SEND IN THE TROOPS
US aircraft transporting troops to the Gulf are refueling at Shannon airport, Ireland. As many see this as a breach of Ireland's military neutrality they have become the focus of protest. A US navy transport was badly damaged, and the Irish government has deployed the army to protect them.
["Guards" and "Garda" are terms for the Irish police force]
It doesn't look good, deploying soldiers to defend the American military. Looks as if Irish troops are doing the bidding of the US government - possibly even up to the point of shooting their own citizens, which is kind of the opposite of what a national army is supposed to be for. And on the other hand it makes the US troops look silly, as if they needed an armed escort to protect them from civilians. Any way you look at it, this is bad, bad PR. What is the government thinking of?
I don't see why guarding things from civilians can't be done by the Civic Guard - isn't that how they got the name? Is their shortage of manpower so great now that they can't cope with even a smallish emergency? They would deny that. Are we seriously being asked to believe that the threat from this small faction of the protestors is so great that the Guards really fear for their lives? The government were certainly considering the option of troop deployment well before the alleged assault on a member of the force. That made it more politically feasible; it didn't stop it being a fundamentally wrong decision.
To have police enforcing the law is right and good. To have soldiers enforcing the law is just plain wrong. In fact, not even plain wrong. Double chocolate wrong, with sprinkles. It shouldn't happen in democratic countries. When else were soldiers brought onto the streets here? Only to deal with the paramilitary threat. No one is suggesting (so far anyway, but give them time) that the peace protestors are in fact armed agents of Al-Qa'eda. This makes it look as if we consider protestors to be enemies of the State, on a par with the Real IRA or folk of that ilk. Is this where the country is heading?
The government will now argue that the army is just there to protect the Guards, but of course they're really there to protect what certain protestors want to sabotage: US government property. And though this is a matter of intense debate, I think there are circumstances under which attacks on property can be legitimate political protest. When that property is a weapon of war, it seems pretty fair. Remember the Biblical injunction to beat swords into plowshares? Well beating a warplane into large, vaguely plowshare-shaped chunks seems close enough.
But the real reason, I believe, that the army rather than Guards were deployed was to impress, appease, or just generally suck up to the US. As in "Okay, we're not actually sending troops to fight in your war, but we are sending troops to guard your troops on the way. Now isn't that almost as good?"
The trouble is, it is almost as good. Our troops have been deployed to aid the war effort. Try to argue that we aren't involved in military action now.