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SYRIA’S REBEL MOVEMENT has been a constantly shifting array of groups and alliances since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began nearly three years ago, with opposition formations increasingly overtaken by Islamist groups.
As new leaders have emerged within the opposition, infighting reached a new level this month, with several rebel factions declaring war against the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Some 2,300 rebel fighters have died fighting each other this year alone.
Below is a description of some of Syria’s main rebel groups:
ISIL was formed by breakaway elements from the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s official affiliate in Syria, which joined with al Qaeda’s Iraq branch.
The group is headed by the Iraq branch’s leader, known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He has ignored calls from al Qaeda central to stay out of Syria and focus on Iraq.
On Monday, al Qaeda’s general command said it had no links with ISIL, in an apparent attempt to assert authority over Islamist militant groups in Syria.
ISIL is seen as the most hardline of all the Islamist forces in Syria and has made enemies of several rebel groups since it seized many towns and checkpoints in opposition areas.
An ISIL fighter in Iraq. (Image: PA Wire)
The group was largely accepted by Syrian civilians at first due to its strict policies against looting and its attempts to provide social services. It lost favour as its members began kidnapping and killing critics and rival groups.
ISIL is now fighting on several fronts. In Syria, many rebel factions are trying to retake territory and force the group out of their areas. At the same time, Iraqi military forces have launched a heavy campaign inAnbar province, where ISIL fighters took control of some towns.
While its numbers may be smaller, perhaps around 6,000 to 7,000, the ISIL’s hardline fighting force is very committed and backed by foreign militants.
The group has vowed to use assassinations and other strategies to retaliate against attacks. In a 7 January statement, it vowed to crush the Syrian rebels and made no gestures toward reconciliation despite the Nusra Front’s calls for a truce.
A Syrian boy shouts slogans against the regime in front of a flag of the armed Islamic opposition group, the Nusra Front, during a demonstration in the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria during September 2012. (Image: Manu Brabo/AP/Press Association Images)
This powerful rebel group is comprised of both Syrians and foreign militants and has been formally recognised by the central leadership of al Qaeda as its franchise in Syria.
The group was one of the first to use techniques such as suicide attacks and car bombings in urban areas. Despite this, it is seen as more tolerant and less heavy handed in its dealings with civilians and other rebel groups, compared with ISIL.
The Nusra Front, estimated at around 7,000 to 8,000 members, has worked with most rebel factions fighting in Syria but follows an austere version of Islam and calls for the creation of an Islamic state.
It works closely with many other Syrian Islamist groups member groups. It has joined in some recent rebel-on-rebel battles against ISIL.
An amalgam of six major Islamist groups, this alliance is believed to be the biggest rebel army working in Syria. Its formation last November gutted the Western-backed Syrian Military Council, depriving it of some of its main members, such as the Tawheed Brigade, and further distanced it from powerful Islamist groups like the Ahrar al-Sham Brigades.
Children of followers of the banned Islamic-oriented Hizb Al-Tahrir take part in a demonstration in front of the Syrian embassy to condemn the peace talks in Switzerland between the Syrian government and the opposition, in Amman, Jordan on 22 January. The Arabic writing on the girls’ placards reads, “I am shy of your treason,” and “I can see you, the army of my nation, but what I can’t see is your chivalry.” (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon)
The Islamic Front’s members are hardline Sunni Islamists who want Syria to become an Islamic state, but they have been more tolerant of other groups than ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusra.
Analysts say the number of fighters brought together by the Front is between 40,000 to 50,000. It is still not clear, however, whether it will be more successful in coordinating and leading Syria’s notoriously fractious rebel groups compared to the failed moderate opposition alliances, loosely joined under the name the Free Syrian Army (FSA).
Units from the Islamic Front have fought against ISIL this year.
The Supreme Military Command is a moderate, non-ideological group and the foundering successor to the FSA leadership.
The SMC’s predecessors in the FSA, the original umbrella group for the rebels, were never able to form a coherent organisational structure or leadership and the SMC has faced similar challenges.
