Peace Demonstration at Shannon 19 May 07

by ned - respond Sun May 20, 2007 08:10

good stuff, pitty such protests seem to go on without any one taking notice (no one important that is) I guess just keep up the good work and hope that the small gathering wins over the might of the shame Irish government. If they dont take any notice of the daily protest regarding Shell to Sea what chances does the anti war movement here have???
Sorry to be negative but come on nothing will ever come from this movement and no one can stop the americans certainly not us!!! But hats off for trying

by John Jefferies - AWI Cork Sun May 20, 2007 10:06 Cobh, Co. Cork

Sorry I could not go to Shannon yesterday but fair play to those that did go. While I appreciate Ned supports the campaign against Shannon I would respond to his doubts about the effectiveness of such actions by pointing to the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. Like Iraq there was widespread opposition both internationally and in the USA to the US presence in Vietnam. There were historical differences of course but it was eventually public opinion and widespread demonstrations right around the world that forced the Nixon administration to scale down and eventually pull out of Vietnam.

It was these demonstrations and the dedication of people like Tim Hourigan, Ed Horgan and others in monitoring US military activity that made the use of Shannon an issue in Ireland. Without them we would never have known about the CIA flights and the level of troop movement through Ireland would be ignored.

If I could use the analogy of an electric kettle. It seems to take forever to come to the boil and sometimes you wonder why you bothered, but if you turn off the power it has no chance of boiling.

Well done to everyone who was there yesterday.

by Tom Kettle - Here's an Idea Sun May 20, 2007 13:28

Congratulations for your tenacity persistence and personal courage.

On the surface this is an election -turning issue - especially as FG. the biggest party in the likely alternative government, shares FF's unnecessarily supine attitude. Labour is carefully vague now that it is on the doorstep of Government Buildings.

Even so, licensing the use of Shannon and of our airspace for waging war is one of a number of issues that has an intense effect on people in a way that is not very visible in opinon polls or even in numbers at a protest - but is real and has political significance.

My own view is that it is one of the factors contributing to the continuing decline in the FF core vote over recent decades. The old school FF Aiken-era self image of an Ireland with the guts to speak its mind is battered beyond recognition now.

The Greens manifesto says they will stop this. With 8 -10 seats that commitment is not going to be within their power to deliver and it looks like it would not survive post-election negotiations with FG. But that calculation could change. This is how -

If the decent people in Labour and the decent people in FG matched your passion and courage and asserted themselves in the next few days to agree with the Greens on a pre-election Statement of Intent on Shannon they might be surprised at how popular that news would prove to be among the 200,000+ decisive floating and undecided voters looking for some sign of character and heart in our next Government.

And so John Jeffries' analogous kettle might come to the boil sooner than even he thought.

by Tom Kettle Sun May 20, 2007 13:32

On the surface this is not an election-turning issue....

would help you make sense of the main para.

by Coilín Sun May 20, 2007 15:52

Good work! Sorry I couldn't be there as I was giving Patricia McKenna a hand on the doorsteps of Dublin Central.

I disagree with Ned. We cannot say that nobody important is taking notice. Actually, it seems to me utterly implausible that the powers that be can ignore our demonstrations, though they might pretend nothing in public.

I am not a religious person, but I have faith that EVERYthing will ever come from this movement. I am in no doubt that, through the conjunction of all our diverse and persistent protests and positive actions, we can help save the American people from the destructive, undemocratic foreign policies of their erroneously appointed president.

Keep up the good work.

Best,
Coilín.

by Coilín Sun May 20, 2007 16:37

That's the headline on the second-to-top story on page 3 of the Sunday Business Post today.

"Fine Gael supports the use of Shannon by US troops, while the Green Party has promised to end the practice if elected to government. The Labour Party has refused to clarify its position."

According to the party's manifesto, "... Labour in government would not permit Shannon to be used for the prosecution of, or preparation for, any war or military action outside international law. The spokesman declined to say whether the party believed the current US action in Iraq was outside international law."

I look on this kind of contrived ambiguity with a jaundiced eye. There is a surge going on, I can feel it myself: a surge of _nausea_ that politicians go on condoning our participation in the unceasing mass murder of innocent Iraqi men, women and children on the basis that it is allegedly in accordance with international law. This ambiguous "international law" criterion has become an ill-defined, unreliable and inadequate standard. It seems we've gotten things arseways. We must _first_ acknowledge that the war and occupation is a counter-productive catastrophe for the people of Iraq, hundreds of thousands of whom will never get to vote in democratic elections for the simple reason that they have been killed in the course of this war, and _then_ formulate international law in accordance with that judgement.

