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 Friday January 10, 2003 22:54 by daisuke
 this morning on "Today with Pat Kenny" there was a brief piece on the upcoming,long awaited, inaugaral war of the century(millenium even). Featured were Shannon's premier graf artist Eoin Dubsky,and Capt.Tom Clonan (retired) RTE's military commentator for the day.... There were sparks flying over the airwaves,seeing as the champion of peace,and the champion of war had locked horns before... they both kept their swords in their sheaths,however herr kapitan(retired) did rather smugly refer to Michael D. Higgins and Eoin Dubsky as "a dying breed" and referred to his opponent in the debate as (cover your ears children!) "an idealist" Debate on the legality or otherwise of Shannon's use for military transports was welcomed by the Captain,he believed it was legal and reasonable and that "informed debate" would make everyone realise how benign it all is. "Shannon is of immense strategic importance" he said citing the undeniable logic of efficent warfare-"it's cheaper" he said, the shorter the journey between bases the better "fuel-load ratio" is attained. With everything else in place- that means everything - all weapons,munitions,planes,tanks,communications,command centres-all that's left is the men to guide the machines.60,000 in place now are most likely base security,transport and logistics-but the final pieces of the puzzle are jetting through airspace not too far from you-250,000 by the end estimated Capt.Clonan.He suggested that Ireland has a duty to allow safe passage of civilian flights through our airspace-most of the troops mentioned will be transported in this manner.It seems the only weapons left to ship are the GIs and they are on civilian flights...military flights are however allowed by a 1952 order (under review in the courts). Eoin Dubsky confined himself to "idealistic" The Captain now a lecturer in communications in Dublin Institute of Technology had the last say before the adverts(buybuybuyouneedthishit) |
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Comments (1 of 1)
Jump To Comment: 1It wasn't a good radio discussion.
I think Tom feels that he has to use that official military-speak to sound objective, so that he'll be taken seriously as a military-issues journalist in Ireland. He's probably right too. Off the record though he seems -- like other retired members of the Defence Forces I've spoken with about Shannon Airport etc. -- as opposed to Bush's conquests as you or I.
If you read between the lines of his opinion pieces which appear from time-to-time in the papers (Indo, Irish Times mostly) he's basically saying the same things that others paint on their banners and march to the US Embassy with. His piece about women in the Irish Defence Forces was really good investigative journalism, and in fairness he's harder for the authorities to discredit (they have tried!) if he's basically using the same vocab as them... I think that's his view.
In any case, by the end of the programme we were really talking about anti-war tactics (I was saying that fear of terrorism/retaliation isn't a motivating factor we should advocate as a primary reason to not support US violence). I think it showed that basically we're on the same side (sorry Tom). Pat tried to keep a debate going, but he's out of his depth on this issue and just comes up with silly little 'controversies' which leave you thinking "how can I answer this without sounding patronizing?", instead of "oh that was a good question... Hmmm" (sorry Pat). :-)