Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Writing in The Guardianrecently, Owen Jones commented:

In the build-up to the catastrophic invasion of Iraq, it was invoked by Colin Powell, then US secretary of state. "You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people," he reportedly told George W Bush. "You will own all their hopes, aspirations and problems." But while many of these military interventions have left nations shattered, western governments have resembled the customer who walks away whistling, hoping no one has noticed the mess left behind.

Unfortunately, the media have been all too complicit in allowing them to leave the scene.

Iraq may have been a blood-drenched disaster and Afghanistan a grinding military and political failure, but the so-called "humanitarian intervention" in Libya was supposed to have been different. The UN-authorised air campaign in 2011 is often lauded as a shining example of successful foreign intervention. The initial mandate - to protect civilians - was exceeded by nations who had only recently been selling arms to Gadaffi, and the bombing evolved into regime-change. Today's Libya is overrun by militias and faces a deteriorating human rights situation, mounting chaos that is infecting other countries, growing internal splits, and even the threat of civil war. As journalist, Seumas Milne, pointed out in The Guardian last week, the west seized the chance to intervene in Libya to get a grip on the Arab uprisings. NATO air power in support of the Libyan rebellion increased the death toll by a factor of about ten, but played the decisive role in the war, which meant no coherent political or military force was ready to fill the vacuum. Three years on, thousands are held without trial, there are heavy curbs on dissent and institutions are close to collapse.

Fear is growing of an all-out war between militias aligned with the Islamist-dominated parliament and forces led by a former general named Khalifa Haftar, who was reportedly once trained by the CIA. Haftar has accused the government of fostering terrorism and is calling for an emergency administration to oversee elections this month. Haftar, a former general under Gadaffi, says he wants to rid Libya of Islamists and led an assault against the militant groups in Benghazi. Recently, forces allied to him took control of Libya's parliament building in the capital, Tripoli. At least 100 people have died since the fighting broke out. This effort to overthrow the elected government is supported by the US. The US ambassador to Libya, Deborah Jones, said recently that she would not condemn the actions of General Haftar, whose forces stormed the parliament on 18 May.

Most experts agree that Libya needs assistance in strengthening its central government and the rule of law. Human Rights Watch stated recently that "Unless the international community focuses on the need for urgent assistance to the justice and security systems, Libya risks the collapse of its already weak state institutions and further deterioration of human rights in the country". The US is currently training special forces in areas as diverse as Tripoli, Bulgaria, the Canary Islands and elsewhere for use in places like Libya. In what has all the hallmarks of mission creep, a small number of US soldiers are being sent to Tripoli to begin training troops, but should the US be the one in charge of the delicate process of building a cohesive security force to combat violent, fractious, armed groups, many of them drawn from the very militias that destabilised Libya in the first place? No wonder western governments and journalists who hailed the success of this intervention are so silent.

The Irish Government needs to take a very strong position - one of neutrality - in this area. We have been far too closely aligned with the US and NATO forces which have wrecked havoc worldwide and are responsible for immense destruction and the deaths of many people. There is a serious case to be looked at with regard to how the Security Council works. In the past 25 years with the veto system, China and France have vetoed three resolutions, Russia four, the UK ten and the US 43. Surely the time has come for the UN to take the role of the policeman, not the US because it is leaving a trail of destruction behind it.

See this speech in context