US Neocons Accused of Role in Irish 'No' Vote

[orieleye]

Did neo-cons from the United States fund the campaign in Ireland to reject the Lisbon Treaty? Accusations to that effect are widespread -- particularly given the business contacts of a leading group in the "no" camp.



The words were clear: "Europe has powerful enemies on the other side of the Atlantic, gifted with considerable financial means." The speaker was France's Europe Minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet, addressing a pro-European rally in Lyon at the weekend.

He was putting the blame for the Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty on some surprising shoulders: neoconservatives in the United States. "The role of the American neocons was very important in the victory of the 'no,'" he said.

A voice of paranoia from old Europe? Perhaps. But the allegations are not exactly new. Those campaigning for a "yes" vote in the Irish referendum on June 12 had made similar suggestions in the run up to the vote.

One of the most powerful groups campaigning against the treaty was Libertas, which describes itself as a "new European movement dedicated to campaigning for greater democratic accountability and transparency in the institutions of the EU." The group had said that its main gripe with the Lisbon Treaty had been that it was anti-democratic and could undermine Irish business interests.

Libertas claimed it spent €1.3 million on its campaign, though its opponents speculate the total might be even higher. In contrast, the ruling Fianna Fail party was estimated to have spent around €700,000 on its "yes" campaign.

There has been much speculation about where exactly the Libertas funding came from. The group's founder Declan Ganley is an Irish millionaire who is also CEO of Rivada Networks, a telecommunications company which has worked with the US military. The company's Web site says that it is a "leading designer, integrator and operator of public safety communications and information technology networks for homeland security forces and first responders."

A member of the center-right Fine Gael party, Lucinda Creighton, said before the referendum that the businesses of Ganley and Ulick McEvaddy, an aviation millionaire who was also involved in the "no" campaign, were "heavily dependent on contracts from the US State Department, the Pentagon and US government agencies." She went on to say: "These men are a lot less concerned about Irish sovereignty than they are about the potential hit to their own personal business interests."

However, Ganley rejected any allegation that US funding was behind his campaign. Before the referendum he told the Irish Independent newspaper: "I am funding it and so are a lot of other people. We have a donations facility online. .. There are some wonderful people that are stepping forward and writing checks."

However, Libertas were forced to admit in the course of the campaign that many of its staff members were on Rivada's payroll.

The "yes" campaign has since urged the group to make its donors and accounts public and has expressed skepticism that Libertas could have raised so much money within Ireland alone.

Comments from a controversial former US diplomat before the referendum have added fuel to the conspiracy theory. John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, was in Dublin to deliver a speech on trans-Atlantic relations a week before the vote. He warned that the treaty could "undercut NATO," something that would be a "huge mistake." According to Bolton, known for being one of Washington's most outspoken hawks, if the EU had its own military capability people will think NATO redundant and that Europeans "can take care of their own defense."

While Ireland is not a member of NATO one of the concerns before the vote was that the treaty could compromise the country's long-standing military neutrality. Other doubts that arose related to Ireland's low taxation rate and its ban on abortion.

The "yes" campaign tried but never managed to counter these arguments effectively. In the end Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty by 53.4 percent to 46.6 percent on June 13. A result that has since thrown the European Union into disarray. There has been talk of a two-speed Europe or even of kicking Ireland out of the EU if it were to reject a second referendum (more...).

Nevertheless, the latest poll on opinion within Europe shows that Ireland is in fact still the most resolutely pro-European country in the EU. The latest Eurobarometer survey, conducted in April and May, showed that Ireland had a more positive opinion of the EU than every other member state apart from Romania, with 65 percent viewing the union positively, well above the average of 48 percent. And Ireland topped the list of countries which believed they had benefited from EU membership; 82 percent of Irish voters believed Ireland had benefited, compared to an EU average of 54 percent.

There is no doubt that Ireland has done well out of EU membership, although other factors such as low taxation, high investment in education and a record of good labor relations, also helped fuel the period of sustained growth. According to figures released by Eurostat on Tuesday, in 2007 Ireland had the second-highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in Europe -- almost one and a half times the EU's average.

Spiegel online

I don't see where they establish a neo-con link, just US business links. And no one in Ireland cares whether NATO is weakened or not.

