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Ireland having 0 military capabilities, and being completely dependent on NATO, while being extremely opinionated, on how and what NATO does, always irked me de
by osiris970 10mo ago
Ireland having 0 military capabilities, and being completely dependent on NATO, while being extremely opinionated, on how and what NATO does, always irked me deeply.
- TulliusCicero 10mo agoIreland nobly took a stand against fighting the Nazis in WW2, and they've been similarly brave ever since.
- beezlewax 10mo agoNotably thousands of Irish soldiers did fight the Germans in WW2 but via joining the British Army... an act that was frowned upon at the times. Many were killed.
- whenc 10mo agoAnd when they came back, they were blacklisted by order of the government: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16287211 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16287211
- hexbin010 10mo agoJesus I never knew that. Shocking
- spwa4 10mo agoA lot of governments took the side of the Nazis. Including the EU's founder, Robert Schuman, ex-Nazi collaborator of the French Vichy government. But that is nothing compared to many others. Things get so much worse. The Dutch Child protection agency has in it's historical archives, not just that they collaborated with implementing the holocaust against children, but actually organized it. Jewish (and various other groups, like Romani) children were "invited" to summer camps, that turned out to be death camps (and the "east front", which you also didn't return from). They even set a trap to deport Jewish and mentally and physically disabled children to extermination camps, including a number of their own personnel, and even went so far as to hunt their own personnel that "chose the side of the children". Austrian child protection agency selected children to be sent to death camps. That, Austrian psychiatry before and during the holocaust, is where Autism comes from. The first children diagnosed with Autism were not just sent to death camps, that was the only purpose of the diagnosis of Autism. To mark the child for death to "protect (something about race that I will not repeat)". In case you ever wonder why the child protection agencies of those countries still reserve the right to lie about the death of children, even today, that is why. Because both mass-murdered children out of racism, and if a concrete case, of which there are many, were to come to court even today ... And yet, it gets worse. And extremely confusing. Many things boil down to what everybody actually kind of knows. Ideas, especially implemented on the scale of a state, come from a long history and trials. Everything around WW2 was, justly and correctly, blamed on the Nazis. Nazis did those things. But they got the idea, and in many cases personnel, from somewhere. And a LOT of groups have used that to absolve themselves of what they did before, often long before, WW2. Look up "industrial psychiatry" sometime.
- TMWNN 10mo agoI had heard of the blacklist, but thought that it was for those who deserted the Irish military to join the British. Punishing deserters is understandable, no matter the motive. That said, if I understand the article correctly, those who did this were punished worse than deserters who did not go fight?!?
- TulliusCicero 10mo agoI don't dispute that there are many brave individual Irish people of course, but in terms of the country as a whole in matters of policy...
- beezlewax 10mo agoYou were about to refer to a specific policy you disagreed with or...?
- Spooky23 10mo ago[flagged]
- TulliusCicero 10mo ago> Ireland chose to take a position against colonialism By refusing to fight the Nazis? What? Are you implying that the Allies were the colonizers in WW2? (The Allied countries were also colonizers obviously, but within WW2 it's pretty obvious which countries were doing more of that, and more aggressively)
- Spooky23 10mo agoWhat was a tiny, broke, agrarian country just out of a civil war that was still simmering going to do about the Nazis? They had a well-justified disdain for being pulled into the British orbit. They chose neutrality. Do you hold Switzerland and Sweden to the same standard? If Britain were to join in a conflict with Russia over Ukraine, would you expect Indian soldiers to rally to the cause of their former King and Country? If you’re an American, would you be in favor of providing VA benefits to US Army soldiers who deserted and joined the Ukrainian army?
- jonplackett 10mo agoBritain was still literally an empire at this point, currently colonising India and many other places. You can say they should fight the nazis anyway but making the argument that they should do this because Britain weren’t colonisers doesn’t make sense.
- potro 10mo agoWell, one can look at this as at least a step in the right direction, compared to the active collaboration with Germany during WW1 by the people who became Irish government by the time of WW2 arrived.
- jltsiren 10mo agoThe two world wars were not the same. WW1 was a stupid war that happened for stupid reasons, and there were no real moral differences between the sides. Many nations tried to use the war as an opportunity for independence by collaborating with the opposing side. Some of them were successful. In Finland, we still call infantry Jägers in honor of those who went to Germany to receive military training and to fight against Russia.
- TheGuyWhoCodes 10mo agoThey also offered condolences to the Nazis when Hitler offed himself.
- reorder9695 10mo agoIreland doesn't have 0 military capabilities, they have enough of a military to conduct peacekeeping missions elsewhere, which they don't need to do. They just don't have the ability to defend an invasion, but they do certainly have a military that does good in the world.
- nradov 10mo agoOK so their capability isn't precisely 0, but it rounds to 0.
- dralley 10mo agoTheir "peacekeeping" missions are somewhere between utterly impotent / useless and actively counterproductive. Playing dumb and doing nothing while Hezbollah uses you as cover to launch missiles over the border from a couple hundred meters away is not keeping the peace.
- osiris970 10mo agoYeah, didn't they completely fail at stopping hezbollah from rebuilding, right in their backyard?
- istultus 10mo agoThat assumes that their mission is to stop anything. UNRWA's sole mission (like most large-scale nonprofits - not suggesting they're unique) is to continue to procure money for its 30,000 or so salaried posts.
- C6JEsQeQa5fCjE 10mo agoAdditionally, it assumes that the Irish, who broadly as a people support national liberation movements, would even want to prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding, even if they could.
- 10mo ago
- happytoexplain 10mo agoThe implication that having military strength is a prerequisite for having opinions about international policy is horrifying.
- missedthecue 10mo agoNo offense but how is that not obvious by second grade. Don't have a big mouth if you don't have a big stick too. Ireland doesn't have quiet opinions, but a rather big mouth about other nations' foreign policy.
- throw310822 10mo agoI find this position abject, but I'm curious what opinions are you talking about specifically. Can you elaborate?
- missedthecue 10mo agoSure they have very extreme opinions about the Ukraine situation that they make very clear at every EU parliament meeting.
- throw310822 10mo agoCan you point me to some examples? I have not followed closely but it seems that Ireland is on the same page as the other EU states in regards to supporting Ukraine. I'm also curious about what you consider a "very extreme opinion" to be in this regard.
- missedthecue 10mo agoHere is a specific example where an Irish MEP specifically speaks against sanctions on Russia and against NATO donating any weapons to Ukraine in front of the EU parliament. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpieZnTQorQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpieZnTQorQ Here is a different Irish MEP saying similar things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo1tgWr0KXI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo1tgWr0KXI
- culi 10mo agoIreland doesn't have exactly zero military capabilities. For example they have a military base in Lebanon. They have a decades long solidarity with Hezbollah and solidarity demonstrations are commonplace https://rebelbreeze.com/2024/09/21/dublin-demonstration-in-solidarity-with-hezbollah-and-the-lebanese-people/ https://rebelbreeze.com/2024/09/21/dublin-demonstration-in-s...