Minister for Defence Announces Deployment of Irish Troops to Syria

hmmm wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/irish-troops-fired-on-by-syrian-anti-government-forces-1.1610984

This deployment is absolutely ridiculous. The other EU nations had the good sense to pull their troops out of a warzone, and we stuck ours into the middle of it. All to patrol an utterly pointless buffer zone.

Whoever in government authorised this should have the decency to resign.

As a matter of interest hmmm... what in your eyes would be an acceptable deployment? In barracks in the curragh perhaps?

The fact is that an everyday Irish convoy moving personnel between two locations, came under attack,
small arms rounds were fired at irish armoured vehicles,
reaction to this was standard affair - shots fired in return by irish troops and get out of there back to base
in the middle of this a vehicle reversed over a landmine that is believed to have not been deliberately planted by the attackers and was a legacy device from a previous war in the same area. damage to one wheel and no rounds penetrated the vehicles. one soldier slightly injured himself apparently getting through a hatch or by movement inside the vehicle in a hurry

dont see what the big deal is, the reality that the Irish public wont face is that only a couple of all of the incidents that the DF encounter in any zone at any time, will get reported by the media back home.

Is the populations memory so very short that they have forgotten the dead and injured returning from the lebanon and the congo and bosnia and other missions yet we remained there and finished the deployments and completed the missions under even stricter ROE??

As a country we have a percentage of citizens who like to deride our defence forces publicly, just read the comments under any article on our online news papers which report about our troops... what does the army do? why not disband them? (two of the dumbest - pardon my french - ****ing questions I have ever heard pass a supposedly intelligent irish persons lips) Soldiers are all thick, dumb, idiots, costly, scroungers, etc ****ing etc. Yet our Dept of Defence is probably the most efficiently run dept in govt, they cannot strike, they work 24/7 for little extra, they are a fit, well trained, highly technical workforce and provide capabilities and security that no other arm of govt in this country can even come close to. They are a model of civil service that would do very well to be applied to other departments govt wide.

we also like to boast to our international friends about how great we are at peacekeeping / peace-enforcing in oppressed countries, mostly due to our so-called military "neutrality". we are sure that beligerents on both sides will love us - "Shur arent de Irish all great craic, be the hokey" ... yet here we are... stunned and surprised when someone - how very dare they - shoots at the nice irish - without provocation nonetheless - and we declare that we now wont stomach the risks to irish lives or swallow that irish soldiers will face dangers like this all the time - at the cost of a desperately needed UN mission? well now, that takes some balls doesnt it?

So we'd rather step up to the plate, dig a large hole and bury our heads in it?

We will instead pretend that atrocities and wars etc are not happening in these places,
that innocents and aid agencies DONT need the international communities help to create peaceful zones that they can more or less operate in
that we will now pull out of these NECESSARY UN missions which try to improve life and security for people on both sides?
Really? could you sleep peacefully at night knowing this? In doing so we will now tell the rest of the world to carry on and will become one of the most insular, self centered, ignorant, inward looking, selfish, developed countries on the planet. Thats what we Irish are? Moan and whinge and keep our heads below the parapet and let someone else take care of someone elses mess and just throw stones over the wall now and again?

That attitude disgusts me as an Irish man, I am proud that we have shown some backbone and taken on a mission which others have pulled out of. Dont get me wrong... I dont want one drop of irish blood to be spilled in the process, however I do accept that unfortunately this may happen however much I pray that it wont.

To put it simply this report could easily have come from an incident in the lebanon, afghanistan, congo, somalia or bosnia on the same day or any of our other missions.

Its a fact of life and one a soldier is well aware of when we take the oath. Nobody wants to be injured or killed, but its just part of the jobs risks.

Anyway, keep safe guys.