UNIFIL, Crotty and Ireland’s Looming Lebanon Disaster 

A contrived scandal designed to divert blame off a lenient judiciary and onto the backs of the Defence Forces would normally be classified as a poor way to prepare for a potential military crisis in Southern Lebanon but so it was this week for beleaguered members of Óglaigh na hÉireann. 

The fallout of the Crotty vs O’Brien ruling continues to be felt by members of the Defence Forces as “reforms” to further emasculate the Irish military are rushed through the halls of power at the behest of the trial’s victim Nathasha O’Brien.

Judge Tom O’Donnell was not the first member of the judiciary to pass an obnoxiously lax suspended sentence on a violent offender when he erred against over-jailing Private Cathal Crotty for an assault on nightclub goer Nathasha O’Brien in 2022, but the circumstances of the trial was enough to feed a media narrative on hate crimes rather than focus on broader issues among the men with gavels.

Similar to the confused mania generated by the Belfast Rape Trial or Aisling Murphy murder, our NGO powerbeakers are keen to misdirect the justified anger around any law and order mishaps into a vague issue of patriarchal mismanagement rather than seeking systemic solutions.

The likes of ROSA Ireland and similar political outfits who have hijacked O’Brien’s plight by their own admission object to the prison system as a way of reforming the guilty or at least keeping them away from society at large so why are they allowed to rally to the defence of victims whenever similar outages occur?

Currently the whipping boys of a political establishment, the Defence Forces is a cynical chip in the game of our largely pointless UN power projection abroad. This media and institutional assault on the Army couldn’t come at a worse possible time in the lead up to an expected Israeli invasion of Lebanon to combat Hezbollah.

While normal European states are preparing for a protracted bloody war and removal of any of their civilians the 375 or so Irish Defence Forces personnel are hunkering down in Naqoura and Shama for a Zionist onslaught they are badly underprepared for.

This week the headlines speak of endemic misogyny within the ranks. Next week could very well feature body counts of Irish soldiers or even the ghastly spectre of kidnappings by local militias with the murder of Seán Rooney an early warning for the ill-prepared nature of Irish troops in doctrine and equipment patrolling the Lebanese townlands.

Our military presence in Lebanon and fetishisation of UN actions in general are a relic of a moribund era of multilateralism at a time the homeland itself is left ajar through the gradual collapse of the Defence Forces.

Despite previous Lebanese disasters, the half-forgotten killing fields of Niemba and the cumulative deaths of 88 servicemen overseas in similar missions, barely a voice of opposition has been raised at the golden institution of the UN totally beyond reproach among our elite.

Billed cheerfully in the 1950s as a way to augment the power and prestige of a small fledgling Republic by Frank Aiken, the equation has radically changed on Ireland’s dalliance with the UN and multilateralism as smaller and savvier nations prepare for a new multipolar order.

The necessity to provide some sort of token force for a European defensive front should Ukrainian lines break could puncture further Irish resolve in Lebanon but as it stands Defence Forces personnel stand in the middle of a veritable shooting gallery between triggerhappy Zionists and their equally bellicose Islamist foes.

While Hezbollah infiltrates the Irish narcotics trade courtesy of sloppy border management at home, Irish troops are abandoned to referee an unpoliceable frontier between Israel and its Arab neighbours.

The screeching of Natasha O’Brien to implement ideologically-motivated hate crime legislation and cynical comfort sessions given to her at the Oireachtas may soon be an unaffordable luxury for an Irish state ill-prepared for the conflict just around the corner in Lebanon and further afield.

Female anxiety is a quiet weapon for liberal hegemony in Ireland designed to create a fear induced population aimlessly thrashing about looking for progressive solutions to progressive problems when it comes to domestic violence and gender violence.

The hyper-liberalism and victim politics of the 2010s was already grating to the public at large but in an era where the stakes matter it may well be fatal to Irish lads paying the price for political power games in Dublin and New York.

The window to withdraw from Lebanon is fast ending and instead of arranging a dignified retreat back to home we have spent vital time in the culture wars fueling a hate campaign against the very men who wear the state’s uniform.