What exactly are Irish Troops up to in Chad?

[eurosceptic]

When Irish troops were first sent to Chad i was enthusiatic as protecting refugee's fits very nicely with my view that we should only participate on the world stage in a humanitarian capacity. My only initial reservation was why we needed to do it through the EU when it could just has easily have been done without the EU. Now i am becoming increasingly concerned as it seems our troops are doing more than just protect refugee's. This was amplified when i became aware of french strategic interest in Chad. So i am now deeply concerned that we are just providing a gloss of neutrality for a french mission to secure it's strategic interests. If this is established then we should immediatly pull out our troops or resign from the EU battlegroup and operate our own mission independently.

[geraghd]

What? you mean, go under a sole Irish banner? How would that help things?

[eurosceptic]

There is absolutely no reason why we couldn't have our own mission to Chad and stick to protecting refugee's only. The EU mission it seems is tainted by french strategic interest which is another attack on our neutrality by a government and FG committed to giving it up.

[DH]

There is absolutely no reason why we couldn't have our own mission to Chad and stick to protecting refugee's only. The EU mission it seems is tainted by french strategic interest which is another attack on our neutrality by a government and FG committed to giving it up.

Did you bump your head when you fell off your unicycle ????

Hope you did not damage your squirting water dickie-bow at the time....

cue the dancing bears.....

FFS

[geraghd]

There is absolutely no reason why we couldn't have our own mission to Chad and stick to protecting refugee's only. The EU mission it seems is tainted by french strategic interest which is another attack on our neutrality by a government and FG committed to giving it up.

Right and when we start protecting areas the french or another EU country is protecting what should we do then?
And who will support our 450 troops? Cause we will kind of need ancillary support structures in place which we don't have!
Do you realise the importance of thinking (perhaps even reading) before you say something?

[eurosceptic]

I was not suggesting that 450 irish troops head off to chad by themselves. Read my initial posting. We should either withdraw entirely from the mission or operate our own command which would see irish troops doing no more than protect refugee's. Please stick to argument not personal attacks.

[mairteenpak]

Either the Irish Troops go and take part in the mission on the same basis as all the other troops or they don't take part at all. You cant run an army on the basis of al a carte duties.

[NotDevsSon]

There is absolutely no reason why we couldn't have our own mission to Chad and stick to protecting refugee's only.

I take it then you know nothing about the rules on peace enforcement, interventions, mandates, etc? If you did you would know your suggestion unworkable and impossible.

The EU mission it seems is tainted by french strategic interest which is another attack on our neutrality by a government and FG committed to giving it up.

Paranoia gone mad!

It is the UN that is arranging peace missions in Chad, Sudan and the CAR. Because of the practical complexity, the co-ordination rule is being arranged by the UN, with AU and EU forces each given one country, under UN auspices, to be in to offer protection to refugees in the case of AU and EU forces, and in the case of the UN, offer training to the police forces. France was asked to head the EU force because it has practical local knowledge of the sort of that no other EU state has. They know the terrains, the war-lords, the nature of transport facilities, and regional differences, etc. They were in a position to go in from day 1 with local knowledge rather than arrive and spend the first few weeks learning from scratch. The unstable situation in the region, and the fact that sudden refugee movements from one of the states to the other could trigger off instant conflict, meant that it was vital to have forces there who from day 1 had in depth local knowledge, not one potentially faced by 50,000 refugees on the move and not have a clue about what to do, how to manage it, which locations provide adequate protection and which war-lords might attack which group of refugees in which camp. EUFOR has a host of countries involved, not just France and Ireland. France because of the size of its army also has enough forces to put at the disposal of EUFOR. The entire Irish army on its own wouldn't have been enough. And none of the rest has the technical support on their own to do the mission. Because of France's associations with Deby serious consideration was given to exluding them, but there is no-one else in the EU with better factual knowledge of Chad capable of being up and running from day 1. The UN has not the forces. The AU has not the forces. That is why EUFOR was asked to take part, and why France was asked to join UNFOR.

[louis bernard]

There is absolutely no reason why we couldn't have our own mission to Chad and stick to protecting refugee's only. The EU mission it seems is tainted by french strategic interest which is another attack on our neutrality by a government and FG committed to giving it up.

You are either not taking your tablets, or taking too many of the wrong type of tablets.

[DH]

Newsflash

Minister Of Defence Mr Willie O Dea has announced the setting up of a new battlegroup comprised of Irish troops only. The group called PADDYFOR will be dispatched to troublespots around the dark continent, with the aid of the 2008 surplus billions of euros in exchequer funds. The new PADDYFOR will operate without any request from the UN, the GP and Sen Eoghan Harris in order to avoid the triple lock mechanism. PADDYFOR will replace the troops currently in chad, send a force to Sudan, CAR and also Zimbabwe. No invitation of host countries will be required and ROE will be decided on arrival. Once these missions are completed, 25th October at the latest, PADDYFOR will then undertake its most dangerous mission to the Autonomous republics of Southill and Moyross (colloq. MYross).
Mr O Dea would like to thank Euroskeptc in particular for his brilliant suggestion