Neutrality Or NATO – an online book launch & conversation

Afri

The online launch of A Force for Good? Reflections on Neutrality and the Future of Irish Defence took place on Tuesday, June 20th 2023. The book is  a collection of essays by people with long and deep experience of working for peace and against militarism on this island and in the wider world.

Contributors include Nobel Peace Prizewinner Máiréad Maguire; Thomas Pringle TD; UCC Emeritus Professor John Maguire; Dr Karen Devine of DCU; Carol Fox of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance; and Tarak Kauff, former paratrooper with the US Army and now active member of Veterans for Peace.

The book is available from Afri for €10, including postage.

 

 

Good Friday Agreement reminds us war can end when peacemaking begins

Afri

There are many extreme dangers associated with the war in Ukraine, some too obvious to refer to, but the danger of groupthink around the war is one that is perhaps not sufficiently in some people’s awareness. Groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs when a group of people make irrational or non-optimal decisions spurred by the urge to conform or the belief that dissent is impossible. Continue reading “Good Friday Agreement reminds us war can end when peacemaking begins” →

Afri Statement on PESCO and the Commission on the Defence Forces

Afri

The debate on PESCO in Dáil Éireann on 5th July has revealed the undemocratic and damaging approach of the Government to the role and future of our Defence Forces.

For decades now, governments have been entering into ever deeper military engagement with an increasingly NATO-directed EU ‘defence’ structure, while claiming that something they call ‘military neutrality’ allegedly hovers unharmed above the fray. Continue reading “Afri Statement on PESCO and the Commission on the Defence Forces” →

“Who are we afraid will invade us?”

Afri

The war in Ukraine has continued for nearly half a year with the shocking consequences clear for all to see: the deaths of innocent civilians; the destruction of homes and cities; the hundreds of thousands driven from their homes as refugees. And of course this is just one of the wars currently waging as more than a dozen other horrific wars rage around the planet with the same suffering, the same upheaval and the same destruction of lives and livelihoods.

Continue reading ““Who are we afraid will invade us?”” →

Taoiseach Sups with NATO Ignoring the Will of the Irish People

Afri

Afri deplores Micheál Martin’s eagerness to sup with NATO, a nuclear alliance, at the recent summit in Madrid. An Taoiseach insists that it is necessary to join in such ‘conversations’ with the high and mighty, while dithering about the right moment to engage with the Irish people at last on defence policy.

This is merely the latest stage in a process of furtive acquiescence in NATO-inspired EU militarisation. Continue reading “Taoiseach Sups with NATO Ignoring the Will of the Irish People” →

‘A VIVID IMPRESSION’: THE REPRESSED POTENTIAL OF IRISH NEUTRALITY by John Maguire.

Afri

Why on earth keep going on about neutrality?  Aren’t we in a bizarre twilight zone, where the governments who systematically undermine neutrality declare it alive and well, while its defenders, frustrated by such hypocrisy, are almost tempted to declare it dead and buried?  After all, what is so special about ‘Irish Neutrality’?

After all, indeed… Continue reading “‘A VIVID IMPRESSION’: THE REPRESSED POTENTIAL OF IRISH NEUTRALITY by John Maguire.” →