Urgent action Needed to Stop Irish Military Action In Chad

international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis Monday November 19, 2007 10:19 by Malcolm

Irish neutrality in imminent danger as it joins the "War on Terror"

Lieutenant General Dermot Earley the gung-ho ex-Ranger and commander of the Irish military must be licking his lips!

The Minister for Foreign Affairs says he expects a Government decision to be made on Tuesday over the deployment of up to four hundred Irish troops in eastern Chad.

Dermot Ahern has just returned from a four day visit to Sudan and Chad, during which he met with Government leaders as well as aid workers and local people.

If the Government gives its go-ahead for the mission the Dáil will then have to give its approval.

A gung-ho military bored with guarding armoured money vans wants to get its hands dirty in a nasty imperialist war in Africa.

The war in Darfur has been ongoing for a number of years now and has begun to spill over into Chad.

The mainstream media wants to paint the conflict as a civil war between the Khartoum and various rebel groups.

But this conflict has a much larger global sweep.

The Chinese government openly supports the Khartoum government in return for cheap oil.

The governments of Saudi Arabia, Syria and other Arab countries support the Islamic fundementalist Arab of Khartoum government in its ethnic genocidal war against the African population of Darfur.

Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda have provided jihadists fighters and weapons training to the Janjiweed, a home grown Taliban-like movement that operates in Darfur.

Sudan and Somalia were destined to become training centres for the jihadist movement much as pre-9/11 Afghanistan was.

After defeat in Somalia by the US backed Ethiopian invasion Al-Qaeda and the wider jihadist movement has maintained its presence in Sudan.

Ireland has given material support to the US wars of Afghanistan and Iraq by providing facilities at Shannon.

Now (under the fig leaf of UN approval) Ireland along with other nations are to open a new front in Chad against Chinese imperialist expansion and Islamic fundementalism supposedly to protect ethnic Africans but for the real objectives of securing Western oil supplies.

Oil is now almost $100 a barrel.

We have already witnessed Irish troops were sent to Lebanon ostensively on a peace keeping mission but infact to quell the Hezbollah insurgency in support of Israeli military objectives.

Now Irish troops will be sent fight the Janjiweed.

Irish troops will face the same threat from Islamic insurgency in Chad as the US military have foolishly brought upon themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ireland is evidently a softer target that the United States from Islamic terrorist attacks.

Do the Irish people want to risk provoking attacks from terrorists because we are joining a war which is not our fight?

Do the Irish people want to get involved in the imperial US led Western war against the Islamic imperialists?

Do the Irish people want our soldiers to be cannon fodder so that the Western imperialists can deny Chinese imperialists oil resources in an arm wrestle for control of oil rich Sudan?

Do the Irish people want Irish troops to commit war crimes against the civilians of Chad and Sudan - the deaths of civilians are the inevitable consequences of military action.