Dáil must debate our moral stance

Before applying for membership of the United Nations, then Taoiseach Eamon de Valera warned the Dáil that this country should be fully prepared to support a war to enforce the obligations of the UN Charter.

"If there is ever to be a rule of law," he said, "nations must make up their minds that they will take part in such enforcement."

This country was lucky to avoid involvement in the Second World War. In his victory address following the surrender of Germany, Winston Churchill bragged that Britain's decision not to seize Irish bases showed "a

restraint and poise" for which "history will find few parallels". De Valera responded a few days later with what was generally regarded as the best and most effective speech of his career.

It was one of those moments in history when time stood still. People who heard him that day never forgot where they were when they heard the speech. His words have as much resonance today as they had over half a century ago.

"Mr Churchill makes it clear that, in certain circumstances, he would have violated our neutrality and that he would justify his action by Britain's necessity," De Valera said.

"It seems strange to me that Mr Churchill does not see that this, if accepted, would mean that Britain's necessity would become a moral code and that, when this necessity was sufficiently great, other people's rights were not to count.

"It is quite true that other great powers believe in this same code in their own regard and have behaved in accordance with it.

"That is precisely why we have the disastrous successions of wars World War Number One and World War Number Two and shall it be World War Number Three?"

Indeed, shall it be World War III? That is one of the questions that everybody should be asking today, and they should also be asking why.

"All countries who believe in an international order based on principles of justice and law have to stand up for the authority of the Security Council," Minister for Foreign Affairs Brian Cowen declared some weeks ago. "We cannot pick and choose the easy options."

The United States, Britain and Spain withdrew their proposed resolution in the Security Council yesterday because they were going to lose the vote.

An American representative promptly explained that counting the votes was a secondary consideration not for the first time with this administration, one might suspect.

This is a perversion of democracy. Is George W Bush's necessity now to be considered our moral code?

This is not about violating the rights of the Iraqi leadership; it is about ignoring the rights of the international community by the contemptuous treatment of the United Nations.

The Dáil should be recalled without delay to debate the vital issues involved, especially the thorny issue of what to do about American military personnel using Shannon Airport en route to the war.

The debate will involve issues of great moral and economic import and a decision will have to be made about whether we should stand up and be counted, or lie down and submit quietly, thus prostituting ourselves for the sake of the dollar.