morally injured soldiers: dutch soldiers battling with ... · 7 executive summary dutch soldiers...
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Morally injured soldiers:
Dutch soldiers battling with moral dilemmas
Maira Cornelissen
Master’s Thesis
Department: Social and Cultural Anthropology
VU University Amsterdam
Student Number:1869480
Supervisor: Dr. F. Colombijn
Second Assessor: Prof. Dr. M. van der Port
June 26, 2015
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Source picture: Kleinreesink, L.H.E. (2014). On Military Memoirs: Soldier-authors, publishers, plots and
motives. Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam.
‘This painting is a visual self-portrait of a soldier who has been changed by his deployment to
Afghanistan’ (Kleinreesink 2014).
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Samen zijn we de eenzame golfbreker
voor het kwetsbare vredesstrand.
En verzwakken en verbreken de kracht
van de nimmer aflatende oorlogsgolven.
Zo krijgen de korreltjes van menselijkheid en verdraagzaamheid,
die anders verloren gaan in de woelige stroming der gebeurtenissen,
de kans te bezinken op het natte strand
waar ze gedroogd en aangemoedigd door de frisse wind van de hoop,
geleidelijk samen zwaaien tot een hechte duingordel
dat een leefbaar land zal beschermen
tegen de vretende zee van haat, racisme en onverdraagzaamheid.
Anonymous
(A Dutch soldier fighting in Srebrenica)
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Together we are the lonely beach barrier
for the vulnerable beach of peace.
We weaken and breach the power
of the never ceasing waves of war.
This way the grains of humanity and tolerance,
which would otherwise be lost in the turbulent stream of events,
get a chance to settle on the wet sand
where they are dried and encouraged by the fresh wind of hope,
will gradually be swept together to become solid dunes
that will protect a liveable country
against the consuming sea of hatred, racism and intolerance.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all the veterans for participating in my research and for making my thesis a
possibility. I am grateful for your trust in me, your openness towards me and the tears you shed with
me. You are all admirable people, still fighting battles inside your head. You all have showed hope,
courage and strength. Although my research had to come to an end, I will not forget the kindness, the
warmth, and the laughs we shared. Thank you for everything.
I would also like to thank their families for opening up their homes and welcoming me each time with a
bright smile on their face.
Furthermore, I would like to show my appreciation to all the veterans and non-veterans working at the
Veldpost, Veteranen cafe, and Echo Home Base Support for their welcoming, open spirit and warm
coffee each time I visited.
My gratitude also goes out to my supervisor Freek Colombijn for the great support he has given me.
You have showed hope in times that I could not see it any more.
Last but not least, I want to thank my mother for making this year possible for me. You have showed
great support, trust and calmness.
Maira Cornelissen,
Amsterdam, June 2015
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Executive Summary
Dutch soldiers who participated in the peacekeeping operations Bosnia, 1992-1995, and Afghanistan, 2006-
2010, were confronted with pain, sadness and death. They were the direct or indirect victim of violence.
They witnessed the aftermath and human toll of violence. They inflicted violence and destruction upon
others. Although they have survived violent contacts, the use of violence has not left them unscathed. It may
have violated these soldiers assumptions and beliefs about right and wrong and personal goodness. The
question becomes how these soldiers justified the violent acts they have inflicted, suffered and observed
according to the army culture and civilian society.
The first part consists of these soldiers experiences of the peacekeeping operations in both Bosnia
and Afghanistan. In particular this first part is concentrated around the acts of violence these soldier were
part of, were a victim of, or a witness of. The next part considers the legitimization of war or peacekeeping
operations, the legitimization of violent acts among soldiers and the conflicting norms and values these
soldiers are confronted with while being in the field. The latter, these conflicting norms, will be further
explained by considering the different experiences these soldiers have had as perpetrators, victims or
observers of the violent acts during these two interventions, and choices they had to make according to their
norms and values, the values of the organization and the values that are central to civilian society. The last
part will consider the army culture as a coherent part.