The group has backing from Western powers such as the United States, as well as Turkey and Gulf Arab countries, and has never been able to shake the impression among local rebel groups that it was a leadership coming from abroad.
Many of its commanders spent much of their time outside the country. They were also unable to secure consistent supplies of arms or funding from foreign donors.
While still functioning nominally, the SMC was dealt a heavy blow by the formation of the Islamic Front alliance in November 2013, which deprived it of some of its largest members and allies and further damaged the SMC’s legitimacy.
It’s affiliates include the Martyrs of Syria Brigades, Northern Storm Brigade, Ahrar Souriya Brigade.
This alliance of largely non-ideological rebel units was formed in December and helped launch a growing campaign against hardline ISIL fighters.
The backbone of the group is the Syrian Martyrs Brigade, a once powerful group from the northern province of Idlib led by Jamal Maarouf.
Maarouf and his fighters were largely discredited in Idlib by rival Islamist groups who accused them of diverting funds meant for the front lines into their own pockets.
Unlike most other rebel formations, the group does not appear to have strong ideological leanings, though its units are mostly moderate Islamists.
The SRF is believed to receive funding from large Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia. It has poor relations with the Islamic Front but has expressed support for the SMC.
Some analysts suggest that the SRF may be another attempt at reviving the main components of theFree Syrian Army, but it still lacks the regional scope to try that, as most of its member units hail from the north.
The result of conflict: a displaced Syrian child plays at a refugee camp in Idlib. (Image: Manu Brabo/AP/Press Association Images)
This recent formation of eight Syrian militant groups was announced early in January and almost immediately launched a campaign against ISIL, leading many observers to believe it may have been formed by Gulf Arab backers for the purpose of challenging the radical Islamist grop.
The Mujahideen Army, which claims to have 5,000 members, is seen as moderately Islamist. Most of the factions that joined the Mujahideen Army are relatively minor and little is known about the group so far.
However, this new group, along with the Syrian Revolutionaries’ Front, spearheaded the campaign against ISIL that has broken out in many opposition-held parts of northern and eastern Syria.
Note: On the diplomatic front, he Syrian opposition is also deeply divided with the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the Syrian National Council, the National Co-Ordination Committee and the Kurdish Supreme Committee.
Copyright 2014 Thomson Reuters/ Click for Restrictions.
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He murdered countless people, but sure lefties don’t care, so let’s make a stamp of him.
@Charlie O’Neill: Yes a murderer, a homophobic, a racist and his hero was Stalin, but lets just forget all that and pretend he’s cool.
@JP McHugh: Yeah this was a pretty stupid idea. Do we not have Irish people to put on stamps?
@Dave O Keeffe: It wouldn’t matter.. It’s just the left pushing their communist agenda. 10s of millions killed under communist regimes, yet how many people do you see wearing the communist red star on hats and t shirts. World is gone f..ing nuts.
@JP McHugh: you forgot terrorist.
Looks like Johnny Giles back in the day
@Shawn O’Ceallaghan: You could also say he was cruel in the way he treated his maids, as a young lad. A sick twisted individual.
@Charlie O’Neill: “We’re going to do for blacks exactly what blacks did for the revolution. By which I mean: nothing.”
@JP McHugh: communist and the left are not the same thing, just as nazi and the right aren’t. Communism is horrendous. Nazism is horrendous. There are people on both sides that denounce and are repulsed by both
@Dave O Keeffe: correct. Women especially. This is a wrong move.
@Dave O Keeffe: Communism and the left are very much interwoven. The left also share a lot with Nazism . But the fact of the matter is , most people dont even know the awful things communism has done, and they fly the flag, and wear the t-shirt, because they are so ignorant.
