Tag Archives: Neutrality

Editorials: Shannon and Iran, Food security and sovereignty

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Shannon Airport and Iran

Lies and excuses

Both the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Helen McEntee, have seen it necessary to state that Shannon Airport is not being used by the USA in relation to the USA and Israel’s war on Iran. Perhaps this is so. But we do not actually know since the Irish state refuses to search US planes at Shannon, accepting assurances from a state which is headed by a Liar in Chief. In any case Shannon is still being used as a de facto US military base and the USA in regard to its military policies is clearly a rogue state – especially so under President Trump but under most other presidents too. Ireland has not even had the courage of Spain – a NATO member – in banning US military flights and use of bases and this says something clear about Ireland’s supposed neutrality.

The Irish state is supporting a regime which kills – murders – with impunity. This is disgraceful from any moral or ethical standpoint and obviously a negation of neutrality. And still the state makes excuses and accepts lies, and lies itself. And the USA would not use Shannon unless it was advantageous to its enormous global military empire. Transporting troops is an essential part of any military engagement and the fact of whether there is or is not military equipment being transported as well does not take from the facilitation of war by allowing troops to pass through.

Government inaction is even more bizarre given Helen McEntee’s and Micheál Martin’s restrained but implicit criticism of US policies in the Middle East. Helen McEntee even stated that she agreed with President Connolly’s assessment of recent events in the Middle east as a breach of international law. She also stated “I am deeply concerned that the US and Israel have decided to launch widespread armed conflict against Iran at this time.” Micheál Martin said that Ireland always believed that conflict should be resolved through diplomacy and negotiation, in line with the UN Charter and international law. However it is cowardice that neither would explicitly say USA actions were illegal or take action over Shannon.

Helen McEntee has also said that the Government has “no reason to believe” the US is using Irish airspace as part of its operations linked to the war in Iran – something which they actually have no way of knowing. Micheál Martin said similar things to his Minister for Foreign Affairs but stated that false claims about Shannon would damage Shannon airport itself. This is incredible. His concern about damage to Shannon shows no concern about ‘damage’ – obliteration – to those on the receiving end of US warmaking. He did admit that it was difficult to investigate if the USA was breaking the rules – another incredible statement because if he and the government had the courage they could routinely search all planes at Shannon which might be carrying weaponry. This is aside from the fact that allowing the transmission of troops is also breaking Irish neutrality.

In relation to all of this Niamh Ní Bhriain, writing in the Irish Examiner, https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-41811128.html made the powerful point that “This failure to call out blatant violations of international law, and name those responsible for them, highlights precisely why we cannot trust the Government to decide on overseas troop deployment, and underscores why we must protect the Triple Lock. If the Government can’t say that a war is illegal, how can it decide whether to deploy troops to it?”

Meanwhile Belfast International Airport at Aldergrove (15 miles from Belfast to the west) is used freely by UK and US militaries with US flights refuelling there which go directly to the Gulf, presumably with war supplies. Aldergrove is thus directly complicit in the US-Israeli onslaught on Iran and the atrocities which have taken place as part of that. As the North is part of the United Kingdom which belongs to NATO, there are no legal grounds to object beyond facilitating wars illegal under international law – but there are huge ethical and moral grounds to do so.

In relation to the USA and Israeli war on Iran (and by the latter on Lebanon) more generally it is clear that US-Iranian negotiations were on the cusp of success, or at least a good chance of it, when Trump decided to bomb Iran into hell. International observers have stated as much. Presumably Trump, emboldened by his ‘success’ (from his point of view) in Venezuela, thought a couple of days bombing would overthrow the theocratic regime in Iran; he clearly wasn’t listening to advice, including from Gulf states. He knew best, as always. But military attacks tend to strengthen the regime in a country being attacked. Another factor is presumably that the US government decided to back Israeli bombing which was going to happen anyway. The environmental costs of war are also extremely severe, an issue of no concern to Trump but another nail in the coffin of a stable climate.

Whether Donald Trump will have a TACO moment (Trump Always Chickens Out) or will continue to exacerbate the complete mess he has got the region and the world into remains to be seen. Saving face may be his primary objective at this stage. The USA projects itself as a world peacekeeper when historically it has been a warmaker. Western states need to cotton on to this and no more so than a supposedly neutral state on the western extremity of the continent of Europe. Meanwhile everyone suffers from the economic fallout of the war, and poor people and countries most of all. The repercussions of this astoundingly stupid war have only just begun, most drastically for the families of those killed and for the displaced in Lebanon and Iran.

