
volunteers in Gibraltar.

After spending eight years in prison, O'Callaghan was release
after the English Queen signed him out. He has written several
articles for the Times of London and has been interviewed by
CBS's "60 Minutes." He was also the subject of articles in "The
New York Times" and the right-wing "National Review."

His conversion was not seen as all that holy by some of those he
has smeared and he has been condemned as a liar by Sinn Fein
President Gerry Adams,  SDLP leader John Hume and noted Irish
author Tim Pat Coogan.

The British smear campaign extends to the Sept. 1994 failed IRA
escape attempt from Whitemoor prison in England, which it now
seems, may have been hatched by the British Secret Service in an
effort to discredit the IRA just as the historic ceasefire was
getting underway.

The wife of a prison guard who disappeared just after the escape,
and whose body was recently found in a car submerged in a river
in the English countryside, says she suspects foul play. She
feels her husband knew something about the escape and was killed
for what he could say.

Last week, Sinn Fein was again attacked, this time by rival
politicians in the north who claim there were voting
irregularities in west Belfast. As it happens, two Republicans
who work as Sinn Fein bodyguards, have more than one place of
residence, hardly an irregularity considering the nature of their
work and the current climate in Belfast.

Sinn Fein's  Six County Chairperson, Gearcid O'hEara also pointed
out that common names do not necessarily mean voter fraud.

"There is no evidence that a Jim Doherty shown living in one
place is the same Jim Doherty at a different address," he said.

The latest effort to take a swing at American support is the
continued reference to the sniper rifle apparently used to kill a
British Army soldier in Bessbrook last week.

Repeated press reports from Britain, picked up in the U.S., have
suggested the rifle is a Barrett Light Fifty, a $7,000, .50
caliber sniper rifle favored by the U.S. Army.

While the press continually refers to this as the weapon used by
the south Armagh "sniper," the British government has offered no
proof that the weapon exists or that it came from the U.S. Still,
pro-British politicians in the north have called on the U.S.
government to prevent Americans from sending additional  Barrett
to the north.

The conditional ceasefire called by loyalists after the 1994 IRA
cessation is also an area where the British have constantly
played a word game. Despite the murder of a Catholic cabdriver in
Lurgan by the UVF, despite the loyalist-inspired RUC mutiny at
Drumcree, which was highlighted in the U.S. State Department's
1996 Human Rights Report, despite two assassination attempts on
members of Sinn Fein and despite the 23-week loyalist siege of a
Catholic church in Harryville, the British government still
insists the loyalist ceasefire is holding, for to do anything
less would mean it would finally have to admit the peace process
is truly dead.

All in all, the British have spent millions of dollars on black
propaganda  in an effort to sway the American media and
ultimately the American public.

In 1988, the British government spent in excess of #20 million on
press and publicity work on the north, according to David
Miller's book, "Don't Mention the War."  In fact, from 1988 until
1992, the British spent an average of o20 million on PR for the
north,  a figure roughly equivalent to about seven years
contribution by the U.S. to the International Fund for Ireland.

As an American delegation of a dozen members of Congress met with
political parties in Belfast, the British propaganda machine was
humming, looking for a another angle to push. The very fact that
the American Congress was in Belfast was enough to irritate John
Major and his mates. Major made an effort to get the U.S.
ambassador to Britain to head the delegation off before them left
Washington, but they proceeded despite those efforts.

Americans should not underestimate the part they can have in
restarting the peace process or the efforts the British will go
to to block U.S. involvement. Pressure from the U.S. may make the
difference. An absence of American involvement certainly will.

                         *******
Comradely,

Richard.                     
      New Worker Online http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2853



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