Enda Kenny responds to Kevin Myers's column in The Irish Times yesterday
In any war, truth tends to be the first casualty, as exemplified by yesterday's Irishman's Diary.
To suggest, as it did, that the leader of Fine Gael "is backing" Saddam Hussein is more than vulgar abuse. It is a lie, and a damaging one.
To suggest that Fine Gael's wish to prevent Shannon Airport being used as a resource for one side of a war amounts to active support of the opposing side is an egregious misrepresentation of a policy clearly stated and consistently reiterated.
Fine Gael has always indicated support for action mandated by UN resolution, and, by corollary, has always indicated opposition to pre-emptive action in the absence of such a resolution.
Ireland, as a small, defenceless, neutral non-aligned nation, has a better understanding than larger nations of the need to be part of a world order of security. The best exemplar of that order of security has been the United Nations.
Since pre-emptive action by the US gravely undermines the primacy and legitimacy of the UN, Ireland's enlightened self-interest is best expressed by refusal to facilitate, through the use of Shannon, such pre-emptive action.
The Taoiseach's vague rationale that Shannon was used during the Vietnam War is without merit.
Past practice doesn't decide present action. Nor should we kid ourselves that allowing continued use of Shannon is a continuum without consequence. It is a stand-alone decision with possibly dire consequences.
One of those consequences is the possibility of making Shannon and Ireland targets for terrorist counterstrikes.
Not only is that is a real and present danger: it is a real and future danger, if Ireland attracts the enmity of nations such as North Korea by its action in relation to Shannon.
Terrorism and dictatorship must be challenged and eliminated, but their elimination does not require that Ireland should act counter to our beliefs.
Ireland is neutral and non-aligned, and has in the past demonstrated that this status can allow us to have considerable influence - as we should have had in relation to this issue.
Last summer, I asked why Iraq wasn't on the agenda of the EU leaders' summit meetings. I got no answer and this Government did not push for its inclusion.
This Government chose not to take a vigorous approach to achieving a consensus within the European Union, in effect standing idly by while deep rifts opened up, some of them along grimly historic faultlines, between Germany and France on the one hand and between Britain and France on the other. At the first party leader's question time of this Dáil session, I asked the Taoiseach to state clearly his position on US troops flying into Shannon in the event of a war without a UN mandate.
He wouldn't do so. It took 100,000 people on the streets of Dublin and in other centres to get a reply from him.
By contrast, Fine Gael has always made it clear that the party had no objection to troop flights in advance of war. Such a massively obvious deterrent to aggression could have - indeed has had - demonstrable effect.
Nor has Fine Gael any reservations about humanitarian flights after war commences.
We have - and should have - enormous reservations about positioning Shannon as a key link in the supply chain of military action.
Of course Ireland has a special relationship with the US. A relationship of emotion and politics, of family and economics, of history and hope. It is important, at a time of irrational anti-Americanism, to restate the strength of that relationship. It is equally important to register that it is not, and never has been, a relationship based on economic subservience or international patronage.
At no time, up to and including the present day, has the US put Ireland under pressure to abandon either our non-aligned status or our neutrality as the litmus test of that relationship.
In fact, the relationship is deeper and more durable than much of the discussion around Shannon would indicate.
It is profoundly offensive to both parties in that relationship to imply that America would want to bring us to our knees in post-war revenge for not allowing the use of that airport.
To suggest that Ireland's self-interest lies in acquiescing to anything any other nation wants of us, lest that nation subsequently reduce its economic commitment to this country, is to debase the concept of nationhood and independence. It is also an under-estimation of the American business sent to suggest that they would seek, in their investment decisions, to punish any country for sticking by its principles.
Informed self-interest does not require the abandonment of conscience or of principle.
We are not the 52nd state of the United States. We are a free nation. As a free nation with high educational standards and a strong work ethic, we have attracted the best American corporations to set up in this country. And will continue to do so - without tainting our foreign policy and our international stance by a cap-tipping fearfulness that expression of difference might spell an end to such investment.
Kevin Myers's personalised and vindictive attack in yesterday's article did not contribute anything to the very serious issues of this debate.