Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

I went to Monthly Meeting today for the first time in ages. In fact, I haven't been to Meeting in Limerick at all for ages. There were so many people there I didn't know: very odd. In fact, Limerick Preparative Meeting has expanded so much that there was discussion at MM about letting Limerick be a Monthly Meeting (this is all Quaker lingo).

Anyway, one of the Waterford Quakers ministered about the swarms of American troops one encounters when passing through Shannon Airport. And I'd spoken to two other people in the room about this before. Which got me thinking about the phenomenon.

Ireland is supposed to be neutral. But not in the way, say, Sweden is. It's more that we tend to avoid participating in conflict. A mechanism called the 'triple lock', which consists of .. ugh .. is it the Dáil, the Seanad and the UN Security Council .. could be wrong about the Seanad. Anyway, all three of those institutions have to agree to go to war before we can go to war. As a result, Ireland has not been in a war since the Civil War ended in 1922.

But that hasn't stopped Ireland getting involved in conflict. 'Peace keeping' forces (i.e. people trained to kill other people) have been sent to Lebanon, East Timor and Liberia. And, the bit that's irking me today, we allow the US military to use Shannon Airport as a stopover on their way to Iraq.

Now there is some unofficial precedent here. During World War II, for example, British planes were allowed to use our airspace. Should they accidentally land in Ireland, they were sent home. But German soldiers who ended up here were interred. This was partly because British servicemen could claim to be on other business in Ireland and get away with it, but it was pretty unlikely that Germans who ended up in Ireland were just there to check the border was secure or something.

Wikipedia has more to say on this:
While most neutral states do not allow any foreign military within their territory, Ireland has a long history of allowing military aircraft of various nations to refuel at Shannon Airport. Under the Air Navigation (Foreign Military Aircraft) Order, 1952, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, exceptionally, could to grant permission to foreign military aircraft to overfly or land in the State. Confirmation was required that the aircraft in question be unarmed, carry no arms, ammunition or explosives and that the flights in question would not form part of military exercises or operations. In September 2001 these conditions were "waived in respect of aircraft operating in pursuit of the implementation of the Security Council Resolution 1368" (Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dail Debate 17 December 2002). Irish governments have always said that allowing aircraft to use Irish soil does not constitute participation in any particular conflict and is compatible with a neutral stance, instancing the transit of German troops between Finland and Norway through neutral Swedish territory during World War II.

There's been quite a bit of debate on this in Ireland. A peace camp was set up outside Shannon, where protesters could monitor the to-ing and fro-ing of American planes, until it dissolved in a viscous stew of in-fighting and legal challenges from the State over who owned the land they were camping on. In the height of the campaign fervour during the official Iraq war (is it really over?), it was the main issue campaigners yelled about. One of the chants widely used at the time went:

"No guns, no blood for oil
No U.S. military on our soil"

But US troops have continued to land in Shannon. And until I used the airport last September I didn't realise just how many troops there were going through the airport each day. Swarms of them, all in their khaki uniforms. I found it really disconcerting. They were everywhere. I didn't think it'd make me feel so odd, but it really did. I didn't want them anywhere near me but they were everywhere. The other Quakers I spoke to felt the same. Now I know we probably over-reacted, being the crazy pacifists we are, but it was still incredibly odd.

Last week one of the cleaning staff working in the Airport spotted a passenger in shackles on one of the planes and reported it. While the government allows US planes, transporting prisoners is strictly forbidden. It has been smoothed over as a blip in an otherwise happy arrangement, but how many other prisoners have passed through, not spotted by airport staff?

I don't like this namby-pampy approach to neutrality. In fact, I'm not even sure that neutrality is a good word. Do we want to just sit back, saying we don't want to get involved? I'd like to see Ireland taking an active pacifist stance. We should be actively campaigning for peaceful resolutions to conflicts, not merely not sending troops to somewhere like Iraq (fat lot of good our teeny army'd be anyway). Military action is the lazy way out. I firmly believe that peaceful resolution is always possible. People dismiss me as being naive and idealistic, but I'd much rather strive towards achieving my ideals than accept the status quo.