Army puts neutral issue up in the air
Ostensibly to protect State property, the military presence at the airport will be perceived, not just by protesters, as a further step by the Government to facilitate the safe passage of American personnel and equipment to a potential war theatre to engage in a contrived conflict with Iraq.
In doing so, the Government would appear to have committed this country, in the absence of another empowering United Nations mandate, to a White House policy, which is to militarily engage with Iraq, despite protestations that war is not inevitable.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell has pledged to provide “straight-forward, sober and compelling” proof today that Iraq was hiding banned weapons from UN inspectors in violation of UN demands.
It is remarkable that such evidence was not produced months ago, despite similar and repeated assertions that it does.
The world will wait with great interest to see what evidence is produced, given that in an article he wrote for the Wall Street Journal, he said that although there was still no “smoking gun”, the world must recognise Iraq had flouted the will of the international community.
Inevitably, the situation at Shannon Airport raises the rather thread-worn argument about this country’s neutrality which is not so much a tradition as a political expediency, which is invoked to fit the exigencies facing the Government of the day.
It has also been used as a threat by those who opposed issues, such as the Nice Treaty.
Quite simply, the average Irish person could not definitively say whether this country is actually neutral or not and could not defer to our Constitution to inform themselves on the position.
Possibly, it is time that they should, and enshrining the will of the people on the issue through a referendum would at least settle the question.
Currently, the country’s policy on neutrality is shrouded in obfuscation and consequently will remain a flawed policy as long is it remains in political limbo.
As far back as 1961, the late Seán Lemass, one of the great leaders of this country, said there is no neutrality and we are not neutral. In the decades before then, and certainly since, Ireland has shown that neutrality was a movable feast and the direction it took coincided with our national interests.
Our admission to the EU has graphically highlighted our ambivalent attitude to neutrality, and it has been invoked to dilute support for developments, such as the Rapid Reaction Force.
Whether or not this country is neutral is something which should be decided by the Irish people. As a sovereign state, it should not simply be up to the political largesse of other states to reassure us that we are, which happened at the Seville summit last year.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern went cap in hand to the leaders of the other EU states to secure a promise that Irish neutrality was not under threat from the Treaty of Nice. He should not have had to.
No Taoiseach should have to do so ever again if the people were given the opportunity to express their will as to whether they want the country to be neutral or not.
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