Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Minister's narrative might be convincing if there was any consistency in it when he decries human rights abuses, violence against women and so on inevitably attached to the word "Muslim" or "Islamic". Where is the consistency when this type of abuse is perpetrated daily in a regime like Saudi Arabia to which the European Union, the United States and so on sell arms weekly? There is no problem in that and no military intervention there, even when it is crushing a democratic movement in Bahrain, because that particularly brutal Islamist regime happens to serve the interests of the Western powers in the region. This exposes the claim that these interventions are prompted by humanitarian concerns. There is a nasty civil war going on in Mali but the Malian state and Malian military are not the good guys in this. The Tuareg people have legitimate national aspirations which they have expressed in four different rebellions since 1960. They are an impoverished nomadic people who have suffered badly at the hands of that rotten regime. Let us not forget that the French, who are leading the military intervention in Mali, also backed the dictatorship of Ben Ali until it was overthrown in the revolution of the people. Also, they happen to be sitting on a lot of gold and uranium.

The United States has forces in 35 countries in Africa. There is a scramble going on for the mineral resources of Africa and the Islamist bogeyman is being used as a justification for military intervention. Irish troops should not be involved in a 21st century scramble for Africa.

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