The European political elite knows its history. Empires are created in other people's countries, and one of the best examples is Afghanistan.
In the 19th century the Russian Empire expanded eastwards across Asia and the conquest of the Chechens in the 1820s was only part of a series of military victories over the indigenous peoples. As the Russians moved farther east, they came into conflict with the already established British Empire in India, and Afghanistan was the unfortunate battleground. The Russian/British conflict became known as The Great Game.
The British Union and Empire fought several Afghan wars and its valleys hold the graves of British soldiers who died defending the Union. They include the bodies of Irish soldiers who gave loyal service. Ireland was, after all, a part of the British Union. We had a common currency, a common foreign policy and a common army, a British Rapid Reaction Force.
The Irish political/media elite were totally subservient to the Union and sought only Home Rule within the Union, they were committed to "sharing sovereignty". The Irish people who wished to establish an independent Irish democratic republic such as the Fenians were the "headbangers" of their day. The British, after all, had through systematic torture, support for religious fundamentalist bigots and superior military technology crushed the Irish terrorists known as the United Irishmen, and ensured the death of their leader, Wolfe Tone.
The collapse of the British and other empires after the second World War saw the American empire step into the breach, and not just in Afghanistan.
The Great Game, Part II, had begun. In Afghanistan the political and social forces that sought to modernise the country and create, for example, equal rights between men and women came into conflict with religious fundamentalists. The American empire saw this as its opportunity.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter has stated that the proxy US intervention in Afghanistan began six months before the Russian invasion in December 1997. The American empire then continued to show its contempt for the rights of women by providing massive amounts of military aid to Muslim fundamentalists throughout the war and had the compliant support of the states of the European Union in that war. The US Frankenstein had created the monster that they hold responsible for the horrific crimes of September 11th.
Once the US decided to kill the monster they created by bombing the Taliban and causing terrible suffering to the people of Afghanistan who had not elected them and were not responsible for them, the outcome was inevitable, even though the result came quicker than expected.
Now, the Belgian Foreign Minister has declared the European Union will send an army into Afghanistan. It turns out he is somewhat premature. Most of the other representatives quickly stated that they had agreed to no such decision.
They are somewhat wary of making decisions to send troops to Afghanistan without being too certain how their people will react. The German Chancellor had to call a vote of confidence to get the agreement to send in the Panzers. Our own Taoiseach has insisted on a UN mandate and will not consider sending in the Army until next year.
Well he might. Mr Ahern has already made a major decision. Without consulting the Irish people, he gave over the use of our airports and our airspace in the "war on terrorism". Ireland under Mr Ahern is no longer neutral and if Irish troops were sent into Afghanistan alongside the British paratroopers they will learn lessons in crowd control and the treatment of prisoners they would be better off not having to learn.
Irish soldiers will not be seen as part of an army born out of an anti-imperialist war of national independence but as part of an army of occupation there to protect the oil and gas of nearby Azerbaijan, Kazakstan and Turkmenistan.
Mr Ahern, perhaps more than any other EU leader, knows he has his work cut out to gain the support of the Irish people for the new role for their Army. He knows the Irish people voted No to Nice.
After all, just what part of the word No does Mr Ahern, Mr Noonan, and Mr Sutherland not understand? The Irish people in a democratic referendum on the Nice Treaty voted No. In the Soviet Union people were entitled to vote, but only if they voted the way Stalin wanted them to.
Now in the European Union, the Irish people are being told they too have the right to vote, but only if they vote the way Ahern wants them to. He has just rammed through the Referendum Bill which emasculates the Referendum Commission. The elite spends its time attacking the McKenna judgment.
But they are not having it all their own way. Having set up the National Forum on Europe and structured it in such a way as to give those who lost the Nice Treaty a much greater say than the political forces such as the Peace and Neutrality Alliance that actually won, they also appointed Senator Maurice Hayes as its Chair.
Big mistake. He actually appears to believe in democracy and debate.
The Irish people have a right to believe in Irish national independence, Irish democracy and Irish neutrality. They are one of the few people of a State that can directly elect the Commander-in-Chief of their own Army. The role of that Army therefore is decided by the people. I believe the role of the Army, having helped to create it, is to protect Irish democracy.
It also has a role in serving as a peackeeping force under the auspices of the only inclusive global organisation in existence, the United Nations. It simply cannot play that role if Ireland is not an independent, democratic and neutral state.
In successive referendums, a European Common Market is being transformed into a Federal European superstate and in each successive referendum more and more people have voted No.
Nice was not a flash in the pan. The integration of the Army into the embryonic European army known as the European Rapid Reaction Force is a crucial part of the destruction of our independence and neutrality.
If the future of the members of the Army is to be members of a regiment of the army of the European Union then we can expect many of them to join the bodies of Irish soldiers already buried in Afghanistan. They will die not to protect human rights and democracy of the poor, as they now do in East Timor, but the oil routes to Azerbaijan, Kaszakstan and Turkmenistan.
The Irish people have not fought for their national independence, democracy and neutrality for generations against the British Union and Empire to become an insignificant region of a European Union and empire.
If the European Union project is to succeed it has to become a people's project. The people of Ireland, or the other states of the EU, have to be allowed the flexibility in the legal framework that defines the EU to take into consideration the unique nature of the history of the different states. The elite of the EU can begin by accepting the decision of the Irish people on the Nice Treaty and agreeing to a protocol which would exclude Ireland from paying for, or involvement with, the ERRF.
They should even review the goal of "ever closer" union. The age of empires is coming to an end. Even the last Empire, the US, with only 3.5 per cent of the world's population is overstretching itself. It's commitment to arm Jewish fundamentalists so they can have more living space to create a "Greater Israel" as they move towards a final solution to the Palestian problem will be its undoing.
The future needs new thinking. It needs a renewed and transformed United Nations. It needs new global institutions to provide security by the defence of democracy and human rights and a war, not on terrorism, but on poverty, on want, and on injustice.
Roger Cole is chairman of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA)