Can you explain Chuck how sending troops to any other country is ‘any of our business’..unless it is as a necessary mission to hold a peace-line against warring factions snctioned by some international body such as the UN General Assembly?
Unfortunately, particulary since John Bolton rode into UN HQ on Bush’s back(every cowboy needs his donkey), the UN has pretty well been converted into an instrument of Nato/Pentagon actions on behalf of corporate interests on their PNAC mission(on the way to accomplishment, Syria and Iran next, AfPak, Iraq, Libya wrecked to order).

What the hell is “a necessary mission to hold a peace-line against warring factions”

You say yourself that “the UN has pretty well been converted into an instrument of Nato/Pentagon actions on behalf of corporate interests” and at the same time you want to continue giving these people a veto over what we do with our own army?

The specific mission I referred to was the UNPREDEP mission to Macedonia in 1999. That mission already existed when the differing ethnic groups in neighbouring Kosovo began butchering each other. It looked like the same thing was going to happen in Macedonia. However, the new Macedonian government recognised Taiwan’s independence, and so China vetoed the renewal UNPREDEP’s mandate, thereby removing the security force that was keeping them apart. It took the Americans to come in and unilaterally save the day

Now, can you explain to me how it’s a good thing that when a fellow European nation specifically asks for Irish troops to be sent to their country we cannot respond because the regime in Beijing is sulking over some diplomatic slight?

How many lives are you willing to sacrifice to this ‘neutrality’?

Its what it says on the tin, Chuck.
We differ. You seem to be a Nato advocate(long term FG policy).
I’m not. I don’t see neutrality as indifference, but as an independent ethical humanitarian policy based on an awareness of our imperial history from the underside, promoting democratising of the UN so it no longer serves the coporate interests of the imperial and wannabe imperial blocs. It was once.

I believe that was the post-war vision of the war-weary allies and publics when they reconstituted the collapsed League of nations as the UN and initiated a unification of European powers to end centuries of fratricidal butchery.
Unfortunately war-weariness seems to fail to jump the generation-gap and historic lessons fade.
Given the technological advances, and the returned appetites of the ‘players’ for their 19th century ‘Great Game’ hegemonic contestation, I think it might be no bad idea if the hubris that gave us the 20th century of trenches, crematoria chimneys and Hiroshima mushrooms and a napalm-cold dessert inclined us to subtract at least one of western man’s ‘sapiens sapiens’ self-delusionary labels before we again take our destructive capabilities and proclivities to their logical sets of conclusions.
I recognise I’m in a minority, but that’s always the way with post-nationalist thinking. Us hominids have yet to evolve beyond out tribal simian super-trooperisms.

I’m from Dublin and I agree with you so can you please stop saying it’s a Dublin thing. Dublin has by far the biggest population of any city in Ireland so of course the meeting is going to be in Dublin if they want more than 4 people to turn up to it.

The media are based in dublin the authors are academics from Galway /Shannon

Agree with Stephen

Sure Stephen, can’t you picket Intel and the IFSC yourself?
Last I heard security at Shannon was costing the state money. Its just the traditional forelock tugging for the imperial masters. Old habits etc.
Your logic of renditions going elsewhere would excuse Auschwitsz on the ground it wasn’t in Dundalk so we can facilitate the Luftwaffe.
War profiteering..sure isn’t it part of what we are…a gombeenation once again.

If the government refuse to inspect flights then there is little change of finding evidence. The Irish government used to claim that no weapons were coming through Shannon, then they admitted hand guns, then rifles etc. Eventually an American general admitted that napalm and patriot missiles had come through. Furthermore the Council of Europe cited Ireland as one of a list of countries who had facilitated rendition.

Just because you are ‘not aware’ does not make you informed. It sounds like your stance limits your willingness to investigate.

Re Intel etc. many protests have occurred over the years relating to ‘dual use’ components being produced in Ireland. Specifically I remember ones against DDC in Cork and Raytheon in Derry. Again just because you are not informed does not make your views any more than a lazy bar room narrative.

Colm, your suspicions are not fact either. I definitely get the impression you are mainly interested in pseudo facts which back up your anti American bias. There is zero actual evidence of rendition flights coming through Shannon. If we sold spuds to the Americans and they ended up in fries the military ate should we stop growing spuds? Thats how realistic your argument is.

