Acquitted Anti-War Activist Serves Notice on Ahearn Regarding U.S. Military Use of Shannon Airport!

by Ciaron O'Reilly - Dublin Catholic Worker Tue Sep 26, 2006 13:14 087 918 4552

This is an appeal to help fund the visit of five U.S. veterans to Ireland at the end of October. The money for the tickets is intially being put up by Anti War Ireland, Catholic Worker and a number of individuals. We hope to fund raise through various constituiences and pay back these low budget groups and individuals. Some of the individuals and groups putting up the money for fares wish to remain anonymous.

This particular appeal is being issued by the Dublin Catholic Worker and will be circulated among our networks in Ireland, Europe and the U.S.

Anti War Ireland and other groups will be issuing their own appeals to fund the Vets visit and a general calls to come to Shannnon Airport on Oct 28th. They will be using their own language and arguments for why people should make the effort.

What we need at this stage is self activity and initaitive in organising against Irish complicity in this war. We need Quakers, socialists, punks, anarchists, students, workers, Irish language speakers to issue calls to come to Shannon on Oct 28th. They should issue the call using whatever symbols and language that works for the people they know the best.

APPEAL FOR FUNDS TO BRING 5 U.S. VETERANS TO SHANNON AIRPORT OCTOBER 28TH. TO REMEMBER THE DEAD OF IRAQ!

Dear Friends,

Since the Pit Stop Ploughshares acted nonviolently to disable a U.S. war plane and disrupt the deployment of U.S. troops to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the war has escalated and expanded.
www.peaceontrial.com

Deirdre Clancy and myself, the members of the recently acquitted Pit Stop Ploughshares who remain in Ireland, will return together publicly to Shannon Airport on Saturday October 28th. We will go with many friends in the anti-war movement in Ireland. We hope to be joined by many others who have been before to say no to Irish involvement in this war and some for the first time.

We are returning at a significant time in the liturgical calender and also culturally in Ireland. We will return on the eve of "All Souls Day", when people of varied traditions, in Ireland & elsewhere, have historically remembered the dead. Since the start of this war on Iraq there have been many dead. Most of the over 2,500 young American men and women who have died in Iraq passed through Shannon Airport to their deaths.

There have circulated media images of President Bush and Donal Rumsfield celebrating with young U.S.troops in the departure lounge at Shannon Airport. But for too many of these young people, this became the departure lounge to a premature, violent death far from loved ones. For others it was to be a departure from sane mind or able body. 10,000 U.S. troops have been evacuated from Iraq with loss of limb and mind over these past few years, most of these maimed went through Shannon Airport, Ireland.

Over this time, estimates based on the Lancett Report, claim over 150,00 Iraqis, mostly women and children have been slain. The pace of death does not let up. In the past months thousands more Iraqis have been killed.

We are returning to Shannon Airport on Ocotber 28th. in the company of U.S.veterans of the Iraq War who are now speaking out against this war. They will join us in demanding that the Irish Government immediately demilitarise the airport and take Ireland out of the war on Iraq. We will be joined by Joshua Casteel, a former interrogator at Abu Ghraib,
http://www.villagemagazine.ie/article.asp?aid=2234&iid=...ud=31
and four of his friends from "Iraq Veterans Against the War".

We are asking you to help us bring these U.S. veterans in to Ireland in late October to speak out against the war & Irish complicity in the war. The veterans will speak at public meetings and through media outreach organised by friends in Anti War Ireland. They will then accompany us all to Shannon Airport. If you are in Ireland at this time, please consider joining us in Shannon town (assembling at Lidel at 2 pm to process to their airport).

Please consider making a donation towards the costs of air tickets to bring the U.S. veterans to Ireland.