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Table of contents
Acknowledgments p.5
Executive summary p.7
Table of contents p.9
Introduction p.11
Chapter one: Where mines become IED’s p.17
1.1. Violence p.17
1.2. The story of Bosnia: UNPROFOR p.19
1.3. The story of Srebrenica: Dutchbat p.23
1.4. The story of Afghanistan: ISAF p.27
Chapter two: The moral soldier p.34
2.1. Bellum Justum- jus ad bellum p.35
2.2. Bellum Justum- jus in bello p.38
2.3. Practical reason p.40
2.4. To face moral judgement p.41
Chapter three: Morally injured soldiers p.45
3.1. Moral dilemmas and choices among soldiers p.46
3.2. Humour is a strong weapon p.52
Chapter four: Together we stand strong p.55
4.1. the Dutch army p.56
Conclusion p.61
Appendix p.64
References p.65
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Introduction
'If only you would care to remember that fighting evil does not render one virtuous! Good and evil are
enemies, but there may not be much to distinguish between them
(Dragt cited in Ducheine & Pouw 2012, p. 33).
According to Tonke Dragt, good and evil may be viewed as opposite to each other, but as experience
tells us there is a thin line between good and evil. What could be defined as evil and what do we
understand as something good? According to Klaas, a veteran from Afghanistan and one of my
respondents, the time we believed in good and bad people, the time where we had to defeat the bad
guys, has perhaps never existed. Perhaps it has all been a fairy tale. The reality is, of course, much more
unruly.
I have also been wondering about how these concepts of good and evil could be understood in
situations where Dutch soldiers in peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Afghanistan are confronted
with pain, sadness and death.1 In these situations where they had become the direct or indirect victim
of violence, where they had witnessed the aftermath and human toll of violence and where they had
inflicted violence and destruction upon others (Drescher et al. 2011, p. 1). Although they may have
survived violent contacts, the use of violence did not leave them unscathed.
According to Hannah Arendt, military violence is to be understood by its instrumental
character. The implements of violence, like most tools, are designed and used for the purpose of
multiplying natural strength. Furthermore, violence is always in need of guidance and justification
through the end it pursues. Though violence can be justifiable, according to Arendt, it will never be
legitimate (Arendt 1970, p. 239, p. 241).
Exactly this latter distinction between Arendt’s (1970, p. 241) justifiability and legitimacy of
violence, drew my attention. According to the Oxford Dictionary, 2 justifiable is to be understood as
‘able to be shown to be right or reasonable; defensible’. Legitimate is to be understood as ‘conforming to
the law or to rules’. Though they look similar, I agree with Arendt’s position in treating them differently.
I do think, however, that treating acts of violence as justifiable, is a rather limited approach to an
understanding of violent acts. Perhaps, through logic reasoning, we can understand why other people
have used violence in certain situations. However, is it still reasonable or defensible in our own minds
when we impose such acts of violence? Does imposing acts of violence become a fight between right or
wrong, between logic and feeling, and between just and unjust in our own minds?
These questions are of particular interest to me, because most recent acts of Dutch army
1 http://clairefelicie.com/here-are-the-young-men
2 http://www.oxforddictionaries.com
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violence are labelled under the term 'peacekeeping'. Since the 1990's, peacekeeping has become the
most widely employed means of managing conflict and contributing towards its ultimate resolution.
This single function evolved, in recent years, into a multiplicity of tasks. These tasks included
humanitarian assistance, electoral monitoring, human rights observations, peace-making and
peacebuilding (Duffey 2000, p. 142).
Peacekeeping has changed the role of the soldier (Kraugerud 2011, p. 264) to a 'new soldier'.
He or she has become one who exercises restraint and caution in combat, and who shows empathy
towards the population (Sarkar cited by Hughes 2014, p. 239). Does this changed role of soldiers imply,
however, that acts of severe violence in peacekeeping operations have become less desirable or that
the use of violence among soldiers has become a sign of having no restraint and no empathy?
In recent years, the study of militarism has focused on the usefulness and effectiveness of the
military as an instrument of a state's foreign, security and defence politics (Haitiner & Kummel 2009, p.
75). Furthermore, this study of militarism has been complemented with a focus on the phenomenology
of war and violence. Within this perspective, violence is understood as a set of cultural practices.
