administration that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, a pattern and a philosophy begins to emerge on both sides of the Atlantic that should alarm all Americans and Britons who are interested in freedom, peace or justice. The Irish, sitting between the jaws of this nut cracker, have little reason for equanimity either. It is clear that both governments give a much higher priority to their own power than they do to the liberty of their citizens, much less of their neighbors’.

        Espionage, the accumulation of intelligence about the potential and intentions of a nation’s enemies or potential enemies, or the destruction of enemy targets by deceit, is an accepted weapon of war. But this activity, when practiced by any government against its own citizens in violation of its own laws, is criminal, even treasonous. Even potential cases against terrorists have been compromised because of illegal wiretaps. In The United States, the people’s remedy is to deny re-election or to impeach. Since Bush can’t run for president again anyway, and since, with a Republican Supreme Court and Congress, he need not fear impeachment, the only limitation on his conduct would be his own character and patriotism, the lack of which accounts for his arrogance in this situation.

        In Ulster, the British have refused to explain why they had charged a British agent with spying for the IRA and had then dropped the charges. Prime Minister Tony Blair has already admitted that the government could “get in trouble” for what has been done. In fact, exposure of the scandal further endangers the fragile peace process, bringing into question the good faith of all the parties, as each side accuses the others of being the instigator. There is not even agreement on whose cause Donaldson was actually promoting. Was Donaldson a Sinn F’ein double agent? Is Britain trying to destroy the peace initiative so that the Crown, rather than the people of Ulster, will remain in control? Are both Sinn F’ein and the British conducting cover ups, as alleged by The SDLP, who characterize the incident as replacing a dirty war with a dirty peace? Was it The UUP who “outed” Donaldson so as to re-energize the conflict?

        The Gael are a unique people in many ways, passionate, contentious, assertive; compulsively generous and loving with a deep sense of family and clan while, at the same time, they, like Clancy, love to “lower the boom,” single mindedly holding grudges and maintaining feuds for hundreds of years. I know this because I too, am Gaelic. Although my family left the old sod some 315 years ago, and left Islay 304 years before that, none of us have lost the propensity to “get our Irish up.” In addition to their innate character, the people of Ulster, more even than the other Gael of Ireland and Scotland, have ample reason for anger and resentment, having been occupied, persecuted and subjected to genocide by the English, and by each other, for more than 900 years, and to this very day.

        The coincidence of two spy scandals taking place at the same time, one involving George Bush ignoring the law and ordering the NSA to spy on thousands of American citizens without warrants, much as Nixon did in a prior Republican administration; and the other involving Sinn F’ein official Denis Donaldson being paid by the British to spy on his own organization, and then being exposed by someone within the government after Sinn F’ein renounced their armed campaign and his usefulness was exhausted, paints a sinister picture of both the British and U.S. governments under their current administrations. When we mix in the recent “outing” of CIA agent Valorie Plame Wilson as vengeance   for   her   husband’s   exposure   of   false   claims   by  the