Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Rewarding Failure and Cowardice
The Dutch Government has awarded medals to members of the Dutchbat - the Dutch peacekeeping battalion, famous for its failure to stand up to Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica ( see the news story). Ok, so it was not all their fault, and the mission sucked etc. But surely you should reward acts of bravery and sacrifice, rather than those that just followed orders, which resulted in the largest single massacre on European soil since World War II? Just a thought.
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Hey Ivan sorry I haven't looked in here in so long. I also picked up on this story with much the same reaction. I think it cuts to what we were discussing recently, (on Theo's blog or mine? I forget), about the whole post-heroic atmosphere in which modern war takes place. These guys are not being decorated for heroism they are being decorated as recognition that they are also victims of a sort. Right now our culture values victimhood over heroics. I strongly recommend Coker's Unhappy Warrior article in Rusi Journal to you. It's all explained there in classic Cokerian style (some hate it, some love it--I'm with the latter--but I don't think any can deny he's got a point). It reminds me of a conversation I had with my mentor, about German participation in the ceremonies commemorating the 50th anniversary of D-Day of which he disapproved. He pointed out that the French when invited to attend the anniversary of Waterloo responded tartly 'we don't celebrate defeat.' I'm with the French on this one.
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