Consequently, these violent cultural practices have consequences for civilians living in a society
controlled by civil war or state-sponsored terror (Guterson 2007, p. 164) However, militarism has been
less studied at a micro level, the level of the soldier (Haitiner & Kummel 2009, p. 75).
Although my research has focused on the experiences of the soldiers, larger social systems in
which soldiers move must be taken into account (Kummel 2006, p. 418). Every individual participates
at several systematic levels in society (Eriksen 2001 [1995], p. 75). Consequently, the military
organization can, thus, be seen as a subsystem of society. And its members are, therefore, influenced by
societal processes (Kummel 2006, p. 418).It is, however, not a one-way interaction. As Thomas H.
Eriksen states (2001 [1995] p. 48, 73), 'society is created by acting persons (…)If people would cease to
interact, society would no longer exist’.
As Gerhard Kummel (2007) indeed argues, researching the military and its soldiers needs to be
extended to an analysis of the interactions between the military world and the world beyond the
military (p. 418). If we go back to the questions concerning the justification of acts of violence, a fight
between right or wrong, one could ask whether army violence needs to be justified according to norms
of the army, to norms of the wider society of which the army is part, or both? If there is a certain
standard of right and wrong, how do soldiers balance between the different moral standards of the
military world and the world beyond the military?
Following from the questions above, I have formulated the following research question:
How do soldiers justify (legitimate) the use of violence (suffered , inflicted, observed) within the
army culture and within norms of (civilian) life outside the military?
Due to the complexity of the process of justification (legitimacy) among Dutch soldiers in Bosnia and
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Afghanistan, I felt inadequate to formulate a straightforward research question. The terms between
parentheses, therefore, show the difficulty these soldiers experience dealing with the conflicting norms
and values between themselves and their surroundings. I have broken down the research question into
three levels: acts of violence; norms and values about violence; and the organizational culture of the
army. I will discuss these different levels for the cases of two different interventions: Bosnia, from 1992
till 1995; and Afghanistan, from 2006 till 2010. In the first chapter I will explain the essence of these
two different interventions. However, it is important to know that the purpose of my argument is not to
compare these two different missions. Instead, I wish to argue how the process of justification among
these soldiers is similar for both missions, even though the circumstances in both Bosnia and
Afghanistan were different from each other.
The first chapter is concerned with the question, ‘in which acts of violence were the soldiers in
Bosnia and Afghanistan involved, either in the role of perpetrator, victim or audience? The different acts
of violence these soldiers were involved in, are based on the idea of the ‘triangle of violence’. This
triangle consists of perpetrator, victim and audience (Strathern & Stewart 2006, p. 5). I will explain the
different violent acts according to all three perspectives for both Bosnia and Afghanistan. I wish to
argue that these perspectives are intertwined within each conflict and in practice cannot be separated
from each other.
According to Andrew Strathern and Pamela Stewart (2006, p. 5), the legitimacy of violence is
distributed differently around this triangle. In order to create a better understanding of the different
motives and values within this triangle, I will discuss the questions, ‘did the soldiers ever assess violence,
used, received or observed, in terms of morality of the army culture, and if so when and in which
situation? and, ‘when did soldiers assess experienced acts of violence by the contradicting moral
standards of the army and life outside the army?’ Before I will be able to answer these questions, I will
first discuss the theoretical basis of these questions in chapter two.
The ‘just war’ theory’ proposed by Michael Walzer (2006 [1977]), concerns the norms jus ad
bellum3 and jus in bello4. According to Walzer (2006 [1977]), these norms determine whether soldiers
have fought a ‘dirty’ or ‘clean’ war, and whether their actions could be considered right or wrong.
Arendt, however, moves away from this absolute distinction between right and wrong and argues that
men should use practical reason in judging moral situations. Both Walzer and Arendt, thus, give more
insight into how soldiers could assess the violent acts they have inflicted, suffered or observed.
In the first section of chapter three I will focus on the different violent acts these soldiers were
involved in and how they would assess these situations according to the norms of the army culture.
Although these norms should have offered the soldiers more clarity on how to assess moral situations,
in these instances it did not give any clarity. The norms of the army culture, instead, interfered with the
3 Jus ad belleum refers to the aspect of public international law concerning acceptable justifications to engage
in war. and the limits to acceptable wartime conduct (jus in bello or International humanitarian law). 4 Jus in Bello refers to the limits to acceptable wartime conduct.
