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I picked up a copy of your magazine in a local coffee shop
and found many of the articles to be outstanding. Keep up
the good work.
However, I was more than nonplussed to see Irish Northern Aid listed in your "Organize" section, and as a PEACE GROUP nonetheless. Perhaps it is your magazine's policy to accept any listings (though I doubt you would accept a listing from a neo-nazi organization). Perhaps the editors took Irish Northern Aids claims to be a peace group at face value.
You should know that Irish Northern Aid's activities have little to do with promoting peace. The professed objective of their fundraising is to support the families of Irish Republican prisoners. This goal might legitimately be considered a "humanitarian" one, but there is plenty of evidence that over the last quarter century, Irish Northern Aid has used charitable donations to purchase weapons for the IRA. The IRA are also known as the PROVOS, and you might note that the contact email provided for your Irish Northern Aid listing is "provo@columbus.rr.com." There is little attempt to hide this.
Since the late 1960s, Catholic and Protestant terror groups have conflated religious identity with ethnic identity, and together they have taken several thousand lives. On the Catholic side, the Provisional IRA (i.e. Provos) has been responsible for hundreds of these murders. The IRA's murder victims have committed such crimes as stopping for a drink at a Protestant bar, or dating a Protestant. If you'd like to learn some of the details, take a look at a book produced by four journalists (both Catholic and Protestant) from Northern Ireland a few years ago, called "Lost Lives." It tells the story of the 3,000 plus--both Catholic and Protestant--who have lost their lives in "the Troubles." The stories of many of those who died at the hands of the Provos will turn your stomach.
In recent years the Provos have suspended their bombing and terror campaign, and have made an attempt to engage in the political process. They have not, however, disarmed. While it is a positive sign to see them suspend their terror campaign, this hardly makes them and the organizations that funnel money to them a "peace group."
Irish Northern Aid is an Irish Nationalist group. This means that they have as their goal the unification of Ireland. There are lots of legitimate points of view on whether Irish unification is a worthy goal. But to call Irish Northern Aid a "peace group" is to make the phrase "peace group" meaningless.
If your policy is to accept listings from any organizations, and to allow those organizations to define themselves in any way they like, you might consider printing a statement about that policy at the beginning of the Organize section, so that they might be forewarned.
Thank you.
However, I was more than nonplussed to see Irish Northern Aid listed in your "Organize" section, and as a PEACE GROUP nonetheless. Perhaps it is your magazine's policy to accept any listings (though I doubt you would accept a listing from a neo-nazi organization). Perhaps the editors took Irish Northern Aids claims to be a peace group at face value.
You should know that Irish Northern Aid's activities have little to do with promoting peace. The professed objective of their fundraising is to support the families of Irish Republican prisoners. This goal might legitimately be considered a "humanitarian" one, but there is plenty of evidence that over the last quarter century, Irish Northern Aid has used charitable donations to purchase weapons for the IRA. The IRA are also known as the PROVOS, and you might note that the contact email provided for your Irish Northern Aid listing is "provo@columbus.rr.com." There is little attempt to hide this.
Since the late 1960s, Catholic and Protestant terror groups have conflated religious identity with ethnic identity, and together they have taken several thousand lives. On the Catholic side, the Provisional IRA (i.e. Provos) has been responsible for hundreds of these murders. The IRA's murder victims have committed such crimes as stopping for a drink at a Protestant bar, or dating a Protestant. If you'd like to learn some of the details, take a look at a book produced by four journalists (both Catholic and Protestant) from Northern Ireland a few years ago, called "Lost Lives." It tells the story of the 3,000 plus--both Catholic and Protestant--who have lost their lives in "the Troubles." The stories of many of those who died at the hands of the Provos will turn your stomach.
In recent years the Provos have suspended their bombing and terror campaign, and have made an attempt to engage in the political process. They have not, however, disarmed. While it is a positive sign to see them suspend their terror campaign, this hardly makes them and the organizations that funnel money to them a "peace group."
Irish Northern Aid is an Irish Nationalist group. This means that they have as their goal the unification of Ireland. There are lots of legitimate points of view on whether Irish unification is a worthy goal. But to call Irish Northern Aid a "peace group" is to make the phrase "peace group" meaningless.
If your policy is to accept listings from any organizations, and to allow those organizations to define themselves in any way they like, you might consider printing a statement about that policy at the beginning of the Organize section, so that they might be forewarned.
Thank you.