Uncle Sam a close relation: now, then and forever

THE majority of Americans now have reservations about their country’s involvement in Iraq, with a resulting plummet in the popularity of George W Bush.

Senator Joe Liebermann’s defeat was seen as a snub to Bush, because he was viewed as too supportive of the President’s war policy. Ironically, Liebermann was the Vice-Presidential nominee on the Democratic ticket that opposed Bush for re-election only a couple of years ago.

This week’s events at British airports could have enormous ramifications if the threat to aircraft is shown to have been real. The planned attacks could have done enormous damage to air travel and international tourism.

In this country, the debate still rages over whether we should continue to facilitate American troops at Shannon Airport. Although this debate has escalated in the wake of Israel’s behaviour in Lebanon, Americans troops aren’t involved there.

An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern have emphatically denounced Israel’s behaviour — as well as criticising Hezbollah — yet there’s been some crazy talk about demonstrators shutting down Shannon Airport amid fatuous allegations the Government has abandoned our traditional policy of neutrality.

Ever since the Second World War, the Western world has suffered from what’s been called the Munich Psychosis — a phobia of the disastrous consequences of appeasement — but in this country, some trendy elements seem to go to the other extreme.

When the Germans threatened to seize the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia in 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain rushed to Munich to meet Hitler and essentially authorise the Nazis to seize the area.

In Ireland, Eamon de Valera advocated a policy opposed to appeasement, calling on the League of Nations to act decisively and warning another major war would follow if it didn’t. He believed a small country like Ireland would only end up hurt, as it could have no influence on such a conflict. Hence, de Valera was determined to stay out of the coming war.

However, by the time of the Munich Crisis, de Valera had lost faith in the League’s ability to keep the peace and reversed his policy to support appeasement.

As the newly-elected president of the Assembly of the League of Nations, de Valera praised Chamberlain’s decision to fly to Munich as “the greatest thing that has ever been done”.

“One person at least is completely satisfied that you are doing the right thing — no matter what the result,” he telegraphed Chamberlain, who replied he “would be very grateful for any steps” de Valera might take to mobilise opinion in the Assembly for a settlement. De Valera’s response was an open message:

“Let nothing daunt you or defeat you in your effort to secure peace. The tens of millions of innocent people on both sides, who have no cause against each other but who are in danger of being hurled against each other with no alternative to mutual slaughter, are praying that your efforts may find a way of saving them from this terrible doom.”

The ill-fated Munich Agreement was signed early on the morning of September 30, 1938. De Valera was positively effusive in his praise of the British leader during his closing speech to the Assembly later that day, describing Chamberlain as a “knight of peace” who’d “attained the highest peak of human greatness and a glory greater than that of all the conquerors”.

Following the outbreak of war in September 1939, de Valera assured Sir John Maffey, the British Representative to Ireland, that he’d pursue as benevolent a policy as possible towards Britain. By doing “everything a man could do to prevent this tragedy”, de Valera said Chamberlain had allowed the moral issues at stake to be clearly defined.

“England has a moral position today,” he said. “Hitler might have his early success, but the moral position would tell.”

IRELAND secretly gave the Allies all the help it could. While German spies were jailed, Allied spies were essentially facilitated. Ervin Marlin — who was sent to Dublin in 1942 as agent-in-charge by the OSS, the wartime forerunner of the CIA — was quickly uncovered, but rather than expelling him, the Irish suggested the Americans provide him with petrol to tour the country and see there were no U-boat bases or Japanese tourists, as the State Department seemed to suspect. De Valera even authorised an OSS request to use Irish diplomats in Berlin, Rome and Vichy as American spies.

Churchill complained about the denial of Irish bases throughout the war. He’d actually advocated seizing some bases in 1939, but this was rejected because of the damage it would do to Britain’s standing in America. We were actually protected by the Americans — not by the White House so much as the people.

America was also vital to our struggle for independence. The British gave us independence not because they were afraid of us, but because they feared their policy would lead to complications with the Americans. Thus, in a sense, we owe our independence to America.

In 1944, the Americans sought to discredit de Valera for their own political purposes by getting him to refuse to expel Axis diplomats who were depicted as an espionage threat to American boys. The British went along with the ruse, even though Maffey noted Berlin was no more effectively represented by the German Minister in Ireland than Greenland was by the Polar Bear in Dublin Zoo. The Americans publicly suggested de Valera should realise diplomats were often used as spies. Of course he knew that, because he’d already conspired with the OSS to use Irish diplomats as American spies.

De Valera personally warned Marlin that if “any information we gave to him in confidence, as part of our secret arrangement for securing the safety of American interests in this country, were used for the purpose of trumping up a case against us, there would be a catastrophic breach”. Thus, the neutrality myth was protected.

The only traditional thing about our neutrality is the ignorance of those who believe it.

We haven’t been neutral on Iraq because we’ve facilitated the Americans. Much as we may disagree with some of their methods, the alternative was to afford succor to Saddam by refusing. In fact, we would only have hurt ourselves as the Americans could’ve easily landed in Britain. In fact, we’d have been inviting them to retaliate by suspending the American investment that’s been primarily responsible for the Celtic Tiger economy.

If we ever allow the trendy bunch of cranks to shut down Shannon Airport, we’ll deserve the inevitable consequences of such stupidity.