@Ladude: Your implication that all left leaning politics is interwoven with communism actually makes no sense. If that was the case it would skew the balance. All one side of a scale, by definition, cannot be on its extreme
@JP McHugh: any evidence to claim he was homophobic? Also in a speech to the UN on South Africa he said
“Those who kill their own children and discriminate daily against them because of the color of their skin; those who let the murderers of blacks remain free, protecting them, and furthermore punishing the black population because they demand their legitimate rights as free men — how can those who do this consider themselves guardians of freedom? The government of the United States is not the champion of freedom, but rather the perpetrator of exploitation and oppression against the peoples of the world and against a large part of its own population.”
Doesn’t so racist to me. As for a murderer it depends on your definition of murderer. Are all soldiers who kill in battle murders?
@WinSomeLoseSome: You’re right.
@Charlie O’Neill: stupid comment of day.
@Charlie O’Neill: Stupid comment from a member of the God squad, nothing about the millions the RCC God squad murdered, tortured, and burnt at the stake. The one trait i hate in any man or woman is servility.
@JP McHugh:
‘Liberating’ homosexuals by putting a bullet in their head….
@Liam Doyle: Like James Connolly?
@Ladude: Nazism (technically facism) is the polar opposite of communism. It is the ‘right’ side while communism is the ‘left’. They cannot ‘share a lot’.
Please educate yourself. You are neither right nor left, just plain stupid.
@Andy K:
Take a look at horseshoe theory.
Also, although it’s hard to describe them as left wing, the full name of the nazis is the “National Socialists”.
Not quite as clear cut as you may think.
@Dave O Keeffe: I believe his grandad was from Claregalway…
@Dave O Keeffe: Martin McGuinness
@JWill: There are 7000 homeless in Ireland because NAMA own 1000′s of properties across the country and those who are offered accommodation refuse to take what their giving. Yet there are talks of the government getting NAMA to sort the housing problem, while the politicians are too busy worrying about housing foreigners and giving money to corrupt NGO’s.
@JP McHugh: His other heroes were Michael Collins,Tom Barry and Dan Breen.
Ah yes, any man that shoots a 14 yo boy through the back of the neck deserves a commemoration stamp. ( the boys crime? Trying to stop a firing squad from shooting his dad)
@Honeybadger197: Good example of the nonsense being pushed from certain quarters these days about Che. Hear that on Fox news by any chance? Read a book instead. Educate yourself properly about the man. No mass murderer, no matter how loud the right-wing extremists shout. Still revered by ordinary Cubans. Much more so than Fidel.
@Honeybadger197: great story. When and where did that happen?
@Squiddley Diddley: He was a mass murderer, no matter what book you read. Putting terrorists on stamps is something you would expect from Fatah but not from a so called Western democracy.
@Richard Keogh: Would that include putting Michael Collins or Eamon De Valera on stamps? Were they “terrorists” too?
@Seán Mac Brádaigh: we have plenty of terrorists/murderers in this country to be put on stamps, we need a lot of Stamps!!
@Squiddley Diddley: Not propaganda just has the facts slightly wrong, Eutimio Guerra was the mans name Castro order him to be executed but his body guard refused, so Che stepped put his pistol to his head and executed him.
@John Mc Grath: No. That occurred in the Sierra Maestra mountains (along with at least 9 others). The murder I mentioned happened in La Cabãna Prison Havana. (along with literally dozens more at Guevaras own hands)
@Honeybadger197: Sorry my mix up, yes was that the prison where the priest working there said he executed prisoners with firing squads.
@Squiddley Diddley: I mean Che respected Mao, a lovely guy who killed 45 million of his own people in four years. They even met once.
@Richard Keogh: Like Pearse and the other 1916 Leaders?
@Squiddley Diddley: this is not Cuba
@Squiddley Diddley: You are obviously living in cuckoo land. Guevara was a sadistic, psychopathic killer. His crimes are well documented. What has he achieved? Nothing but misery and despair for Cubans. It’s nothing but a terrorist state ruled by a despot
who has enriched himself and his family at the expense of the ordinary Cubans.
So go ahead and celebrate the life of a killer who begged and pleaded for his life to be spared shortly before his execution.
