Exactly whose ethics are in doubt here?

The Guardian published a little rant by Irish journalist David Cronin that deserves a bit of fisking. He wants Ireland to reject the propposed Lisbon treaty on the grounds that it ends Ireland’s supposed military neutrality, so he coughs up some interesting assertions. The Irish consitution is hauled out.

As it happens, the national constitution that the Irish people approved in a 1937 referendum commits the country to pursuing an ethical foreign policy –although the phrase was probably not in vogue back then. Article 29 of the document says that Ireland “affirms its devotion to the ideal of peace and friendly co-operation amongst nations founded on international justice and morality” and “its adherence to the principle of the pacific settlement of international disputes by international arbitration or judicial determination”.
So, now we have the explanation of why Ireland stayed out of that unpacific World War II, and waited a half century to honor the Irishmen who fought in that war.
Then he hauls out Mr. Ethics:

For many subsequent years, Irish politicians behaved with integrity in their dealings with the wider world. Frank Aiken, foreign minister for much of the 1950s and 1960s, was an opponent of apartheid in South Africa before it was fashionable and a passionate advocate of nuclear disarmament.
Ah yes, Frank Aiken.
On the 17th June 1922, a party of IRA men left Aiken’s Headquarters in Dundalk and headed for the small townland of Altnaveigh, just outside Newry. In the early hours of the morning, they rounded up the Protestant inhabitants and began a killing spree that lasted over an hour. Six civilians were shot dead, including an elderly woman.
“Neither youth nor age was spared, and some of the killings took place in the presence of their families,” recalled Patrick Casey, deputy commander of the IRA’s Newry Brigade, in a statement given to Irish military authorities.

Recently released – and reconstructed in the documentary – the testimony of Casey and others shows that the attack at Altnaveigh was sanctioned by Aiken himself.

Of course, Aiken was young, and perhaps he mellowed in later age. Or perhaps not.
[Eamon de Valera, prime minister] rewarded Aiken with a series of high-profile Ministerial appointments, including control of the massive censorship operation put in place during the Emergency. Aiken’s definition of what should be censored grew to include obituary notices and milk supplies. His uncompromising views on state security also led to him to approve the execution of several former IRA comrades in the ’40s.
Cronin is certainly displeased with Irish cooperation with America.
Confirmation that the country’s de facto status of being militarily non-aligned had been reversed came when Iraq was invaded and a million American troops were allowed pass through Shannon. Other guests of the nation included several CIA chartered planes taking part in torture and kidnapping operations (“extraordinary rendition” in the Pentagon’s parlance).
A couple of observations here. First, Cronin links (at the word “included”) a Guardian piece that only repeats allegations of torture made by the group Liberty, which falsely insists that extraordinary rendition necessarily involves torture. Second, Cronin condemns kidnapping unilaterally. He needs to answer this question. What the Israelis did to Eichmann was kidnapping, because the anti-Semitic Argentinian government would have protected him. Is Cronin insisting that the architect of the Holocaust was entitled to a pleasant retirement in Argentina so as the Argentinian government protected him?
He is not happy with some of the Treaty opponents, it seems.

The “no” side, meanwhile, contains some individuals who genuinely want Ireland to reclaim its reputation as a champion of the oppressed and an assailant of injustice. Yet the fact that Catholic extremists who believe that Brussels is trying to foist abortion and gay marriage on Ireland (a good reason to support Lisbon, if only it was true) are also urging the treaty’s rejection has allowed the political establishment and its many lackeys in the media to depict all “no” advocates as headbangers.
Or maybe, more likely, that the no side includes the killers of Sinn Fein.
David Cronin, self-proclaimed defender of ethics, offers up as his hero Frank Aiken, a murderer of civilians, offers a defense of Eichmann’s comfort, and pretends that Sinn Fein is nowhere to be seen in the Treaty arguments. The kind of junk you get in the Guardian.