Flawed Defence Forces Commission

national | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis Thursday February 24, 2022 20:36 by Joe Terry

Flawed Defence Forces Commission - Ireland does not need an Army, Navy and Airforce.

From the outset, the composition of the Defence Forces Commission was flawed. The list of members does not represent the citizens of Ireland in a balanced way. Of the fifteen commission members, two-thirds are pro-EU ex-military men and officials favouring expanding military spending; people who benefit from enhanced career opportunities, have vested interests in remuneration, careers, promotions, salaries, pensions and medals, resulting from an enlarged military budget allocation. Foreign agents, Haakon Bruun-Hanssen a Norwegian, Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen a Dane and Esa Pulkkinen a Finn, should have no place on neutral Ireland’s Defence Forces Commission.

I refer to the Defence Forces Commission report. From the outset, the composition of the commission was flawed. Of the fifteen commission members, two-thirds are pro-EU ex-military men and officials favouring expanding military spending; People who benefit from enhanced career opportunities, have vested interests in remuneration, careers, promotions, salaries, pensions and medals, resulting from an enlarged military budget allocation. The list of members does not represent the citizens of Ireland in a balanced way. Foreign agents should have no place on neutral Ireland’s Defence Forces Commission, Haakon Bruun-Hanssen a Norwegian, Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen a Dane and Esa Pulkkinen a Finn. Was the setting up of the commission and inviting public consultations a covert exercise designed to rubber-stamp the Government’s pro-EU/Pesco/UN/NATO militarisation expansion agenda?
Does the Republic of Ireland need an Army, Navy and Airforce? Certainly, Ireland does not need military institutions copied from a country ruling an empire in another era. Instead of an Army, wouldn’t it make more sense to have a cost-effective National Guard, the majority of participants holding full-time civilian jobs whose purpose would be to back up the civil authorities and perform humanitarian assistance in a national crisis? No need exists to have a €71,000,000 warship armed with a 76mm gun picking up refugees in the Mediterranean when the LÉ Aisling sold for €110,000, including €16,000 of fuel onboard, would satisfy the humanitarian need. Instead of a Navy, Ireland should have a fit-for-purpose Coast Guard Service, having small, fast boats to prevent smuggling and for the protection of Irish fishing rights and coastal subterranean natural resources. Does it make any sense for Ireland to have fighter aircraft “shadowing” Russian bombers, sorties culminating with Irish pilots, before returning to base, exchanging friendly waves with their Russian counterparts?
A reason given for establishing the European Economic Community was to prevent European nations from going to war. European countries are still at it, not killing each other but with ever-increasing military capability, unleashing deadly weaponry on North Africans, Iraqis and Afghans.
Lies were told to justify unjust invasions and attacks in the past. Remember Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and the protection of civilians in Libya? Ireland should have no truck with the likes of those escapades. Sovereign Ireland should re-establish its neutral independence, take back its fisheries and natural resources, and get well away from European ever-increasing militarisation. If the promoters of unsustainable military weaponry spending get their way, there will be no end to grandiose military procurements; an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile System pointing nuclear warheads at imaginary enemies across the globe, a submarine fleet patrolling the oceans, and like Thailand, a plane-less aircraft carrier on the inventory?
The Defence Forces Commission report, produced by yet another government quango, should be thrown into the bin.