These are dangerous times and we need to talk national security
IF you are worried about the cost of living crisis or finding the funds for the summer holidays, the good news is that we could well be on the brink of World War III.
Yes folks, it might be time to chalk off some of those Bucket List wishes while you can.
So if you’ve always wanted to visit Australia, for instance, do it next week because it might not be there in a fortnight.
The Israelis seem determined to drag the whole Middle East – and by extension, the world – into a conflict that is about three misdirected drone bombs away from taking us all to hell.
Now we have Iran, which was flogging missiles and drones to Russia to launch against Ukrainian civilians, using the same weapons to bomb Israel because they have spent six months avenging Hamas’ crimes on October 7 trying to return Gaza to the Stone Age.
The US is simultaneously telling the Israelis to stop bombing while handing them piles of bombs. Netanyahu and his supporters think they can get away with trying to wipe out the Palestinian people if they just do it bit by bit. Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un of North Korea is
looking on, mad jealous at all the attention the Israelis and Iran are getting and trying to work out some way to get in the game, possibly by launching missiles in random directions just for the hell of it.
Do you remember, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s and early 90s, how people were saying it was “The End of History’”and we could basically put all the guns and bombs away because Europe would never see large scale war again?
Once again, you have to wonder what kind of Irish person looks at the world around us, with crazy stuff like State-operated gangsters hacking into and holding our Health Service to ransom, and thinks that we can stay “neutral”.
We currently cannot defend our airspace, our territorial waters or our coasts, we are totally dependent on the UK and the EU to give us any kind of security. Yet you have a lot of people in Ireland who think properly funding our Naval Service means we’ll be joining NATO in two weeks’ time.
They scream about war-mongering on social media and appear to believe we only have the two options – let our Defence Forces wither away or force our kids to march on Moscow.
These are dangerous times and you’d never know where the threats are coming from – they could be down fibre-optic cables or fall out of the clear blue sky.
It’s well past time to have a grown-up conversation about our national security, no screaming about NATO, and to start facing up to our responsibilities in an increasingly dangerous world.
Dangerous times & you’d never know where threat is coming from