What Would Jesus Smoke? If Talking To Terrorists Constitutes Free Speech Then Why Can't We Hire Them To Protect Our Plantations?

This just in from the Irish Examiner: Controversial terrorism play to take centre stage

Final rehearsals wrapped up today ahead of the Irish premiere of a controversial play about terrorists behind infamous atrocities.

Robin Soans’ Talking to Terrorists is a critically-acclaimed work of documentary theatre drawn from conversations with notorious bombers and their victims.

The title of the play is a quote from the former Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam who remarked before her death in 2005 that the only way to defeat terrorists was to talk to them.

Of all the blood-drenched self-serving hypocrisy! The very idea of talking to terrorists is repulsive! And the idea that you can defeat terrorists by talking to them is the most flaked-out moonbat half-baked tin-foiled idea I've ever heard ... well, maybe not ever ... but definitely since the one about the nineteen Arab guys!

Ahem.

Here's how you deal with terrorists: You refuse to deal with them in any way, at least in public. In fact, you make a public display of trying to suppress them; and you sneer at their culture, their religion, their ancestors, and their way of life. But behind the scenes you fund them and arm them and organize them and motivate them and you essentially get them to do the things that you want to do -- or at least want to see done -- but can't be seen doing yourself ...

... if you're a paranoid lunatic half-wit brain-dead liberal conspiracy buffoon!!

IRA Brighton bomber Patrick Magee behind the failed plot to assassinate Margaret Thatcher and the entire British cabinet in 1994 is among those Soans spoke with when writing the show.

Two of his victims, the former UK Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Norman Tebbit and his wife, who was paralysed and left wheelchair-bound by the bombing, also contributed to the work.

Magee talks about his path to using violence during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, while Craig Murray, a former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, explores state terrorism.

State terrorism? Ha! Do you think a former ambassador would know much about state-sponsored false-flag terror? Ha ha ha ha!

He knows a ton! And that's how you know he's a lunatic moonbat conspiracy nutcase wackjob communist.

The guy's a fraud, in other words. A charlatan. A traitor. An al-Q'aeda Appeaser. As we all know, you can never believe a word from those lunatic wacko nutjobs who actually want us to lose the war on terror.

Guys like this, guys who actually know what goes on behind the curtains, are subversive terrorist-appeasers who should all be run out of the country on a rail, except if they are out of the country already, in which case they should be kept out indefinitely if possible -- or else longer!

They have too much knowledge and it clashes with the propaganda in such an awful way! The cognitive dissonance they cause is too much for a free society to bear, so the sooner they STFU the better.

And the same goes for that smartass kid from Alaska who held up his "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner while the Olympic Torch was going by.

Joseph Frederick, a former high school student whose witty observation that the Winter Olympics torch relay passing by his school in January 2002 was akin to a giant bong eliciting religious rapture, is being challenged by his school board that says his un-Godly fun-poking is a sacriledge too far.

Ludicrous? So's our so-called president. But the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case is now before the Supreme Court. And guess who's arguing the pro-censorship side? Kenneth Starr!!

No kidding! Would I kid you about something as serious as this?

As a South Park sketch it would have raised the roof. But Clinton special prosecutor Ken Starr is fighting the good fight for the Bush-backed Juneau High, because as all God-fearin' Christians know There Is Nothing Funny About Jesus.

Ironic times indeed ... and meanwhile, back in Dublin,

A cast of eight will play 29 roles representing people directly affected by terrorism from Belfast, London, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Turkey and the Middle East.

The people interviewed for the play will not be called by their real name on stage, but will be easily identifiable by the places, times and situations they talk about.

... but only by people who know some history, no? Otherwise their identities could be clear as Irish coffee.

But still, it's the perspectives that count, not the names. No?

The production, by the award-winning Calypso Theatre company, previews in Trinity College Dublin’s Samuel Beckett Theatre tomorrow night [March 20] before opening to the public on Wednesday for 12 nights.

The play then moves to The Mill theatre in Dundrum and on to the Pavilion in Dun Laoghaire.

Not likely headed for Broadway anytime soon, or is it?

But maybe it should! Can live theatre do what dead newspapers can't? Do we know yet? Has anyone tried something similar?

These are not purely rhetorical questions, BTW. They're real questions that I haven't been able to answer, despite a bit of research, and if you, kind reader, know anything that could help me along in any of these directions, please leave me a comment.

