US Air Force Hercules C-130H at Shannon Airport over the weekend. Photograph: Shannonwatch.
SHANNON AIRPORT should not be used to facilitate US military launching attacks on Iran according to activists.
Two US Air Force aircraft stopped at Shannon Airport on Saturday before travelling on to an Italian air base after the US and Israeli began launching joint strikes in the cities of Tehran, Isfahan, Qom, Karaj, and Kermanshah. The attack included the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, whose compound was destroyed, as well as Ali Shamkhani, former head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and several other Iranian officials.
In retaliation, Iran launched dozens of its drones and ballistic missiles throughout the Persian Gulf in addition to targeting Israel as well as US military bases in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Shannonwatch, a group of peace and human rights activists in the Mid-West who hold monthly protest vigils in Shannon and continuously monitor all military flights and rendition-linked flights in and out of Shannon and through Irish airspace has claimed Shannon Airport is complicit in the attacks on Iran.
According to Shannonwatch, a US Navy air logistics flight left Shannon on its way to an air base in Sigonella, Sicily at 08:57 on Saturday morning. An hour earlier, a US Air Force Hercules C-130H arrived from Halifax Stanfield International Airport.
Citing the airstrike on Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab where 168 people were killed, a spokesperson for Shannonwatch said, “These aircraft are not the ones bombing Iran as part of the illegal attack on the country. But they are providing logistical support for the US and Israeli operations in the Middle East. And that makes Ireland complicit in the deaths of the children in Minab. These were girls between the ages of 7 and 12 years. It was another crime against humanity, in a long list that Shannon has shamefully supported”.
Senator Patricia Stephenson (SD) said Shannon Airport should not be used to launch attacks on Iran as part of the United States and Israel’s illegal war. “The Irish government must give a categoric commitment that Shannon Airport will not be used to launch attacks on Iran as part of the United States and Israel’s illegal war”.
She pointed out that Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has taken swift action to ban US military operations in Spanish territory “due to what he calls an unjustified and dangerous military intervention by the US in Iran” and called for Ireland to do likewise. “The escalating conflict has already caused the deaths of at least 700 civilians, including 168 schoolgirls killed in a strike on an elementary school. Under no circumstances should Ireland be complicit in this horror, we must follow Spain’s lead and ensure Shannon Airport is not being used as part of this illegal war.
“The government must make it clear to Donald Trump’s violent regime that we cannot bomb our way to peace in the Middle East, and we will not support such a campaign. The Taoiseach should now unequivocally condemn the illegal actions of the US and Israel, which he and his Foreign Affairs Minister have failed to do to this point. Under no circumstance should Ireland play any part in this illegal military aggression. We have already facilitated America’s deportation of shackled Palestinians through Shannon on a private jet. The Irish government cannot continue to close its eyes to what is happening at our airports,” Senator Stephenson added.
In the Dáil on Tuesday, Holly Cairns TD (SD) asked the Taoiseach to “rule out any use of Shannon Airport by the US military”. An Taoiseach, Micheál Martin (FF) condemned “the killing of children anywhere in any situation. Children and innocent civilians must always be prioritised, without question” but did not reference Shannon in his reply. “We also realise the limits of what we can do globally and internationally. We are clear that the only sustainable way forward, which will require the world to engage collectively, is a proper international rules-based order that can also deal effectively with rogue and oppressive regimes, which it has failed to deal with for three or four decades”.
