Shannon Peace Vigil Monitors US Troops

by Edward Horgan Tue Feb 10, 2009 18:14

I disagree with TD above that Obama is "A vile, hypocritical Bush Mk 2". Such intemporate language and inaccureate statements will not forward the cause of peace and justice that we all pursue.
The truth is that there has been very significant change in the United States, and these amount to be biggests changes in policies and attitudes since World War II ended. Of course many of us would dearly like to see more ongoing and more substantial changes, happening more quickly. The winding down of the Iraq war, the closing of Guantanamo, and the stated policy of prohibiting torture are very substantial improvements. We in the peace movement need to continue to protest and take positive peace actions whenever and wherever possible to promote and insist on further changes.
Our immediate aim in Ireland must be to end the transit of US troops through Shannon airport, in the immediate future. The people of the United States have spoken and have acted by ousting George W Bush, and by putting in Barack Hussein Obama as President. We in Ireland have re-elected a Fianna Fail led Government after that Government had made the Irish people complicit in crimes against humanity. We the Irish people have also allowed the continuing use of Shannon airport by the US military and the CIA, when we could have and should have closed down the airport if necessary to prevent its use in crimes against humanity.
The people of the USA have done a substantial amount in recent months to improve international peace, but not enough. We in Ireland have done virtually nothing to improve international peace in recent years and have done a lot to disimprove it.
Lets stop criticising others and do all we can to eliminate the stain of Ireland's complicity in crimes against humanity.
See you all at Shannon every Sunday from now on!
Edward

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign Tue Feb 10, 2009 17:35

The Democracy Now website is reporting that: The Obama administration has decided to continue a Bush administration policy of invoking “state secrets” to dismiss a lawsuit accusing a Boeing subsidiary of helping the CIA secretly transport prisoners to torture chambers overseas. On Monday, a San Francisco appeals court heard arguments on the American Civil Liberties Union’s attempt to reinstate the case against Jeppesen International Trip Planning on behalf of five former prisoners. The lawsuit accused Jeppesen of arranging at least seventy flights since 2001 as part of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program. The Bush administration successfully won the case’s dismissal on the grounds it would risk exposing “state secrets.” On Monday, Obama administration lawyers told judges the government’s stance is unchanged. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said, “The] Justice Department stood up in court today and said that it would continue the Bush policy of invoking state secrets to hide the reprehensible history of torture, rendition and the most grievous human rights violations committed by the American government. This is not change. This is definitely more of the same.”

by edward Mon Feb 09, 2009 16:56

Pacification, pacifism and peace activism

Thanks Timmy for your summary above on the implications of US military use of Shannon airport. Pacification means making peace by making war. It is the dream of military morons and a nightmare for the millions of innocent civilians, especially children who are killed and maimed by modern state terrorists claiming to be bringing freedom and democracy, and even Western Civilisation to so-called uncivilised people. Pacifism has been given a bad press since the end or World War II even though its most famous practitioner, Mahatma Gandhi, was one of the most active promoters of peace by peaceful means, as was Martin Luther King. Both paid for their active pacifism with their lives, both probably expected to make this supreme sacrifice. Peace activism is what is most needed now in Ireland and internationally. It is the opposite to “standing idly by”. It challenges those who gain from bloody wars and violence, those who say that its OK to profit from wars because if we did not do it, someone else would. It exposes the truth even when that truth is unpopular and unpalatable. Most of all it proposes and implements actions and strategies that provide safe and rational alternatives to war.
Thanks to the Galway peace activists whose car broke down on the way to Shannon yesterday and thanks to those who turned up in spite of the bitter cold.

The next peace activist events planned for Shannon are our next monthly vigil on Sunday 8 March. This will be followed two weeks later by other events at Shannon, including a Peace Forum planned for Saturday 21 March to mark the anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War. This Peace Forum is being organised by the Peace and Neutrality Alliance and Amnesty International. More details on this Forum will follow later. Assistance in organising this Peace Forum would be appreciated. Please contact [email protected].

by Patrick Delaney Mon Feb 09, 2009 14:07

We weren't able to make it down from Galway yesterday. Next month!
PS Obama? Bah!

by mary Kay Mullan - Derry Anti War Coalition Mon Feb 09, 2009 13:06

I send my solidarity with your protest against the misuse of Shannon Airport contrary to Ireland's neutrality
-the most outrageous abuse of power by the Coalition government.

Mary Kay

I enclose a link to event "Solidarity with the Mothers and families of Gaza" in Derry and worldwide yesterday

by Fred Johnston Mon Feb 09, 2009 10:53

I haven't been well of late so haven't been down there with you, but keep it going. Great to see our public money spent on training the gardaí to driveand park properly hasn't been wasted. I think we can expect more troops through Shannon with Obama, whose rhetoric seems emptier by the day.

by Timmy Mon Feb 09, 2009 09:10

Holy Bible: Isaiah 4--2

'and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.'

This ancient cry for liberation from militaristic agression is not a call for pacification
but a real directive to move the means of destruction into means of production so that a
process of liberation can take place. Pacification occurs when one military suppresses or kills
off the peoples till they are pacified. That was Germany's method in France for instance when it
labelled all opposition to its foreign occupation as terrorism and those who participated in it, the
resistence were shot down without trials or any law or order of civilization.

The new cry for liberation is to be found in the anti-fascist covenants such as the Nuremburg
Trials and Charter (1945), the Geneva Conventions of war (1949), the world court of the Hague, the
United Nations Charter, the International Criminal court, and the international war crimes tirbunal (Bertrand Russell Style). The Nuremburg trial chaired by U.S. Judge Jackson says that the planning and doing of Aggressive war is the supreme international crime on earth, as it acctuates all other crimes high, low, big, and small. He further says that it is a supreme crime whether Germany does it
or the United States does it. The anti-fascist side sets the goal of all nations to end foreign policy as aggressive war, and negotiation and collective agree as democracy in relations between nations. This concept of liberation being the ending of war and the dismantling of the war
machine and its manufactrury is not new as the quote from Isaiah shows. It is necessary however, for the era of milk and honey and peace on earth forever more. Shannon airport ought to support the ancient cry of the peoples including their own who were conquored nearly eight hundred years ago by the English imperial army, and shift to the present that continuing the struggle for liberation is the way forward for all peoples and nations and to end pollution. Viva socialist liberation. End pollution wars, not endless wars for more pollution. That goal does not change reguardless of what pres. is in power.