Just another insignificant loser.
@Squiddley Diddley: Yeah revered by the Cuban leaders but despised by the free Cubans in the USA. The ordinary Cuban can say nothing bad about Guevara because he will end up in one of the prisons specially built to imprison free thinkers- and which were overseen by Guevara before he got his richly deserved reward at the hands of the Bolivian army. What a favour they did for mankind. The great killer was on his knees pleading for his life, nothing but a cowardly twisted psycho.
Too late they’re all sold out, Michael D bought them all.
@Ciaran O Reilly: If Jim Fitzpatrick got even just 1 cent for each time this image is reproduced he’d be sitting pretty right now, he gets nothing. A terrible pity his art isn’t more appreciated, the man ain’t getting any younger, sorry Jim.
@Ciaran O Reilly: He probably still wears the Che t-shirts when he’s in the President’s house.
@Ciaran O Reilly:
Ah yes, Che Guevara, great auld lad (as long as you weren’t gay, or of a different political persuasion)…
@Boyne Sharky: Glad to hear he didn’t make a penny out of glorifying Guevara, a sick sadistic mass murderer.
Nice!
@The Risen: fool
@Hurt Stoogie: Ah, my little stalker, back for his 3rd Frisay evening in a row and still adding nothing.
Always nice to meet a fan x
@The Risen: Or maybe he thinks you’re a fool. It’s not the word I’d choose for you, but each to their own.
@The Risen: says the guy who says he is pro gay rights but adores known homophobes and terrorists like che guevera and Hamas. Actions speak louder than words jamming
@Hurt Stoogie: they are walking contradictions.
@Hurt Stoogie: I’m also pro Brexit, but still admire certain people who hold the opposite view to me because I agree with them on other matters.
It’s how grown ups deal with the world lads. You should try it some time.
@Liam Doyle: Ok, I’ll use an example closer to home for you guys. Fine Gaels Eoin O’Duffy sent his blueshirts to fight for a fascist dictator whose regime tortured and killed homosexuals under the Spanish vagrancy act.
Are you claiming Eoin O’Duffy was a homophobe?
Fine Gaels Brendan McGahon on homosexuality in the 1990s (25 years after Che Guevara died)…
“I regard homosexuals as being in a sad category, but I believe homosexuality to be an abnormality, some type of psycho-sexual problem that has defied explanation over the years.”
“I do not believe that the Irish people desire this normalisation of what is clearly an abnormality…”
“Homosexuality is a departure from normality and while homosexuals deserve our compassion they do not deserve our tolerance. That is how the man in the street thinks.”
“… like left hand drivers driving on the right hand side of the road…”
So, by your own standards lads, shouldn’t you walk away from your association with FG?
@The Risen: so you admire a guy who has murdered people for being gay? Had murdered kids. And has murdered women. It’s good to know you that you’ve an amoral approach to live and death. Your terrorist and violent tendencies are well laid out for us.
@Liam Doyle: “I presume he was a homophobe, yes, but there are far greater sticks with which to beat O’Duffy”
Eh….google Micheál Mac Liammóir Eoin O Duffy when you get the chance
@The Risen: your appreciation for violence and murder are well presented
@Hurt Stoogie: lol! 3rd Friday night in a row spent posting comments @ me.
How gratifying x
:)
@The Risen: your true violent and homophobic and misogynistic and ignorant views are there for all to see jamming/for connolly/jambon/the risen
Funny reading all the rightie snowflakes getting triggered over this.
@Ryan Boyle: So your happy to have a murdering homophobic, racist have his face on an Irish stamp and be celebrated??? That’s ok ya?
@Ryan Boyle: Please try to be a little original, or perhaps better yet, please stop posting here.
@Ryan Boyle: It’s interesting seeing the term snowflake being used by snowflakes (or white knights) as a catch all insult for those who disagree with something political.
