Sir, – Roger Cole’s glib dismissal of a prospective Irish involvement in Mali (February 14th) typifies the tunnel vision of the neutrality fetishists in this country.
Their vision seems to revolve around knee-jerk rejection of any co-operation with any other western military in any circumstances. The proposed mission is to help keep out very brutal Islamist fanatics who would try to impose a medieval and primitive legal system on the unfortunate people of northern Mali.
Ensconced on a rock out in the Atlantic the rag bag of micro groups that seem to have hijacked the whole neutrality debate in this country continue to pontificate and adopt a high moral tone safe that they won’t have to face the threat from Jihadists and make the hard choices facing François Hollande and other like-minded adults. – Your, etc,
Sir, – The decision by the Government to send up to eight Irish soldiers to Mali is both a mistake and a sleight of hand to Dáil Éireann. The so-called triple lock that should apply to Irish soldiers serving overseas, involves approval by UN, the Irish Government and Dáil Éireann. However the Irish Government has been evading this triple lock mechanism by sending small groups of up to 12 soldiers on inappropriate foreign missions such as the Nato Afghan occupation, where seven Irish soldiers are still serving.
Other such missions for which Dáil approval is not sought are in the Congo, Kosovo, Somalia and Western Sahara involving over 40 soldiers. Many of these missions are not genuine UN peacekeeping missions, but are supporting western military aggression against impoverished peoples.
Irish Army involvement in the Nato Afghan mission is by far the most inappropriate. Soldiers from Nato countries in Afghanistan in collusion with the CIA captured hundreds of suspected “terrorists”, sent them to prisons such as Guantánamo where many were tortured. As recently as February 13th five Afghan children were killed in a Nato airstrike.
Why is Ireland one of the few western countries that has not announced withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan?
In Mali the EU mission is intervening inappropriately in a civil war, and is supporting a military coup that overthrew a civilian government, and supporting French exploitation of African resources.
It should also be pointed out that unlike genuine UN missions, the Irish downtrodden taxpayer pays the full costs of all EU and Nato military missions. – Yours, etc,