Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Fair Treatment Of Prisoners

The Irish anti-war crowd is quick to criticize the Americans and the Israelis, pointing accusing fingers. Turns out that the other fingers in the fist are indeed pointing right back at the Irish.

State documents dating from the days of the Irish Civil War were sealed, not to be released for eighty years when it was expected that all those involved would be dead. Dead and unavailable for comment to the press, that is.

Papers dating from March of 1923 paint a very horrific picture of the Irish Free State, which morphed into the current Republic of Ireland.

It wasn't merely a matter of an Easter Rising in 1916. Ireland was forged from the heat of a civil war that burned both anti-Treaty forces and the army of the Free State that was content to abandon the six Northern counties to England. Bad blood and determination to win resulted in a toxic mix.

War is ugly, and the anti-Treaty forces believed that they had to kill off their Free-State brethren to create the nation they dreamed of. Free-State soldiers retaliated, and in 1923, they retaliated by blowing up anti-Treaty POWs with land mines in Kerry. Charming technique.

The official position stated that anti-Treaty POWs were put to work clearing land mines that they had themselves laid, and if one of their own died while cleaning up the mess, well, that's how things go sometimes.

For the first time since 1923, the Free State Army's "Visiting Committee" has been exposed. As a matter of Army policy, prisoners of war were taken out and killed by a select group of soldiers, and the Free State government colluded with the military to cover it up. For eighty years, it was locked away in a vault so that no one would know.

As 2009 dawns, we are reminded that no one is qualified to throw the first stone because no one is free of sin.

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