Shannon Airport and 21st Century War

This document has been posted elsewhere, but in light of the fact of an interview on the ILA Podcast with Roger Cole of Peace and Neutrality Alliance it seemed appropriate to scan a copy in order to have a representative document issued by PANA.

This is a very comprehensive overview of the area in a very well produced document. The document has a range of essays written by numerous contributors including John Lannon (Shannonwatch), Margaretta D’Arcy (Women in Media and Entertainment), Carol Fox (PANA), Harry Browne, Mark Price (IAWM), a range of elected representatives including Richard Boyd Barrett, Sean Crowe, Mick Wallace and Clare Daly, Edward Horgan (Veterans for Peace), Karen Devine and John Maguire of Afri.

The Introduction, by John Lannon and Roger Cole, notes that Shannon Airport developed as a transatlantic gateway:

But at the end of the 1990s and the start of the next decade business was slack. Some airlines were cutting their services and others were operating in and out of Shannon with empty seats. At the same time, the “war on terror” was being stepped up by the US in response to the horrific September 11th 2001 attacks. The Irish Government, while claiming to support a longstanding position of neutrality, supported their illegal invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, and even went as far as making Shannon Airport available for the transit of the invading troops.

And;

The effective transformation of Shannon into a US forward operating base in 2002/2003 was, and still is, deeply offensive to the majority of Irish people. As Allen and Coulter noted in their critical 2003 appraisal of the Irish Republic, the United States (US) and the Iraq War, the Irish government at the time was guided more by a desire to accommodate the demands of the Bush administration than to serve the interests or wishes of its own citizens. As popular pressure mounted, the Minister for Foreign Affairs Brian Cowan resorted to a series of evasions and half-truths in order to conceal the full scale of Irish collusion in the US war drive. But the manner in which he attempted to hide the truth about what was happening at Shannon only served to further expose how a shameless government held the people it was supposed to serve in utter contempt.

And it strongly asserts:

The 2014 review of Ireland’s Foreign Policy and External Relations quite rightly states that the international community is confronted with a growing range of complex and inter-linked global issues which require concerted international action. In order to contribute to international efforts to address these challenges Ireland needs to develop a principled and independent foreign policy that promotes peace and justice and has positive neutrality at its heart. We cannot continue to do the opposite, as we support policies that contribute to ongoing global conflict. The devastating human consequences of policies that resort to weapons supply and military intervention are clear in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and other parts of the Middle East. It’s time we stopped facilitating the creation of these warzones.

An important addition to the Archive.

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