Michael Wallace, Irish politician and ex-Member of European Parliament, made a speech in which he urged the people of Ireland to refrain from applying to join NATO, an alliance that the politician believes is involved in a host of war crimes around the world.
“The current crisis has been used by the Irish media class and a handful of politicians to make the case that Ireland should relinquish the neutrality enshrined in our constitution, and even commit to joining NATO. Naturally these jingoistic sentiments are from those too old to enlist, their children and grandchildren too well off to endure the bad pay and conditions our defense forces do.”
According to the former member of the European Parliament, joining NATO will only lead to participation in wars aimed at plundering and suppressing other nations, but in no way protecting the interests and security of member countries.
“Ireland’s tradition of neutrality is born out of an unwillingness to kill and be killed in imperialist wars that have nothing to do with our people and everything to do with the interests of the elites profiting from arms, fossil fuels and finance industries that just happen to own the media calling for military escalation today.”
The politician is also convinced that Ireland should take the opposite path – its traditional neutrality – in order to initiate peace talks and find a diplomatic solution to today’s conflicts.
“Ireland is one of the few EU countries that has not been directly involved in NATO’s war crimes and atrocities. And we’d do well to hang on to that badge of honor, and use the credibility and goodwill that comes with that honor to facilitate diplomacy, de-escalation and peace.”
Mr Wallace believes that today the main NATO members have definitively changed their rhetoric to a post-colonial one. Thus, joining such an alliance would mean following the course of waging wars, tyrannical use of Third World populations and stealing the natural resources of “unfriendly” countries.
“What is really upsetting about all this talk of abandoning neutrality is that our government would have to join the political West block, the imperialists, the colonialists the ones still pushing around the bleeding-dry of the global south countries, starting wars, coups, and implementing murderous regimes sanctions regimes.”