Jim Roche

Teaches at School of Architecture, Building and Environment, TU Dublin. Anti war, peace activist & advocate for the oppressed. Likes & RTs not endorsements.

[Jim Roche @jimrocheAfP]

Shocking news this morning. Trump is acting like a mad Roman emperor flaying out in desperation. @irishgov must issue forthright condemnation of this heinous act of state terror. @IrishTimes @Independent_ie @rtenews @NewstalkFM @SaturdayRTE @LMFMRADIO @irishexaminer @PatKennyNT

[IrishAntiWarMovement @IrishAntiWarMvt]

Trump’s air strikes in Caracas are designed purely to steal natural resources and distract Trumps maga base away from domestic woes & the Epstein files. @MichealMartinTD @SimonHarrisTD must condemn this US state terror and blatant breach of international law. HANDS OFF VENEZUELA!

[Jim Roche @jimrocheAfP]

Massive crowd here in the opening hours of the 3-day Jewish Anti-Zionist International Conference in Tallaght. https://t.co/wIOAAUuPRJ

[Jim Roche @jimrocheAfP]

Brilliantly articulated Tom. Well done. Nothing but lies and obfuscation from the government parties.

[Dr Tom Clonan @TomClonan]

Please Listen & Share -Accelerating Govt Misinformation & Disinformation On Abolition Of Triple Lock -In 120 Secs I Clearly Set Out Recurring Misinformation & Lies That Govt Is Peddling On Our #Neutral Status -Please Ask Your @FiannaFailParty & @finegael TD To #SaveOurTripleLock

[Hamza Yusuf @Hamza_a96]

“We can’t tell the world what you’re doing here… everyone back at home is relying on you…”

Keir Starmer in 2024 at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, the base for UK surveillance flights that flew over Gaza and assisted Israel’s crimes.

His legacy is facilitating genocide.

[Jim Roche @jimrocheAfP]

So great to have heard and met the great brave journalist @sallyhayd at the @dalkeybookfest last Friday. Cant wait to start her latest book This is Also a Love Story.

[Jim Roche @jimrocheAfP]

Good riddance indeed.

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

Keir Starmer was not merely a disappointment. He is a mendacious figure of ethical decrepitude, a man who won the Labour Party leadership based on promises that he jettisoned five seconds after winning - a Labour leader who dared banish from the Labour Party not only his predecessor but also remarkable human beings like director Ken Loach - the gentleman who has taken the historic Labour Party and transformed it into a vessel for the very oligarchy it was elected to restrain.

Consider the litany of Starmer’s moral and logical failures. He promised a 'different Britain', yet his actions were a masterclass in Tory-lite politics—using the same maxed-out credit card analogies that once served the austerity brigades to justify his own failure of vision. He promised a human rights lawyer’s approach but he embraced a racist-lite version of Farage.

On Europe, Starmer promised Brexiteers that Brexit is Brexit yet stood before those who yearn to rejoin the European Union, winked at them to make them feel that Britain would gradually reconnect, even rejoin, with the EU while offering nothing of substance. This is not leadership; it is a fraud.

And then there's the manner in which Starmer and his government rushed to offer Israel unequivocal support in pursuing its genocide in Gaza, sacrificing precious political and civil liberties in the UK by imprisoning grandmothers, priests and peaceful activists who dared support Palestine Action, an organisation that Starmer and his minions proscribed as terrorists for practising the usual activist tactics of trespassing to spray paint military planes that had demonstrably aided in the genocide. To add insult to injury, Starmer performed the diplomatic pantomime of recognising a Palestinian state, in a manner that ensured it would never happen.

But above all else, this is a government that has learned nothing from the post-2008 era. Starmer and his Chancellor are playing the same tired austerity game while enabling and empowering the Finance Curse perpetrated by the City of London, throwing in forgood measure cuts in international aid to fund a military spending trickle under the guise of a "Strategic Defence Review" . It is the same old doctrine: austerity for the masses, socialism for the financiers and the arms dealers.

History will remember Mr Starmer as a man without conviction, a Prime Minister who offers not a shred of honesty, but merely the cruel illusion of change. He is ethically decrepit because he had chosen, consciously, to abandon principle for power. And for that, history will indict him. Good riddance, I say.

https://t.co/sGfebPkDXR

[Jim Roche @jimrocheAfP]

Bravo to Ramita Navai who I was lucky enough to meet @dalkeybookfest last Friday. I cannot put down her book City of Lies. What an inspiring woman. I must catch up on all the documentaries.

