Red Statement: The War On Irish Neutrality Has Begun

It must be easy being a middle class hack writing for the Irish Times or Irish Independent and calling for the sons and daughters of the working class to go be cannon fodder for imperialist wars.

The pro-war rhetoric has been escalating massively in the last few weeks.

The Irish Indepedent calls for an “honest conversation” and argues we can’t rely on our neighbours for defence. We can’t but not in the way they mean - one of our “neighbours” occupies the North of our island.

Michael Martin says there will be “pressure” from the EU to up our military spending but he says neutrality is “secure”. Then why is Simon Harris preparing a bill to remove the so-called “triple lock” which says the government needs UN, Dáil and Cabinet approval to join military missions.

In a letter to EU leaders inviting them to a recent EU defence summit, the president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, said: “First, Europe needs to assume greater responsibility for its own defence … Second, member states will always be responsible for their armed forces. At the same time, we have a common interest in co-operating more closely at European level.”

NATO has already warned EU leaders to return to a “war mindset” and prepare for conflict with Russia. Meanwhile Donald Trump threatens Greenland as the US, Russia and China race to conquer the Arctic circle and gain control of vast untapped resources.

With the guarantee of US military support for the EU in doubt Al Jazeera reports that “European leaders increasingly appear to be embracing the Latin adage, “Si vis pacem para bellum”, or “If you want peace, prepare for war.””

Simon Harris admitted this recently when he said: “Many of our EU partners, particularly the Nordics and the Baltics, are in full war preparation mode.”

Irish neutrality has always been a target for our establishment, it never prevented them from allowing use of Shannon Airport by the US military for the mass murder of tens of thousands of Iraqis.

And planes carrying weapons to Israel have passed through our airspace. But now they want to offer Irish bodies for the war machine of the bigger EU states and ultimately the NATO powers.

We’ve already signed up to the PESCO (Permanent Structured Cooperation) deal which is a step towards an EU army and the previous government tasked a Dame of the British Empire with holding a stitch up “consultative forum” on Irish neutrality.

War is no accident of personality or policy. It grows from the capitalist system. Giant corporations have operations that stretch across national borders yet they have a home state that defends their interests militarily.

From the race for mobile phone components like coltan in the Congo to the attitudes expressed by Trump in the race for the Arctic - the nation states of the world are monstrous machines, with arms at their disposal, that intervene militarily when economic competition alone doesn’t go their way.

The only way to stop imperialist war is to overthrow the system that produces war. Our contribution to that class war can only be the overthrow of the Irish establishment and the creation of a genuine socialist economy where workers are in the driving seat.

Protests can slow the government down but cannot stop the tectonic plates pushing the world closer and closer to war. The fight against inequality and capitalism here in Ireland is a contribution to the fight against war.

The First World war provoked a wave of working class rebellions, from Easter 1916 in Dublin to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Let the ruling class dare sacrifice our kids to the war machines of Europe or NATO. They’ll provoke another Rising.

If you agree join the Red Network.