Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

As the present Government and its predecessor have sought to justify Ireland's participation in these battle groups, they try to present the case as though Ireland is doing something that complies with the military neutrality for which this State stands and that we are merely involving ourselves in what essentially are benign humanitarian undertakings and that there is nothing to worry about. However, as already has been mentioned, the game is given away by the term "battle groups". The Government can try to put whatever spin it wishes on that but it speaks for itself. Battle groups are battle groups and they are being prepared, trained and equipped for battle. Moreover, over the years, those who have promoted the increasing militarisation of the European Union and the development of what is an embryonic European army have been clear in some of their statements as to what is the real agenda. I believe it was Romano Prodi who spoke of the need to be able to fight the resource wars of the 21st century. It does not get more explicit than that. Even the Minister's former party leader referred to the new tasks these battle groups would be allowed to undertake and pointed to the fact that peacemaking and crisis management by combat forces constitutes war by another name. If one makes peace using military force, one is making war. All sides in a war claim their intent is peace but pursuing peace through military means is peace on one's own terms and is another name for war. This is what these battle groups are about and this is what the major promoters of the battle groups envisage as the ultimate intention.

If one considers the European Defence Agency's vision documents and various position papers over the years, which are all part of the growing military-industrial complex that is being promoted and pushed within the European Union, they also are highly explicit about what it considers to be a role for the European military forces and-----

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