Quote:
Originally posted by Dreamer128:
quote:
Originally posted by madjim:
yawn- old American saying: "Better tried by 12 than carried by six"
Somehow I think US troops are doing better than say, Dutch troops in the former Yugolslavia.
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If you are refering to Screbrenica, that cannot be blamed on the Dutch alone. Nato as a whole failed there (where was the air support?).
Also, I do believe the Dutch troops in Iraq are doing an excellent job working together with the locals. [img]smile.gif[/img] [/QUOTE]Air support (or lack of thereof) was besides the point - the orders were clear. As a soldier, you have to carry out your orders as best as you can - often you have to make do with a bad situation, and yes, bizarre as it may have seemed to the DutchBat commander, that means that you might have to lose your life in carrying out those orders.
Karreman himself called off the air-strikes because the serb commander threatened to kill 9 Dutch hostages. As terrible as the threat was, the reality is that Karreman had 10,000 people to protect and the loss of those nine troopers was a simple sacrifice that could have saved the 7,000 that eventually died.
In dealing with people like Mladic there is only one rule to follow: don't give ground and don't show fear. If he had refused to call off the airstrikes, he would have shown Mladic that he meant business - instead he gave him the (correct) impression that he was a coward - and that he was scared. So scared in fact that he was even filmed having a toast with the serb commander!
Later,
after helping the serbs to load the civilians on to the buses that would carry them to their deaths he ordered his men to hand over their weapons to the serb commander without a single shot ever being fired.
The man was a coward: a disgrace to his uniform and his country.
Compare this behaviour to the that of the Canadians that he had replaced:
"They would fire back in self-defence; this included defence of their mission, i.e. they would use force if armed elements attempted by force to intrude into the demilitarized area. However, as you have also stressed to us, UNPROFOR has deployed in Srebrenica with the agreement of the parties and the threat of the use of force in this context is intended to apply in a situation where a small number of armed elements violate this agreement. We understand, of course, that 145 peace-keepers cannot be expected to resist a full-scale invasion by the Bosnian Serb Army; and that should heavy artillery shelling occur, UNPROFOR will take shelter like everyone else.
--Report on the Srebrenica Massacre,
Nederlands Instituut Voor Oorlogsdocumentatie
Note that last line "they would take shelter like everyone else" not abandon their flamin' post!
[ 10-28-2003, 09:15 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]