The truth about Canadian peacekeepers.

[ralphwiggum 6]

canada, kosovo. please decide which to discuss.

[mr_rOk 0]

You can always rename it "Successes and failures of the peacekeeping missions"

p.s:that's a joke!

[Balschoiw 0]

Somalia was no peace-keeping mission. It was a peace enforcing mission, wich means there was fighting under UN mandatory. Maybe you check how many soldiers under UN command lost their lives in Somalia before you continue your rubbel.

BTW I made some pics of the canadian camp at Belet Huen wich we took over. Under canadian command it was called "Camp Rusk". I didn´t see anything pointing on the racism the topicstarter want´s us to see here.

The best shot I got was a graffiti with "A good day at camp rusk is when you have a dry fart in the desert"

That´s it. As I said people tried to get into the camp for looting all the time. They knew about the risks and they were dealt with. Imagine a crowded tent-camp with 1300 soldiers in it and a guy who cuts through the wire right behind the ammo storage. What would you do ? Wait until he blows the depot up and kills your people in the tents nearby ?

It´s easy, you warn him once, twice, ("Anida unada jogso, ama wa togan!","United Nations, stop or I fire!") fire a warning shot and if he still shows no intentions to stop his action you take him out.

I think it´s unhonorable to blame canadians for actions they have not committed. They have killed some as we did. But it was justified and legitimate.

[Tovarish 0]

hmm wow, a geocities web page cited as a source for allegations. I bet if I bothered to look, I could find many more such allegations about the US military, but I'm not going to be dragged down to your level Brutal_Impact, I ain't biting and I ain't flame baiting myself.

As for this geocities site, here's an excerpt that I think speaks volumes for it's objectivity:

Quote[/b] ]Whenever a child was  killed  by  Serbian sniper  fire  in  Sarajevo, his (Mackenzie's) UN command was as likely to  blame Bosnians and Serbs.

Of course, no Bosnians ever up took arms right?

[Longinius 1]

Quote[/b] ]Nope, but as far as im aware, USA military personnel is "immune" to charges brought up by the ICC That says a lot

Canadians arent American. So in this case, thats irrelivant.

[Monkey Lib Front 10]

hey if we going down this route, lets talk how George Bush senior was one of the biggest drug smugglers in S.America. i think Balschoiw has already proven that the whole Canadians are brutal savages is BS, stop trying to divert people's views from Iraq.

[Donnervogel 0]

Somalia was no peace-keeping mission. It was a peace enforcing mission, wich means there was fighting under UN mandatory. Maybe you check how many soldiers under UN command lost their lives in Somalia before you continue your rubbel.

Don't know who you mean here. There was fighting under UN mandatory yes. But there are different scenarios. Technically the UN mission was the peackeeping role. While the national troops under national control were the ones that were there to enforce peace. Of course they had UN mandatory too but they were under national command. Best example of this was the famous US action we all know today. It was planed and executed under US command. UN had nothing to say there.

I don't know how this worked practically but this is how it was set up theoretically. Probably it got mixed up in the real day to day life but actually it's illegal for the UN to be a conflict party.

EDIT: the mandatory for national commitments is only to officialy make it legal that they become a conflict party.

[mr_rOk 0]

I heard Bush's administration didn't put the continuation of immunity on the board for the UN to discuss, cos they thought they would cause an uprawl=>Abu Graib and immunity don't go well together.

@ balschoiw

read again

p.s.:That's a joke!

[bn880 5]

As far as I know, whatever abuse happened there was contained to a small group of people. However there was some blocking of an investigation higher up. Anyway, this is something DND wants to avoid at all cost, so it's not going to be tolerated nor suggested, unlike what we have with US prisons in Iraq/Guantanamo.

I'm not going to tell you no abuse ever happened there in the hands of Canadians.

I remember now that basically some soldiers were mentally destabalized by the events there, and coming from a comfy place like Canada to there was too much of a shock.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]Probably it got mixed up in the real day to day life but actually it's illegal for the UN to be a conflict party.

Sure it got mixed up

And no it´s not illegal for UN troops to join and conduct disarment missions. And that´s what it was alot of times.

