NATO military chief, general Alexus Grynkewich, has spoken of how Ireland’s Shannon airport is crucial in allowing the US military to “project power” globally. In other words, Ireland is a critical cog in a war machine that has delivered genocidal violence this century, particularly to the people of West Asia.
Grynkewich is also commander of US European Command. He was speaking to RTÉ, telling them Shannon functions as a “very important logistics hub”. He continued:
It allows America to project power and keep threats at bay from all over the world. I think there are some significant security implications to losing access air. Would we able to find somewhere else that we could use? Perhaps. But Ireland’s been a great partner by providing access air for years, and that’s let us hold terrorist threats at bay. That’s helped us to stabilise Iraq and other places.
“Stabilise Iraq” is an interesting way to describe the destruction of a nation by the US and allies through their illegal war launched in 2003. The criminal assault resulted in around 300,000 violent deaths, with hundreds of thousands more dying as a result of societal collapse triggered by American aggression.
NATO chief: millions of US troops flow through Shannon airport
Shannon Watch monitors military flights through the airport of what is supposedly a militarily neutral country. They say:
Between 2001 and 2012, around two million US troops passed through Shannon as part of the US war effort in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Additionally:
The total number of US soldiers through Shannon Airport between 1991 and 2026 is likely to be up or above four million. During this period Brown University Costs of War Project estimates that US led wars over this period across the wider Middle East region caused direct and indirect deaths of over 4.5 million people.
They correctly say that:
Ireland [is] complicit in these deaths and in the genocide in Palestine.
“Complicit” perhaps doesn’t adequately cover it. “Participant” may be a more appropriate descriptor for Ireland’s criminal involvement in these atrocities. MicheáI Martin’s Zionist government has admitted allowing a US warplane to ferry weapons through Shannon to so-called ‘Israel’ in October 2025. At that stage, the land thieves of Tel Aviv were already two years into their holocaust in Gaza.
Shannon has recently been key to US war crimes in Iran. As again revealed by The Ditch:
Two US Air Force aircraft stopped at Shannon Airport before flying straight to the main European hub used to transport weapons for use against Iran.
The planes arrived in Ireland the same day a US-backed Israeli airstrike killed more than 150 schoolgirls in Iran.
The good news is that the Irish public have a chance to deal a blow to this sort of grotesque violence by pressuring the government to end US use of the base. Grynkewich admitted that issues the US had with “access and basing” were “very unhelpful” to its criminal attempts at regime change in Iran. This is perhaps a reference to the likes of Spain, who unlike Ireland refused the US access to their air bases during the war.
Pathetic Irish legacy media lead drumbeat for war
One of the reasons Ireland has this sorry record of aiding war crimes is the supine media that fails to properly highlight the country’s connection to them. In his interview with the NATO commander, RTÉ’s Tommy Meskill went one step further, however. He proceeded with an embarrassing series of questions implying Ireland was being insufficiently servile to the US-led death cult. These are italicised below:
Many would say there’s insufficient defence spending. Is that a concern for the United States and NATO?
– This unspecified ‘many’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting on behalf of the pro-war Irish ruling class. The population in general do not back Ireland moving further towards militarism.
Some would say that Ireland is a weak link…Is Ireland a weak link?
– Again, the anonymised quantifier ‘some’ is struggling to bear the weight of bullshit Meskill is placing upon it. This ‘weak link’ concept is the notion that Ireland leaves NATO vulnerable by hosting so much US infrastructure in the form of data centres and sea cables. The question shouldn’t be about weak links, but rather when Ireland will break the chain attaching itself to this criminal hegemon.
Would you agree that that Ireland enjoys the benefits and not the downsides?
– This is Meskill’s attempt to push the ‘Ireland as freeloader’ narrative, cooked up by business interests gunning for increased Irish defence spending.
I wonder, would you have liked to have met with our defence minister or even Taoiseach?
And…
Is it a disappointment that you didn’t get to meet the defence minister or Taoiseach on this visit?
– Or, asked another way: are we prostrating ourselves adequately before your highness? Has the imperial boot not been sufficiently licked on this occasion?
Even Grynkewich at times seemed embarrassed by the tone of questioning. He largely fobbed off these prompts urging him to say Ireland must double-down on militarism. Instead he said such decisions were a matter for the Irish people.
If the people had a real say, Ireland likely would not be up to its neck in blood as a result of embedding itself in the apparatus of US violence. Sadly, the coalition of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have disdain for democracy, and ignore public sentiment in favour of continued subservience to their US masters.
Featured image via the Canary
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