outnumbered ?

Originally posted by northwolf
Two issues:
Please do not say UN troops as no such force exists, all forces operating under the UN flag, are still 100% under their national command and if the governments refuse to give their troops, UN can't do anything.

And please refrain from bashing soldiers who participate on UN peace keeping, they do all they can with the limits that politicians set to them. There are many good soldiers serving with the blue beret as i type.

I agree completely. I have worked in UN blue on two tours of Bosnia/Firmer Yugoslavia. During these tours I was restricted by the rules laid down by the UN. These were fairly uneventful tours, just the odd minor contact. YOU could say that we (British) soldiers were useless as we were mere gutless UN troops.

Jump forward a few years to Helmand provence last year. The same soldiers were involved in an average of 4 serious contacts per day, sometimes up to 8 per day. Hundreds of thousands of rounds were expended. Hundreds of enemy combatants were killed in dozens of firefights. We were cut off from supplies for long periods, often having to send out patrols to scrounge food from locals. One small pathfinder platoon team went out for a 7 day job and were cut off for almost 2 months!

My point is these same troops may be called up for any UN mission tomorrow, and YOU will put us back in the same category as we were several years ago in Bosnia. The fact that we sometimes wear blue beret doesn't mean that we aren't still soldiers.

I have no doubt that the soldiers who wear the blue berets are fine
soldiers. I also respect very much what they do.
If I was a betting man, I'd put money on the fact that more U.N. troops
have been called up and out because of troubles started by the U.S. than
by any other country or reason.
What I was trying to say earlier was that we don't want them over here in
the U.S. because we should be able to handle our own problems.
Lord knows we've messed over the U.N. forces many times before, using
them for political gain. We don't need to continue the scam.
We should have enough resources and veterans to make sure that any
policing done here will be done by citizens with a vested interest.
Using U.N. troops would only lead to more trouble.