reporting the reporters

Al Jazeera (The Nazi Channel), Presenter Riz Khan said: "It's quite amazing how Mumbai is falling apart. It's a shame that the fire is going to cause serious damage to a major landmark in the city." During three days of continuous reporting on Al Jazeera, the station's presenters studiously avoided the use of the word "terrorist" relying instead on the word "attackers" or occasionally "gunmen."

Heelers Memo to Riz Khan: It's not appropriate to criticise a city or its administration when Muslim terrorists, are slaughtering people in the streets. The shame was the destruction of people not buildings. My assessment of Al Jazeera is that it is effectively a propaganda wing for Al Qaeda.

Bloomberg Television, a presenter told viewers: "It is unlikely the Mumbai attacks are linked to Al Qaeda. We must consider the possible role of the Indian Mujahideen."

Heelers Memo to Mike Bloomberg: Apparently Bloomberg Television's analysis of terrorism is about as useful as its financial analysis. Here is the news. Al Qaeda just attacked Bombay. No mystery. No difficulty saying who it was. All quite clear then.

Sky News jointly broadcasting with CBS, a presenter said: "The attacks on Mumbai bear some frightening hallmarks of Al Qaeda. But Al Qaeda has not been known in the past for taking hostages and engaging in stand off situations with the police."

Heelers Memo to Sky: Well duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. You seem to have forgotten about the Al Qaeda attacks on Russia. At Beslan, if you remember, Al Qaeda agents took over a school. They held a thousand children and teachers hostage. Russian special forces ended the STAND OFF by killing all the terrorists. They rescued most of the children. The Muslim Al Qaeda terrorist cowards killed 300 of the children. But the Russians saved 700 children who were due to be massacred. Of course Sky referred to the Russian commando operation as a "botched" job. Funny that. Why it was almost as if Sky was trying to help Al Qaeda and put the elected government of Russia under pressure. We should also consider the Al Qaeda attack on Moscow when Muslim terrorist cowards took over a theatre called Nord Ost. Russian commandos heroically retook the theatre. All the Muslim terrorists were killed in the rescue operation. Some hostages also died. But the terrorists had been ready to kill all the hostages. They didn't even get close to accomplishing this aim because of the Russian commandos' decisive intervention. This was another defeat for Al Qaeda which Sky chose to classify as a "botched" rescue. Really there's no pleasing you people. Here is the news. When Al Qaeda attacks someone you should support whoever it is they have attacked. You should not put the security forces of the victims' country on trial. Now Al Qaeda have once more attacked Bombay. There is something distinctly opprobrious about news stations such as Sky which consistently ignore Al Qaeda actions, or which refuse to report Al Qaeda terror at all, or which pretend that there's some inscrutable mystery about when an Al Qaeda terror attack is a realio trulio Al Qaeda terror attack. You are giving succour to the Jihadi's.

Euronews, presenter: "A hitherto little known group has claimed responsibility for the attacks on Mumbai."

Heelers Memo to Euronews: The group is called Al Qaeda. Actually they're quite well known down our way.

Russia Today, presenter: "The attacks are similar to those which took place in Moscow and Beslan."

Heelers Memo to Russia Today: You guys did an okay job on this one.

CNN, presenter: "Westerners think that this is part of a global phenomenon but India has any number of groups engaged in struggle."
CNN presenter Christiane Amanpour: "Nobody really knows who is responsible for the attacks on Mumbai."
CNN presenter Wolf Blitzer: "It's possible that the attackers received training from Al Qaeda."


Heelers Memo to CNN: During the attack on Bombay, your presenters almost couldn't bear to mention Al Qaeda in case that would once more demonstrate clearly quite how abysmally dishonorable CNN itself had been in its efforts to discredit President Bush's strong stand in the War On Terror. Your presenters continually spoke as if there was some arcane complexity involved in establishing who was committing the murders in Bombay. Your deliberate obfuscation of what was clearly an Al Qaeda attack amounts in itself to a criminal manipulation of the news. So no change there, eh CNN? Hey. Maybe you appeasers of terrorism actually owe President Bush an apology for the past seven years of defeatism, mistrepresentation and lies. Have you thought about that CNN?

an open letter to the irish times

Dear Editor.
I am reading a copy of the Irish Times.
I am reading a particular article.
It was published on the eve of the latest Al Qaeda attack on India.
The article was written by a young woman whose academic qualifications you trumpet in her byline.
Apparently you believe her Phd or MA or whatever the hell it is, connotes merit.
Your article asserts that Ireland should not permit the Americans to use Shannon airport for transhipment of troops, weapons, or prisoners.
Your writer effectively calumniates President Bush and the War On Terror.
You pious clowns.
You are putting us on the wrong side of history.
I want to ask you one thing.
As the Jihadi's are currently slaughtering human beings in the streets of Bombay...
Is it possible...
Is it just a teensy weensy bit possible...
Is it possible, I say, that the Irish Times has underestimated the threat to humanity from the murdering Muslim terrorist cowards of Al Qaeda?
Oh brave Irish Times.
You useless, useless, bast--ds.
Best regards always.
James Healy

