John O'Shea is quite right about the ludicrousness of Ireland sending aid and troops to help with disaster relief in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Having reneged on our commitment to provide 0.7 per cent of our GNP to overseas development aid to the world's poorer countries, now to be splurging money on the world's richest country is shameful, all the more so when the impulse to do so is straightforward sycophancy, nothing at all to do with humanitarian concern.
Of course, the poor and destitute and now homeless people of New Orleans deserve our sympathy, and we might share their outrage that a government that can spend trillions on arms and wars can fail to respond to their desperate circumstances weeks after the Katrina disaster befell them.
But they do not need our money and our troops. Their own country has these in abundance.
Over the last four years, certainly since 9/11, there has been a sea change, not just in our foreign policy, but in our perception of ourselves as part of the world community.
We see ourselves - or at least our political masters see ourselves on behalf of us - as part of the American world. As tied in with America's fortunes and misfortunes, as part of America's destiny, as sharing the "values" of America, and its interests.
We were the only country, or one of the very few in the world, that had a national day of mourning for the victims of 9/11. What was it about us to feel so uniquely the pain of America over 9/11 as to commemorate it with an act that was not even contemplated in America itself - the closure of shops, pubs, restaurants, offices, everything?
What was it that prompted the commemoration of the fourth anniversary of 9/11 last Sunday, when so much awfulness, loss of life, slaughter of innocents has occurred since then which we hardly acknowledge?
A commemoration which because of its selectivity has a political charge: that 9/11 was a unique act of evil, justifying the reprisals that have happened since.
Ireland has continued to allow US aircraft carrying troops to and from Iraq to use Shannon as a convenient stopover. That this is not the subject of major political controversy is testimony to the obsequiousness that has enveloped our political climate.
It is as though the mere questioning of our facilitation of the illegal invasion and illegal occupation of another country and the infliction of chaos, civil war and destruction on an entire people challenges our sense now of who we are - willing adjuncts to that American project.
It is worse than that. There is clear evidence, although as yet possibly not conclusive proof, that America is using Shannon as a base to fly in and out persons illegally captured in other countries for their transport to the Guantanamo torture centre, or to torture centres in other countries.
A report in the Guardian on Monday shows how UK airports have been used for these purposes. And yet, when our Minister for Justice or Minister for Transport is asked about this, they reply simply that they have every confidence America would not abuse passage through our facilities for such purposes. No suggestion that perhaps such planes would be boarded to see if there is any breach of the terms of landing permissions, in the light of the evidence that suggests this is happening.
What would be said of our gardaí if, having evidence of unlawfulness, they failed to make elementary inquiries or checks?
The old clichés about the intentions of our State's founders occur: is this what Irish independence was about, that we would become a cultural, political and moral colony of the world's imperial power?
We were fortunate in having to vacate our place on the UN Security Council in late 2002, just before the crucial vote arose on authorisation for intervention in Iraq.
While the countries with most to lose, America's immediate neighbours Canada and Mexico stood firm, don't we know in our hearts we would have gone along with the Americans?
We, of course, would have tried to fudge it, refusing to show our hand until it was obvious that America and Britain could not get the necessary votes, but don't we know that in the UN corridors we would have assured the Americans we would be with them if required?
And remember what was at issue then: whether the UN weapons inspectors should be given more time to determine whether there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, having failed to find any up to then.
This offer of aid to New Orleans is the most abject gesture of submission so far. And that act of sycophancy to a government that had clear forewarning for years of the vulnerability of the levees keeping out the sea and the waters of the Mississippi from the city, that had urgent and immediate forewarning of the calamity that was to occur several days before the hurricane broke over the city, that then had full knowledge of the devastation, and yet failed to mobilise basic support for a week.