Quote Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat View Post
Nevertheless, the complete disrespect the graffiti shows for the people the makers were supposed to protect is shocking. And, such is my convinction, quite telling. And not irrelevant to the choices that were made eventually. Who would risk life and limbs over a few smelly Bosnian beasts? A racist graffiti 'joke' over smelly men and hairy women is only made when people will laugh at it, when the maker knows that people will 'get it'. The army leadership either failed in maintaining necessary standards for Peacekeeping mission - that is, at the very least respect the people you are protecting - or shared to some extent the racism and disrespect for the locals. There is more to these drawings then coarsity. Graffiti that relates in intimate detail how bored soldiers, deprived of female companionship, are going to do the local women and in which pornographic manner, would be inconsequential.
But these drawings are neither random vulgarities nor inconsequential. They are a foretelling, a foreshadowing of the terrible end of the UN peacekeeping mission. A moral bankruptcy.
Well, you and I are in agreement as to the role of leadership on this. ANYTHING that dehumanizes the group you are trying to protect is likely to be counterproductive to a protection mission. If US troops have such sentiments on peace-keeping missions, I suspect our leadership cadre would be a bit more assiduous in showing that -- officially at least -- such attitudes will not be countenanced. It's simply not professional. Dutch leadership should have done that much, at least, or opted out of the mission.