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

Perhaps it was an innocent mistake on the Minister's part, but the reference in the question was to our military involvement in Africa. It is worth saying, and I have a later question which we probably will not reach, that there is an alarming drift towards greater involvement by this country since the Government has come into office in military affairs and supporting a militarist agenda, including, for example, the invitation to NATO's deputy assistant secretary general for political affairs and security policy to address a defence seminar as part of one of the first events in the EU Presidency. It was not mentioned that he is linked to NATO; mention was made of the UN and the EU, but he is one of the main spokespeople for NATO. This is indicative of the alarming closer synergy and relationship between NATO and the European Union which is not being acknowledged. It was not mentioned when he was speaking.

It is in this context that we are concerned about so-called humanitarian missions which are often sold as humanitarian but involved in these missions are states and powers - in the case of Mali it is France and in the case of Africa generally it is the United States - who have interests and who tend to be extremely selective in what dictatorships and terrorists they oppose and which Islamic extremists they find problematic and which others they do not find quite so problematic. It is not invention or conspiracy on our part. President Jimmy Carter's main military adviser and his foreign secretary, Brzezinski, wrote a book in which he outlined in detail how the Carter Administration backed the Taliban and the establishment of what later became al-Qaeda, because it suited it in the strategic battle during the Cold War against the Soviet Union. As he put it, what is stirring up a few mullahs compared to the defeat of the Soviet empire. I put it to the Minister that the same carry on is going on in Mali and Africa generally, and a neutral country such as Ireland should not even consider being involved in this type of intervention.

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