The Rapid Reaction Force is the foundation of a European Army and consists of land, sea and air forces from 14 E.U. states, a total of 60,000 plus troops (and 200,000 plus in reserve). The Irish state has committed 7.4% of it's armed forces to this project , which is proportionally the third largest contribution. Britain and France plan to give a vast array of weaponry to this project including combat planes, nuclear submarines, war ships and aircraft carriers. It also involves a layer of bureaucracy with a E.U. military committee on which Irish army officers sit.
The European Union's Common Foreign and Security policy is an attempt by the governments of the European Union to act as one in matters of war and diplomacy. As part of this the Irish government has lent it's support to the bombing of Yugoslavia and to the government side in Columbia's civil war.
Both these developments involve links to NATO, although, that is hardly an issu, as the Irish state is already linked to NATO through the Partnership for Peace, and if you are going to be involved in an alliance for offensive military action with militaristic states armed to the teeth with the proverbial weapons of mass destruction it hardly matters if this is called NATO, R.R.F., or whatever. The Partnership for Peace is a NATO front organization to which the Irish state already belongs.
These developments are represented as nothing new and absurdly as not meaning an end to neutrality, for instance, according to Turlough O'Sullivan, chief of the bosses organization IBEC, "The Nice Treaty provides for little more than a continuation of the Rapid Reaction Force's peace-keeping activitiesÉ" (1) except as the Rapid Reaction Force does not become operational until 2003 it cannot continue any sort of activity . The lie that participation in the R.R.F. is just a continuation of 'U.N. peacekeeping' was inadvertently knocked on the head by the chief of the Irish defence forces, Lieutenant General Colm Managan, while he addressed the annual meeting of RACO the officers association . He said "We are at a watershed in the evolution of the defence forces. We are moving from a garrison-based organisation, dominated by ATCP (Aid to The Civil Power i.e. strike breaking and digging up the countryside looking for I.R.A. arms dumps) and security duties (i.e. guarding securicor vans) to having a significant part of the defence forces prepared to deploy with a rapid reaction force for European operations." (2). Now how can a 'watershed' mean anything but something new and a departure from previous policies, in other words it is not a continuation of 'U.N. peacekeeping' .
In any case how in the name of god would you need nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers and combat aircraft to carry out "peace keeping". Furthermore the Irish so-called Defence forces (not meant as any disrespect to any soldiers but is there any occasion on which the "defence" forces defended Ireland?) are undergoing a massive program of re-equipment, recently acquiring/or planning to acquire new grenade launchers, new camouflage uniforms, new anti-tank weapons, new armoured cars, new trucks, new "armoured fighting vehicles" (that's tanks to you and me), new troop carrying helicopters, new jet fighters and finally two new patrol boats.
The tasks of the Rapid Reaction force are to be crisis management, peace making, and humanitarian intervention. Knights in shining armour in other words.
However, as the bombing of Yugoslavia (which the Irish state supported and Irish military units are present in Kosovo) was billed as humanitarian intervention we need no crystal ball to see how this works in practise. Firstly the mass ethnic cleansing of Kosovo began after the NATO bombing, secondly , according to the commander of NATO forces in the air attack on Yugoslavia, General Clark, it "was not designed as a means of blocking Serb ethnic cleansing É not in any way" (3), thirdly, American mercenary company M.P.R.I., under contract with the Pentagon and both staffed and owned by former American military officers, trained and supported the Croat Army while it drove the Serb population out of the Krajina region in 1996, they did the same for the K.L.A. as it cleansed Kosovo of Serbs, finally now with the change of government in Serbia altruistic concern for the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia has melted away like ice cream in an oven, now the 'good guys' have suddenly became the 'bad guys' and vice versa. Now the Serbian Army, with the support of NATO and the E.U. moves into the buffer zone around Kosovo, and while the Macedonian Army fights against Albanian nationalists the international troops in Kosovo help them by sealing the border. No howls of outrage over the plight of refugees now. The people NATO went to war to save will be dying of diseases caused by uranium weapons or being killed by NATO landmines for years to come. Humanitarian Intervention? If this was fiction it would be very funny.
