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[ 18 ] March 19, 2010 | Charli Carpenter

Un-frakkin-believable.

A retired Marine general told senators Thursday that the Dutch army failed to protect the city of Srebrenica during the Bosnian war partly because of the presence of gay soldiers in its armed forces.

John J. Sheehan, a former NATO commander who retired in 1997, made his comments during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which bans gay people from openly serving in uniform.

Jon Western points out that we actually know exactly what went wrong at Srebrenica, and it didn’t have a lot to do with sexual orientation. Erik Voeten points out that the Dutch contingent in Afghanistan is doing much better - same integrated military, different political context.

The retired Dutch general who Sheehan named as his source was quoted this morning as saying Sheehan’s claim was complete nonsense.”

Indeed.

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Comments (18)

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  1. Sophist says:

    The collapse of the Soviet Union led European militaries, including that of the Netherlands, to think there was no longer a need for active combat capabilities, Sheehan said. “As a result, they declared a peace dividend and made a conscious effort to socialize their military,” he said.

    Apparently being able to understand the difference between a cause and an effect isn’t required to be a general in the US military.

  2. rea says:

    Just how could including gays in the army lead to a massacre of civilians under the army’s protection? What would be the mechanism by which something like that could occur? Were all the Dutch soldiers too busy having sex to fight, or what?

  3. jdkbrown says:

    I’d have liked the chance to ask some follow-up questions:

    Aren’t you aware, General, that there are currently homosexuals serving in the US military? And that there have been likely since the founding of the country? So you must think that the US armed forces are soft, yes? Oh, that’s *not* what you meant? Let me ask, General: was the US military made more effective when gay translators of Arabic were discharged? Did that help advance our objectives in Iraq? Hm. Just how did you get to be a general, anyway?

    • PhoenixRising says:

      Yeah, you’d be disappointed by the results of asking him questions, I bet.

      I know he was 5 kinds of wrong, but I literally fell off my couch laughing at Sheehan’s response to the Congressman’s question, ‘Have you commanded black soldiers?’

      He referred to the many kinds of Americans he commanded as including, and I quote, “Blacks, whites, Mexican Hispanics and Orientals”.

      When assaulting an enemy position, a good Marine always has a vase and a rug with him! What kind of person says ‘Oriental’ in reference to a human being?

  4. Lu5cus says:

    This General sounds like he’s reading from a recently unearthed Terry Southern script. Did he referance “precious bodily fluids.”?

  5. That’s also why Israel has been wiped off the map and British armed forces were unable to settle a single city in Iraq…

  6. [...] Off-Target : Lawyers, Guns & Money [...]

  7. Mike Schilling says:

    Sheehan was entirely correct, other than getting the Dutch general’s name wrong, misquoting him, and mistaking a Monty Python sketch for reality.

  8. yuriusopt says:

    сайт про похудение – На представленном сервисе есть много хороших статей в которых Вы всегда найдете то что вам интересно.

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