Stephen. Which of my claims do you claim to be pseudo. The claims regarding napalm etc. were reported as an expose in The Irish Examiner under the headline ‘Patriot Games’ around 2003/4. If you were old enough and interested enough at that time you would remember the article because it was shocking. I am not ‘anti-American’. I am critical of many aspects of it’s foreign policy but I love and am highly influenced by many aspects of it’s culture inc. music, art, cinema, popular culture etc. Your comment about spuds is weak. There are clearly degrees of complicity in immoral acts. Obviously you have to first decide what these are, but I start from a perspective that imperialist, unilateral action (not withstanding the coalition of the killing), which breaks and thus undermines international law is a bad thing. Feeding an imperialist army for profit would make us morally complicit but being an aircraft carrier for them is much worse, esp. when the state does so against the wishes of the people (as many polls at that time showed). By your logic there is no moral consequence to any Irish involvement in that imperialist venture.

erm it more like if a car was constinuosly being used to kidnap people and you got the plate wouldn’t you stop the car everytime you saw it, investigate the owner

You’re ‘sure’ of so much, Declan.
Any chance you might define your terms so we can identify the phylum of your red-herring ?
I think you kept it under your bed a bit too long.

Damian, I’m just being a little bit sarcastic but have you ever seen the left demonstrate against the other side?

Which left, Declan??There are as many ‘lefts’ as there are ‘rights’.
I was being serious. Define your term.
I happen to know both these people. I’ve had arguments with them both over several years. But I also agree with their basic anti-war stance and respect their gumption in not keeping to the general goosestep that represents Irish political whatever-you-say-say-nothingism.
It was the glorified Irish hero of the conservative right that proclaimed ‘All it takes for evil to prevail is that decent men do nothing’.
It still holds. And when the ‘silent majority’ remain apathetic and somnolent the gangsters establish their rule. We don’t have to look beyond white-collar Ireland to see that. Joyce’s old sow continues to export her farrow while having progressed to devouring whatever lands in her gaping trough.

Good point! I guess they are their friends! ;-)

Damien, regarding your comment about “evil to triumph” etc. well maybe the anti war movement should go out and stand up to the Taliban? Surely it’s the Taliban here who are evil? The US military is fighting against a group who will shoot a child because she wants to be educated.
So who are the good men now standing idly by?

Declan Just because the Americans use Orwellian terms like collateral damage to describe the countless children they have killed in my lifetime alone, it dosent make their bombs any less lethal or evil. The Taliban where Charlie Wilson’s heros funded in the millions when they where called Mujahideen so don’t come with the Team America world police BS. Arms Manufactures don’t care who buys their bombs but they need perpetual war to stay in business.

@Declan That would defy their logic. After all the taliban hate the USA too.

Niall, your not telling the truth in saying that these were Charlie Wilson’s hero’s. go and read about the soviet invasion of afghan and then get back to me.

Did they not instal that corrrupt government themselves in Kabul?
And Pakistan has been protesting the drones as counter-productive for quite a while. A recent US study reckoned 1 in 50 of victims were actual fighters.

Well they installed the Afghan government themselves so it’s no wonder they have an agreement. It’s like saying the Nazi’s were welcome in Vichy France.

Thats right they’ve left Iraq after leaving hundreds of thousands of civillians dead in an illegal war, same as they left vietnam after leaving millions dead in a war that is now admitted openly was based on a lie….etc

Drop your simplistic biased view of the world and open your eyes to the harm the USA has done. The brave gi’s who charged the beach of normandy. Must be disgusted at what their country has become not to mention President John Adams, President Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and all the founding fathers. Even Eisenhower saw the way his country was going in 1959 and tried to warn the people that they’re was a powerful private corporate miltary group pushing the US into wars for profit but with no legal justification.
But I guess your not really interested in the fact you’ve swallowed all the lies told by these people and their desendents. Sad!

..hope you read JK?…

Iraq was illegal and wrong but I don’t think many people have an issue with the US holding back the Taliban in Afghanistan. If that’s where the planes are going I don’t see the big fuss, they are there legally. Whatever their alternate agenda.