Sure there was/is a technical separation of combat/pk forces but as most of the missions were conducted under the frame the UN gave the national decisions did not play an important role here. There was a lot of coordination needed and done throughout troops from different countries. We shared the bases, we shared the vehicles, we shared the intel and we tried to cooperate whenever we could. Multinational troops were dependant on the support function of other nations, for example russian transport helos, US airguards, pakistani armoured units, malayan infantry and APC´s, Italian armoured units.....

That all worked pretty well, except for the solo-stunts the US pulled there.

[Donnervogel 0]

Quote[/b] ]Probably it got mixed up in the real day to day life but actually it's illegal for the UN to be a conflict party.

Sure it got mixed up

And no it´s not illegal for UN troops to join and conduct disarment missions. And that´s what it was alot of times.

Sure there was/is a technical separation of combat/pk forces but as most of the missions were conducted under the frame the UN gave the national decisions did not play an important role here. There was a lot of coordination needed and done throughout troops from different countries. We shared the bases, we shared the vehicles, we shared the intel and we tried to cooperate whenever we could. Multinational troops were dependant on the support function of other nations, for example russian transport helos, US airguards, pakistani armoured units, malayan infantry and APC´s, Italian armoured units.....

That all worked pretty well, except for the solo-stunts the US pulled there.

yeah well disarmament is considered peace keeping I guess. What I mean there is a different legal status between the two groups. Troops that take part in the conflict on one side or as a third party. Those troops get UN mandate to make the intervention legal (EDIT: this doesn't mean that the UN is involved in the chain of command). Then there are peacekeeping troops from the UN (usually the blue helmet guys). Legally they're a neutral party not involved in the conflict. So they often do things like oberve ceasefires or peace deals between the conflicting governments/paties. Therefore they also have very restrictive RoE's which make them look useless or bad in the public when things get nasty.

Anyway it's good that the troops work together IMHO.

[Baphomet 0]

Fact of the matter is, any profession which involves killing people will attract sick fuckers.

This is universal from nation to nation. Any military will have problems with people like that. They're trained to be indifferent to death and often the places they're put into act as a catalyst to that end.

So this is nothing new.

It would be completely absurd to assume that just because you happened to find occurrences of this problem in one nation's military (fueled by an obvious bias against aforementioned nation) that it's an isolated problem. The united states army is much larger than that of Canada's and I'm more than certain similar acts only in greater quantity have have been committed by american troops.

If you can judge an entire military branch or country based on the actions of a small number of disturbed individuals. Then you should look at a certain other country before venturing beyond your own doorstep to cry foul.

I'd however like to know the nationality and age of the originator of this thread.

Since when has Canada ever attacked the united states? I mean really? If you mean condemning their war in Iraq, you've got quite a fragile little ego attached to your country if in fact you live in the United States.

All I can say is at least we don't invade countries. The good canadian soldiers. Which I know there are because I know some of them. Are out there cleaning up after the mess invading forces make. They're not there trying to make it worse. They're people with families just like the people in the foreign countries they're stationed in. They understand this.

There are decent individuals in every military outfit, just as there are fucked up ones. The problem is when you're in the military, you're going to kill people, and sometimes that just has an effect on them. Or they come into the profession with immoral motivation. That's life. Get over it.

[Koolkid101 0]

Didn't UN troops fight against NK, in the 50's?

[DracoPaladore 0]

Didn't UN troops fight against NK, in the 50's?

I think they agreed on something like: "furnish such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace and security in the area"

I hope I got that right. Heard something about it a few nights ago on TV. Can't remember much, because I tuned in at the last moment. AFAIK, the NK's didn't agree with the US and Security Council of the UN when they were told to cease and desist with immediate withdrawl.

The interesting thing is that during the Korean war, the 2nd PPCLI and the 3rd RAR received the US Presidential Citation for actions at Hill 677

[Donnervogel 0]

Didn't UN troops fight against NK, in the 50's?

Erm mainly US troops with UN mandate. To go into detail. What one would call UN troops are national troops under the control of the Secretary General of the UN. Those troops, as I said earlier, are (theoretically) not allowed to take part in any conflict.

Then there are troops under mandate of the UN (sometimes the UN is allowed to take an important role in the chain of command) but highest commander would be the president of the US in the case of US troops. Sometimes these mandates are also given to alliances like NATO (then NATO commander would be highest in command). These troops participate in the conflict. Usually for peace enforcement.