In other words, given the ongoing humiliation of our American friends in Iraq, Ireland should push for a resolution in the UN Security Council to demand the safe and speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, and the subsequent payment of reparations for the lives and property destroyed in the course of that war. Remember that Iraq had to pay reparations for the invasion of Kuwait? Now the shoe is on the other foot.

Given the results of PANA's recent poll, which showed that a full 58 percent of people were opposed to troop-trafficking at Shannon, while only 19 percent were in favour - a ratio of three-to-one against! - Labour ought to come out unequivocally against this abuse of Shannon airport. And I mean before Thursday. Otherwise, peace-loving voters must look elsewhere for reliable candidates to pursue their visions in the Dáil.

It would be pragmatic for Labour to get unequivocal about this issue very fast. For example, first thing tomorrow morning.

Best,
Coilín.

by starkadder Sun May 20, 2007 17:37

Let's hope if the Greens get elected, they will push their coalition partners about this issue. After all, letting the Yanks use Shannon is flushing 70-odd years of neutrality down the toilet.

by Realist Sun May 20, 2007 18:14

Let's hope
Jayzus, that's a pretty low goal. Why not get down to Shannon and join the protests instead of hoping that some temporary elected dictator won't betray your dreams. Or even better, if we're just into hoping then I hear the next Lotto jackpot will be good ... don't forget I put you onto it.

by Edward Sun May 20, 2007 21:22

I agree with the points made by both Coilin and Realist.
Realist says "Why not get down to Shannon and join the protests instead of hoping that some temporary elected dictator won't betray your dreams" while Coilin believes that a longer term strategy will work - in the long run. We really need both a short term strategy and a long term one.
The short term strategy should be for as many as possible to get down to Shannon as often as possible and make a series of small or large ongoing protests, including frequent short peace camps, especially over the fine summer months. We also need more positive peaceful action at Shannon to highlight the ongoing abuses of Shannon airport and Irish neutrality.
Most important of all, we need to take actions to prevent the ongoing killing of innocent people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.

Right now there is a most serious threat of a full-scale attack by the Israeli army against the world's largest ever prison concentration camp, which is otherwise known as the Gaza Strip. If this happens, and it is possible over the next two weeks, thousands will die. The Israeli army are keen to 'make ammends for their defeat in Lebanon last year, and Gaza is so small and poorly defended, that they know if they go in hard enough and kill enough people, including fighters and civilians, they can then withdraw and declare victory. The Israeli Government also know that with demoralised governments in the US and the UK, they will get away with such an outrage and the US and UK will use their vetos to prevent any UN condemnation of their actions.
As usual, weapons will be supplied to the Israeli army from the US through Shannon airport and over Irish airspace.
Let your silence be broken.

Conor reading the Riot Act to Gardai at Arrivals Lounge

Peace activist at work 19 May 07

by Mary Kelly Sun May 20, 2007 22:46

looks like a really good demo, thanks for the reports and commitment.

In memory and thanks to Liz, who was in word and deed a fiery and compassionate activist, an incredible support, especially to those of us on trial for actions on Shannon Warport. Her commitment was total, she was one of the best.

by paul o toole Mon May 21, 2007 11:32

Shannon is still the US military hub for the continnued destruction of the middle east. Estimated 265,000 kids killed so far, 650,000 in total, since mar.2003. Thats 250 times MORE than were killed in revenge for 9/11-which had nothing to do with Iraq.
In fact ,Iraq has never attacked the US or the UK.

As Bertie says...A lot done...more to do...

by Court Solidarity Mon May 21, 2007 17:04

Fr. Steve Kelly SJ and Fr. Louie Vitalie face court for confronting U.S. torture training in Arizona.
See link below......
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/20/1325

by Coilín Mon May 21, 2007 21:00

Like Ed - a man who has said Yes to every different kind of non-violent demonstration or action I could ever think of - I don't see our options as mutually exclusive, with the unfortunate limitation that I can't be in two places at one time.

I believe that Patricia McKenna will use her position as Teachta Dála to protest persistently against our collaboration in the war in Iraq, and I also agree with Realist's call to demonstrate at Shannon.

See ya there, sham!

