Why Ireland must say no to this anti-socialist alliance
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has welshed on his party’s 1997 pre-election promise to hold a national referendum on Ireland joining the NATO dominated Partnership for Peace (PFP) organisation.
The Republic of Ireland was one of only a few European states not to attend the recently convened 50th NATO anniversary summit in Washington. Today NATO comprises 19 full member states and 25 PFP members.
When NATO was first formed, the Irish state was put under intense pressure by the United States to join. Marshall Aid was linked to support for NATO. The offer was declined because the six counties was still under the occupation by British military forces, one of the prime movers within the new alliance.
In 1994 Ireland was invited to join Partnership for Peace. The conservative Fine Gael party was eager to take this up but the populist nationalist party Fianna Fail was more cautious, wary of getting too far out of step with a deeply felt and popular sentiment which supported the established position of neutrality.
The Fianna Fail led coalition has used the humanitarian crisis in Kosova to propose that Ireland will become a full PFP member in the autumn. The government, supported by Fine Gael and an array of media columnists is busy conditioning the Irish people to drop their dedication to neutrality in favour of a brave new world of association in NATO.
Ireland must rise to a supposed new moral challenge as a modern European partner and participate more fully in international affairs - this means of course association with NATO and WEU.
The Attorney General has been wheeled out to assure everyone that there is no need for a referendum on joining PFP as its provisions do not conflict with Ireland’s constitutional imperative on neutrality.
The Irish people are being fed the lie that there is no conflict between association with NATO and a policy of neutrality. The Minister of foreign affairs David Andrews recently listed the PFP objectives as:
The facilitation of transparency in national defence planning and budgeting processes, ensuring the democratic control of defence forces
The maintaining of a capability and readiness to contribute, subject to constitutional considerations, to operations under the authority of the UN or the CSCE
The development of co-operative military relations with NATO for the purposes joint planning and exercises in order to strengthen their ability to undertake missions in the area of peacekeeping, and humanitarian operation
The development over the longer term of forces that are better able to operate alongside those of NATO.
He summed up both the government’s and the Attorney General’s view in that there is no legal basis for a referendum because "the state will maintain its freedom and flexibility to refuse to contribute to any operation should it consider that such participation is not in the interests of the common good."
This is typical Fianna Fail lies to avoid a national referendum debate on the profound shift in foreign policy direction being undertaken by the former leaders of the anti-colonialist republican movement. Joining NATO-PFP is not the innocuous venture Fianna Fail politicians would have us believe.
PFP is supposedly to be dedicated solely to humanitarian goals. But the PFP has no recognised legal mandate to do with international peacekeeping - that task defaults to the UN. It certainly isn’t a partnership, its decisions are all made by the United States and Britain.
. Now that capitalism no longer has Stalinism to justify NATO’s continued existence a new legitimisation has had to be found to license imperialist foreign policies. Global military interventions take place under cover of bogus claims to be pursuing humanitarian ends.
What role will Ireland play within the framework of NATO’s imperialism? The US ambassador to NATO recently described the PFP as working towards "the difference between being a partner member and being an ally of NATO member razor thin". For some states PFP is clearly intended as stage leading to full membership.
Small states like Ireland with little military capabilities will be asked to play a useful secondary role. It is a bit like the hard cop soft cop routine.
Ireland, with its anti-colonial credentials is ideally placed to give a soft humanitarian look and feel to the same old hard cop brutal imperialist methods in international affairs. It is no surprise to find that Mary Robinson as the UN spokesperson on human rights.
The strategic plan for the war in the Balkans tells us a lot about where states like Ireland are to be fit in. Phase one is to establish complete air supremacy over the region. Phase two, if Milosevic remains defiant, attack Serb ground forces in Kosova until he or one of his cronies is ready to make a deal based on a Rambouillet type proposal. Phase three, after a cease-fire, policing the deal that NATO has bombed into existence.
It is only in the third stage when small states like Ireland will be asked to make a contribution. They may have to take responsibility for disarming what remains of the Kosovan liberation fighters. They will go in to bandage the wounds of the oppressed and to police an undemocratic settlement akin to the miserable Dayton Agreement. Two million are still in exile as a result of that accord.
They will do as much good as flies do in an abattoir.
The NATO war in the Balkans is the first big test of this new "strategic concept" which includes NATO operating outside of its traditional territory and taking over tasks previously the preserve of the UN. The United States wants a more global role for NATO and talks about extending its geographical remit into Africa and Asia, as well as combating international "terrorism" and drugs trafficking.
"NATO has started the war it cannot afford to lose" is the consistent message from people who should know like Henry Kissenger. Ireland should stay well clear off NATO’s war hubris and its globocop dreams.
But at this crucial juncture only the Green party and the Labour party has called for a referendum on membership of PFP.
Socialist Democracy of course is in favour of a campaign to keep Ireland out of NATO. But we are also in favour of the defeat and the break up of NATO. NATO is a deadly instrument in the hands of big capital against socialists everywhere.