High on blood money

“Having heard all of this you may choose to look the other way but you can never again say that you did not know.”
William Wilberforce. (1759 – 1833)

TEN years ago this month, the invasion of Iraq was launched. Millions protested all over the world.

They were ignored. Shannon Airport gained a lucrative revenue stream through facilitating the increase in military traffic. Thousands of American people, young and old, passed through the duty free on their way to fight, die, maim and kill on the orders of their government with the permission of ours. Protestation with regard to the moral implications of such facilitation were laughed off by the Irish Government of the time. Fianna Fáil was the main custodian of power so this is hardly surprising, given that party’s somnambulism in the moral aspects of financial acquisition.
Late last week, Amnesty International published a report detailing what has gone on in that distant Gulf state since the invasion. “A decade of abuses exposes a chronology of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees committed by Iraqi security forces and by foreign troops in the wake of the 2003 invasion.” A dictator was deposed, executed and a raft of replacement mini dictators have taken his place. Within a short space of time, then president George W Bush took to the bridge of an aircraft carrier and declared victory. His announcement seems even more ludicrous now than it did at the time.
Since that famous invasion, many people have raised their voices in opposition to the use of Shannon in facilitating this war. They have been dismissed in general as hippies of one kind or another and been told that they are naïve of the nuances of realpolitik. Certainly, the military use of Shannon has been profitable for the airport but to employ this as justification for the continued use of the facility lacks any kind of moral or ethical legitimacy.
I am keenly aware of the unpopular nature of the argument I am about to make. I spent some of the happiest times of my life working in Shannon Airport and not only want it to continue as a viable entity, I want to see it thrive. I propose that Shannon was, in the 10 years since Iraq was invaded, abandoned by the Dublin Airport Authority and allowed to subsist on the takings of morally bankrupt monies accepted from the American military to facilitate its war in Iraq and illegal rendition programme. Ireland was recently identified as one of 54 governments internationally who “participated in these operations in various ways, including by hosting CIA prisons on their territories; detaining, interrogating, torturing and abusing individuals; assisting in the capture and transport of detainees; permitting the use of domestic airspace and airports for secret flights transporting detainees; providing intelligence leading to the secret detention and extraordinary rendition of individuals and interrogating individuals who were secretly being held in the custody of other governments”. The Open Justice Society Initiative’s report is online for anyone who wishes to access it. It answers questions many people have been asking for a long time about the role of the Irish Government in the rendition campaign.
In terms of general participation in the support of American military action in the Gulf and elsewhere, Ireland continues unabated. On March 7 and 8 this year, Shannonwatch campaigners photographed “no fewer than four US military aircraft at the airport over the course of the two days”. While this may be financially beneficial to the airport, it would be also beneficial to the facility if the planes belonging to narco-traffickers were allowed to land with impunity but we are told this is not allowed. Employing the same moral stance of ruined lives, death and destruction should the government not ban US military flights? The estimates as to the number of people who have died in Iraq since the invasion range from 70,000 to 112,000. This includes 15,000 added after secret US logs were released by Wikileaks.  Anyone who questions whether or not such interventions are really anything to do with the Irish Government should place themselves in the position of any person within that number who lost a grandfather, grandmother, aunt, uncle, brother, sister, mother, father, son, daughter or friend. To lose anyone, kith or kin, is a trauma of the most extreme kind most of us will ever experience as human beings. To not stand up and demand that it not be needlessly imposed on others surely raises massive questions of moral integrity.
Ireland is a financial ruin because of the machinations of a global system and people are suffering through no fault of their own. For people in the State to be profiting by the same thing being visited upon others in the world is reprehensible. It might be nice if the government took a stand on behalf of human decency rather than the returns of bondholders. There has, since the very outset of this war a decade ago, been a distortion of truth on the part of successive Irish governments. Unfortunately, with that truth dies the ability of the Irish people to believe anything that comes from their government. If the deceit were inter-spousal, the relationship would not last long at all.
This has been the most well documented war the world has ever seen. Thanks to modern media, the world has seen the true face of war as never before including the role that Shannon has played. Watch the footage of one of 100,000 Iraqi mothers with her head in her hands, weeping and rocking on the grave of her dead son and ask yourself if there isn’t a better way to fund jobs in Shannon Airport. It was a trailblazer and icon in world aviation before it was mercilessly sabotaged by Dublin interests. It can be again and it doesn’t need to be done with blood money.