Two of our "European Partners for Peace", the British and French states, are armed with nuclear weapons and their agents have murdered activists opposed to their nuclear programs. Many of the Western European states are heavily involved in the arms trade including erstwhile neutrals such as Sweden and Switzerland and this includes sales and aid to genocidal occupations such as that of Indonesia in East Timor or Iraq in Kurdistan. Over the course of the last 50 years Britain and France have been involved in a long list of conflicts the world over, which have left hundreds of thousands of people dead, maimed and injured. At the moment there is a 'scandal' in France over it's Army's use of torture and rape during it's war in Algeria in the 1950's, while the British Army is under scrutiny at an inquiry into it's murder of Irish citizens in Derry in 1972. That is just the merest tip of the iceberg of atrocities inflicted by these forces which include starvation (Madagascar, Iraq), concentration camps (Kenya), poisoning of water supplies (Aden) &endash; the list is endless. Furthermore through the Rapid Reaction Force's links with NATO and through the Partnership for "Peace" the Irish state is in military alliance with an even more Ghandi like bunch, there is the United States of course, and as with France the behaviour of it's Army is making headlines even in the mainstream establishment press as it is revealed that it had a deliberate policy of slaughtering refugees in the Korean war and as one of it's top politicians more or less confesses to massacring innocent villagers during the Vietnam war. Then there is Turkey, a candidate for subjection to "humanitarian intervention" if there ever was one, one example of it's commitment to "human rights" was the placing on trial as "subversives" women who were raped by police officers . Accusing a police officer of rape is "subversion".
"Are we all clear that we want to build something that can aspire to be a world power?" &endash; Romano Prodi , President of the European Commission, 13th February 2001 .(4)
To understand what the prospects for the future of the E.U. are, we can look at the other imperialist global power the United States, in their own words:
Thomas Friedman, journalist for the New York Times:
"For globalism to work, America can't be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is.....The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist - McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." (5)
Marine Corps Commandant General A.M. Gray has this to say:
"The underdeveloped world's growing dissatisfaction over the gap between rich and poor nations will create fertile breeding ground for insurgencies. These insurgencies have the potential to jeopardize regional stability and our access to vital economic and military resources. This situation will become more critical as our Nation and allies, as well as potential adversaries, become more and more dependant on these strategic resources. If we are to have stability in these regions, maintain access to their resources, protect our citizens abroad, defend our vital installations, and deter conflict, we must maintain within our active force structure a credible military power projection capability with the flexibility to respond to conflict across the spectrum of violence throughout the globe" (6)
According to Defense Secretary William Cohen:
"[T]he prosperity that companies like Microsoft now enjoy could not occur without having the strong military that we have." (7)
Commenting on this statement an Associated Press bulletin read:
"The defense secretary is making the case that conflicts in faraway lands such as Bosnia, Korea and Iraq have a direct effect on the U.S. economy. The billions it costs to keep 100,000 American troops in South Korea and Japan, for example, makes Asia more stable--and thus better markets for U.S. goods. The military's success in holding Iraq in check ensures a continued flow of oil from the Persian Gulf," (8)
And finally, General Smedley D. Butler of the U.S. Marine Corp describes his career thus
"I spent 33 years and four months in active service as a member of our country's most agile military force - the marine corps. And during that time I spent most of my time being a high class muscle man for big business, Wall Street and for the big bankers. In short I was a racketeer for capitalism.
I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914 . . .I helped make Haiti and Cuba decent places for the National city bank boys . . .I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers . . .I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests . . .I helped make Honduras 'right' for American Fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard oil went it's way unmolested. During those years I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded with honours, medals, promotion. Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints, the best he could do was operate his racket in three city districts we. ..operated on three continents"(9)
(2) Quoted in The 'Irish Times' November 15th 2000.
(3) Quoted in Mayday reflections leaflet.
(4) Quoted in 'Socialist Voice' May 2001.
(5) Quoted in www.covertaction.org
(6) Quoted in 'Deterring Democracy' by Noam Chomsky page 30.
(7) as (5)
(8) as (5)
(9) Quoted in Crisis no.11.