[Kernunnos]

A voice of paranoia. Neocon's strategy includes Turkey in Europe, for geo-strategic purposes that start from the famous Iraq to Europe pipeline.

An italian writer and essayist, the super liberal Eugenio Scalfari, not surely a man to be taken for a nationalist, thinks instead that the US want Turkey in Europe with the scope of weakening Europe's strength.

The neocon's position about Europe is rather well known, the larger the better.

[Marcus Marulus]

I heard such ridiculous conspiracy theories, emanating from EU-phile journalists and pundits (better to say bandits). I don't believe a word of it. Did the Irish reject the Treaty of Nice in 2000 also because of the evil plotting of the neocons? And aren't after all the top positions of the eurocracy replete with neocons, such as, for example, Barroso and comp.? Isn't EU as such an organization with some kind of neoconnish agenda, something that can be felt through great many of their official proclamations?

Euro(c)rats and their journalistic supporters will invent any lie to obscure the reality and to play down the widely known fact, that great many citizens of European countries reject the beaurocratic EUSSR in making.

[Marcus Marulus]

Monday, June 30, 2008

The new face of Euroskeptics and Europhobia

[i]The new face of Euroskeptics and Europhobia: American conservatives in Europe. [/b]

The Irish “no” vote and the involvement of what some believe is the American defense industry and American conservatives might have been partially of their doing.

The Brussels Journal is a manifestation of this some-times crackpot American conservative ilk slamming on to European shores. The result of 25-plus years of this destructive and dehumanizing ideology ruined America, dismantled social safety nets, demonized the poor, destroyed jobs and education funding – and turned American society to one that is unbearable for all except the rich and the well off. This ilk has had its sight on Europe and its “socialism,” especially after most European nations rejected the Iraq War.

This mean and socially destructive philosophy is metastizing to Europe. American conservatives appear to have been active in subverting the Christian Democratic ideology of Christian Democrats, especially in Germany, for sometime now. The International Democrats (Christian Democrats) have e-mailed offers to its members to attend the Republican national convention in Minnesota. Now – they appear to be stirring up all kinds of trouble with regard to the European Union and the Lisbon Treaty.

The threat against Europe is quite real and it is easily challenged. First of all, they are very much into inventing and cultivating demonizing and stigmatizing labels about their “Others.” The tactics of this ilk are to reinvent Cold War stereotypes and labels, including the attempt to liken the European Union to the “new Soviet Union” and Europeanists as “communists.” With regard to this ilk, they are strong into nationalism and patriotism – and have stirred up British nationalists and euroskeptics, and we can both hear this on American talk radio and read it from Sally McNamara’s Europhobic-alarmist reaction to the Lisbon Treaty.

This ilk has been discredited and rejected by Americans, and is one of the reasons why Barack Obama is so wildly popular. However, the residual effects of 25-plus years of Reaganism and brutal conservativism remain in American society. American still is the most criminalized society on Earth and more Americans are behind bars than in any other nation on Earth. There are people sleeping on the streets, including war veterans, in the richest nation on Earth. Children go to school hungry and often cannot afford school supplies. What was largely with brutal craft of Ronald Reagan may take Americans 25-plus years to repair and undo. What is most alarming is that this brutal and dehumanizing social economic system now seeking to infect European society and give it these same illnesses that have left America a human wasteland.

Europeans must identify this strain of virus called American conservativism – and inoculate itself against it…

[source]

More silly nonsense, positing some non-existent enmity of the American ruling "Conservative" class against the European Union.

[Monolith]

What is most alarming is that this brutal and dehumanizing social economic system now seeking to infect European society and give it these same illnesses that have left America a human wasteland.

Europeans must identify this strain of virus called American conservativism – and inoculate itself against it…

What is most alarming is that this brutal and dehumanizing social economic system now seeking to infect European society and give it these same illnesses that have left America a human wasteland.

Europeans must identify this strain of virus called American consumerism – and inoculate itself against it…

It is interesting how such a small difference can change the entire meaning of this article, and be true at the same time.

[Marcus Marulus]

Originally Posted by Monolith

It is interesting how such a small difference can change the entire meaning of this article, and be true at the same time.

In this cahpter quoted by you he seems to be right, however he is equating Europe with the European Union.

[orieleye]

...