Neutral, are we? Remember Dev was prepared to fight the Italians

WHILE I was waiting for a flight at Shannon on Tuesday, hundreds of American soldiers in desert camouflage began trooping through the departure lounge. There must have been over 300 men. Some Americans in the lobby began clapping.

During World War II, American troops, based in the North were welcomed when they visited Dublin in uniform. But now some people object to Americans in uniform being facilitated at Shannon, and they cite our historic policy of 'neutrality' as their justification. They are even arguing that, if ratified, the Nice Treaty would somehow undermine this policy. They are deluding themselves.

The Americans are still suffering from the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001. On Wednesday American television was given over almost exclusively to programmes devoted to commemorations and explanations of what actually happened on that day.

At Ground Zero the television cameras covered the proceedings as people read out the names of each and every one of the 2,801 people killed in the Twin Towers. Just reading the list took over two hours and 40 minutes. It was tastefully and sensitively done.

One was immediately struck by the international gamut of names. Victims came from over ninety counties, and there was a frightening proliferation of Irish names.

Those responsible for the outrage were not just attacking America; they attacked civilisation itself.

Anyone who has any doubts about their intentions has only to consider the implications of the recent incident involving the man with the gun trying to board the Ryan Air flight in Sweden. Let's face it, if they are going to try to hit an Irish aircraft in Sweden, nothing is safe. Proclaiming neutrality is meaningless to those people, and it is time we realised it.

When we voted to join the EEC in 1972, we did so by over 83%, with 71% of the electorate voting. Thus a comprehensive majority of the whole electorate actually voted to join, knowing that it meant that we were going into what would become a united Europe.

The dissident elements have been fighting a rearguard action ever since, and they are the ones who have been protesting loudest that it is supposedly undemocratic to hold another referendum on the Nice Treaty, even though only 35% bothered to vote on the issue first time.

While nobody could have said for sure how membership of the EEC was going to affect this country, we now have the benefit of hindsight. We currently enjoy an unprecedented level of prosperity. The haemorrhage of emigration has been stopped and people can now actually hope to earn a living in their homeland.

This country is currently exporting more of our Gross Domestic Product than even Britain.

If we really wish to adopt the kind of isolationism advocated by Sinn Féin and the other clowns who tried to keep us out of the EEC, then people should realise that they will be rearing most of their children for export, like their ancestors going back to the days of the Great Famine.

This is more important that ever because we have the highest birth rate in the European Union.

The neutrality issue is a red herring. We were never really neutral and never actually sought to be neutral. Eamon de Valera, who is usually considered the father of Irish neutrality, merely sought the right to remain neutral, not neutrality itself.

During the early 1930s he was one of the most outspoken proponents of active intervention on the part of the League of Nations, during the Manchurian Crisis, the Chaco War in Latin America, and again during the Ethiopian crisis. When the Italians ignored the covenant and invaded Ethiopia, for instance, de Valera indicated to the Irish people in a radio address that he felt that we would have an obligation to support the League of Nations, if it decided to go to war with Italy.

"Whether or not one accepts Mr de Valera's views on these grave issues," one long-standing critic wrote, "one must realise that he has approached them sincerely and in no petty spirit, and that he is prepared to carry his opinions to their logical conclusions."

The Irish Free State would not have been in a position to do much militarily, so de Valera felt obliged to back the League when it merely adopted economic sanctions advocated by Britain.

Opponents accused de Valera of foregoing the opportunity to extract terms from the British for supporting their line. "If we want justice for ourselves, we ought to stand for justice for others," de Valera responded. "As long as I have the honour of representing any government here outside, I stand, on every occasion, for what I think is just and right thinking thereby I will help the cause of Ireland, and I will not bargain that for anything.

"There was never a better chance for the League of Nations to be successful against a great power as there was in this case," de Valera later told the Dáil. "If it failed in the case of Italy it was bound to fail in the case of other powers."

Consequently, he no longer had any faith in the League and he openly proclaimed that Ireland was going to try to stay out of the great war that was inevitably going to follow. Keeping Ireland out of World War II was probably the finest diplomatic achievement of Irish history, because thousands, if not hundred of thousands, of Irish lives were saved. Yet, secretly, de Valera gave the Allies all the help he could.

Before applying for membership of the United Nations, de Valera candidly warned the Dáil that membership would actually involve a certain loss of independence, because it carried with it responsibilities under the UN charter which could lead to involvement in military conflicts.

"The difference between a war such as may arise under the obligations of the charter and other wars is," he said, "that that type of war would be a war of enforcement, enforcement of obligations and also enforcement of rights. If there is ever to be a rule of law, nations must make up their minds that they will take part in such enforcement, because, if there is not enforcement, then, of course, the duties and rights that are guaranteed will be thrown aside."

He added that if the League of Nations had decided on military sanctions at the time of the Ethiopian crisis, he would have felt that the country had an obligation to fight. He wanted all the ramifications clearly understood, if the Dáil decided to apply for membership.

We joined, but now find that the UN is in much the same position as the League of Nations was in 1935. There probably has never been a better chance for the UN to demonstrate that it can be effective. Iraq has been flouting the UN resolutions and Saddam has demonstrated contempt for the UN, which has been ignoring his behaviour. It is important that the UN should take a principled stand, not because the United States is ready to act unilaterally, but because it is the right thing to do.

De Valera showed the way magnificently in the 1930s. Does our government have the guts to afford similar leadership now?