a miktam of james

and the numbers we give years
are flung like chaff from the plough
and i am allowed to see
hence and thence and now
people past and passing and to be
coming streaming from the fields
i believe

an open letter to cnn

Dear CNN.
As I write this brief note, Muslim terrorists are slaughtering human beings like cattle in the streets of Bombay.
Your reporters are having difficulty figuring out who exactly might be behind these murders.
Here is the news.
The slaughter in Bombay is being carried out by a little old organisation called Al Qaeda.
I know it's hard for you to admit this.
Because admitting it makes your reportage of the War On Terror look lax in the extreme.
The CNN view of the War On Terror being that international Islamic terrorism is essentially something dreamed up by President Bush to make him feel good about his manhood.
CNN, we're all going to pay for your quisling defeatist appeaserish posture on Muslim terrorism.
No really we are.
The Hindus are just paying first.
Tonight.
Even now, your much vaunted correspondent Christiane Amanpour is touting the possibility that the murders in Bombay are being carried out by localised groups involved in Kashmiri or Punjabi politics.
Oh CNN.
Have you no dignity?
I mean, are there no depths you will not stoop to?
If it looks like Al Qaeda, talks like Al Qaeda, walks like Al Qaeda, commits mass murder in the streets like Al Qaeda, then you know what dillwads...
It's Al Qaeda.
That's okay CNN.
There'll be no charge for the information.
Now then.
You at CNN have spent the past seven years trying to diminish President George Bush.
You at CNN have spent the past seven years trying to discredit President Bush.
You at CNN have spent the past seven years trying to criminalise President Bush.
Is it possible CNN...
Is it possible that you at CNN have just a teensy weensy bit underestimated the threat to humanity from that little old organisation called Al Qaeda?
I gots to know.
Regards.
James Healy.
PS: Congratulations on securing the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States. Truly you have made the world safer for Jihadi's.


Copies to: Skybollah, NBC, CBS, ABC, the BBpC, Channel Bore, Newsweak, Thyme Magazine, Robert Fisk, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Vincent Bugliosi, The Guardian newspaper, The Washington Compost, The New York Times, The Irish Times, and the Nazi channel Al Jazeera. You bast--ds have all colluded in this.

brush up your shakespeare

Strolling down Kilcullen Main Street in bright November weather.
Who should I espy coming towards me but the noble Colers.
He who played the Scottish vampire hunter Jock Stroggart in the famous 1996 production of my play Vampires Of Dublin.
The very one.
And none other.
Today I did not want to meet the noble Colers.
Nothing to do with the play.
The play debuted on the Dublin stage over a decade ago.
The scar tissue over its commercial failure has all but healed.
I harbour no further recriminations about Colers' hopeless over acting nor his congenital incapacity to emote.
It wasn't his fault.
I should never have cast him.
But I digress.
Today I didn't want to meet him for reasons wholly unrelated to the finest piece of theatrical drama ever to go down with the loss of all hands on the Dublin stage.
(And the loss of three grand. - Ian O'Doherty note.)
In his other life, John Q Coleman is a pharmacist.
Recently I ordered a hundred quid's worth of electric tooth brush from him
A month went by and no tooth brush arrived.
So I bought one somewhere else.
Then he rang the house to say my order had come in.
I've been avoiding all contact since then.
You all know I have come down in the world.
(Come up in the world surely. - Ed note)
Money is not exactly plentiful.
Let me put it this way.
Two electric tooth brushes is an indulgence even I cannot contemplate at the moment.
I looked about hurriedly for an escape route.
Too late.
He'd seen me.
"Heelers!" he cried.
I allowed myself a sort of anguished cry in response.
My cry went:
"Ah Colers. Thou canst not say I did it, nor shake thy gory tooth brush at me."
Witty what!
It's based on a line from Macbeth.
Macbeth says it to the ghost of Banquo who has burst in on one of his banquets and is waving a tooth brush about the place.
Very droll.
I'm telling you heads turned in the street when I used the line this morning.
People looked kind of confused.
Kind of scared.
Colers just nodded grimly.
He knew.
"You bought another one, didn't you?" he said.
I grinned.
"Ain't it the tooth," I answered with all the zest and vigour of a young Oscar Wilde.
Colers looked pained.
People like me are not good for the electric tooth brush dealing business.
Even allowing for our entertaining Shakespearian and Wildean allusions.
A thought struck me.
"Colers," sez I. "I was thinking of getting one of the plays back on the road. Maybe Lady Windermere's Fanny. Would you take a part?"
The second greatest actor of a generation favoured me with a luck of almost pure disbelief.
Almost pure disbelief.
There was a smidgen of opprobrium mixed in there.
"Noooooooo waaayyy," he proclaimed. "You think I'll ever make that mistake again? After the last time, no ephin way."
"Why not?" I persisted. "Another tilt at the windmill of fame. It'll be great."
Colers stared.
"Never again," he expostulated with strange high vehemence. "After the last time I swore that I would never again work with you in a theatre. You have a messiah complex. Directing plays makes it worse. Never ever again. You're egomaniacal enough at ordinary times. When you're directing a play you think you're God."
And he strode triumphantly away leaving me standing on Main Street, open mouthed in amazement at his effrontery.
Of course I forgave him gentle travellers of the internet.
For he knew not what he did.

