US Military may leave Shannon (Best Irish Airport 2006 Winner) - Good Riddance!

national | anti-war / imperialism | other press

Tuesday May 23, 2006 12:07

by Pitstop Ploughshares - (DM/ Personal Capacity)

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US Military may leave Shannon

Today's issue of the Limerick Post reports that the largest U.S. military carrier, World Airways, is considering other European venues for it's military stopovers.

According to journalist Pamela Duncan, the Shannon Airport Authority has gained €14 million in profit from military flights in the first three months of 2006 alone. The news of a possible pullout has sent the SAA's greedy profiteers shaking in their boots. The bad news is they may use it as an excuse to enforce cutbacks, affecting the ordinary working classes' employment security at Shannon.

On February 7th 2003 World Airways temporarily suspended it's use of Shannon Airport as a stopover for U.S. military flights. The reported reason was that of the lack of work for their German staff at Frankfurt Airport. They denied it had anything to do with the 2 disarmament actions of a U.S. Navy aircraft at Shannon which occured 9 and 4 days previously. This story was covered by Indymedia at the following link: http://www.indymedia.ie/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=27938 and by the corporate media at the following links:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/0204/shannon.html
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2003/0205/170612....html

On February 8th 2003, the Irish Examiner reported that local TD Willie O'Dea, then Junior Justice Minister and since promoted to Minister of Defence, blamed the protest attacks as the reason for the loss of business. According to Aer Rianta the contract with Woirld Airlines was worth $9 million
http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2003/02/08/story56...6.asp

The pullout by World Airlines could mean a substantial reduction in U.S. troops tansiting through Shannon Airport. Despite the fact that pro-U.S. military Irish politicians condemned anti-war protests as the reason why business would be affected at Shannon Airport, the anti-war postion that U.S. airlines' business connected to the U.S. military would abandon it's links to Ireland when their desire to extend the profit margin and become more efficient in warmaking emulated their craving for pints of guinness and O'Brien's over-inflated and over-rated sandwiches.

Full news story here:
http://www.limerickpost.ie/dailynews.elive?id=7325&cate...y-Fri

In addition to this, Shannon Airport has been awarded the Best Airport in Ireland Award. See the news story below.

How to win the Best Airport Award in Ireland - Profit from War

The Limerick Post today reports that Shannon Airport has been awarded the Best Irish Airport of the Year Award 2006. This is the second year running they have been granted this merit by the Irish Chamber of Commerce.

What a great example this sets to other Irish airports. Shannon Airport has facilitated and profitted from the transportation of hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, where unquantifiable bloodshed transpires on a daily basis.

According to another report in the Limerick Post today, Shannon Airport has economically gained €100 million from the U.S. gvt. since the invasion of Iraq in '2002' (God, even Irish journalists living in the proximity of Shannon Airport don't know when the official invasion occured)!

Full story here:

http://www.limerickpost.ie/dailynews.elive?id=7302&cate...y-Fri