NAAS, 17 October: by Brian Byrne. "Do the US and Britain want to be known as 'the Terrorists of the West'?"
It's not your usual topic at a meeting of an Urban District Council. Not exactly a local issue.
But from the Oval Table that is the centre of the ruling power of Naas, Pat O'Reilly spoke almost directly to President George Bush in his Oval Office, in a motion last night calling on America to 'cease its bombardment of an impoverished country' and use 'other means' to apprehend terrorist Osama Bin Laden.
"They have the intelligence. They know where he is. They have the people on the ground. They should go in and get him," the councillor demanded at the conclusion of a debate he had initiated with a lengthy speech instead of the normal short introduction to a motion. By then, the matter had taken up about half an hour of the meeting's time.
Earlier, when the chairman had asked for a seconder to the motion, there was a deafening silence until Charlie Byrne said he would do the necessary 'in order to allow discussion'.
Reading from his neatly-typed multi-paged epistle, Pat O'Reilly first reiterated the UDC's condemnation last month of the 'dastardly' events of September 11, but he then insisted that the coalition was conducting its war in the wrong way. Inefficiently. At a dreadful cost to the poor people of Afghanistan.
"They have 30 planes in the air at a time, firing Scud missiles," he thundered, giving a world exclusive that the US has adapted Sadam Hussein's favourite but ultimately ineffectual ground-to-ground ballistic missile as an air-to-ground weapon targeted at the poor people of Afghanistan.
During the discussion, Charlie Byrne mooted the tangential but very true point that if the 'millions spent on missiles' were diverted, 'starving children would be fed'. "What's it all for?" he asked rhetorically.
Seamie Moore said he couldn't understand the mentality of people who admit there are terrorists in the world 'and then ask that we stop dropping bombs on them'. Reminding the assembly that America had 'come in at the right time in the past to make sure that countries like ours can exist' he said he wasn't prepared to tolerate people likely to 'drop bombs on Naas or Dublin'. "This is a war, and and there ARE going to be casualties," he concluded.
Timmy Conway said it was 'crocodile tears and extraordinary language' when the US and Britain were linked with phrases like 'Terrorists of the West'. Eibhlean Bracken took the opposite stance and declared that the two countries mentioned 'ARE terrorists'.
Pat McCarthy said he had his own opinions on the issue, but he'd keep them 'to another forum'. In the meantime, he was disappointed that the UDC was taking up its time talking about international affairs 'not our brief'. Mary Glennon said it was all 'a bit bizarre'. "We should be concerning ourselves with the problems of Naas," she said, and suggested that if hot air could raise Bin Laden, 'he'd be in orbit now'.
Chairman Willie Callaghan said he didn't think the matter was 'within our remit' and he had 'spoken to' Pat O'Reilly about it earlier in the week. "It's bad timing," he said, and then asked if the motion was to be put to a vote.
"I don't want it put to a vote," the proposer decided. "I know how it would turn out."
Timmy Conway said that such motions should not be put on the agenda. Willie Callaghan said 'that would be looked at'.
In the end, of course, Pat O'Reilly had been allowed his right to free speech and others their right to agree or disagree. Isn't that what we all want?
©2001brianbyrne/knn