A Tangled Web

Oh Plleeaassee!!!



After shaking hands and being saturated with Irish blarney in Dublin, Bill Clinton returned to British soil yesterday with a book signing session at Eason's in Belfast. There, he declared himself to be 'a cheerleader for peace' and promised that a Kerry administration would take a more proactive role in the 'Oirish peace process'.



The mere sight of this man parading around the streets of a British city - a man totally in thrall to a basically republican interpretation of Ulster history and politics - is enough to make me reach for the sick bag. I have read Clinton's autobiography as well as Godson's book on Trimble. As aforementioned, the most striking aspect of Clinton's subliminal intervention in the peace process was the extent to which he defended the stance of Irish nationalism, even when stalemate occurred due to the ongoing retention of illegal IRA weaponry by the Provisional movement.



I, like my ATW colleague David Vance, am very pro-America. However, my view of the United States has been tainted down the years by the cancer that is pro-nationalist Irish America. It is disgusting that a vocal lobbying sect, representing only a tiny fraction of the Catholic Irish Amercan community (itself only 6% of the total population) has been allowed to influence political evolution in an integral part of America's oldest, closest and staunchest ally. Is Clinton telling us that Kerry would be as one-sided and interventionist as he was? The vast majority of my sentiments towards Uncle Sam would be favourable. Nevertheless, where Ulster is concerned, my message would be: 'keep your bloody nose out of issues that do not concern you!!!!