[Jim Roche @jimrocheAfP]

Fiachra. You are great, on so many fronts.

[Fiachna Ó Braonáin @fobraonain]

Heroes!

[Jim Roche @jimrocheAfP]

A little wise perspective from a Jewish intellectual.

[Jim Roche @jimrocheAfP]

Meanwhile in Gaza.

[Dr. Yousef 🇵🇸 @yousef_ki1]

If you see this video, put a dot to break the algorithm.

[Jim Roche @jimrocheAfP]

Spot on Clare.

[Clare Daly @ClareDalyIRL]

Yes but more needs to be said. Many people mistakenly believe "the United Nations/international law" and the "rules-based international order" are interchangeable terms. They are not.

International law exists and must be upheld, especially by those who abhor war and atrocity. Just because international law is violated by states does not mean it does not exist.

The "rules-based international order" is a rhetorical trick used by American and European leaders to claim the moral high ground of international law without any of the obligations, to denounce opponents even as they launch their own wars of aggression and participate in the live-streamed holocausts of entire peoples. The "rules-based international order" has no basis in law. It does not exist except as a propaganda term for promoting the myth of Western exceptionalism.

Every time a Western leader or institution uses this phrase, it is a deliberate omission of international law. They omit international law because it applies to everyone, including them. In the "rules-based international order" of their imaginations, the world is expected to dance to their double standard: they make the rules, and everyone else just has to follow orders. It is little wonder this language is rejected at the UN by a majority of the world's countries representing a majority of the world's people, many of whom remember the last time Europeans made all the rules and everyone else had to follow orders.

This is a really important distinction to remember. As the world has watched unspeakable atrocities happen without accountability, many are losing faith in international law. Many are concluding it was all just a self-serving lie. That is a mistake. To do this is to unintentionally aid the attack on international law that is so abhorrent in the first place. The world cannot afford for those who oppose war and genocide to fall into listless cynicism.

The post-war international system is not perfect, but it is hard won, and it is all we have. The UN Charter is the single most consensual document of international law in history. It was the product of decades of war and nearly 100 million deaths. It was written to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind." Those ignoring and eroding it (including those in Europe parroting the lie that the UN is "no longer fit for purpose") are attempting to bring us back to the violent free-for-all where "the strong do what they want and the weak suffer what they must" - the world that created the need for the Charter in the first place.

The war criminals and the genocidaires in Tel Aviv, Brussels, London and Washington would like nothing better than to convince us all that international law does not exist. Do not reward them! It is imperative that those of us who insist on a world free from war and injustice ensure that it is the myth of Western exceptionalism that dies in the bonfire they are building, not international law and the United Nations.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

Remember that the US *does not care* about the people of Venezuela. It is not about "narcotrafficking", or "democracy", or whatever propaganda they have going. It is *explicitly* about US control over oil, capital accumulation, and geopolitical power.

[Jim Roche @jimrocheAfP]

Sickening response from a sycophantic Irish government.

[Paul Murphy 🇵🇸 @paulmurphy_TD]

This is beyond shameful.

[Paul Murphy 🇵🇸 @paulmurphy_TD]

This is beyond shameful.

[Jonathan Cook @Jonathan_K_Cook]

I guess Putin made a mistake in not kidnapping Zelensky during Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Would the BBC and the Guardian have calmly explained back then that the Ukrainian president had been "captured" and was due to face trial in Moscow?

[Stop the War Coalition @STWuk]

The British government should condemn the forced removal and attack for the aggression that it is and call for an immediate cessation of military action by the US, and the return of Maduro to his country.

We call for full solidarity with the Venezuelan people and the return of their govt.

[IrishAntiWarMovement @IrishAntiWarMvt]

Trump’s air strikes in Caracas are designed purely to steal natural resources and distract Trumps maga base away from domestic woes & the Epstein files. @MichealMartinTD @SimonHarrisTD must condemn this US state terror and blatant breach of international law. HANDS OFF VENEZUELA!

[Jim Roche @jimrocheAfP]

Shame on the Irish Government for its lazy complicity. Afraid it might upset the genocide enablers in Washington and Europe.

[People Before Profit @pb4p]

Two years into a genocide and our government has done nothing. Millions still flow through our central bank to the Israeli military, Israel keeps its favourable trade status, and benefits from their allies illegal use of our airspace.

Their inaction is a stain on our history.