US forces could learn from Irish peacekeepers
The Americans should be taking a long, hard look at what the Irish have achieved in this field and be putting this into operation on the streets of Iraqi towns and villages. In fact, I believe that each major American unit on the ground in Iraq should have a small number of experienced Irish troops attached to them for the eventualities that they will inevitably meet.
America’s failure and their already obvious gung-ho policy towards Iraqi civilians will further alienate the civilian population and this will lead in turn to more American casualties.
As a veteran of four tours of duty in Southern Lebanon, I have had the privilege of witnessing at first hand the way in which Irish troops have handled highly volatile and potentially lethal situations in what was termed in the 1980s and early 1990s as the most dangerous place on earth.
Young officers, NCOs and private soldiers have successfully stood between AMAL, Believers Resistance, Hizb’Allah, the South Lebanon Army and the Israeli Defence Forces and have defused with negotiation and compromise situations that would have cost lives on all sides.
In 1980, in Southern Lebanon, the first time an American officer was escorted by an Irish battalion patrol the whole thing ended in disaster with two of the soldiers losing their lives and a third an invalid ever since.
The Irish experience of peacekeeping did not come cheap, they paid a heavy price for their learning curve. I have seen the body bags being escorted from the camps to the sound of a lone piper and questioned the value of what we were doing in such a place. Peacekeeping is not about knocking heads together, it’s not about reaching for the rifle every time there is some perceived threat. Peacekeeping is about standing on the checkpoints, carrying out patrols, getting to know the ordinary people of the villages and finding out how they have become so dependent on that long sought-after peace of mind.
The Irish military authorities very quickly learned that the differences between the people of the Arab world and the European are huge and once these differences were recognised workable policies were put in place so that every person on an Irish peacekeeping mission in the Middle East knew the fundamentals: how to stop a car and search a car, how to react when there were Arab females present and with the extended Arab family.
The sight of an American soldier beating an Iraqi man with a stick conjures up images that should make any right thinking person shudder with disgust.
Pat McKee,
21 Ballinure Avenue,
Blackrock,
Cork.