In Korea the UN troops came in action after the war to observe the border.

[MontyVCB 0]

http://www.geocities.com/famous_bosniaks/english/general_lewis_mackenzie.html

Somalia 1993: Carol Mathieus troops (elite Canadian Airborne Regiment) referred to Somalis by racial epithets and joked about hunting them as trophies. They hung Nazi and U.S. Confederate flags in their barracks, perhaps influenced by the time they spent training in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Fort Bragg is home to the 82nd Airborne Division, which included white supremacists charged in the murder of a Black couple in Fayetteville. Two examples: In the Somalia video, Master Corporal Matt McKay, a former member of the Aryan Nation, complained that he "ain't killed enough niggers yet." In the other, a Black recruit with the words "I love KKK" written on his back in excrement crawled through a gauntlet of blows and urination.

On March 4, 1993, Canadian soldiers shot down two unarmed, fleeing Somalis. Wounded and struggling, both were shot again from behind; one, Ahmed Afraraho Aruush, died. Two weeks later, a hungry teenager named Shidane Arone entered the Belet Huen aid camp, hoping to be fed. Instead, he was grabbed, beaten all night, and tortured to death by drunken soldiers.

In 1993 in Bosnia, Canadian military personnel who took over the Bakovici mental hospital shot at, raped, and battered patients; others engaged in countrywide black marketeering and fraud.

A few months ago, the press ran photos of Canadian military engineers in Kuwait posing with body parts of dead Iraqi soldiers.

Dec. 27, 1996 - Gen. Armand Roy, the deputy chief of defence staff, is fired after a military investigation found he received money to keep two residences. Roy 54, was ordered to repay $70,000-$80,000.

Dec. 22, 1996 - In a survey, commissioned by the Armed Forces, troops say they don't trust their leaders and view them as 'yes-men'.

October, 1996 - Gen. Jean Boyle, chief of defence staff, is axed in the

wake of document a charges at the Somalia inquiry. (Somalia teenagers were tortured and murdered by Canadian peacekeepers)

August, 1996 - Canadian military investigators head to a mental hospital in Bakovici, Bosnia-Herzegovina, to probe sex and drinking allegations involving 30 Canadian soldiers and four officers.

Capt. Sandra Perron, Canada's first female infantry was beaten and tied to a tree at a training centre commanded by the head of the army. With her boots removed, she was left sitting barefoot in the snow and repeatedly hit for over two hours, during which "trophy photographs" were taken. (The Calgary Herald, Dec. 31, 1996).

In May, Maclean's Magazine reported that rape cases in the Canadian Forces have been kept quiet for years. They interviewed 27 women who said they were raped while serving in the army. Days after the article came out, 11 more female soldiers, currently and formerly serving, came forward claiming the same. "The cases also reveal a culture -- particularly in the navy and combat units -- of unbridled promiscuity, where harassment is common, heavy drinking is a way of life, and women ... are often little more than game for sexual predators," said an article published by the magazin. The report includes harrowing tales told by 13 women who were assaulted. One woman who was 18 at the time, simply carried off during a party into another room guarded by other soldiers and raped.  (Maclean's, May 25th 1998).

Their soldiers are racist, their HEAD GENERAL OF PEACEKEEPING is accused of raping 4 young girls, who were later killed and they rape mental patients..... yet they complain about how horrible America is for the Iraqi prison abuse....

don't beleave all u read in the press there are 2 sides to every story to me it sounds like your anti-canadian (i say this beacause it seems u have gone out of your way to find dirt on em). american soldiers have done a lot worse, plus i neva new canadians were in iraq don't u mean afgahistan? if u look back over the years every army has done somthing terrible.

[sputnik monroe 102]

Yeah they were assholes. Though some of the cases you pointed out I'm a bit skeptical as to if they really happened.

Judging the entire Canadian military based on the actions of a few criminals is insane. You can never judge the individuals of an organisation based on the actions of those who break the rules. Simple as that.

    The one thing that bugs me though is how most of the post go something like this: "Hey you can't judge the entire Candian army like that, only the United States army".

    Basically you're all saying the US is bad and it's normal procedure to commit atrocities in the US army. Any other army though it's just a few bad eggs doing them.

   on a side note, denoir, bn880 ,balschoiw, and walker. I hate to say it but I'm getting to where I can just skim through your post in seconds flat. I mean every one of them reads the same. I totally know where you guys are coming from and what youll say each post now. Each post reads the same as the last one.

