Shannonwatch

Drone operators at Holloman Air Force Base in the southwestern US state of New Mexico. Link to Source

The north-western region of Pakistan, along the Afghanistan border, is one of the most difficult places on earth in which to feel safe. It's a remote part of the world, populated with poor people living in tribal communities. Most are guilty of nothing at all. A minority are militants. Even among them, almost none pose any imminent threat to the US. Yet more than 350 US drone strikes have hit the region since 2004, most of these since Obama took over as president.

Edward Horgan flies the Veterans for Peace at Shannon Airport.

Following a meeting between Edward Horgan, who is a founding member of Shannonwatch, and Ben Griffin of Veterans for Peace in the UK, a Veterans for Peace has been formed in Ireland. Edward Horgan is a former member of the Irish Defence Forces and UN peacekeeper. He is also international secretary of the Peace and Neutreality Alliance (PANA), and is now the main contact person for Veterans for Peace in Ireland.

The Gardai at Shannon have apparently adopted a new tactic to deal with peace activists. Instead of charging peace activists with various offences as they have done frequently in the past, they now appear to have adopted a policy of arresting peace activists at their homes, bringing them to a Garda station, and interrogating them for periods of about 6 hours, during which time they are held incommunicado, and confined to a Garda cell or interview room. It could be argued that this practice amounts to punishment without trial, and this may be the intention. A Jury in Dublin acquitted the five Catholic Workers on a charge of Criminal Damage to a US military plane at Shannon in 2003, and the Appeal Court belatedly overturned the conviction of Mary Kelly for damage to the same aircraft. All six of these peace activists had admitted damaging this warplane and the estimated cost of repairs was in the region of two millions dollars.

Glenn Greenwald, writing in yesterday’s Guardian, said “A central premise of US media coverage of the Israeli attack on Gaza - beyond the claim that Israel is justifiably "defending itself" - is that this is some endless conflict between two foreign entitles, and Americans can simply sit by helplessly and lament the tragedy of it all.” He is right of course, and he could have added other governments - including Ireland's - to the list for which the statement is true.

Greenwald went on to point out that Israeli aggression is possible only because of direct, affirmative, unstinting US diplomatic, financial and military support for Israel and everything it does. That support has caused over 50 Palestinian deaths (at the time of writing) in Israel’s latest unjustified attack on Gaza. A lot of the weapons it uses are supplied or financed by America. And if the UN were ever to try censuring Israel for its repeated violations of law and morality, then its good friend the U.S. would certainly veto that into oblivion.

Yesterday (Wed, Nov 7th) a Shannonwatch member popped in to the airport at Shannon to have a look around. Not much to see by way of tourist or commercial business traffic, but there was a KC 10 (DC 10) refuelling tanker and a US Navy C-9 Skytrain near the terminal building.

As is the norm, the Shannonwatch member was accosted by airport security and asked if he had permission to take photographs. He said he was collecting information for the Gardai, which confused them. So they sent for Gardai. And when the Gardai arrived they were equally confused. They asked the Shannonwatch member if he had anything for them. He said he had ... after all he had photographs documenting possible violations of international law on his camera. And he said he would pass on the photos to the Station Sergeant in due course. 

And then he left the airport.

In September 2012 the Italian criminal appeal court upheld the conviction of 22 US CIA agents, one US pilot of a rendition plane and two Italian intelligence officials, all of whom had been convicted in connection with the kidnap of Muslim cleric known as Abu Omar. Abu Omar was then transported to Egypt on February 17th, 2003, on Gulfstream 4 plane with tail number N85VM, where he claimed he was tortured. It has been confirmed by independent investigations including Amnesty International, the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the UN Rapporteur on Torture, that this aircraft was refuelled at Shannon on February 18th, 2003 on its return journey to the US.

Aircraft N85VM had previously been refuelled at Shannon in another case revealed in New York court documents. On November 8th 2002 it arrived at Shannon from Washington and flew on to Dubai and Kabul on a mission that is likely to have involved the rendition and alleged torture of Abd al-Nashiri.