Libertarians against Nice to protest at Shannon Airport

Friday October 11, 2002 16:06

by Libertarians against Nice

Members of Libertarians Against Nice will take part in tomorrows (Saturday 2pm) anti - (Iraq) war demonstration at Shannon Airport called by the 'Irish Anti-War Movement'. We will be protesting at the continued use of Irish airports by US military planes

Press Release - Oct/11/2002
Libertarians against Nice to protest at Shannon Airport

Libertarians against Nice to protest at Shannon Airport

Members of Libertarians Against Nice will take part in tomorrows (Saturday 2pm) anti - (Iraq) war demonstration at Shannon Airport called by the 'Irish Anti-War Movement'. We will be protesting at the continued use of Irish airports by US military planes.

Speaking for LAN Andrew Flood said

"Over the last year over 500 US military planes have refuelled and trained out of Shannon airport. This shows that the issue of the growing militarisation of Ireland is not simple whether or not Irish soldiers take part in EU wars. Already we serve as a supply base of a military force actively involved in one war in Afghanistan and about to launch a second in Iraq.

"In recent years Ireland has become increasingly involved in the wars of the EU and its main ally, the USA. These mighty military forces do not need the very small and primitively equipped Irish army to fight for them. What they have needed and have got is the use of Irish airspace, airports, and seaports to facilitate transportation of soldiers and weapons around the globe.

In the Nice referendum the people of Ireland have a chance to express their opposition to this growing militarisation by voting No."

Speaking for LAN Chekov Feeney said

"The Nice treaty brings us another slow step down the path of EU military integration and in particular, the transferral of responsibility for military matters from the WEU to the EU. The Nice treaty includes an amendment to Article 17 of the Treaty of Europe. Pre-Nice the article included the following in paragraph 1:

"The Western European Union (WEU) is an integral part of the development of the Union providing the Union with access to an operational capability notably in the context of paragraph 2. It supports the Union in framing the defence aspects of the common foreign and security policy as set out in this Article. The Union shall accordingly foster closer institutional relations with the WEU with a view to the possibility of the integration of the WEU into the Union,"

"This passage has been deleted as part of the Nice treaty, probably because the integration has been achieved! The EU now assumes formal responsibility for 'operation capability notably in the context of paragraph 2'. This refers to "humanitarian and rescue tasks, peace keeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking." The other mention of the WEU in the Treaty of Europe, in Article 17, paragraph 3: "The Union will avail itself of the WEU to elaborate and implement decisions and actions of the Union which have defence implications", is also deleted.

"The EU becomes the official military alliance of Western Europe and Ireland's neutrality becomes utterly meaningless. Ireland will be part of an EU military alliance which will serve as NATO's European arm. The responsibilities of this agreement are broad enough to cover any conceivable type of military action. Peacemaking is a particularly vague term. It means making peace where there is war by the use of military force - best achieved by winning the war! Given the sorry history of NATO's interventions in the past and the political realities of the global power order, it is all too likely that 'peacemaking' will mean aerial bombardments and military invasions of poor countries by the armies of the wealthy, all in the 'national interest' of the powerful states. Do you want your tax money to pay for this?

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More information on the EU, Nice and militarisation at
http://struggle.ws/ireland/nice/analysis/militarism.html

Libertarians against Nice
http://more.at/stopnice