NEWTON'S OPTIC:FINE GAEL MEP Jim Higgins has accused Libertas founder Declan Ganley, his challenger in June's European election, of being "a puppet of the US military". He says that as if it's a bad thing.
What’s wrong with supporting a puppet of the US military?
It is hardly as if the current political class comes with no strings attached. How often have paramilitary puppets run for office in Ireland, moved by hidden hands both foreign and domestic? How many representatives humoured at least two armies here for years? Is Leinster House not the original home of “Don’t ask, don’t tell?” Was any rendition ever more extraordinary than the Taoiseach’s back-of-a-tractor Sinatra singalong?
The US military has a recession-proof annual budget of $700 billion and 1.4 million active personnel. Only 225,000 are officers, making it 600 per cent more efficient than the Irish public sector. It is customer-focused, target-driven and export-orientated. Clearly, this is exactly the sort of organisation to sort out all of Ireland’s problems.
Union unrest? Call in a surgical strike. Banking crisis? It’s just collateral damage. Public versus private sector? Leave it to the “civilian contractors”. Poverty among the unemployed? Let them eat Mash.
Every tired old dispute in Ireland could do with a little US military shock and awe. Social partnership talks have their uses but when push comes to surge nothing quite beats a laser-guided bomb dropped directly down Liberty Hall’s lift shaft.
The US military traces its origins back to the American Continental Army, set up in 1773 to drive out the British. This could finally explain why Libertas and Sinn Féin appear to be on the same side.
The US military is widely associated with pork-barrel spending, commercial favouritism and invoicing the taxpayer $5,000 for a toilet seat, so it could presumably work with Fianna Fáil as well.
The US military has recently made great progress with pilotless drones so it could even work with Enda Kenny.
All these factors would make the US military an excellent partner in a government of national unity should the present regime ever need to be changed.
From its command headquarters in Dáil Éireann (DAILCOM), this Libertas-led coalition of the willing could transform Ireland into the mother of all green zones.
It is true that some people might have to be put in an orange jumpsuit. However, it is important to remember that there is no danger from water-boarding as long as you don’t use the tap water in Galway.
But it is in the European theatre that June’s electoral battle will take place, and that is where US military backing should prove most useful. Once before the US military fought in Europe only to have to come back and fight pretty much the same war all over again. This is obviously pertinent experience for a second Lisbon Treaty referendum. From its mobile Western front command headquarters in Strasbourg and Brussels (STRASBRUSWESCOM), a Libertas-led alliance for democracy could drive the axis of weasel back over the Rhine.
Of course, the US military is not invulnerable. But Ireland is not Vietnam, no matter how much the North occasionally resembles it. The only real weakness the US military has ever shown is failing to work out an exit strategy. Could we send them Bertie Ahern as a military advisor?