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moral self and led to more insecurities. Following this section, I will discuss how soldiers are not only
confronted with the conflicting moral standards once they are demobilized, separated from the army
culture and back in the civil community. I will argue instead, that these soldiers are already confronted
with these conflicting moral standards while they are still in the field.
In the last chapter, I will discuss, ‘how soldiers experience the ' army culture' within the
organization of the army (and outside this organization)’. These soldiers experience difficulty when
returning home and they are expected to realign in society. Since these soldiers have been disciplined
to embody an organizational identity (Ewalt and Ohl 2013, p. 209), the military identity, they
experience difficulty dealing with the conflicting norms and values between the military culture and
life outside this culture.
The methodology I used during my field research from January till April 2015, consisted of oral
histories collected by using both semi-structured interviews and informal conversations (O'Reily 2005,
p. 129). By conducting oral histories, I tried to understand the decisions these soldiers made, the
feelings and fears they experienced, and the difficulties they encountered while being in either Bosnia
or Afghanistan.
I have held informal conversations at several places. During the first week of my research I
firstly visited the veterans café, and secondly the Veldpost, a walk-in house for Veterans. In the second
month I was present at a court hearing concerning veterans of Srebrenica. In the last month of my
research, I visited a Home Base Support, HBS, where veterans could come together. Although only six
interviews stemmed from these visits, two interviewees were willing to present my research online in
two closed veterans groups, from which many other interlocutors came forward. I have chosen to use
pseudonyms to protect the privacy of these veterans. Furthermore, I decided not to reveal any job
descriptions. In some instances, mentioning both year and job description could lead to the traceability
of a person.5
As I am standing in front of the veterans cafe looking through the window, I feel my legs getting heavier
and heavier. Unfortunately, I cannot see anything or anyone behind this window. It is too dark and I can
only see my own reflection. I then realise, they can see me. As I am getting over my nervous feelings, I
walk inside through a dark wooden door. It is a very small cafe where the sun from outside cannot
penetrate the inside, leaving the cafe in total darkness.
The lamps hanging from the walls give off a very yellow light, making the cafe look old and
dirty. The lights just shine enough to see the three, brownish wooden tables on the right side of the
wall. Between the timbre bar on the left side and the tables on the other side, there is very little space
to walk towards the back. Since the stools take up most of the space in the middle, it becomes a bumpy
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I have given an overview of the respondents I interviewed in the appendix
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ride towards the restroom in the back
I am greeted by a tall, big man with a pointy, thick, white moustache covering his smile making
the place look a bit more bright. He says: 'You must be the girl who has called me! Welcome!' With the
alcohol smell on his breath, he lifts up his arms and puts them around my shoulder. 'I will introduce
you to some people', he says to me while we walk towards two older men sitting at the dark timbre bar.
They put down there glasses of beer and they stand up to greet me. Again the smell of alcohol greets
me while they say: 'Hello girl what brings you here?' I explain to them the purpose of my being there,
which is accompanied with them chuckling and saying: 'Oooh we have nothing to say. We are just some
oooold guys.' I smile at them uncomfortably while I glance at the room for a place to sit.
However, the man with the white moustache, Joost, notices my clumsy, uncomfortable
appearance and again takes me under his wing introducing me to the ten other people sitting or
standing inside the cafe. As other people are coming in and slowly filling the place, his attention and his
smile for me fade away. He greets the other people with the same bright smile as he greeted me. On
some occasions the men coming in even get a hug from Joost, wishing them a happy new year.
I sit down at the last table in the back of the cafe. From the bag I was carrying, I take out my
notebook and two pens. You never know if the ink might finish. I put them both down on the table and I
make myself comfortable for the couple hours I was expecting myself to sit there. At that time I was
still under the impression I could oversee the whole cafe from this perspective. However, I could not be
more wrong. Within an hour the cafe was packed with at least fifty men blocking my view.
This was, however, not the only misjudgement I made that day. I went down to the veterans
cafe under the presumption the café would be packed with veterans from either Bosnia or Afghanistan.
