Ireland’s neutrality – with tanks

                      I don’t always agree with President Michael D Higgins – I’ve an  aversion to people who get elected saying they’ll do one thing (In Michael D’s case that he’d serve just one term as President) and then do something else (Michael D is approaching the end of his second term).  But Michael D’s recent statement about the south of ireland’s ‘drift’ from neutrality is timely and makes sense.

Micheál Martin considers the invasion of Ukraine as the EU’s Twin Towers moment, with the clear implication that we should line up to fight alongside the rest of the EU. This would allow him to develop a delicious distraction from the mess of homelessness that the Dublin government has presided over, and its sadly inadequate health service. Maggie Thatcher taught him that trick, with her Malvinas guns-and-glory escapade at a time when her opinion polls were tanking. All changed, changed utterly. Michael D was also on the ball when he pointed out that Professor Louise Richardson from Waterford and Oxford was the proud holder of a British award – she is a Dame of the British Empire (DBE).  As Michael D implied, someone who gladly associates themselves with the British Empire has some questions to answer, especially if they are an Irish citizen. Micheål thinks she’s grand, which is why she’s been appointed to the chair of the Irish government’s Consultative Forum on International Security Policy. The Forum will look at the question of Irish neutrality.

Sometimes our politicians can be very stupid. No matter what way you play it, the south of Ireland as a military force is like a bumble-bee squaring up to a fighter jet. We are incapable of repulsing any foreign power of even medium strength that wants to invade us. (And yes, Virginia, the North is a nice example.) We should not allow ourselves to become part of a military alliance like NATO: invariably it will make decisions based on what is good for the big boys in the organisation, not the minor figures like Ireland. History should have taught us that wars like Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, while talked up at the time as vital for Freedom, turn out to be nothing of the sort.

What Ireland does have is soft power, as Editor Pat and I discussed yesterday. I suggest that rather than even brand ourselves ‘Peacekeeper’ and enact that role with tanks and guns, we occupy the empty moral high ground and transform our armed forces into a peace corps, that would spend its energies and equipment in meeting the needs of so many impoverished countries throughout the world. A bold step like that would show the world that we believe in helping people rather than killing them,  aiding them rather than eliminating them,  in the name of freedom or any other damned lie.