There was a "Victory to Iraqi Resistance" picket outside Queen's University Belfast recently, to protest against the address being given within by Colonel Tim Collins, of the Royal Irish Regiment.
The feminist scholar Fallopia Whynge told the rally: "Poor freedom-loving Iraq lies prostrate under the jackboot of US-led imperialism. The Americans have nothing else in mind but the genocide of the Iraqi people, and the theft of their oil. Victory to the socialist Ba'ath party! Victory to Iraqi resistance!"
The speech was greeted with wild applause, and was followed by the green republican socialist pacifist Egregious Mc Cant. "There was one purpose for this war, and it was for the US to get their hands on Iraqi oil. As a pacifist, I urge you all to back armed Iraqi resistance to US colonialism, and I call for a minute's silence for all those brave suicide bombers who have given their lives in the cause of freedom."
The well-known journalist and critic Lubricius Pose said that the war had been about one thing, and one thing only: oil. "You won't read this anywhere else, because newspaper editors are repressing the truth, but Iraq is being bled dry, right now as I speak, in order to satisfy the oil-needs of the American monopolists. If we let this rape of a blameless, peace-loving country occur without protest, what next? Mark me well: today Iraq, tomorrow Portadown." The literary critic and Professor of Women's Studies, Atlantic Fisheries & Face Painting in Borneo at Lurgan Polytechnic, Clive Piffle declared: "I'm here today to tell you that this war is about one thing and one thing only: oil. Yes, oil. It's historically necessary for the US imperialists to be militarily defeated by Iraqi Resistance, so that democracy can be restored to Iraq."
The well-known Catholic theologian and pacifist, Father Glutinous Letch, told the gathering that war was always wrong, which was why the Iraqi opposition was right to oppose the US military by any peaceful means possible, including armed force. "The US has tried to blacken the good name of the Iraqi opposition by using its own suicide bombers to slaughter Red Cross and UN personnel. But do not be deceived. The US was responsible. This war is a war about one thing and one thing only: oil."
The Sinn Féin TD for Louth-Leitrim, Eamon Ui Seamtex, said that his party was opposed to violence at all times, which was why it had supported the IRA campaign for civil rights for the best part of 30 years. The Sinn Féin position today was unchanged. That was why the US presence in Iraq had to be opposed by all peaceful means, including if necessary, armed peaceful means, as so successfully pioneered by the IRA campaign of non-violence. "The war is about oil. Nothing more and nothing less. The Americans are spending hundreds of billions of dollars in order to get their oil more cheaply than they can get it in Texas or Alaska."
The much respected Church of Ireland clergyman and peace activist, Canon Basil Bleat-Bleat declared that Ireland and Iraq had much in common. They were sister nations. Both began with the same two letters. Both had been conquered and oppressed by larger foreign powers. As a man of the cloth, he was a man of peace, and could never countenance violence of any kind. This was why he backed the actions of Iraqi Resistance. His heart went out to the mothers of those poor suicide bombers. Saddam was a threat to none one. His helpless sons had been murdered. There would have been peace in the Middle East if only Iraq had been left alone.
The English actress and peace activist Semper Akimbo said that what people didn't realise was that this war had been about oil. "Do you really think that the Americans would ever send their forces into countries without oil in their so-called war for freedom? Would the British or the US ever have intervened in countries that had absolutely no oil, such as Sierre Leone, Liberia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Bosnia? Never! Colonel Collins' presence in a so-called university campus is an absolute disgrace. Can you hear me, Colonel Collins? Yoo hoo: can your hear me? You are a war-criminal, and my phone number is in the London phone-book."
The feminist novelist Muriel Gobble said it was seldom realised that this war had been about oil. That was the only thing that the US understood - oil, and of course violence. "Phallocentric violence has been a hallmark of so-called American civilisation since the phallocentric genocide of the peaceful native American people.
"Phallocentric violence has to be opposed by the sort of vehement pacifism which Iraqi Resistance had displayed to date.
"Pacifist methods, up to and including violence, are justified. Because this war is not about peace or democracy. It's about oil."
The veteran CND activist, Peter Pillowbiter, declared that unless the US was stopped in Iraq, there would be war everywhere. "We warned that unless the US got rid of its nuclear weapons, there would be world war. We warned that unless the cruise missiles were removed from Greenham Common, mankind would be exterminated. We warned that unless the US stopped confronting the USSR, a holocaust was certain. We warned that unless the US abandoned Star Wars, Armageddon would follow. We have been proved right, time after time."
The meeting passed a motion calling for the US to withdraw from Iraq and surrender Texas and Arizona to Mexico, and then, very pleased with themselves, went home.