  Balschoiw: blah blah blah Bundeshwer good blah blah blah Somolia blah blah Abu Grhaib blah blah war criminals blah blah US blah blah evil blah blah Iraq blah blah good blah blah viva le resistance blah blah cowboys blah blah invaders blah blah.

   Denoir: blah blah TBA blah TBA2 blah blah TBA blah blah Iraq blah blah atrocities blah blah fascist blah blah.

   Walker: blah blah yank  blah blah TBA blah blah gitmo blah blah coalition of evil blah blah America blah blah evil blah  TBA2  blah blah killed my cat blah blah blah kind regards blah blah.

   Bn880: Rumsefeld blah blah evil masterminds blah blah blah sadistic evil Americans blah blah top to bottom blah blah.

    Do any of you have any thing good to say about the US military? I mean really jesus you act like we are literaly the most corupt despicable atrocious nation that has ever existed.

    I hope I don't get banned for this post or have it locked or closed. I just have to get it off my chest. After I finish reading one of your post guys I instantly end up in a sour mood every single time.

   I have never seen you guys say a single good thing about America. If I talked as negative about Germany, Sweden, or England as you guys about America you would hate my guts (Oh wait you probably do since I do ive in America).

    Any how sorry I just had to get that off my chest. I'll follow this thread a while longer but I really think I'm about through reading through Offtopic forum. At least for a while.

[iNeo 0]

So true Sputnik, and quite funny actually.

[denoir 0]

Denoir: blah blah TBA blah TBA2 blah blah TBA blah blah Iraq blah blah atrocities blah blah fascist blah blah.

You should get glasses. Please provide a quote from this thread where I mentioned W. Bush or the Iraq war.

Quote[/b] ]Do any of you have any thing good to say about the US military?

Not much good to say these days.

Quote[/b] ]I mean really jesus you act like we are literaly the most corupt despicable atrocious nation that has ever existed.

Nope, but currently the greatest threat to peace in the world. And remember that we're your friends and allies, all part of the all-friendly western club. Now imagine how those that really don't like you to start with feel about you...

Anyway, offtopic...

[Gollum1 0]

Sputnik:

Anyway, this is a very informative thread for me (apart from the opening post), it's always great to hear from people with actual experience, like Bals, denoir and ran.

[drow 0]

Canadian soldiers are still soldiers,

if you dont give them good leadership and objectives, they will not be good soldiers, doing what soldiers do, they will do bad things... its happened over and over throughout history.

Im sorry to claim ignorance here but i didnt have enuff time to read the whole thread, i believe its about the killing of the 16 yr old Somali boy, who they caught for stealing their food or something, they torchured him to death... its very horrible, but their orders were un-clear, it was something like "do whatever is nessesary to stop the villagers from infiltrating our base and stealing our shit"

What would you deem necessary? if you were a frustrated soldier stuck posting up on some dirt pile in the middle of a country in turmoil. Surely capturing the boy and tieing him up in a bunker for holding, but obviously most of us wouldnt want to beat to death a bound, gagged and blindfolded 16 year old boy whos starving.

See Im not saying it is ok to torchure a 16 yr old kid to death for trying to steal some food or whatnot, but its not entirely the soldiers fault. Thats why they disbanded that whole military unit (or whatever its called), it was one of the airborne units... and it no longer excists.

(the soldier who killed the kid committed suicide)

And dudes, about the racist thing, nearly ALL armys seem to do that, its to instill this subliminal hate for the enemy...

theyre different from you, you need to convince yourself that they are a somehow substandard to yourself... its all part of the military "brainwashing" to make a "person/individual" into a "soldier/killer", soldiers arent supposed to be nice guys who teach sunday school, theyre supposed to be scary ass sonz-a-bitches. Im not saying its right, but im saying that top command and officers and all that shit dont (seem) to frown upon racism towards the enemy,,, they probably subliminaly encourage it.

PS - Im Canadian, we dont all say "eh" or "aboot" and we're definitly not all "nice".

