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

It was through force but it was in opposition to empires and war mongers, including the biggest war mongers of all who started the First World War. This is why we have credibility.

The Minister also stated:

Security is the bedrock on which a society's cultural, social and economic achievements are built. In a modern state defence is conceived as the ultimate guarantor of freedom.

That assertion is completely incorrect and it flies in the face of our proud traditions. The opposite is the case. Society's cultural, social and economic achievements are the basis for our security, and freedom itself is our best defence. It is not the other way around. An early President of the United States and political theorist, James Madison, made a similar argument that war creates the need for armies, which lead to taxes and more war, and when there is perennial war there is no chance of freedom. This is why I am worried about the leaks I have seen from the White Paper. I heard echoes of the attitude expressed in these leaks in a recent speech by the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Simon Harris, when he discussed the threat of terrorism and cyber terrorism in almost Orwellian language aimed at whipping up fears about terrorist threats to justify military expenditure and closer co-operation with the NATO bloc. The rise of what is called terrorism resulted precisely from the actions of the big military powers, such as the United States, with which we attempt to align. The growth of ISIS and Al Qaeda was the result of the US manipulation of Afghanistan and Iraq. This outcome was predicted by those of us who warned that the Iraq war would lead to disaster in the Middle East. It destabilised the entire region, fuelled the growth of extremism and created a blow back effect on the rest of the world. We should learn that lesson if we do not want to shred our tradition of neutrality. We should not contribute to the rise of global instability by siding with the big military bullies.

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