Positive and active neutrality versus NATO and the EU
Statement by the Communist Party of Ireland
29 March 2018
The decision by the Government to expel a Russian diplomat as part of a co-ordinated response by EU and NATO member-countries is but another example of how far the Irish establishment has aligned this state with their military strategies.
The expulsion of the diplomat is justified by the unproven involvement in some type of chemical attack on a former Russian double agent and his daughter in England in early March, which the British have blamed on Moscow. The Russians have continually asked for a sample of the chemical toxins used for their own tests, which has been denied.
The British said that it would take the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons two weeks to confirm that the chemical agents are the same as what the British say they are; but the British could prove within twenty-four hours what type of chemical was used, and who made it, and who was responsible. The British claim is an extremely dubious assumption on which to base their actions, in the light of previous experience of British intelligence claims that were taken as fact, such as the “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq and the claim that the Gibraltar victims were about to detonate explosives. These are but two examples of a very long list of false intelligence.
The outrage from the British government, leading EU member-states, the United States and Canada is overflowing with hypocrisy, straight out of the Cold War propaganda handbook. While Putin is not someone we would encourage working people in Ireland to look to as some form of role model, nevertheless it is clear that we are edging towards a possible confrontation with Russia, which could only have very serious global consequences, including the possible use of nuclear weapons.
The actions of the Irish government can only be seen as a further indication of how far the state’s foreign, diplomatic, political and military policy has been aligned with the political and military strategy of the EU and NATO.
Neither the Soviet Union nor Russia under Putin have ever shown any hostile intent to the Irish people—on the contrary, the young Soviet Russia was one of the first states to recognise the Irish Republic and to support the struggle of the Irish people for freedom and independence.
Irish workers need only recall the many crimes and other illegal actions carried out by the British state and its agents against the Irish people over the last few decades, never mind the centuries of colonial domination. It is now known that the British state and its agents carried out the Dublin and Monaghan bombings in 1974 that resulted in the death of thirty-four people. The British still refuse to hand over evidence or to help the investigation of those horrific crimes.
The British state and its agents, in the form of the RUC, UDR, British army, and MI5, directed and used loyalist paramilitaries, as well as agents within the republican movement, to engage in acts of terrorism, and carried out hundreds of state-directed killings of civilians, legal professionals, and political opponents.
Just before the Government announced that it would be joining in this co-ordinated political assault on Russia the European Court of Human Rights rejected the challenge by the remaining fourteen torture victims known as the “hooded men” to designate what happened to them in 1971 as torture. It ruled in 1978 that these men had been subjected only to “inhumane and degrading treatment.” The techniques used by the British state against these innocent men included hooding, being thrown out of a moving helicopter while hooded, stress positions, white noise, deprivation of sleep, and deprivation of food and water, combined with extreme physical assaults and death threats.
This Government has failed to stem the flow of American military flights through the Shannon war port. In 2017 alone, of the 451 military aircraft landings at Shannon, 402 were US military aircraft. Those flights were in addition to 334 military-contracted flights carrying the personal weapons of American soldiers who landed at Shannon last year. And this is apart from the “extraordinary rendition” flights through the airport, carrying prisoners brutally tortured under the direction of the CIA.
We know for certain that the US state and military used chemical weapons in Viet Nam, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Vietnamese people, chemical warfare that continues to have a major impact on the Vietnamese people, with children still being born with multiple abnormalities.
This expulsion is unprecedented and, if nothing else, is an infringement of our neutrality, as it is an action by Britain’s NATO allies. The Irish state and the political establishment are using this crisis to advance their strategy of aligning this state with NATO and the military strategy of the EU. This action by the Government is nothing more than the action of a servile and dependent Irish establishment.
Clearly what is needed is to end this servile and collaborationist approach of the Irish establishment to both the EU and NATO.
Shannon Airport should be closed to the US war machine. All co-ordination and involvement in EU military strategies, including the battle groups and PESCO, should be ended. Irish soldiers should be withdrawn from NATO Headquarters in the Hague and from NATO military engagements around the world. And Irish military neutrality should be enshrined in the Constitution.
|