Notes from a visit to Shannon and Ireland

Tuesday January 21, 2003 21:23

by Irish American

I'm back from the west of Ireland.

First, I was disappointed with the "Peace Camp." A few sorry tents and barely legible banners low to the ground. C'mon, can't you do better than that?

I wanted to visit, but I never saw anyone outside - even at 11:00 a.m. when I drove in to SNN to board my flight. I didn't want to wake anyone from their sleep.

I watched TV coverage of the demonstration on RTE and TG4. The usual lot of hate-America banners. What was that backwards American flag supposed to mean?

I also read the press coverage on the Sunday Independent and the Irish Times. Geez, who was the columnist who desscribed the Labor Party as the party of the "smugly satisfied middle class?"

I was pleased that the columnists also called John Gormley and the protestors to task on the contemptible exaggeration of the terrorist threat to Ireland as a result of the use of Shannon. One of the Sunday Independent columnists said it was "scaring old biddies under their beds" and a plea - "Don't hurt us Osama, we hate Americans, too." This columnist asked where all the "Bold Fenian Men" had gone.

When I was leaving, I was lucky enough to share the Shannon departure lodge with a few score American soldiers. I talked to a couple, wished them well. They were black and white, male and female, all ethnicities reflected in the names on their uniform name tapes. I saw a black female colonel, medical corps, and a black male infantry lieutenant colonel, reminding me that with all its faults, my country has given more people a fair chance at success and personal expression than any country in history.

If moral or physical courage were needed in any tough fight, I would trade the whole lot of protestors at Shannon for any squad of ten of those soldiers.

In conclusion, I would direct you to Christopher Hitchens, who as usual makes the true moral case:

'Wake Up, Peaceniks!'
Christopher Hitchens
16 - 1 - 2003

The swelling protests against war on Iraq forget that the US was impelled into war by an attack on its territory, against enemies that target innocents and include the worst human rights violators on the planet. For whom is this insufficient justification to choose sides?

Ever since the morning of 11 September 2001, the United States has been at war with the forces of reaction. May I entreat you to re-read the sentence? The government and people of the United States are now at war with the forces of reaction. And this was not willed, on the American side.

Everybody knows how to dilute the statement. Isn’t Saudi Arabia reactionary? What about Pakistani nukes? Do we bomb Sharon for his negation of Palestinian rights? Weren’t we on Saddam’s side when he was at his worst? But however compromised and shameful the American starting-point was – and I believe I could make this point stick with greater venom and better evidence than most people can muster – the above point remains untouched. The United States finds itself at war with the forces of reaction.

Do I have to demonstrate this? The Taliban’s annihilation of music and culture? The enslavement of women? The massacre of Shi’a Muslims and Hazaras in Afghanistan? Or what about the latest boast of al-Qaida – that the bomb in Bali, massacring so many Australian holidaymakers, was a deliberate revenge for Australia’s belated help in securing independence for East Timor? (Never forget that the Muslim fundamentalists are not against ‘empire’. They fight proudly for the restoration of their own lost Caliphate.) To these people, the concept of a civilian casualty is meaningless if the civilian is an unbeliever or a heretic.

For the rest, see:

http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article.jsp?id=6&debateId=33&articleId=896