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Food security and sovereignty

The related issues of food security and food sovereignty tend to trundle on in the background, raised and discussed by groups like Afri, Feasta and some organic growers or educators but never or seldom reaching mainstream concern, even when a war, such as the current USA-Israel onslaught on Iran, disrupts the global economy. However you do not need to be a doomsday merchant to have concern in this whole area. Food security is just that, being secure in your food supply with adequate quality and nutrition. Food sovereignty is having control of your food growing, supply and distribution and not being dependent on outside corporations or multinationals who can turn the screw on you as soon as bid you the time of day. While these are major issues in poor countries (seed sovereignty was saved in Kenya with a contribution to that made by Clare O’Grady Walshe) this is also an urgent issue for Ireland.

The world has – just – avoided nuclear war which would herald a nuclear winter and possibly the starvation of most of the people on the globe. If that particular apocalypse comes about we are pretty much all doomed. However there are all sorts of lesser scenarios where food chains are at risk. One of these is clearly regional warfare not escalating to nuclear but which nevertheless manages to cause major disruption – the Iran war is an example of the kind of thing possible. Global heating will affect many, primarily poor, countries in their food production and it is hard to know what the repercussions will be. There are all sorts of unexpected circumstances which can, and will, arise, including natural disasters which may affect our ‘bread’ basket. And given the likely food crisis arising from global heating, as crops become impossible to grow though excessive heat and insufficient moisture, it is incumbent on us to be proactive in providing more, varied, food ourselves in an ecological and sustainable way.

Ireland exports food but it is mainly meat and dairy products. We are highly dependent on food imports for much of our diet. We might be all right for a bacon and cabbage diet (and that bacon may come from intensive factory-farming) but for most of what we eat today we are dependent on international trade, and most of that on a ‘just in time’ basis – meaning there are no stocks to fall back on. It is also true that a vegan or vegetarian diet, or at least a low meat consumption one, is an important contribution to avoiding global heating. Of course it may be more efficient ecologically for some crops to be grown in warmer countries than Ireland but these are at risk in crisis situations, and the supply of local seasonal food for our diet is the most sensible option.

Encouraging citizens to grow their own food is part of an appropriate response, and the 2024 law to have local councils provide community garden and allotment spaces in the Republic is a good one (all councils are obliged to be active in working on this and Ireland lags way behind other European countries in provision). The respective governments should be seeing what they can do to encourage responsible and diverse agriculture – not the intensive animal variety which has led, for example, to the destruction of Lough Neagh (still not being sorted out). But there could also be a lot more imagination applied, for example in public planting of trees to include a substantial number of fruit trees – birds and insects will benefit from these even if we humans do not. Education in sustainable and organic horticulture is never more needed,

This is all before we even broach the topic of Ultra Processed Foods, bad for us and often bad for the environment. Exercising food sovereignty and denying the power of large multinationals to control food and thereby control people’s (ill) health and livelihoods will be an ongoing struggle.

We live in a very uncertain world. We may wish for stability but we are unlikely to find it, and global heating will disrupt a huge amount of what we have previously taken for granted. We ain’t seen nuthin’ yet in terms of (forced) migration. We ain’t seen nuthin’ yet in terms of disruption to food production and food supplies. We would be wise to plan ahead while we can so that we are in a better place to ride out the coming storms – and not, as a rich country, be taking the food that belongs on poor people’s plates elsewhere if and when food supplies dry up.

Neutrality and peace: Lelia Doolan – at 91! – walks from Shannon to Dáil, starting 31/3/26

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Walk With Lelia – A Peace Walk Across Ireland – starting 31st March

Shannon – Cratloe – Limerick – Birdhill – Nenagh – Moneygall – Roscrea – Mountrath – Portlaoise – Monasterevin – Newbridge – Nass – Rathcoole – Dáil Éireann

At 91 years, Lelia Doolan has seen too much of the devastation caused by wars, apartheid and genocide.  She is donning her (ethically sourced!) walking shoes to blaze a trail from Shannon Airport to Dáil Éireann.