*If in Ireland please make cheques out to
"Ploughshares Defence Fund",
134 Phibsorough Rd.
Phibsborough,
Dublin 7

by John Wed Sep 27, 2006 17:53

The idea that Government policy should be dictated by a jury of 12 persons is absurd. The jury were "the conscience of the community" only to the extent of deciding whether or not you were guilty beyond reasonable doubt of a criminal offence and imprisoned for it. They could have had any number of reasons for deciding that you shouldn't have been. Some on the jury might have agreed with your actions and acquitted you on those grounds, regardless of the evidence. Others might have thought you were insane and acquitted you on grounds of diminished responsibility. Others might have thought you didn't actually do it and were at home watching The Simpsons when the alleged offence occurred. People are acquitted all the time. It doesn't mean the Government has to change the law to make legal whatever it was they were charged with. For example, if someone carried out the racist murder of an asylum seeker, he would hopefully be brought to trial for it. But, he could be acquitted on any number of grounds. Some on the jury might think it hadn't been proved beyond reasonable doubt by the prosecution that he actually did it, especially if he pleaded not guilty and denied in court that he did it. Others on the jury might themselves be racists and acquit him because they actually agreed with murdering asylum seekers. Whatever their motivation and whatever the evidence presented in court, that decision of the jury would be sacrosanct when deciding whether or not the defendant should be convicted and imprisoned. That's a fundamental right in a democracy. But, it wouldn't actually mean that the Government was then under an obligation to legalise the murder of asylum seekers or to deport all asylum seekers. The only proper mechanism for deciding what government policy on any issue should be is elections.

by MichaelY - iawm Wed Sep 27, 2006 18:23

Dear John,

The only proper mechanism for deciding what government policy on any issue should be is elections - so you say.....

Question: In which election was it that the Irish people decided that our Government should allow armed soldiers of other countries, and particulalrly of the US, to come and go from Irish airports on their way to and from the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan?
Question: In which election was it that the Irish people decided that our Government should allow the transport of Apache helicopters to Israel to be used against Palestinian and Lebanese civilians?
Question: In which election was it that the Irish people decided that our Government should allow the use of Shannon and Baldonnel as warports?
Qustion: In which election was it that the Irish people decided that our Government should compromise our Constitutional neutrality?

Question: In which election was it that the Irish people decided that our Government , and particularly the Taoiseach, should get tens of thousands of €s as backhanders for their personal use? And then appoint their friendly 'lenders' to various State boards?

Therefore, are elections a blank cheque for those heads to do as they please for a number of years? Is that how you perceive the process of democracy?

So pls think of the above before ranting again with platitudes.....the comparison of dismantling a killer warplane with the murder of an asylum seeker, on the other hand, is so outrageous as to defy belief....

by John Wed Sep 27, 2006 19:29

Nowhere did I say that the poster's activities in Shannon were morally comparable to murdering an asylum seeker. I used the analogy to show how absurd it is to suggest that being acquitted of a crime imposes any sort of obligation on the government to legalise whatever it was the defendant was charged with or to change government policy so as to remove whatever grievance it was that motivated the defendant to do whatever he did. That was the argument the poster was putting forward. If his argument was accepted, you might as well abolish elections and just let randomly-selected juries of 12 persons decide government policy. You might as well say that income tax should be abolished because Ken Dodd was acquitted in the courts of income tax evasion. Most of the things on your list were issues before 2002. The varous parties' positions were quite clear on them and they voted in the present government knowing their attitude on them.For example, the use of Shannon airport by American troops. The remaining items on your list which have only arisen since the 2002 election, and which it could be argued with some justification the present government has no mandate for, will be issues in the next election. Perhaps you'd like a general election every week so that the public can make known their views on every new issue as it arises? I have no objection to the poster trying to mobilise public opinion for his point of view and putting it to the test in the election in opposition to people with different points of view. That's called democracy. I object to his claiming that being acquitted of a crime means that the government is morally obliged to give preference to his point of view over the point of view of other people like myself who never did anything that resulted in them being charged in the courts.

by Ciaron Thu Sep 28, 2006 15:00

John,
Ttr using paragraphs, very hard to make sense of what you are writing after a 28 hour flight.

..."people get acquitted all the time"
Only 3% of criminal trials in Dublin end in unanimous acquittals, like this one!

..."diminished respnsibility"
This was not an argument put to the jury by the defence, responsibility was. It was also not mentioned by the Judge in the charging of the jury. If you did more research, try the website www.peaceontrial.com
you would be able to present your arguments more perusasively (don't forget the paragraphs, they're free use'em!)