US War-Planes take over Shannon airport

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report Thursday August 04, 2005 01:33 by Edward Horgan - PANA

Neutral Ireland participates daily in Middle East Wars

Irish neutrality is a sham. It is non-existent. Four plane-loads of US troops and two US air force war-planes sitting on the tarmac at Shannon airport at midday on 3rd August 05, prove that Ireland is still participating in the wars in the Middle East.

Wednesday 3rd August was a busy day at Shannon. Normally our neutrality is only breached by a few US military flights per day, but today has been special, with at least seven warplanes passing through our "neutral" airport.
I arrived at Shannon at 07.30 am, and passed through easygoing security with a wave, as if the bombings in London had never happened.
Sitting on the tarmac was US a air force Hercules C130 reg no 81306 AMC Charleston, and a much larger Globemaster C 17, reg no 10197.
Later at about 08.30 an ATA Boing 757, carrying US landed and parked at Gate 42 and took off later at 13.54 pm.

The war-making business got really busy after 2 pm. Four troop-carrying chartered aircraft landed within the next hour – two ATA (American Trans Air) and two World Airways. Some details are as follows:
World airways 8090 reg no N 804DE,
ATA Boing 757 landed at 14.25 pm, reg no N5561TZ,
ATA Tristar landed at 14.30 reg no N 163AT
World Airways landed at 14.55 reg no N803DE, and took off later for Kuwait.

How is that for Neutrality? Willie O’Dea, our defence minister, says that Ireland is not at risk of terrorist attack because we are still a neutral country, and even had the effrontery to claim that the High Court has ruled that we were neutral even though the High Court ruled on 28 April 2003 that Ireland cannot be neutral while allowing foreign troops to pass through its territory in time of war.
Iraqi oil shares and West African diamonds may be blinding his judgement.
For the record, Judge Kearns ruled as follows:
“The court is prepared to hold therefore that there is an identifiable rule of customary law in relation to the status of neutrality whereunder a neutral state may not permit the movement of large numbers of troops or munitions of one belligerent State through its territory en route to a theatre of war with another”
Judge Kearns, High Court, 28th April 2003. (Case No. 2003 3739P).

Just for good measure, Dick Cheney may have passed through Shannon later that day on his way back from his royal visit to Saudi Arabia.

It is time for Irish people to wake up to the crimes that are being committed with our complicity at Shannon airport. We do not know why all these troops and munitions passed through today, but this traffic was exceptional. Normally our neutrality is only breached by one or two plane-loads of troops daily. It may indicate that new or special operations are being planned in the Middle East. Perhaps an attack on Iranian nuclear power stations is on the cards sometime soon, or another Fallujah.

The killing of innocent people is always wrong whether the killing is done by suicide bombers or by US or RAF war-plane bombers. Repeated statements by Irish government ministers that Ireland is not at risk of terrorist attack or retaliation are irresponsible, because Irish people are being lulled into a false sense of security, just as we were at the time of the Dublin/Monaghan bombings in 1974. By ignoring the possibility of attacks the government can subsequently claim that such an event was unpredictable, and therefore any lack of precautions were not the government’s fault. So far the British police have been relatively successful in countering attacks because they had alerted the British public to the possibility of such attacks in advance, and are maintaining the confidence of the public. The ostrich-like approach, and lack of effective precautions by our authorities does not inspire confidence.

Terrorist attacks can only be prevented by helping to eliminate the root causes of such terrorism and the Middle East conflicts are the primary root causes. Ireland’s best hope of avoiding such retaliatory attacks is by restoring our neutrality, and denying the use of Shannon airport to foreign armies engaged in unlawful killing. We cannot of course restore to live those innocents killed.