Whatever you think about the war, there’s no denying that there were a lot of people out marching against it in Dublin today. Apparently 80,000 people turned out. With local elections looming in Ireland, the Irish government is really going to have to start thinking about taking a serious stand against what the Americans are proposing.
The government is being typically fuzzy about what its stance is. After listening to the Defence minister on the radio today (Saturday View), the position seems to be that they don’t want the Americans to go in without UN sanction. However, they are in favour of the US being given sanction.
At the same time, the government is tacitly supporting the build-up in the Middle East by allowing US Army planes to refuel at Shannon Airport. They say that this is not tacit involvement, because it is not yet a certainty that there will be a war.
They are not exactly tripping themselves over to support the Franco-German initiative either.
We in Ireland have serious questions to ask ourselves about where we stand on international issues, and whether our ‘neutrality’ is really tenable. After all, if something is wrong, and we are in a position to do something about it, shouldn’t we do it? And if we vehemently disagree with it for moral reasons, shouldn’t we disavow it?
Aye, Bertie is the ultimate fence-sitter.
(I had to look at your headline twice – it’s an instance where quotes might help: ‘Stop the war’ march in Dublin – as opposed to stopping some war march in the captial)
Over the last 40 years, the United States has bombed Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, and Yugoslavia. We have killed literally millions of human beings in small impoverished third world countries who were no threat to us. Not one of those people ever came over here and bombed us. If we want terrorism to stop, we must stop practicing terrorism ourselves. Please vote against President Bush’s planned war on Iraq.
provoked war with Iraq and an attempt to dislodge Saddam Hussein will likely cause immense suffering to a nation and a population which have greatly suffered as a result of the 1990-91 Gulf War and the imposition of strict economic and trading sanctions since then. How much more pain will we inflict on them?