tilting at colonels

The Dad was in the kitchen chatting to Colonel O'Connor.
Me?
I was just passing through.
Bunged a dinner in the microwave oven.
Retrieved it.
Headed towards the door.
Only as I headed out stage left, I couldn't resist a cheap shot at the military man.
It was pure divilment.
"Well Henry," sez I, "Do you think Ireland should be doing more in the War On Terror? Or doing anything even?"
The Colonel looked up mildly.
"We are doing something," he said. "We've got six men in Afghanistan."
"Doesn't count," sez I. "Six men in Afghanistan means we're doing nothing."
"The Americans were very keen to have those six men," he said. "They wanted an extra flag there at all costs."
"Six is the same as no one," I told him. "Islamic fascism is advancing across the world. We're doing nothing. We should be going willingly not grudgingly. We should be going because it's the right thing to do. You sent enough to South Lebanon as supposed peace keepers when the Jihadis needed someone to protect them from the consequences of their actions. Much good that did."
The Colonel stiffened a little but remained genial.
"I know you're a learned man," he said. "I'm not going to get into a big row with you tonight."
It was an interesting comment.
I had my doubts he'd stick to it.
"The UN peace keeping mission in South Lebanon always looked to me like a mission to protect Muslim terrorists from the Israelis," I confided pleasantly. "I never really believed it was peacekeeping as such."
The Colonel sighed.
"That's not true at all," he said.
I changed tack.
"Why wasn't Private MacAleevy prevented from serving in South Lebanon?"
"There was no reason to prevent him," said the Colonel uneasily.
I nodded a tad bitterly.
"No reason?" sez I. "He was known to have made racist remarks about Jews and had openly expressed his admiration for Hitler. In Lebanon itself he racially abused Israelis and their allies at checkpoints. And this behaviour was no barrier to service in the Irish army or with UN peacekeepers? Pity isn't it? Pity he wasn't given a dishonorable discharge and sent home before he murdered three of our own soldiers."
The Colonel reddened.
"You can't stand over those statements," he said dangerously.
I returned to my main theme.
"Was there an anti Israeli bias in the officer corps of the Irish army?" I asked.
"No there was not," he told me firmly.
"Did you have an agreed policy of allowing Muslim terrorists through your checkpoints?"
"Never!"
"I think you did."
"It's not true."
"Really?"
"Alright. You know nothing about this sort of stuff. In a combat situation when we knew the Israelis were in hot pursuit, sometimes an officer on the ground might make a decision to allow armed elements through to prevent us all from being engulfed in a firefight. The alternative was to be wiped out."
"Armed elements?"
"The people you're talking about."
"The Hezbollah?"
"Yes."
"No standing order to let the Muslims through?"
"No."
"No unofficial standing order?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure. What you're implying is outrageous."
The Colonel was still composed.
But he is a tough man and he was getting tired of this sort of cheek from a failed provincial journalist.
"Listen," he said, "who do you think killed the most peacekeepers in South Lebanon?"
"Tell me."
"It was your friends the Israelis."
I allowed the statement to float for a moment.
"No it wasn't," I said.
"Yes it was."
"It wasn't Colonel. It wasn't unless you only include deaths among Irish peacekeepers in your statistics. I'm not quite sure why you would exclude other nationalities. Surely you were all on the same side. You were all peackeepers serving with the UN. If we include the 250 Americans murdered in 1983 in a typically cowardly Islamic terrorist bombing, if you include the 50 French soldiers murdered the same way, then the number far exceeds the deathtoll at the hands of Israel and her allies. I don't know why you wouldn't automatically include the Muslim murders of your brothers in arms in your statistics. Unless perhaps you were actually rooting for a different side."
"Be careful James. There's limits to what I'll tolerate here."
But I had warmed to my theme.
"It seems strange to me that when less than 20 UN personnel got blown up in Iraq, the UN left Iraq in the space of a few days. Yet for a full quarter of a century after the murder of 250 Americans and 50 French on peacekeeping duties in Lebanon, the UN has stayed right where it was, right in the heart of Lebanon, never budging an inch in its commitment to run pass defence for the Jihadis."
"How dare you."
It was a Kodak moment.
The scene you'll see in the film version.
I shouted at the Colonel.
"You didn't like the Israelis did you?"
He bought it.
"Of course we didn't like them," he shouted back.
There was a pause.
I said nothing.
He continued.
Not shouting.
Loud enough.
Flushed enough.
Angry enough.
I could see we actually had a chance of getting at the truth.
"How could we like them?" he spat. "They'd caused the whole thing. Every day we experienced for real what you've only read about in newspapers. Every day we experienced precisely what they were doing to the Lebanese. You wouldn't like the Israelis either if you had a clue what you were talking about."
"So you've admitted it."
"Admitted what?"
"You've admitted there is an institutional bias in the Irish army officer corps against the State of Israel."
"Don't you dare put words in my mouth."
I lifted my dinner and delivered the exit line.
"Thank you Colonel," I said, "it's been most enlightening."
Alone in the TV room I sat pondering the epic quality of what had happened.
What on earth had I been playing at?
I haven't done anything like this in more than a decade.
There was a time when I thought I might stand for truth in the world.
But not now.
It's no longer who I am.
And the blasted dinner was cold.