From the <a href="https://twitter.com/wallacemick/status/1502203737401700353" source="Twitter" author="Mick Wallace">Intervention Plenary 7.2.2022</a>, some backbone and real talk from Mick Wallace of Ireland, in the European Parliament. The video is 62s; transcript is below. <img src="{att_link}mickwallace.jpg" href="{att_link}mickwallace.jpg" align="none" caption="Mick Wallace" scale="50%"> <bq>The current crisis in Ukraine has been used by the Irish media class and a handful of politicians to make the case that Ireland should relinquish the neutrality enshrined in our Constitution and even commit to joining NATO. Naturally, these jingoistic sentiments are from those too old to enlist, their children and grand-children too well-off to endure the bad pay and conditions our defense forces have to put up with. Ireland's tradition of neutrality is born out of an unwillingness to kill and be killed in imperialist wars, that have nothing to do with our people and everything to do with the interests of the elites, profiting from arms, fossil fuels and finance industries, that just happen to own much of the media calling for military escalation today. Ireland is one of the few EU countries that has not been directly involved in NATO's war crimes and atrocities, and we'd do well to continue that. And we should use the credibility and goodwill that comes with neutrality, to facilitate diplomacy, de-escalation, and peace.</bq>