Again, I could not be more wrong. I was surrounded by marine men having gone to either Indonesia or
New Guinea. However, as I try to hide my disappointment, Joost comes up to me and pulls me away
from the conversation I am having with an Indonesian veteran who once flew in a F16 plain. Joost tells
me he wants to introduce me to a veteran who had been in Bosnia.
Dennis is standing at the end of the bar holding a glass of beer, while he speaks with the man in
a suit next to him. I notice he is standing at the end of the bar and not between the other veterans and I
wonder why. Perhaps he does not feel at ease within that crowd of people or he just wants to have the
space and the people in clear sight. As I look at him, I get distracted by the yellow bar light reflecting on
his bald head. Joost comes up and stands next to him, whispering something in his ear. He looks up to
me and our eyes meet. I see something in his eyes, but I cannot read it. He gives me a nod and
continues his conversation with the man in the suit.
He comes over while I am standing in the middle of the room. He asks me what my purpose is
of being in the veteran's cafe. While he looks suspiciously at me, I explain the interests of my research.
His look gradually changes from suspicion to sadness. I see tears slowly coming down from his eyes. I
gently put my hand on his arm, hoping it would offer him some comfort. Again I look into his eyes and
I, then, see what I saw before, sadness and pain mixed with a sparkle of hope. It was only then that I
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realized the sensitivity of my research and the relevance to the veterans.
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Chapter one
Where mines become IED's
Before I can go into the moral dilemmas of the soldiers sent out on peacekeeping missions, I would like
to find an answer to the basic question ‘in which acts of violence were the soldiers in Bosnia and
Afghanistan involved, either in the role of perpetrator, victim or audience?’ I will first discuss the
meaning of violence according to the ‘triangle of violence’. The following sections contain the different
acts of violence these Dutch soldiers have experienced while being either in Bosnia or Afghanistan.
This first part consists of the narrative of Bosnia told by soldiers of UNPROFOR. The second
section will tell the narrative of the ‘safe area’, Srebrenica, by Dutchbat. Although both sections
constitute the Bosnian conflict, they are equally important and could not be reduced to a single story.
The last part of this chapter will be about the operation ISAF led by Dutch soldiers in Uruzgan.
1.1. Violence
Violence is not only somewhere else. It is part of our whole society. It is not just there in Third World
countries, or on a distant battle field, or in a secret interrogation centre. It is an inescapable fact of life
for every country, nation and person, whether or not they are personally touched by direct violence.
Violence is an all too human reality (Nordstrom & Robben 1995, p.3). But nevertheless, the use of
violence is very confusing and inconclusive. Even soldiers, who have been trained continuously to
perform certain acts of violence while being in a combat zone in different terrifying situations, cannot
rely on the routines of exercise and commands (Nordstrom & Robben 1995, p.4). I will come back to
this in chapter two.
In 'Violence and Society' (2011), Larry Ray gives a theoretical overview of the different ways
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violence has been understood within the social sciences. Vittorio Bufacchi (in Ray 2011, p.8)
understands violence within two conceptions: a narrow minimalist conception and a broader,
comprehensive conception. This first conception refers to physical force and 'bodily response and
harm'. This perspective is indeed quite narrow in that it leaves out the wider contexts of social
relationships in which violence occurs. It is further stated that violence does not always require
physical force.
The second, comprehensive conception really entails a wider range of what could be viewed
as acts of violence. According to Bufacchi (in Ray 2011, p.9) people who are prevented from human
realization and who have been violated in their rights or in their integrity, entails violence. Although
the narrow understanding of violence is rather limited, this broader perspective entails so many
meanings that it leaves us with no meaning at all.
Ray (2011, p. 9) continues with another distinction, namely between instrumental and
expressive violence. The first is directed towards a specific goal, thus violence is used to obtain some
personal material gain. Expressive violence, on the other hand, refers to violence performed for
intrinsic gratification and might express an underlying emotion, or gratifies a desire for a 'high' from
violence. However ,this distinction between instrumental and expressive violence has been criticized
since they are, in practice, often combined (Ray 2011, p. 10). Furthermore, these descriptions refer
more to why we would use violence, instead of what violence is.
