Arms Lobbyist lavora per la compagnia aerea che trasporta munizioni IDF

So you are telling me the arms lobbyists are involved in the arms trade?!

The broader picture here does matter. We’re having a major fork in the road debate about neutrality and defence funding in this country and some of the voices who are loudest in favour of abandoning neutrality are members of a lobby group that campaign to open Ireland up the arms industry. And many journalists/media outlets – Irish Times in particular – present them as neutral voices.

As it happens, I’m believe we should have a stronger military and I think some of the voices against it often make dumb arguments but give me a dumb anti militarism argument any day over people who are invested in profiteering from arms industry.

Two examples from recent IT: Ben Tonra ‘debating’ neutrality while fronting that lobby group mentioned in the Ditch. His role in that is left out when he appears on RTE and IT. You can check out one of his appearances before the Oireachtas where he admits his potential conflict of interest. Today in IT podcast Edward Burke opines about how the arms industry brings jobs to Belfast.

We should have a grown up argument about neutrality and defence but I’m getting really sick of these people on their high horses while being dishonest about the lobbying they do.

My major takeaway from this is “we shouldn’t buy weapons from the USA”.