Ireland: Socialist Party MP attacks Irish Government

Joe Higgins is a Socialist Party Deputy in the Irish Parliament. He made a statement in Parliament taking up the Irish government's statements that it "shared values" with the US government, after the EU summit of 4 and 5 November.

"Is the [Irish] Government saying that it shares with the United States Government a belief that it has the right to launch an imperialist conquest of another country, to ruthlessly use its position as the most wealthy and powerful country on the planet to invade Iraq, corral its oil resources and establish military control over the Middle East?

Of all the days to credit the United States with being a partner in building international peace and prosperity, this is not the one when the United States' military, as we speak, is battering the daylights out of the city of Falluja with all its monstrous arsenal of armaments and its victims include hospital workers, medical personnel, women and little children.

Is the Government saying it shares the values of an administration that has built a gulag on its own doorstep in Guantanamo, whose methods would rival any of the infamous gulags, built by the Stalinists in eastern Europe in their heyday?

The United States justifies the kidnap of suspects from around the world, interning them and subjecting them to systematic torture without recourse to human or civil rights. Is the Government saying it shares these values?

The Council declaration on Iraq, a five page document, contains not a single mention of the imperialist occupation of Iraq by states, including member states of the European Union. The Council says it "warmly welcomes the restoration of sovereignty to the Iraqi Government", dignifying as a sovereign Government a clutch of crooked exiles and hand-picked CIA stooges put in place by the occupying powers.

Is there any end to how far the Government will debase itself in favour of American foreign policy? No doubt, the Taoiseach [Irish Prime Minister] will shortly be preparing to go to Washington on St. Patrick's Day, one hand clutching a bowl of shamrock and the other tugging his forelock to Mr. Bush. That is shameful."

Joe Higgins' question to the Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern asked:

"In backing the United States assault on Falluja does the Minister really believe this will mean the end of the insurgency any more than, for example, the operation in Hue in Vietnam in the 1960s finished the insurgency there?

Can we not think independently of the propaganda of imperialism? Does the Minister agree that the Israeli Government continues its brutal repressive and murderous assault on the Palestinian people and their territories while standing firmly behind the Israelis is the Bush Administration? What did the Minister say about that matter at the EU summit? "

Ahern failed to answer Joe Higgins' questions.

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In The Socialist 20 November 2004:

The bloody cost of war