The mistake, or at least the thing you ignore, is that expressing such disagreement isn’t the same as getting triggered due to emotional fragility. Especially when such disagreement is due to a murderous Commie thug like Che being celebrated as a hero.
Perhaps you admire his intentions, but it’s reasonable to consider him more villain than hero. And it’s not a sign of fragility to express that opinion passionately.
@Liam Doyle: 1- Do you understand what a revolution is?
2- Can you guess there is an unevitable human cost associated to it ?
3- Do you know why?
@Ryan Boyle: No so. They ask the question, why is a mass murdering psych being portrayed as some sort of celebrity.
As for snowflakes, it must have been some sight to see Guevara begging for his life to be spared before the Bolivians despatched him. The poor old lefties hate being exposed for the thick ignorant idiots they are.
Pure class, an inspirational figure for ordinary people all over the world..
There used to be a great Cuban / Irish pub in Prague called O’Che’s
@Nick Allen: Che’s grandfather or great grandfather Irish? His correct last name was Lynch. He was a notorious homophobe btw…
@Paul J. Redmond: can you give any specific examples of his homophobia? Saying that, in that time homophobia was rampant.
@WinSomeLoseSome: genuine question.
@Paul J. Redmond: How would one go about earning notoriety for homophobia in the mid to late 1800′s?
@Joey Navinski: Seems only fair that if we can retrospectively judge people for owning slaves, we can also retrospectively judge them for being homophobes. Especially when that political sect wants to paint itself as inclusive by principle.
@Ben McArthur: but the political sect aligns itself with Che and not his ancestors and if homophobia was the norm back then how did his grandfather/great grandfather earn notoriety? Maybe Paul is conferring the notoriety on him himself?
@Nick Allen: Brilliant. Maybe some leftie can go to Cuba or North Korea, open a pub called O’Ches.
Cant wait for Bertie Ahern on a stamp
@Dan: It won’t stick.
@Dan:
what can you post for €6.66?
@Dan:
Though it will only work on brown envelopes
@Niallers: in my best Andy Gray voice “take a bow son”
@Dan: will it cover the cost of posting teabags to st lukes
@Niallers: cracking joke!
Who’s next? Stalin and Hitler..?
@mac.kerel: your ma
@mac.kerel: ___ It’ll have to be Sh!tler if they’re both on it.
@WinSomeLoseSome: maybe Winston Churchill another mass murdered & racist
@Christopher Doyle: in all fairness, I never said his ma was a mass murdering racist.
They should put his full name on the stamp….Che Guvara Lynch….Mothers name was Lynch……..He was no worse than President Obama who had as many people killed in Syria and everybody loves Obama…..
@John003: His mothers name was “Celia de la Serna y Liosa” Spanish aristocracy. His father was Ernesto Guevara Lynch, so his grandfather was Irish.
Brilliant this is just pure class well done to an post
Excellente !! I will buy up a few books and use them to annoy conservatives for years to come
@Liam Doyle: @Paul J.Trying to draw a response, are we?
brilliant, that will pee off all the rightie’s. VENCERAMUS !
@Liam Doyle: I appreciate your sentiment, but the foundation of this state was built by revolutionaries who killed, and seen by mass murderers. Many innocents died in the rising.
@Liam Doyle: I’d say you probably see yourself as on the left of the spectrum and you probably would be. However, the iconic picture of che is more symbolic in its nature conveying ideals of anti-imperialism, socialism, cultural nationalism, anti-colonialism. Generally ideals that do not find favour with those on the right of the spectrum. Now of course the issue of how che would achieve those ideals is important but of secondary importance to the primary symbolism of the picture. To say you disapprove of the image because che did not go about achieving his ideals (which apparently are on the same spectrum as yours) the way you approve of, would be to ignore or attempt to de-legitimise the multifaceted aspects of the picture.
