Shame at Shannon

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday October 25, 2002 09:21 by Joe Sheehan jsheehan at subdimension dot com

The article is taken from this weekends "Limerick Leader". not yet available on the net so reprinted here in full.

SHAME AT SHANNON
Brendan Halligan, Limerick Leader Saturday October 26, 2002

How quickly we forget in the immediate aftermath of September 11 we wept with the United States. We vowed to defend our shared democratic values.
We pledged to co-operate with America in her determination punish the terrorists whoever they are, wherever they are and whatever the materials cost. And we insisted that precious notions of neutrality which equate rogue states with legitimate democracies would not get in the way.
We lied.
Or so it may seem. We may have meant what we said at the time but once the communal sense of shock had subsided we reverted to type. Apathy resumes its reign.
And so we said nothing when commentators on this side of the Atlantic began to hint that America was somehow to some extent responsible for her own suffering. It is true that America has made mistakes in her conduct of world affairs. But nothing she has done or failed to docould ever excuse September 11.
And when we said nothing when the poison of anti-Americanism was reintroduced to the mix that is Irish politics. Anti-Americanism isn’t the questioning of particular aspects of American foreign policy. It is the presumption that American intentions are malign.
The truth is the exact opposite. America might be hamfisted, even reckless, in some of her actions. But America and Americans mean well.
How do we know this? Because America is our best friend. And America is our best friend becausewe know her so well.
But if no other nation is emotionallt closer to America than Ireland, no other region in Ireland is emotionally closer than the Mid-West.
Our historical relationship has been intensified in our time by the ascent of Shannon and all the American blessings, social and economic, that have been showered on our community.
How obscene then, that Shannon should become the focal point of Irish anti-Americanism. The airport is targeted bu demonstrators on the pretext that troop carrying us planes touching down there are breaching Irish neutrality.
In fact, of course they are not they are doing no such thing, They are violating neither our constitution nor our laws. Their refuelling is merely a continuation of time-honoured custom and routine practice under successive governments.
Besides, military neutrality should not mean moral neutrality. The day may yet dawn when designating Shannon as an active staging post in the war against international terrorism is not only permissable but essential in defence of humanity.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of theIrish people ought not allow themselves to be misrepresented by a tiny minority of unrepresentative zealots. And the vast majority of our politicians, who wish America well, should refrain from giving a different impression. They have the right to independently scrutinise any proposed operation by democratic America but they have a duty not to allow such scrutiny to be seen as support, however tacit, for any rogue state.
In short, across the country but especially in the Shannon region, in the war against international terrorism we should never forget which side we are on.