doherty watch

In a strongly worded article last week in The Heelers Diaries, I called for internment without trial for Al Qaeda suspects.
In a strongly worded article this week in the Irish Independent, Ian O'Doherty called for internment without trial for members of Limerick crime gangs.
What an odd coincidence.

caninus anarchisticus hiberniensis

tail wagging, hankie chewing, sock sniffing, biscuit munching, sandwich stealing, night barking, morning waking, cup breaking, plate licking, paw poking, bed tossing, back scratching, mammy baiting, hen scaring, bone burying, postman chasing, cat hating, sheep herding, door shoving, trouble brewing, james loving, PADDY PUP

flashback

(From The Heelers Diaries a decade ago.)

Friday 4th June 1999: Bernard has resigned from his job in England. Aunty Teresa still receiving visitors which is a hopeful sign. We all need hope. Aunty R---- in hospital for tests. Met Byrno for lunch. Not great. Discussed Kosovo. He was in favour of the Yanks bombing Yugoslavia into submission. I curtailed the conversation before it got too heated. The Serbs have agreed to withdraw from Kosovo. Clinton and Blair are crowing like cockerels. Bombing continues until the Serbs have left. With Nato protecting the world, all we now have to worry about is who shall protect the world from Nato.

Tuesday 8th June 1999: Aunty R---- has a tumour in her lung. We visited her tonight. Unk Johann visited Aunty Teresa, He said she was at least able to talk to him. I covered an Athy District Court session for the Leinster Leader. A young defendant approached me afterwards.
"Can I talk to you?" he said.
"No," I answered hurrying away.
He called after me something about keeping his case out of the paper. I didn't know what case he meant exactly and I wanted it to stay that way. Back home I discovered he'd managed to extract the reporters notebook from my coat pocket. So his case stays out of the paper after all. Well done by the defendant.
My spirit is weak enough. Nameless regrets. Yearnings.

Wednesday 9th June 1999: A bit more at peace. Met Melissa in Athy tonight. She kissed me. Every life has its surprises. Nato seems to be on the brink of conquest in the Balkans. Television full of how Nato is winning PEACE. But conquest is what this is. A war to distract attention from Bill Clinton's mickey. The fearful thing is that the champagne liberals of the West think they can bomb a country for three months, and that peace can then miraculously follow at a whim. They thought to bomb the Yugoslavs into accepting an imposed solution to their country's internecine violence. And now Clinton, and Blair, and Schroder, and the French, (and all the other idiots who comprise the nineteen member states of Nato) think that because they stop firing their missiles, there will be peace. Blood will have blood.

Friday 11th June 1999: Nato troops massing on the border of Kosovo province. The Russians raced them and were first into the country, taking up positions around Pristina. Word came that the Americans were "flabbergasted." Then word came that the Russian troops had acted without orders from their government, and would be immediately withdrawn. Strange balletic idiocy. Ominous enough. Clinton, Blair, and their supporters fought this war because they wanted to. But will they be able to control the situation as easily as they think? The situation is changing by the hour. Momentarily it looked as though Nato and the Russians would be facing each other on occupied territory, with all the unimaginable risks such a standoff could entail. Clinton and Blair are gambling with world war.

Monday 14th June 1999: Walked by the river this evening with Jess. She spotted an otter in the water and stood stock still wagging her tail to let me know. The otter slid effortlessly through the water not ten yards from us. Sometimes he would disappear beneath the surface, and I could follow his progress from the trail of bubbles. Then he would reappear making loud munching noises with his mouth. He dallied around close to us for about five minutes, before losing my eye near the opposite bank. Hadn't felt so privileged by existence since the morning I glanced out my bedroom window at dawn just as a Reynard came trotting through the hedge across the field.


(Update November 2008: Clearly I wasn't in favour of every war! My opinion of Bill Clinton never improved. Nor did I ever think the Muslim Kosovars were entitled to secede from Serbia. I did stop referring to Yugoslavs when I meant Serbs. My opinion of Tony Blair got better. I thought Mr Blair redeemed himself by making the tough call to fight Al Qaeda alongside the Americans when many in his party and his country wanted to chicken out. Among the Western Europeans, primarily Britain, Italy, Poland, and briefly Spain, chose to stand strong in the Al Qaeda fight. Most of the rest of us have opted to live in denial.)