@Liam Doyle: Firstly, to say you “object in the strongest possible terms to violence to further political goals” is borderline illogical, the state itself is premised on the use of violence to protect and further its political aims. You probably meant the arbitrary or unjustified use of violence which is fine but you must at some stage accept the use of violence in furthering political goals. Secondly, you are missing the point I am making, the picture conveys much more than a picture of an individual and his internal character. But you let it slip that you disapprove of his politics in saying “it is fundamental to his character and “politics”" which is completely fine by me, just don’t pretend you somehow agree with the ideals of the left which he tended to represent i.e. the ones I mentioned above. If you disagree with the politics espoused by the image say it out without having to use the “he murdered people” card.
@Liam Doyle: That’s cool, I’m not saying your not on the left, though if I were a full blown Marxist I would obviously say you weren’t but lucky for you I’m not. So we’re agreed that you disapprove of the general symbolism of the iconic image (which to be fair to you I will include some unjust killing)?
@Liam Doyle: in all fairness, Che Guevara and Hitler aren’t analogous. Stalin and Hitler would be more appropriate.
@Liam Doyle: Ah no you ruined what could have been a good debate by using a hitler comparison. Maybe Pinochet could have been a better analogy. But I take your general concerns about the extremism of any ideal, but disagree about the use of the image and its effects and glorification. BTW do conservatives privately espouse hitler?
@Liam Doyle: You’re still using the Hitler comparison. I would say 98% of people on the broad spectrum of the right would see Hitler as an extremist, where as probably 40% if even that on the left would see che as an extremist. There not representative.
Che was even to radical for Castro. A cold blooded killer who would have destroyed the revolution with his unyeilding views.
Still it’s a nice piece of artwork, there’s an Irish connection, and will look good as a stamp.
@Dave Doyle: If you even take a superficial look at who Che Guevara was, you will quickly understand that your assertion is idiotic and shallow. 1958, for example.
Well done Journal another gaff which your readers didn’t spot, Che Guevara was an Argentinian and not Cuban.
No Liam I didn’t make that up mate…..
They should have gone with the Ibrahim Halawa ‘Irish Citizen’ version. Reflects the state of the nation (screwy)
Michael Collins in disguise rest in peace both of them
It’s a stamp lads!
Hasta la Victoria siempre
Communist murderer.
@Michael: interesting to see the word murderer used by people who regard Reagan as a hero. The history of Latin America is a tragic one, with many of the big players totally callous about the lives of the innocent. Che is one of the better ones.
@Squiddley Diddley:
Didn’t see where Michael described Reagan as his hero – perhaps you can point it out as I seem to have missed it…
Nobody said the revolution would be a bed of roses. There’s a reason almost every Cuban holds Che in such high regard. Selfless till the last.
I’ll wait for the Hitler-Mao-Stalin triptych. Sure to be a big seller for all socialists.
@Ruairi Fahy:
Hitler was a fascist a right wing fanatic, Mao and Stalin where communists. Google socialist then communist and finally fascist now do you see the difference. They are not the same.
@Gary Kearney: Read your history books not Google. All were socialists. But you knew that anyhow. Seems you want to separate your national socialists from your Marxist socialists.
Killing lots of people is cool we the far left does it man.
We’re not even going to point out that he was half Irish?
@Ben McArthur: he wasn’t half irish. His surname was lynch but his irish ancestor was a good few generation previous
Rage against the machine had a few decent hits alright but I can’t understand why he gets to be on an Irish stamp
This is a truly awful and most regrettable decision by the Irish state. We should be HIDING any connection (real or imagined) that this murderer of thousands, and brutal dictatorship enabler, Che Guevara, might have had with Ireland; not broadcasting it. I will never buy a stamp with this man’s face on it, I would be ashamed to place his image on any letter I might write and post to another person.
If you want to get an authentic perspective of what evil men such as Guevara and Fidel Castro were really like (as opppsed to the stupid, sanitised version that we often hear in Ireland), just ask any intelligent Cuban who has escaped Cuba and now lives in countries like Ireland.
@John Reid: Shallow and uninformed comment. Not that the man was a saint. But he deserves intelligent critique. What are the ‘American’ Cubans going to say, anyway? FFS get real!
