Robert Fisk on Shannon Refuelling

national | anti-war / imperialism | news report Tuesday May 18, 2004 11:11 by Dominic Carroll - Clonakilty Against the War / Cork Anti-War Campaign clonakiltyagainstthewar at eircom dot net

Robert Fisk, journalist with the London Independent and an influential anti-war voice in the media, has called into question the campaign against refuelling at Shannon Airport.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Questions and Answers (Monday 17th May), Fisk had the following to say in response to a member of the audience who called on the Irish government to “come off the fence” and withdraw refuelling facilities at Shannon for US military aircraft: “I have to say I don’t think Ireland can make a lot of difference whatever it does with Shannon. I talk to a lot of soldiers in Iraq and they tell me that they don’t care about whether they land at Shannon but do like the Shannon duty-free … I don’t think the Iraqis care where Shannon is. I don’t think it’s going to make a lot of difference. It would be nice to think so, but I don’t think so. I think through Europe Ireland might make its voice heard over the Americans.”

Fisk’s comment reveals a misunderstanding about the purpose of the Shannon campaign. No anti-war activist in Ireland believes that withdrawing refuelling facilities at Shannon will significantly damage the US war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan (though withdrawing the facility will create a logistical problem, in that US military aircraft will be obliged to carry less military cargo and troops in favour of the additional fuel required to take aircraft to refuelling facilities in England). However, the real purpose of the Shannon campaign is twofold:

1. To damage and ultimately undo the Irish state’s “Atlanticist” pact with the US, which characterises this country as an ally of the US and makes it an accomplice to its warmongering. To achieve this would be particularly important given the Bush administration’s deliberate and careful cultivation of “allies” as political cover for its war, and the damage inflicted on that same administration by the decision of numerous “allies” (Spain, etc.) to withdraw its support.

2. To expose the politics of complacency, indifference, subservience, hypocrisy and greed at the heart of the Irish political system as currently configured. The Shannon stopover is a concrete illustration of the craven willingness of the government to bend to Washington’s will on any issue. If the government could be forced by popular pressure to withdraw the facility, though it may not be of enormous significance to the people of Iraq, it would amount to a significant shift in relations between Washington and Dublin. Repeated on a world scale, Bush etc. would be in serious trouble.

Robert Fisk is an admirable anti-war journalist, but his focus is primarily and necessarily on Iraq and less on Ireland. Perhaps, then, it’s understandable that he should have failed to both comprehend the importance in Ireland of extricating this country from the grip of Washington, and to recognise the damage done by his comments regarding refuelling at Shannon. I would urge the anti-war movement in Ireland to make its views known to Mr Fisk.