The Death of Francis Boyle

FAB, as he invariably signed himself, was certainly not all-powerful though he often seemed to be all-wise.

But if you were a persecuted individual, or a member of a people or community ravaged by military invasion, occupation, cruel repression, genocide or the extermination of your dignity, identity and culture, FAB was the man for you.

And when he took on your case and your cause, he would never forget you, never abandon you, never give up on his tireless efforts to win you deliverance and freedom, relief and justice. What more can you ask an Angel of the Lord than that?

FAB’s life and career was an epic: He took on the causes and championed the rights of the Lakota and Blackfoot nations of North America, not exactly fashionable causes to win plaudits on either the US news networks or the fashionable fake soft left in New Manhattan.

FAB loathed and despised President Joe Biden as a contemptible fake Irishman when Biden was still being witlessly hosanna-ed by half the American people. FAB had long since exposed Biden as a shill for the British government in covering up human rights abuses in Northern Ireland. It was therefore no surprise to him when Biden served up the Ukrainian people as cannon fodder to bleed Russia — two Slav nations bled white at a single stroke: Or that Biden then never raised a fingernail to stop the aerial bombardment and slaughter of the people of Gaza over 16 months either. It was left to Donald Trump, of all people to finally act on that.

One of FAB’s last initiatives was to initiate impeachment proceedings against Biden because of the abominable human rights abuses and mass murders he fostered and protected around the world. Once again FAB boldly struck where no other American or lawyer had ever dared to go. And once again he was way ahead of his time.

When at Harvard FAB inherited the office Henry Kissinger had once used. Kissinger’s malign bat-winged presence haunted him: He spent the rest of his life helping the Great Peacemaker’s many victims.

I found many admirable and responsible aspects of Kissinger, particularly compared with the 21st century killer-clowns who have followed him. However, FAB did not. He saw the crimes and outrages and mass slaughters of the 1970s clearly at the time and he never forget nor forgave for them.

FAB was also a gifted poet and his compositions included devastating put-downs of Kissinger and other Harvard supposedly Good and Great.

FAB was so appalled and disgusted by the endless, ever-lengthening litany of US and US-supported war crimes, hypocrisies and abuses of human rights and international law that he very consciously and deliberately defined himself as a proud and unreconstructed Irishman and Irish Republican all his life.

And it was as an Irish Republican that FAB consciously entered the tremendous Irish human rights tradition of Michael Davitt, founder of the Land League who saved the Irish people from a second appalling national famine in the 1880s and went on to champion the Jews of Eastern Europe against the tidal wave of savagery that rose to engulf them. And he consciously walked in the footsteps of the magnificent Roger Casement himself, who directly ended two genocides – one of 10 million people in what is now Congo when it was being raped by King Leopold of Belgium backed by the financiers of the City of London from the 1880s to 1908.

Casement ended up being martyred: He was hanged by the British Empire in 1916 during World War I on a fake charge of treason after he returned to Ireland not to incite a rebellion but to prevent it. That was FAB to a tee.

FAB exposed Western secret bio-war labs in Ukraine. He represented the Palestinian people in their 1991-92 peace negotiations. He championed the cause of the people of Bosnia during the terrible wars that ravaged the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.

We had been good friends for a decade: And I often called him for a quote or his assessment on the latest lunacy, war crime or bare-faced lie to sweep the world. Almost every time, a supposedly two-minute call lasted an hour or 90 minutes. I never wanted it to end then. His experience was so vast, his recollections so vivid and his judgments of the cowards and war criminals who infest our world so first-hand, clear and devastating.

FAB’s passing is a terrible loss. But he died the death of the angels and the saints. The first tributes already posted on the legacy.com website catch the essence of the man – His passion for truth, justice and defending the helpless, the powerless and the innocent without fear or favor.

A tribute by a gentleman named John Knott captures these extraordinary qualities: “Losing Francis Boyle is a completely irreplaceable loss. There just aren’t that many people that had enough integrity and courage and connections to let everybody know when Bioweapons would be released and what the public could actually realistically expect from the problems that had happened. …Even when it seemed like he was wrong it would always turn out that Francis Boyle was right over and over again.”

And Mr. Knott continues: “Francis leaves behind a legacy that set the bar so high it’s almost impossible to match and the world is better for being lucky enough to have him as a part of it while he was here. Losing him is a huge loss for the entire world. I hope that humanity can make it through the next phase of whatever’s coming without his guidance because he made such a huge difference.”

I agree entirely with that assessment: And the lament of Biblical prophet Isaiah also jumps vividly to mind:

“For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away …The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,
The captain of fifty, and the honorable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.”

(Book of Isaiah, Chapter 3, Verses 1 to 3)

And then verse 4 continues:

“And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.”

FAB saw that clearly too.

As a passionate skeptic, FAB chose to be cremated: However, I can envision him easily in that blessed corner of Heaven reserved for the troublemakers, the prophets, the poor, blessed, benighted fools who actually believe there must be fair play, redress and justice in the world.

He may be there already, lowering endless quantities of good Jameson Whiskey with such boon companions as Roger Casement, Michael Davitt and the martyred heroes of the 1916 Easter Rising and the great Irish rebel bands such as The Chieftains and the Wolfe Tones that he loved so well.

Do not Rest in Peace, Dear Friend: And Do Not Go Gentle into That Dark Night.

We still need your Relentless, Unconquerable Courage and Spirit.

As the great Joan Baez sang in “The Ballad of Joe Hill”:

“Takes more than guns
To kill a man”…

And FAB you didn’t die.