Remembering and naming the lost children.
Up to one million children have been killed or have died as a result of the series of wars across the Middle East and North Africa since the first Gulf War in 1991. The Western allies, including NATO, bear a major share of responsibility for initiating these wars, and the United Nations and the so-called International Community bears the major share of responsibility for the failures to prevent these wars, and the failures to make peace after the wars had begun.
Ireland has contributed substantially to these wars of aggression by allowing US military to transit through Shannon airport since October 2001.
About 3 million armed US troops, have transited through Shannon airport since 2001. A huge number of US military aircraft and civilian aircraft chartered to the US military have also refuelled at Shannon. We need to be asking questions about what those planes are carrying.
Are we in Ireland directly complicit in the deaths of all those children listed here?
Update 2nd January 2024 re Genocide in Gaza – Edward Horgan
The Palestinian people have been suffering serious human rights abuses and ethnic cleansing since 1948. Successive Israeli governments and their western supporters especially the US, UK and EU have claimed that the actions of the Israeli military were justified self-defence, while the right of self-defence for the Palestinian people are ignored, but two wrongs never make a right. Since 7th October the slow-running ethnic cleansing has become a rapidly occurring act of genocide. The Palestinian people are the primary victims of this catastrophe. The death toll by bombing, starvation, disease, destruction of vital infrastructure necessary to sustain life, is now likely to have exceeded 30,000 if those buried under the rubble of their homes are included. The immorality and gross breaches of the rule of international laws will have incalculable consequences not only in the Middle East, but also globally, for generations to come. Other atrocities are occurring in Ukraine, Sudan, Congo, and elsewhere with impunity. The fact that the USA and other powerful countries are actively supporting Israel in this genocide, and that the UN has failed in its vital duties, means that ordinary individuals worldwide are left feeling powerless. What makes this genocide so appalling, is that it is being broadcast daily worldwide into the homes of millions of people, yet the international community has failed shamefully to stop what is happening. Millions of people are suffering moral injury, not because of any wrongdoing on their own behalf, but because of the actions and inactions of their governments and international organisations, including the EU. We the people of Ireland and worldwide are not powerless, and we must continue to protest in support of the Palestinian people, and we must hold our leaders to account for their actions and inactions. We must also insist on the restoration and improvement of the proper rule of law at all levels.
Edward Horgan, Castletroy, Limerick