This is how we learn, no?

Ahem. Some of us learn. Ha ha ha.

In any case, this is not the sort of story -- nor the sort of play -- you see every day, so I'll try to keep an eye on the production and the brains behind it -- director Bairbre Ni Caoimh ...

“Generally when he interviewed someone he’d just sit there with them and have a chat, explains Ni Caoimh. “What he puts into the play is little details of their characters that make it awfully interesting. You don’t have a party political broadcast, you’ll have Mo Mowlam there asking her husband to get her a cup of coffee, and their Labrador puppy has just messed up the carpet, so you have all that domestic stuff.

Or there’s a fantastic character, Craig Murray, who was the British ambassador to Uzbekistan. He’s one of the strongest advocates of human rights, because when he went to Uzbekistan he realised that there was terrible state terrorism, the state was perpetrating all sorts of things, they were getting all sorts of confessions wholesale from people as a result of torture. The Americans and the Brits were turning a blind eye because of the oil pipeline.

But instead of just telling you that, when Robin met him, this man, who was terribly morally righteous about the state of the world, in his private life he had left his wife for a dancing girl, a belly dancer. So you have this fantastic scene where he’s there talking about all these human rights violations, and you have this woman who’s desperately trying to be interviewed, because she believes she’s an artist, and she’s been misrepresented by the newspapers; so that all through it she’s trying to get her story in, and it is incredibly funny. Yet you’re getting all the other information as well.”

... and playwright Robin Soans.

The playwright believes the work gives a fresh view to what drives those who carry out terrorist attacks.

“Why did I write this play?” asked Soans.

“Because it is so easy to be judgmental and moralistic, but before you make those judgements and take the moral high ground, there’s some more information I would like you to consider, and another perspective I’d like you to entertain.”

More information? Another perspective?

Bring 'Em On!!!

Ahem.

This just in from FOXNEWS: The notorious Chiquita Banana company has admitted that it hired terrorists to provide "security" for its plantations in Colombia, in an arrangement that was in place for years. The punishment? A slap on the wrist.

Following the guilty plea, Chiquita’s Chief Executive Officer Fernando Aguirre announced, “The agreement reached with the [Department of Justice] today is in the best interests of the company.” It is also in the best interests of company executives who for some reason are not facing criminal charges for funding terrorism.
...

In sharp contrast to the Bush administration’s failure to levy criminal charges against Chiquita executives, Denmark’s government announced last week that it had charged seven workers from a local clothing company with funding terrorism because they pledged a portion of the company’s profits from tee-shirt sales to support the radio station of the FARC, Colombia’s largest guerrilla group. Even though no money was actually transferred to the FARC—and even if it had been, the amount would have paled in comparison to the $1.7 million Chiquita paid to the AUC—the seven Danes face up to six years in prison solely for their intent to send funds to a group on the EU’s list of terrorist organizations.

The Bush administration’s proverbial slap on the wrist of a US corporation that provided substantial funding to a group listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization raises serious questions about who is truly being targeted in the war on terror. Evidently, Chiquita’s claims that it was only protecting its operations and employees justified its funding of terrorism in the eyes of the Bush administration.

Indeed, this case appears to set a legal precedent for other US corporations and their executives that are funding, or that decide in the future to fund, terrorist groups. If corporate executives determine that the profits earned sufficiently exceed the likely fine, then it makes good business sense to fund terrorism. In Chiquita’s case, the $25 million fine amounts to a relatively small portion of the company’s more than $200 million in profits earned since the AUC was designated a terrorist organization in 2001. Chiquita’s fine also amounts to less than half of the $51.5 million that the company pocketed from the 2004 sale of its Colombian subsidiary, Banadex.

On the other hand, if an independent US journalist such as myself paid the FARC $1.7 million to ensure my safety while working in rebel-controlled regions, it is difficult to believe that my punishment would only be a fine that amounted to a small portion of my earnings over the past five years. There is little doubt in my mind that I would be charged with funding terrorism and locked away for a good number of years. The Chiquita case is further confirmation that the Bush administration is not a government of the people, but a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations.

You can't make up stuff like this! And unfortunately, I don't have to.

[UPDATE]

This post has been supplemented with considerable historical material -- both recent and much earlier. See the comments thread for a lot more. And thanks to ibidem for helping me to flesh out the story behind the scenes.