Joined by community groups and peace activists along the old road to Dublin, they will express the frustration, shame and anger felt by the many Irish stalwarts who have for over 30 years (since 1981), regularly protested at Shannon against the use of the airport by US military planes – whose personnel and cargos the Irish government refuses to inspect.

Starting on March 31st from Shannon Airport, the walk should arrive in Dublin around April 14th/15th.

The Irish government’s financial and political cap-tipping to the US government results in turning a blind eye to our obligations under international law, thus making itself complicit in the deaths of tens of thousands of children in Gaza and, most recently, in Iran.  It has also arrested, jailed and fined, and currently confines to Court censorship, many of its own citizens for their opposition to this current practice.

This is a walk for peace, for closing Shannon Airport to US military planes and personnel, for passing the Occupied Territories Bill, and for protecting our national neutrality from war mongers.

All are welcome to join for a step, a mile, a song!

Email walkwithlelia@proton.me for a sign-up form

Follow the walk on socials @walkwithlelia

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/walkwithlelia?igsh=eGlveXczdGFnYWVx

Upscrolled – https://share.upscrolled.com/en/user/d02bcbbf-48a9-4052-90f2-e24423a03d3c/

– For coverage of the walk, do a word search, e.g. ‘Lelia Doolan walk’

Editorial: Neutrality – Opting in

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Irish neutrality, and neutrality in general, is depicted by the powers that be as a passive opt out from the real issues of the day and shouldering the burden of keeping the peace through military means. There is, and has been, a concerted effort to depict neutrality as outdated, limited in any case (“military neutrality” only while the establishment pushes for full involvement with NATO/EU military structures), and irresponsible in the modern world.

Even a publication like The Economist (based primarily in London) has been getting in on the (rather tired) act, saying “Neutrality looks increasingly like a simplistic answer to complex geopolitical questions…..Switzerland or Ireland throwing its weight behind Ukraine is unlikely to have the same effect. [[As the USA moving from neutrality in 1941]]. But it would be a welcome decision to join the real world.” (The Economist 21/1/23) And so it goes.

We would argue that it is the militarists who refuse to join ‘the real world’. They have numerous fantasies: their faith in armaments is unshakeable; their belief that the burgeoning EU empire will be a force for good; their belief that militarisation makes you ‘safe’. All these are beliefs that are fantasies They spend enormous sums of money on the latest armaments while not dealing with the real needs of human security and justice, locally (in Europe) and globally. And it is NATO expansionism, and outdated concepts of democracy (see Peter Emerson’s article in this issue) as much as Putin’s belligerence and chauvinism which has led to the disaster that is Ukraine today, although undoubtedly Russia is the brutal aggressor.

There is no end to the war in sight for Ukraine. For Russia, which invaded Ukraine expecting an easy victory, to roll over and admit defeat would require a major change in Russia itself and specifically overturning the power of Vladimir Putin, or engineering a situation where he has no choice (nowhere near the situation currently). The death toll is currently likely to be over a hundred thousand, perhaps with the same number again wounded. How many hundred thousand more will be massacred before it ends? We do not hear the true numbers of Ukrainian military killed just as Russia downplays its numbers of dead. And so attrition and bloodbath continue, with the west seemingly willing to fight to the last drop of Ukrainian blood, and Vladimir Putin not really caring how many Russians get killed if it advances his cause.

Where do we ‘break into history’ with a mediated response or indeed with nonviolence, nonviolent resistance, and nonviolent civilian defence? ‘Never’ say the militarists who project ‘peace’ as coming after the current war, and then make no moves to build peace. A case for nonviolent civilian resistance in Ukraine – and Ireland – was made in Nonviolent News previously https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/2022/04/01/nonviolent-resistance-to-invasion-occupation-and-coups-detat/

Of course neutrality – if it is taken to be an ‘opt out’ – can be a retreat from engagement with the ‘real world’, and the more Irish neutrality is circumscribed by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and others, the more worthless it becomes. But it could be as dynamic, and even more useful, than in the time of Frank Aiken (see the Afri booklet. “A force for good? Reflections on neutrality and the future of Irish defence” and the article by Karen Devine there) who took a fearlessly independent, anti-imperialist and progressive line.