@Vinne How are they there legally? Under what law, they went in to get Bin Laden, he’s dead why are they still there. Does there need for Oil make everthing they do legal.

No they went there to stop the Taliban taking over the country. Who would then be a threat to the west with the resources of a nation. I wasn’t aware there was much oil in Afghanistan, 1 billion barrels Vs 300 Billion in Iraq? Also worth noting the Taliban and Al Queda are two seperate organisations. I’m not naive enough to say they’re there on moral grounds but would you want an entire country under the control of an organisation that hates the west? Like I said there’s probably an agenda. But since they’re not breaking international law they won’t be kicked out of Shannon. The afghan government (whether they put it there or not) is internationally recognised. And they are there under invitation of that government. It’s legal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan#Civilian_casualties

Estimates for civilian fatalities range from zero to over 90% of the total. Given the US designate all military age males as enemy combatants (which I assume is at least 15 years old, given the boy just released from Guantanamo), US statistics probably aren’t all that accurate.

Consider if a foreign military superpower, say the Chinese, were launching drone attacks in your neighborhood. Better yet, imagine in the British were launching drone attacks in your neighborhood against a perceived IRA threat, and 90% of the fatalities were innocent civilians. How would you react? How would you expect the world to react?

@Vinne, you said “they went in there to stop the taliban from taking over the country”…. WHAT !!

You know nothing about the situation. The Taliban were already ruling afghanistan when the USA attacked, with the openly expressed reason as finding Bin Laden. The US already recognised the Taliban as the rulers of the country having invited Mullah Omar to the US for negotiations on the oil pipe line they wanted to run into the caspian sea through turkmenistan several months before 9/11.

Dont just you assume you know stuff , find out about it then argue your points from a well informed position.

We’re talking about Afghanistan not Pakistan. If the IRA were a massive and armed force committing atrocities against the civilian population with the ultimate goal of taking over the country and later terrorising the Chinese. I think I’d understand a this hypothetical IRA China war. Which by the way is a retarded analogy

There have been a few elections held in Afghanistan since 2001 and while there was widespread fraud alleged, there has also been polling that shows that the government has support.

Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research

Karzai approval rating 2005 – 83%, 2010 71%
Afghan government approval rating 2005 – 80%, 2010 61%

Also about the drones in Pakistan

-They could shoot them down if they wanted
-The drones flew out of a base in Pakistan until recently (Shamsi Airfield)
-The Pakistani’s could stop the US from transporting supplies through their territory which they have done before for other reasons
-They could stop talking US financial aid

Also when the Wikileaks files were released they even showed that the Chief of the Pakistani Army Ashfaq Kayani had requested drones

Ok buddy you’re right. They’re just there for the imaginary oil. They controlled the country for only 5 years? 1996 to 2001. 2001 being the US invasion. Seems like a swift enough reaction to me but whatever. Just because they killed bin laden doesn’t mean it’s over. And pulling out of an occupied country doesn’t happen in a overnight. And I’m just gonna repeat, it’s technically legal so our government. Won’t do shit

“Imaginary Oil” ;) The oil pipeline was very real Bush did not think it imaginary, his administration wanted to break Russia and Irans monopoly in the region and move oil from Azerbijhan through to Pakistan and India to access a massive market for it. Thats why the Taliban were invited to the US prior to 9/11 . Stop guessing at stuff.

… what? IRA-China war? Did you even read my comment?

Read it again, have a think, and come back to me.

Yeh I know it was an example to prove your point about drone attacks. I just meant it was a bad/weird analogy. You gotta wonder though who’s in the wrong. The side using the human shields or the side that shoots anyway.

And Martin I’m tired of arguing with you. You can call it giving in if you like. But in reality it’s sunny as shit outside and I keep getting notifications about this damn thread!

@Vinne ok Thanks!

