I don't recall any Dáil decision to assist the US war on Iraq nor any announcement this was now Government policy, writes Vincent Browne.
At noon last Friday, I was at Shannon airport awaiting the continuance of a flight to Toronto. A large white unmarked aircraft (except for a global sign on the tail) landed and shortly afterwards hundreds of American troops came into the arrivals area. I inquired of two of them where they had come from and where they were going. The said they were coming from a base in Georgia and were on their way to Kuwait.
The two I spoke to and most others I saw were all in their late teens or early twenties. The two to whom I talked were punctiliously polite and seemed only vaguely aware of where they were.
It emerges that these boys were part of an armoured brigade of the US army's 3rd Infantry comprising 3,000 combat troops from Fort Stewart in Georgia and they were on their way to Kuwait for "exercises".
Kuwait is by far the most important base America has in the region. More than 9,000 US military personnel are stationed there permanently. The Americans have "pre-positioned" heavy equipment for two heavy amounted brigades there, including 115 M-1A1 Abrams tanks, 60 M-2A2 Bradley fighting vehicles and other equipment, ammunition and fuel. A further 2,000 soldiers for the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit are on their way to Kuwait, also for "exercise". (This information comes from the www.military.com website.)
There are American military bases in Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Djibouti on the north-east African coast, but Kuwait is by far the most important of the bases to be used for an attack on Iraq.
So, it seems, Shannon is a stop-off base for the American build up in Kuwait, a stop-off base for the American war effort. I don't recall any decision by the Dáil to assist the American war on Iraq, nor do I recall an announcement by the Government or by the Taoiseach or the Minister for Foreign Affairs that this was now Government policy.
I do recall the Minister for Foreign Affairs telling us that it was the Government's position that any action against Iraq would have to have UN Security Council approval. (Actually, I think even that was fudged a bit to the line that it would have to go through the Security Council, which leaves open the possibility that Ireland would go along with an assault on Iraq without any new UN resolution.)
However nothing was said which suggested we would be assisting the US war effort in advance of the matter even "going through" the Security Council. But then that's the way the elite handle important issues, especially in the area of foreign affairs and even more especially in relation to European affairs. Secrecy surrounds the taking of even the most crucial decisions; the public is excluded until a fait accompli is achieved.
The contempt for the public which this encapsulates is one of the driving forces of the anti-Nice campaign. This secret embroilment in the war against Iraq will embolden them even more to oppose the machinations of the elite.
This is not because the Nice Treaty itself commits us to a military involvement, it is because we cannot trust the governing elite in the conduct of our foreign affairs generally and cannot trust them in the interpretation of a treaty that is indecipherable to any ordinary person. I am not contending that these are the only issues involved in the Nice campaign but they are central ones.
I spent the weekend in Port Huron, Michigan, right on the Canadian border. The war fever intruded again and again. Outside at least half the houses in the residential area where we stayed were flying American flags.
Of course this might be simply a show of solidarity with those who were massacred on September 11th last year and their relatives and friends but I doubt it. Certainly the local interpretation was that it was a show of support for the plans to bring war to Iraq. At a Mass, attended by some of those I stayed with, a priest from the Philippines called on parishioners to sign up to a Pax Christi peace campaign. Some of them did just that and were berated for doing so.
To be pro-American it is now necessary, apparently, to be in favour of killing Iraqis. It is also necessary to regard September 11th as a uniquely evil event and any questioning of that is "proof" of anti-Americanism.
No doubt further "proof" of anti-Americanism or even perhaps of a sneaking regard for the perpetrators of September 11th would be opposition to Ireland's entanglement in a war without the prior sanction of the parliament of our people.
Is it asking too much that if we are to be embroiled in this war, the reasons for that embroilment should be clearly stated and debated in the Oireachtas and that our democratically elected representatives decide on whether to approve of that embroilment? And that the exact nature and extent of our engagement be clearly spelt out and approved or otherwise?
I hope the two young fellas I met in Shannon on Friday come to no harm but I also hope they do no harm.
Is that anti-American also?