Ireland can do the same again. It does not have to stand with the big boys. While in recent decades it has stood against landmines and cluster weapons, its one remaining feature which might be considered positive for international peace is its military peacekeeping role in conflict and post-conflict situations. This has been a source of Irish pride and can be further developed with work on unarmed accompaniment and peacemaking.

Peter Emerson’s ideas, at the end of his article in this issue, about nonviolent action by state and representative figures might seem fanciful but why not? If we are committed to peaceful resolution of conflict (as stated in the Irish constitution) then why can it not be practised in new and innovative ways?

But it also needs stated that the practice and theory of mediation has developed significantly since Frank Aiken’s time and this is another area where Ireland should be active in a very significant way. Why is Ireland not involved in seeking resolutions to the war in Ukraine? Why is it not talking to Ukraine and Russia and seeing and seeking, behind the rhetoric, whether there are any prospects for at worst a ceasefire and at best a resolution? Who else is doing this seriously? There is a role there that Ireland should be playing – in relation to this and other conflicts and potential conflicts.

While involvement in mediation is voluntary, a ‘soft power’ state like Ireland can clearly indicate it does not easily take ‘no’ for an answer. In negotiation it is important to separate ‘positions’ from ‘interests’ and the negative take on possibilities represented by positions should not mean there is no possibility of getting an agreement if there are sufficient carrots, on both sides, to cater for longer term interests. Even Russia’s claims that the annexed eastern provinces of Ukraine will be forever part of Russia could be subject to negotiation and face saving, say if people there were offered Russian citizenship if they wanted it but the areas concerned were a relatively autonomous part of Ukraine.

Neutrality is projected by the powers that be as an opt out. Those who wish to protect, defend and develop Irish neutrality see it as a very definite opt in – to the pursuit of justice and peace. And neutrality should not be used to justify or copperfasten unjust solutions – mediation theory,for example, is clear that it should not be party to possible resolutions which are against any party’s human rights. And it should be clear that the possibility of Ukrainian neutrality, with guarantees, can-and should be part of a solution, as with previous proposals that Turkey was involved in. The rejection of Ukrainian neutrality as part of a deal has come from ‘the west’ as much as anyone in Ukraine.

Ukrainian neutrality, with guarantees, is an obvious policy to pursue in relation to ending the war, that and relative autonomy for the east of Ukraine which was already part of the Minsk deals but never implemented. Even now such a deal, properly packaged, could allow Putin to claim success in Ukraine while the reality of the aftermath of war is much grimmer.

Expecting victory for Ukraine, and contributing to it with tanks, is upping the stakes including the risk of Russia or indeed the USA resorting to the use of nuclear weapons, ‘tactical’ or otherwise. https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-end-of-the-world-is-back-frida-berrigan-on-nuclear-abolitionism/ As we have pointed out before, the USA and ‘the west’ are expecting Russia to accept something – NATO in Ukraine – the equivalent of which (Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962) was violently rejected by the USA with the very real threat of nuclear war at that time. We are back full circle to being close to that situation.

There is a massive, perhaps burdensome but also wonderfully liberating, role that Ireland can play on the world stage. This is not fanciful. Ireland already has a reputation as being friendly and different. That role can be built on as a force for peace, to be a big cog in peacemaking machinery rather than, as the current direction indicates, a small cog in a warmaking machine which will clearly add to the world’s woes as time goes by..

We can actively opt in to peacemaking and peacebuilding. It is going along with the militarists which is the real opt out and which accepts the inequities and violence of the world. We can demand better and an imaginative and dynamic policy which works to build peace globally. The great sadness is that the Irish establishment and political leaders are captured by false visions of what ‘European unity’ and military power mean. It is as though ‘serving neither King nor Kaiser’ has given way to serving both of them simultaneously.

Ban Ki-moon famously said that the world is over-armed and peace is under-funded. In terms of international mechanisms, security and peace should be sought through a reorganised and renewed United Nations rather than partisan and violent military alliances like NATO – or the growing EU military capability. Ireland can opt to be for peace or prepare to go to war. It cannot successfully ride two horses at the same time and in riding the militarist horse it will betray the positive legacy of neutrality which has been bequeathed to it. Ireland can and should build up neutrality in constructive, imaginative and fruitful ways and contribute to the possibilities of world peace..

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