@ Martin,
You liberal weenies are all the same. Jump on the anti US propaganda at every opportunity. Always selective in you reading and your interpretations. What should the US do leave the world to police itself? Or better again let the regions police themselves. After all the combined European effort( excluding UK) plus the useless impotent UN have a wonderful track record wherever they go Syria being just the most current example. By the time they’ve filled in the Health and Safety forms there will be full blown war in the region. Think on because without the US imposing themselves as the World’s peacekeepers you’re comfortable, liberal cosseted lifestyle could be under threat

@John the baptist, I hope that’s a sarcastic avatar. You dont sound in the least good natured. I can only hope some proper reading regarding the world you live in combined with some time you can leave behind your simplistic right wing view of the world and evolve into a worthwhile human being, who can contribute to the world instead of helping to destroy it with your ignorance.

@John the bapist, I take it from your Foxnews term “weenie” refers to me being anti war. Well I am anti unjusified war like the ones the US has embarked on since the mid sixties up to the present. However I am pro war when it come to an invaision or an attempt to overthrow a democractic government and replace it with a fake system like afghanistan currenly has or like the EU with an unelected burocrat who can not be removed from office by democratic means, A Federal Europe would also be such an entity and I don’t want my children growing up in a country ruled by brussels civil servants which seems to be our present gov goal then I would see no other solution but open rebellion. If that all makes me a weenie than a weenie I am.

@ Martin,
Try not to take it too personally. It’s not an attack on you but your liberal ilk in general. It’s extremely popular nowadays to take the view that the US should never get involved militarily. The provenance of this tweet is a story about rendition flights through Shannon. The people who protested at the time had little or no passion for the subject they were just layabout full time travelling protesters. Look at the video’s and the photo’s it’s the same old crusties that appear at every opportunity. Mostly well educated never worked a day in their lives and probably never will. They and their leftie friends in the media set the agenda and innocents like yourself follow it sheep like bleating out their Mantras. The US has not always been right but by the same token not always wrong. Yugoslavia is an excellent example. The world looked on as hundreds of thousands of innocent men women and children died in ethnic cleansing. When I say the world I really mean Europe and the UN. I have no doubt that you get a lot of comfort from the feedback you get on sites like this from like minded people but maybe you need to get out there more and expand your view of the world

@Baptist, innocents ..ha . I really fo feel sorry for you and people like you that are steered this way and that by right wing war mongers and swallowing everything they say about defending your country from invisible enemies so that they can fill their pockets with the efforts and blood of sheep like yourself. And as for yugoslavia the man that done that was a liberal Bill Clinton, you claiming him for the right wing now too. Like I said more reading required.

@Martin,
It’s comical really. Even the prose you use is that of the left. Normal people don’t talk like this. Brainwashed by the left for so long you’ve lost the ability to think for yourself and no doubt at your middle class dinner parties with your like minded friends you trot out this unintelligible drivel and smile and nod knowingly at each other. Meanwhile the real world robs your lunch.
Bill Clinton by the way is not a liberal. Bill Clinton was an ambitious politician and ambitious politicians have no beliefs only goals. He didn’t get to be President of the US because he was a liberal leftie weenie he got to be president because he listened to and followed the advice of his wife and she’s no liberal weenie.

As I said before only time and a better education or at least some education, will help you. Men like yourself marched into the trenches of the first world war, and never asked why are we really fighting this war until they were knee deep in blood and mud. And I’m not a leftie I’m an employer and a capitalist in the true sence of the word, not of the fake banking type that loose there arse but expect others to pay their bills. Leftie ha…I just know right from wrong more than I can say for you. Off to school with you now.

Then….. ?

Jumped and airport fence?Wow.
How many innocent civilians did they kill?
How many towns did they reduce to rubble and toxic depleted-uranium sinks?
How many torture chambers did they set up and how many thugs did they instal to facilitate their oil companies and war industries?
Hang them high.

..KN..where yo bin? …thought they’d put you away..or maybe they just let you out again…wretched dots!….

Give examples of links that you find hypocritical.

peace groups” People should go on their FB page and website and see who they support/encourage/sponsor. Being anti-war is fine but they are total hypocrites;

care to elaborate Niazi- or are you just taking cheap shots with no basis in reality?

Well said, Ed

Ed, whether you are aware of it or not, you have just regurgitated the logic of Krupps, Seimens, IG Farben and the industrialist who finally endorsed Adolf’s re-armament policies and accepted he was a racist Teutonic imperialist like themselves and not the possible red-threat they had suspected.
War industry is industrialised mass extermination, as history has proved several times since the American ‘civil’ war gave it its great leap forward of the Gatling firepower-magnification.