[bn880 5]

And the point of this thread is what? Some Research? or What? We hav already established that there were incidents of abuse by a limited number. this is not representative of all Canadian peace keepers (rest assured), it is not due to our govt. ordering torture etc, there is nothing to discuss, shit happened but it's not a systemic problem with CDN troops.

Edit: Not to mention how ridiculous the thread title is.

[sputnik monroe 102]

Quote[/b] ] Nope, but currently the greatest threat to peace in the world.

    So your really afraid we are going to attack Sweden? Seriously.

Quote[/b] ]And remember that we're your friends and allies, all part of the all-friendly western club. Now imagine how those that really don't like you to start with feel about you...

     Yeah your the greatist of friends.

     As for imagining how those who "really don't like us" feel. I don't need to use my imagination for that. They show us every day.

1. They saw our heads off and put the footage on the internet for teens to masturbate to.

2. They burn our flag,

3. They tell their children every waking moment we are a bunch of sub human inferior jew loving pigs and that to kill one of us is the greatist service one can do for their god.

4. They hijack airlines full of innocent people just traveling to work, or to see their familes, then crash them into buildings full of thousands of others who are just trying to make a living and feed their familes.

5.  They burn and mutilate our bodies and hang them from bridges.

6. They dance and celebrate when ever one of us dies.

7. They wish evey last one of us man woman and child was dead and burning in hell for all eternity.

   So no I don't need to stop and "imagine" how those who really hate us feel. I've seen and have known it for years now. They have hated us they hate us now and they always will hate us, that's reality.

[ralphwiggum 6]

please saty on topic. or i'm going to hand out some unwanted vacations.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]Balschoiw: blah blah blah Bundeshwer good blah blah blah Somolia blah blah Abu Grhaib blah blah war criminals blah blah US blah blah evil blah blah Iraq blah blah good blah blah viva le resistance blah blah cowboys blah blah invaders blah blah.

Aha so this is bla bla when I post first hand experience from Somalia , right ?

I will happily ignore your non-content-but-uninformed posts from now on.

Noone forces you to read what we write. If you don´t like it just stay away. No big loss for the forums anyway.

Quote[/b] ]If I talked as negative about Germany, Sweden, or England as you guys about America you would hate my guts

The point is that we don´t debate fictual scenarios but things that are in the news and have really happenend.

If you can´t cope with reality you should run and get a tinfoil hat or hide yourself in an abandoned Missile silo.

@Donnervogel:

Quote[/b] ]yeah well disarmament is considered peace keeping I guess. What I mean there is a different legal status between the two groups. Troops that take part in the conflict on one side or as a third party. Those troops get UN mandate to make the intervention legal (EDIT: this doesn't mean that the UN is involved in the chain of command). Then there are peacekeeping troops from the UN (usually the blue helmet guys). Legally they're a neutral party not involved in the conflict.

Disarmament is peace - enforcing. Some people don´t like giving their weapons away and they express their feelings about it by using them

You´re right there is a different legal status on paper for troops with white vehicles and troops with camo vehicles but reality looks different. Imagine the following situation wich was a daily situation in Somalia. You had convois from Moga to Belet on a daily base. They were bringing food for the Somalis and the refugees from Ethiopia. They brought medical supply for the camps and the refugees and installation material for wells , schools etc.

Now these convois wich mostly formed of Brown and Root´s trucks went from Moga to Belet and had an overnight stay at Jalallassi, a little camp that was used only for such purposes.

Now imagine Somalis attacking the convoi for looting. Not only locals but also clansmen with technicals (jeeps with mg´s, aa guns, RPG´s) tried to attack those convois whenever they could. They halted convois with car wrecks and demanded to be given the cargo. Of course we didn´t give them the cargo so they tried to get it by cutting of some vehicles of the convoi. The ROE´s were clear, don´t shoot until fired upon. So when they went nuts on their midday drugs they fired at the convoi or fired at the ground in front of the vehicles or released some spreaded fire at the convoi. For sure you don´t wait until the italian recon troop returns to convoi to protect it. You are fired upon and you fire back.

You don´t take any side by doing so but you protect yourself or the crews and vehicles that are within the convoi.

I already posted some pics of such firefights a long time ago.

So even Blue helmets actually do fight, even if they are not supporting any conflict party.

And btw, even the UN has a certain amount of troops that are not bound to blue helmets or white vehicles. It´s the core force. And that´s where I am right now.