God bless America
Friday November 23 2001
That such a feeling should exist at all is extraordinary. Our ties with the United States are long and strong. They are visible on every level, from the personal to the political to the economic. And they include ties of gratitude.
For centuries since long before the Great Famine, indeed before the Declaration of Independence millions of Irish have found refuge and prosperity on the other side of the Atlantic. In the 1990s, American investment helped to create our boom. US companies employ 80,000 people here, and Irish companies employ 69,000 in the US.
The United States came to Europe's rescue in World War Two. After the war, it provided a shield against communist expansion. Ireland professed neutrality, but we sheltered behind that shield.
And even if we had not had such a record of obligation, how could we have felt otherwise than profoundly shocked and sympathetic when Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida terrorists struck so devastatingly, killing thousands of people, in New York and Washington on September 11?
Some had genuine fears about the nature of the American response. They thought it would be excessive or ill-judged. They were wrong. The response to date has been measured and well targeted at the terrorist leader and al-Qa'ida.
The Irish public do not necessarily approve every US action, actual or in train. If they have misgivings, the Government will take account of them. It can express its views through the European Union and through our membership of the UN Security Council.
But we cannot blink the difference between principles and details. Ms Harney thinks that some people seek to make "a moral equivalence" between acts of terrorism and acts of the US government. If they try, they will not achieve moral equivalence. They will descend into moral idiocy.
- EDITORIAL