Best,
Coilín.

by Coilín Tue May 22, 2007 19:39

If you want to deliver thousands more naive young American men and women, along with their guns, to Iraq and Afghanistan, where they can become embroiled in hopeless conflicts, then Bertie will deliver.

If you want to deliver more violence, hunger and destitution to the civilian populations of Iraq and Afghanistan, then Bertie will deliver.

If you want to deliver innocent Muslims and Arabs into the hands of masked CIA agents, who will cut their clothes off, strap them to mattresses and deliver them to torture centres in Egypt, Cuba or Afghanistan, then Bertie will deliver.

Indeed, the double-F have a lot of damage done and more damage to do, if we let them.

I wish Fianna Fáil were the only party that might deliver the bads listed above, but in fact there are several parties in the running for that dishonour.

I know that Mr Bush is too proud to accept anything less than total and utter defeat, but there's no good reason for Ireland to help him to go on humiliating his nation and inflicting an enormous economic punishment on generations of Americans to come, who will have to pay the debts the neocons are running up in pursuit of their catastrophic military misadventures.

The damage these wars are doing to the US economy will sooner or later come back to haunt Ireland in the shape of economic recession. We can help to minimise the damage by refusing to cooperate. Sometimes dissent is the best demonstration of friendhip.

Best,
Coilín.

by Roger Cole - Peace & Neutrality Alliance Wed May 23, 2007 13:29 pana at eircom dot net 17 Castle Street, Dalkey

I would like to thank everybody who took part in the demonstration. PANA knew in advance that it would be a small symbolic demo. We now however have the advantage of the results of the LMR survey that shows 58% of the people agree with us, even if they do not go on demos.
However we also have to admit that thanks to the corporate media and the political elite, the war and Ireland's participation in that war was NOT an issue in the election. to my knowledge the only large party that even held a press conference on the issue was SF, and the corporate media largely ignored the poll result.
So where now for the peace movement? If FF is returned to power with an overall majority even though the war was not an issue it will give the warmoner Ahern who is on record as stating that he believes Bush is a "great President" a mamdate to drag Ireland deeper into the war especially via the EU Battle Groups into which the Irish Army is now being integrated. In that case it will make it difficult for us to campaign against a war if the people have backed the war leader. However as it drags on and on, the corporate media and the elite will loose support and Ahen will follow his friend Blair into the dustbin of history.
If however the war leader does not get an overall majority and has to depend on the support of the Labour Party or SF or the Greens to form a Government then the peace movement needs to focus all its energy on reaching the ordinary members of those parties all of which opposed the war to refuse to support FF unless the use of Shannon is terminated.
So my advice to all the readers of this thread is to spead the word that we should focus all our efforts on their politcal activists. After all, every FF and FG candidate supported the war and the militarisation of the EU and they could easily form a Government.

by NichaelY - iawm Wed May 23, 2007 14:58

Hi Roger,

You were great at the Press Conference and it was good to see you in the Kingston Hotel last night.
I am in full agreement with your message above....one small idea for you to think about....how about PANA, in agreement with all its affiliated organisations, to call a 4-5 hour Conference in the next few days with the theme of how to work together to oppose the continuation of the use of Shannon, of any use of the Army in EU shananigans and to reflect what we're going to do if the Empire goes and attacks Iran...you must have heard that 15 warships, including two aircraft carriers entered the Straits of Hormuz last night and will have 'military exercises' there for the next two weeks.

Roger Cole speaks in the IAWM Press Conference

by NORA - FXXXBUSH Fri Jul 13, 2007 20:58

I THINK BUSH SHOULD BUT OUT OF OTHER PEOPLES COUNTRY AND STOP CAUSEING WAR HE SHOULD MIND HIS OWN BUISNESS AND JUST QUIT HIS PRESIDENTLE SHIT .LOOK AT HIM HIS STILL IN ARAK HIS SUCH A FXXXING ????????????????????????????????????.

by anon Sun Jul 15, 2007 17:53

Photos from the 19th
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cptsternn/672862204/in/pho...ream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cptsternn/672861520/

Some people have been uplaoding old photos on to flickr

Cindy Sheehan at Shannon
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clarenews/sets/72157600780...5888/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clarenews/789383543/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clarenews/789116601/in/set...5888/

Peace Camp 07
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cptsternn/672263084/in/set...3611/

A10 and F16 at and Euro Fighter Shannon
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markkiely/615429932/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markkiely/610722820/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markkiely/614700249/

Tanks andPSPS5 at Shannon
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianarthur/761764419/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianarthur/761726275/