Its a common delusion, but one we can no longer afford, despite the fact it has served our emergence from the animal kingdom against considerable odds. We have reached a stage of technological evolution where we threaten not just ourselves if we don’t switch program, but a fair slice of our supporting biosphere. We need something more than Obama’s cosmetic ‘change’. But it looks increasingly unlikely. Ce la mort.

We are not a member of NATO, so officially we are not allies. We are a neutral country.

Tom who are we at war with at the moment? To the people in Shannon who value jobs over human life I ask you to look beyond your front door. Most peace activists do not have a narrow nationalist view and value all life equally. Nationalists cannot deal with this and refer to the protestors as hippies just because they have a different outlook in life.

Well said Tom

…ahha ha ha which planet you from…allies!

…Ahha ha ..grief which planet you from…”allies!”…

Yes Tom, and the queen is our sovereign. ‘Nations don’t do friendship, they do interests’.

Martin, correct, we’re not part of NATO and we are neutral but the US are still our allies. Though one would question how neutral we actually are to be honest.

Niall, we are not at war with anyone (maybe against the recession we are!) I’m not sure I understand the rest of your comment.

Damien, the queen is not our sovereign, she’s the sovereign of the UK which Ireland is not part of. I agree with your interests part though! :-)

Richard, Earth, which plant are you on?!

Richard, Earth, which planet are you on?!

er..toorkeel..last time I looked at a map Eirebase Shannon was still close to home.
And I think it was more practise than preach. Its you is preaching.

@toorkeel, The simple mind will always resort to violence first before looking at both sides of the argument. I suppose you favour a nuke attack on Iran also.

Martin the US was attaked by the Taliban. Ask the Japanese about what happened after Pearl harbour. They attacked the country that attacked them & are still fighting that war. The Iraq war was not illegal under law. I think it was waged for the wrong reasons & I agree that some US foreign policy is unaccceptable. However if you want to ask the Kurds they will tell you they are glad the US attacked Iraq. On the Iran issue,now is the time to attack. You & many like you will be begging the US to sort it out when this theocratic state puts an apocolyptic weapon in the boot of a car in a major city around the world. The government in Iran are the same as most religiously biased governments & believes that the end of the world will result in them all being saved & detonating such a weapon has no consequence to these people. Its their destiny they believe. I say give it to them now before they take us all with them.

Now now Damien, while you have an orangutan as your avatar, I will credit you with more intellegence….even though they are incredibly intellegent mammals. I think you know exactly what I mean when I say “closer to home”….I’ll give you a hint…”Gibraltar”.
Martin….simple minds indeed, I think I have just answered your question too….on your other point, no I don’t believe Iran should be “nuked” as you say but I don’t believe that lunatic “Afterdinnerjacket” for a moment when he says the nuclear program is purely for generating power in Iran…

And you think the US and their buddies all the eway to increasingly theocratic and outlaw Israel have nuclear programs purely for medical research?

After trying to decipher your reply, I will try and answer what I think you are trying to say but I’m not all that sure. It’s no secret that the US and Israel have nuclear weapons….what’s your point? What nuclear has to do with medical research as you put it….im unsure, can you explain?

Sorry, t, if that was unclear.
I was simply drawing the parallel between the unproven (and possibly justified on defensive terms)Iran ‘lunatic’ nuclear program and the other strangelovers of things nukey…who both have records of considerably more trans-national aggressions.
Seems to me you might be succumbing to the rain of PR-op-agenda for yet another WMD hit, on Iran this time.
I hope that computes. Nut ‘n’ yahoo bothers some of us more than your tuxedo-boy. And he’s tooled to the tonsils and straining for Sharon status.

@Mjhint the Taliban did not attack the US. A group of islamic exstemists known in the west as Al-queda did. And you think is OK to murder millions of innocent men women and children in a nuclear strike now today on the basis that the government of that country might one day have a nuclear capability. At a time when thw Iranian states biggest enemy is bristling with nukes and they themselves have none. Or on the US right wing pathetic scare tactic that the Iranians dont like us so their gona do a suicidal thing like explode a dirty bomg on a western city.