Designed by?
Should read copied by.
How much did the ” design work” cost?
@William Kelly: It is probably copyright, but does anyone apart from Micky Higgins really care
Still can’t believe a stamp is €1
It’s times like this makes me wonder I made right decision to move to pastures new…Jesus wept. Bloody far left…
@Kev Creed: It’s the state actually. The ‘far left’ don’t run An Post!
Your forgetting its an image world famous by an irishman
Who decided this and why.
i take it the DCC will be looking to fly the flag of this filthy Commie, Racist, Homophobe and Murderer, O’Guevara.
@Remy: You are a true, unreflecting, ill-informed idiot. No wonder that Ireland is the shit hole it has become. Go read a book.
@Nick Caffrey:
The fluff piece that is the Motorcycle diaries, or the Communist manifesto? Would ye get a grip ye moron.
Oh, great. Pol Pot stamps next, please.
No reason any longer why An Post cannot print stamps in honour of Stalin, Hitler,Pol Pot, Mao, Hussein, Gaddafi , etc
After all they were sadistic mass killers just like Guevara. It beggars belief that this organisation is closing dozens of post offices and yet glorifies a sadistic killer whose legacy lives on in present day Cuba, ie a backward, totalitarian state and in the minds of the idiotic looney left who admire and revere this butcher. Sickening.
Who’s next? Mao? Himmler? Pol Pot? He murdered hundreds of people for his warped ideology. What is this fixation we have with Marxist terrorists? Certainly not worthy of a stamp, but hey, I’m sure Michael D. Will be thrilled to speak at the unveiling.
@Larry Smierciak: How about Churchill, Bush or Cromwell?
Fun Fact: The image can be used as Fitzpatrick never exercised his copyright in the image.
Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat.
The stamp designs are approved for a year programme which is based on suggestions from the public. The panel evaluating them does include An Post but also others and then approved by the cabinet.
Viva la an post
Last was prematurely sent. New one without gaps.
Typical left wing morality. Extollings killers once they accord with their worldview. It is as bad as claiming as Reagan allegedly did about the President of Sudan that he was a son of a bitch but at least he is our son of a bitch. It is widely acknowledged that Guevara was a cruel sociopatic killer. Those in doubt should do some research. Arguably early fake news created the cult of Che. I will admit he had a cool 60′s revolutionary chic look but that was a sympathetic media creation and skin deep.
Stemming from Soviet days the left always and continues to believe that ideology transcends morality. As a ex leftist I have insight into the non questioning constantly shifting enforced groupthink mentality, We have been fed rubbish about Che by a happily privileged comfortable media crew who like to pretend to be cheaply radical. It’s all talk whilst they don’t practice what they preach.
The ignorance about the stamp is astounding. I think it is a ill thought out populist gesture that Fintan from the IT would give his tacit approval to.
(Remember it is Fintan O’T he would only do tacit as he is looking down on ordinary mortals from above)
Is this to celebrate an iconic artwork by an Irish artist? Or the subject Che Guevara Lynch’s Irish roots? Or both? DYK the entertainer Katherine Lynch claims to be his distant relative…
A stamp is a proof-of-purchase for postal services. You’re all getting mad about the design of a till receipt.
Typical left wing morality. Extolling killers once they fits into their worldview.
It’s worse stating that he is at least our son of a bitch as (I think) Reagan said.
It is well acknowledged that he was a cruel sociopatic killer . Hero of the left whose ideology always transcends morality. I have some insight into this as I used of a leftist persuasion.
Clueless decision with the stamp.
Equally it wont be long before we get sean dunne sean fitzpatrick liam lawlor bertie ahern david drumm ray burke denis foley etc stamps.
If it was an Irishman who fashioned this stamp’s image, no doubt he wasn’t sober! If ignorance is bliss, at least history-wise, then the Irish are a happy people; happy & dumb!
@Gabriel Santiago: Dumb is a compliment to you judging by your comment.
have your say