On February 28, 156 people – mostly school girls – in the Shajareh Tayyebeh School in Minab, Iran, were murdered by a missile strike.
The blame for this atrocity – and the wanton killing of more than 7,000 others in Iran and Lebanon – lays at the feet of US and Israeli imperialism.
In particular Anthropic – the near-trillion-dollar American AI giant – alongside fellow tech multinational Palantir, are responsible for the AI targeting system which placed the school under America’s rain of bombs.
The same tech was also linked to Trump’s attack on Venezuela at the start of this year. Here is the answer to anyone who hoped these billionaires could have an “ethical” approach to AI.
Before the blood from these barbaric murders had even dried, Anthropic announced fresh investments in Dublin. The government could barely conceal their glee as another US tech firm offered to funnel more of their blood money into Ireland.
Micheál Martin for example welcomed the move calling it “a strong vote of confidence in our thriving technology ecosystem and our position as a global hub for AI innovation”.
The Taoiseach neglected to mention that much of this technology is “dual-use”, meaning they can be used to civilian or military ends.
This “thriving technology ecosystem” – really nothing but a transmission belt for US-EU investments – therefore leaves the South as a criminally culpable middleman for the imperialists and their wars.
Just a handful of examples will serve to illustrate this point. Last August it was revealed that Microsoft’s Irish data centres held data on phone calls collected by Israel and used by the IDF to select targets in Gaza.
Additionally, in 2024, Ireland exported €20 million worth of dual-use tech and software to the IDF.
How hypocritical then has been the noise raised in the media over exports to Russia from the Aughinish alumina refinery! These so-called ‘enemies of wars and aggressions’ could tolerate US military aircraft in Shannon or the Central Bank’s sale of Israeli war bonds, as well as all of the above. But the buck stops for them once rivals of western imperialism are concerned. How principled!
Unlike those who denounce complicity with war only when it suits them, the majority of Irish workers and youth are truly disgusted by and want nothing to do with the horrendous crimes of the imperialist butchers.
A recent poll showed that 83 percent of people in the South want to avoid getting involved in America’s adventures in the Middle East.
Yet our government has de facto done precisely this because they are bound by a thousand economic threads to these gangsters.
It is only by slashing these threads that Ireland could follow its own independent foreign policy and actually fight imperialism.
The task of the working class is to affect this laceration by nationalising the wealth of the imperialists here in Ireland and overthrowing the lackeys who defend it on their behalf.