The leadership of Iran is horrible but allow it to be overthrown by the people, like they did in Tunisia, Egypt and other countries.

Time you started asking questions about why you believe such drivlle.

Are you saying the Taliban had no involvement in 911. They actively supported it. I would hope that the west would not have to use atomic weapons against Iran but I believe an attack is necessary. Innocent people will probably die & that is a hard truth but a lot more will die if they become a nuclear power. Im not talking about a dirty bomb. Im talking about a hiroshima type bomb being put in car or a container & detonated. Can you imagine the devastation of that & the people that perpetrate these violent actions do so with gods will or so they think.

There should be a third option to red and green buttons; something like a blue question mark for use on lazy, confused posts like this.

Just to be clear. I’m referring to tootkeels ‘peace groups’ post. It’s virtually impossible to tell what you’re replying to on the iPhone version of this website.

@Damien….you are not making any sense, I thought this thread was about Shannon but it is morphing towards Iran, nuclear weapons, WMD…so all I can say in replying to you is…?

@Toorkeel..keep digging..you’ll get there…that IS precisely what Shannon is ‘morphing towards’…the possibility of another WMD op on Iran, with Israel and the Pentagon increasingly seeing nuclear weaponry as ‘field’ weapons rather than deterrents.
Using depleted uranium in Iraq is one example of this ‘mission creep’ stealth expansion. Again, quite probably transported through Eirebase 1 at Shannon.
But somehow I suspect you know more than you pretend about what is going on. Unless you’re real identity is Rip van Winkle.

Keep taking the tabloids, Niall. Rupert will be proud of you.
Uncle Sam has the same love for this country as Britannia. I spent half the day speaking to an American woman who might educate you if you had even one cell working. There is a considerable Jewish population in Iran, and a considerable proporttion of Israelis, who despise Netanyahoo for the wannabe Sharon he is. They know he is the greatest threat to their futures, just as most Americans know Dubya and his daddy did America more damage than than all the Iranians put together.

@Damien stop beating around the bush with your fancy word play. Address the point. Why does a terrorist supporting fundamentalist theocracy want to develop nuclear weapons? Will it make the world a safer place? Is it a positive step towards peace in the M/East?
The nuclear club is too big as it is. This is where the real threat to the peace and stability of the whole planet lies.

I agree 100% with that last statement, Stephen. I’ve been beating around just that Bush since at least the Cuban High Noon(including being instrumental in twinning Inis Oirr with a neighbour of Murroroa when Chirac resumed his tests in ’95).
As for terrorist supporting fundamentalist theocracy and nuclear weapons. You mean the Likud bible-based displacement of the Palestinians?
They’re the only one in the region with a nuclear arsenal. And they’re the only one’s cloned my country’s passports for terror assassinations. And their sponsors are the only ones have ever used nuclear warfare on civilian populations(must recently the depleted variety in Iraq).
Never mind the bush-beat, its time you saw the real deadwood hidden in the camouflage trees.

Thats nothing but pointless political clap trap. We live in the 21st century so drop the stupid 19th century sound bites. James Connolly is a long time dead and the world has changed so much you cannot say what he would think today. We know the problems and quite frankly I am tired of listening to them repeated. WE KNOW WHAT THEY ARE. Lets hear some of your solutions not a political manifesto. Lets start hearing some positivity the past is the past we can’t go back and fix it. Imperialism died out in 1919 with Versailles it is now 2012 so catch up. What do you know about war – look at the big picture- Of course you are incapable of seeing it. So you would rather appease the terrorist loving theocracy of Iran with its fantastic record on human rights, political and personal freedom, system of justice etc, etc. Speak out of turn there, or demonstrate and they only hang you from a crane. So we should let them develop the bomb they are just the sort of well balanced logical thinking people to handle such destructive weapons safely and sanely.

Nice comment, Dette. I agree 100%. It sounds familiar though, think I may have heard it somewhere before!

No jack, they don’t, plain and simple. The US has no say or control over who goes over the border into Syria?

These are people who are making their own decision to go and fight the Syrian govt with or without US help.