Irish Troops

John O’Shea is the Director of Goal and, with regard to the possible deployment of Irish troops to Darfur, he says here that  the AU forces are quite useless and that only soldiers from Western countries can be effective. He also says that the proper purpose of any troops deployed would be to prevent genocide rather than monitor it.  Does that make him a running dog of Western imperialism, thinly disguised as a supporter of liberal interventionism? It sure adds a further twist to arguments already ventilated in many quarters about whether anything can be done or should be done to stop mass slaughter in distant lands. And if the Irish Army does indeed  get sent to Darfur, it  is likely to prove its  toughest deployment since the Congo.