Inside File: Ireland’s neutrality is now a crossroad in the crosshairs

The Republic is officially neutral in military matters.
But it’s an Irish form of neutrality, a form quite unlike the armed-to-the-teeth neutrality of Sweden, or the isolationist neutrality of Switzerland.
Some Irish politicians take neutrality literally while others merely pay it lip service.
Others again would do away with it altogether and have the country line up with NATO.
Some call it an outright sham.
Politicians of very way of thinking, however, were given cause for reflection a few weeks ago when a British Islamic lawyer, Anjem Choudary, stood up at debate in Trinity College Dublin and suggested that Ireland was a target for groups such as al-Qaeda because of the provision of Shannon airport as a landing site for U.S. troops heading to and from Iraq.
Needless to say here was considerable uproar over Choudary’s remarks to the college’s Philosophical Society.
While he said he would not condone any such attacks, Choudary made plain his view that the allocation of landing rights at Shannon to troop planes and the granting of permission for the U.S. military to fly through Irish airspace were not the actions of a truly neutral nation.
Indeed, Choudary argued, Ireland could be seen as a collaborator with the U.S.
“You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work out that if you’re allowing your soil to be used for sorties, bombings, then some Muslims are going to see you as collaborators,” was how he put it.
His words set off a flurry of reaction. Minister for Defense, the gun-toting Willie O’Dea, didn’t think Ireland was that much at risk of a terrorist attack in the first place and that the risk would not fall appreciably anyway if Shannon was closed to U.S. troops.
Fine Gael’s defense spokesman, Billy Timmins, reckoned that Ireland was woefully unprepared to deal with an attack though he didn’t make any predictions with regard to one taking place.
Willie and Billy go at it a fair bit on matters such as this. Their actual positions are not that far apart though the latter, being in opposition, tends to be a bit more assertive.
Still, Fianna F_il and Fine Gael are more or less on the same map when it comes to Ireland’s role in international military affairs, most especially those rooted in the European Union “battle groups” idea.
The two parties do part ways a bit when it comes to participating in missions without any U.N. mandate. Fine Gael is more inclined to give the Republic more freedom to act outside the remit of the Security Council by scrapping to so-called “triple lock” mechanism – which ties Ireland to purely U.N.-sanctioned actions.
Fine Gael would like more freedom for Irish troops to roam, Visigoth-like, around the European mainland. Leading party voices have gone so far as to describe the “triple-lock” practice as an abdication of sovereignty.
Regardless of such trifling distinctions, Irish government feathers were well ruffled by Choudary’s statements and were tousled again last week by Noam Chomsky, the American writer and anti-war activist who accused taoiseach Bertie Ahern of shining President Bush’s shoes as a result of Shannon’s role as a virtual Fort Bragg East.
Chomsky clearly understands news cycles. He’s lined up to speak on war and peace at the same Trinity College next month but he threw in a few advance words in the lull between Christmas and the New Year.
Of course the concept of shining the shoes of other politicians is not exactly a strange one in Irish political life. Usually, however, it’s an internal party affair. Going transatlantic is another matter altogether and so there was all manner of harrumphing.
Accordingly, a government spokesman said that Ahern and his unrelated namesake, foreign affairs minister Dermot Ahern, utterly rejected Chomsky’s assertion.
“They are satisfied that Ireland’s position regarding the use of Shannon is fully compliant with domestic requirements and our international obligations,” the spokesman was quoted as saying in an Irish Independent report.
“Arrangements for overflight and landing in Ireland of U.S. military and civilian aircraft have been in place under successive governments for almost 50 years.”
Still, the Choudary and Chomsky affairs served to stir a simmering pot anew. And the simmering is certain to turn to bubbling in 2006 when Irish politicians begin to think more clearly in terms of a general election, which could happen anytime and must not come later than 2007.
The Irish parties do have distinct positions on neutrality and Shannon despite the frequent muddying of the waters by those parties that happen to be in power.
The Labor Party, for example, is opposed to Shannon being offered to the U.S. military and/or the CIA which has been the subject of much argument as a result of so-called prisoner “rendition” flights.
Sinn F