A sure sign of a flagging thespian career is when an actor becomes a pawn for the international abortion industry. Liam Neeson’s downward roll is a classic case in point (October 21).
What a shame that he should smirch the end of his acting days by advocating the slaughter of unborn Irish children.
Neeson is a ‘Catholic’ from the north of Ireland who knows all too well what it was like for our people over the generations, particularly during the dark decades of the Troubles.
As he was making a name for himself internationally did he ever use his fame or influence to speak out against anti-Catholic discrimination? Did he ever join a march or protest in support of the Hunger Strikers? How about the shoot-to-kill policy or the activities of the various Glenanne-style murder gangs that freely roamed the north? Where was Neeson and his concerned voice then?
Now, he wants to personally visit injustice upon the unborn of our country through his support for the introduction of wholesale abortion across the 26 counties.
Might I suggest that he should stop targeting the unborn of Connacht, Ulster, Munster and Leinster. This man is no friend of Ireland.
NOEL McKENNA
Dungannon, Co Tyrone
Not my kind of hero
Everyone, no matter what their age, loves a hero. I always felt Liam Neeson was up there with John Wayne as a sort of Boys Own Hero.
It was extremely disappointing to read recently that he lent his voice to a short film by Amnesty International to promote more availability of abortion in the Republic.
That’s not my sort of hero. My type of hero looks after the most defenceless and vulnerable in society – and that’s the unborn.
Dr OWEN GALLAGHER
Glenavy, Co Antrim
Media failing in duty as unofficial fourth arm of government
Revelations of collusion here have become routine (such as the latest investigations into the Scappaticci saga).
The RUC, UDR, Special Branch and the various incarnations of direct English saboteur services have proven to have been responsible for hundreds of illegal deaths (murders) across Ireland, the seeding of drug dealing and the proliferation of gangsterism in the six and 26 counties that continues to torment our people today.
A history that should be rife with print and television exposes that hold these dysfunctional organisations and their relationships with loyalist puppets and republican traitors to the bright light of impartial journalism. Sadly this has not been the case and highlights, perhaps, the most insidious form of collusion of all.
With too few exceptions, the media, especially local media, has and continues to fail in its duty as the unofficial fourth arm of Government ie to expose wrong doing in the other three. All through the Troubles government press releases were repeated verbatim as unassailable truth, even in the face of unrelenting evidence that the words were at best propaganda and at worst cover for state murder.
That the majority of print and television outlets were London-centric and unionist run is understandable given that most totalitarian states control their media in this way (our very own Irish/Soviet Glavlit), however, our news-mongers were not threatened with Siberian gulags or even arrest. We can only assume that they willingly participated in this seedy cover-up because it furthered their political beliefs or unwillingly because to have sought the truth would have been detrimental to their careers. Even today the difference in treatment of nationalist/republican compared to unionist/loyalist representatives is stark and distasteful.
The former are pushed into every dark corner the latter are asked one politely awkward question and allowed to let whatever platitude they reply with go unchallenged. There also has to be some form of conspiracy of silence/incompetence/laziness when it comes to non-identity issues such as domestic corruption or ineptitude where it is left to properly professional journalists such as those of The Irish News to break scandals on matters of health, finance and social importance.
If you are someone who has had a career in the news media here without rocking the establishment boat then perhaps your time
would been better spent on a production line etching the words into rubber stamps.
GERARD HERDMAN
Belfast BT11
US and its surrogates real threat to world peace
The continuing plight of Syrian refugees and others appears indifferent to the governments that created the situation. The US and Britain seem to have the notion that they should decide who rules in the middle east. The crisis was created by the call for Assad must go, Saddam must go and the subsequent agitation sponsored by the west that created a monster.
The pretence of democratic advancement was the big lie considering they were aided by the most despotic of regimes, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and others. The overthrow of the democratic government in Egypt was instantly rewarded with armaments by the US even as they were shooting down their citizens in the street.
Why then the cry Assad must go, Libya must change, Saddam must go? These were the most secular and stable countries with gender rights and not a threat to the west. Stranger still since Saddam fought a western sponsored war against Iran that cost one million lives and Libya and Syria assisted in the US policy of rendition and torture. The common denominator was that all these countries give legitimacy to Palestinians in their pursuit of statehood. The Bush administration and its foreign policy was intent in maintaining Israeli hegemony in the region.
If we look at the document “clean break” written in 1996 for Benjamin Netanyahu, by a US foreign policy adviser to Bush, we clearly see it advocated “pre-emptive strikes against Iran and Syria. All this in breach of international law. Meanwhile Iran gets sanctions for its nuclear programme while Israel gets US dollars for theirs. Similarily Russia gets sanctions for annexation of Ukraine while Israel gets its fundraising in the US to annex Palestinian land.
Israel and the US have created a disaster in the middle-east and ISIS is a monster initially created by the mayhem of their actions.
Meanwhile the BBC and others feed us daily fears on Russian and Iran while the real threat to world peace comes from the US and its surrogates.
FRANCIS RICE
Belfast BT11
Warped rationale
I accept without caveat Fr Patrick McCafferty’s accusation (October 23) that I am theologically ignorant and prejudiced in matters of religious faith.
As an unapologetic atheist who has managed to shake off the shackles of childhood religious indoctrination, I feel compelled to challenge the inconsistencies and moral ambivalence, as well as the ignorance imposed by organised religion.
Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the enlightened American constitution once said: “A professorship of theology should have no place in our institutions.” I second the motion. In no other professional discipline is the lack of evidence so profoundly endorsed.
I willingly accept Fr McCafferty’s unintentionally kind allusion to my kinship with Jefferson regarding theology.
However it is incumbent on me to reject moral tuition from someone who publicly stated the following: “The reason that abortion, and not mass murder is a “reserved sin” incurring automatic excommunication is that the victim of a mass murderer has the chance to hide when the murderer strikes.” (September 23).Upon such warped rationale is theology grounded. As with other incomprehensible doctrines excommunication is described in similar obscure language.
Rejecting such nonsense as an affront to reason should be no more troublesome than dismissing the tooth fairy.
DANNY TREACY
Ballyclare, Co Antrim
