Post by Moses on Dec 28, 2005 18:31:39 GMT -5
Ahern accused of 'following orders from Washington'
27/12/2005 - 10:14:47
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is “shining the shoes” of US president George Bush by allowing Shannon Airport to be used by American war planes, it was claimed today.
Speaking ahead of a visit to Ireland next month, controversial academic Noam Chomsky also accused the Irish Government of being the US’s obedient servant.
Speaking about the refuelling of US military aircraft at Shannon, Dr Chomsky asked: “Is Mr Ahern following the will of the Irish people or is he following orders from Washington?
“It can only be justified if the goal of the government is to be the obedient servant of the global superpower.
“This tells you that western politicians despise democracy and prefer to shine the shoes of the power.”
A persistent critic of US foreign policy, Dr Chomsky is to deliver the Amnesty International annual lecture at Trinity College, Dublin, on January 18.
The Irish Human Rights Commission said last week that the Government must inspect US planes landing at Shannon to ensure terror suspects are not being transported to alleged torture camps elsewhere.
The Government reiterated that it had no reason to question repeated assurances given by US authorities that prisoners are not being ferried through the airport.
It called for any credible evidence to the contrary to be handed over to gardaí.
Dr Chomsky, who has a cult-like following among left-wing activists and students, was dubbed “the Elvis of Academia” by U2 singer Bono.
The professor of linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology received an honorary fellowship from UCD’s Literary and Historical Society in 2002.
The 77-year-old also said that the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 without full UN support showed utter contempt for global democracy.
“New Europe follows orders from Crawford, Texas,” he said.
“I cannot think of any other example in recent history of utter contempt for democracy expressed so clearly and accepted by Western politicians.
“We had a public vilification of France because it didn’t shine George Bush’s shoes. Therefore we had to have ’freedom fries’ instead of French fries in the Senate lunch room.”
A fearless critic of political injustice around the world, Mr Chomsky also admitted to frequent threats on his life for his outspoken views.
“I get regular death threats but I don’t take them seriously. The death threats and the need for police protection comes from writings and talks on the Middle East mainly.”
Dr Chomsky also claimed that US militarisation of space was driving the world to disaster.
“Sooner or later there will be conflicts over this,” he said.
“Russia has already said that if the US proceeds with its plans for militarisation of space, then it will use force to respond. And China has said the same thing. Russia has enormously increased its offensive military capacity in direct response to the huge Bush effort on this.
“These are ways of consciously driving the world to disaster.”
The academic claimed the European Union was forcing free market economics on member states.
“The debate is usually over whether the EU should adopt the Anglo-American model of free market capitalism. That is ludicrous. The UK and the US aren’t free market societies.
“The business community in those countries wouldn’t for a moment allow free markets to operate internally.
“The entire US economy depends upon a dynamic state sector which socialises cost and risk and later privatises profit.”