According to Bettina Schroder and Ingo Schmidt (2001, p. 3), violence could be understood as
the insertion of power, which also forms the underlying matter in the above two mentioned
distinctions, instrumental and expressive violence. According to David Riches (Schroder and Schmidt
(2001, p. 3) the act of physical hurt is only seen as justified (legitimate), once the perpetrator and
witness (audience) have judged the act as justifiable. In the introduction, Arendt (1970, p. 241) also
states violence is to be understood by its instrumental character that only becomes meaningful
through guidance and justification. Without guidance, violence would become an important and
successful strategy of many different kinds of perpetrators (Schroder & Schmidt 2001, p. 5).
Although both power and legitimacy form important aspects of the efficiency of violent acts,
violence would not be considered socially meaningful without an audience that recognizes the
performative quality of violence. Consequently, the message of violent acts reaches a wider public.
Furthermore, the message is not only limited to the present. Its stories move through the realm of the
present to the future (Schroder & Schmidt 2001, p. 6), which is true concerning these stories of both
Bosnia and Afghanistan.
This performative quality of violence, also makes violence part of the everyday experience
without being actually part of the act (Schroder & Schmidt 2001, p. 6). In Afghanistan there was a
separation between soldiers in the field and soldiers that would perform certain duties in the camp.
The latter group of soldiers, the one staying in camp Holland, would be the audience of the soldiers
experiencing physical hurt in the field. The audience would witness the injuries of the soldiers coming
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back from the battlefield.
Because of its performative quality, many acts of violence can be seen differently by different
people. Consequently, the legitimacy of violence can be contested. According to Riches’ ‘triangle of
violence’, which is based on the differentiation between perpetrator, victim and witness of violence, the
legitimacy of violence is distributed differently around this triangle. Especially the perspective of
witness creates difficulty because of the categories’ broad implications; many individuals evaluate or
legitimize an act of violent differently (Strathern & Stewart 2006, p. 5). Depending on who is
considered to be witness, the soldiers or the wider public (civilian life outside the military), it leads to
different evaluations according to the different moral systems they have.
Furthermore, Christian Krohn-Hansen (in Schroder & Schmidt 2001, p. 12) pleads for a more
holistic interpretation of acts of violence. If people are to understand acts of violence as performance,
one must look at the motives and the values of the uses of violence according to all three perspectives
around this triangle of violence. In reality, according to Schroder & Schmidt (2001, p.12), it is not
always possible to take these three perspectives into account. Instead, a researcher can also rely on
only two perspectives; either the perspective of the victim or perpetrator and audience.
Strathern and Stewart (2006, p. 8) state that violence is a part of life for nearly everyone. Every
person will be confronted with violent acts t one point in their lives. Some individuals will be a victim,
some will be perpetrators and others will be witnesses of the violent acts they are confronted with.
This does not mean however a witness is safely removed from the impact of violence. Being a witness
does not rule out that something might happen to them
In the next three sections I focus on the ‘triangle of violence’ while discussing the experiences
of the Dutch soldiers. I first discuss the intervention of UNPROFOR in the Bosnian conflict. The second
section discusses the experiences of the Dutchbat soldiers in Srebrenica during the Bosnian conflict.
The last section concerns the ISAF soldiers in Afghanistan. Although both UNPROFOR and Dutchbat
were part of the intervention in Bosnia, I decided to discuss both cases separate from each other.
During my research I noticed they, the soldiers,
1.2. The narrative of Bosnia: UNPROFOR6
After the death of president Tito in 1980, Yugoslavia got divided. Nationalistic sentiments that Tito had
suppressed became an important tool for nationalistic leaders. The Serbian leader Milosevic created
fear among the Serbian people by warning his people for the Croatians and especially the Bosnians.
Milosevic was, however, not the only nationalistic leader that created hatred between the different
groups of people. The Croatian leader Tudjman, the Bosnian-Serbian leader Karadzic and the Bosnian
Muslim leader Izetbegovic were all part of the growing hate between these groups (Praamsma et al.
6 The data I used in chapters one to four are translated from Dutch transcriptions. Although, I tried to remain close to the
original transcriptions, the citations in these chapters are not a literal translation
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2005, p. 11).
In 1992 the situation led to an explosion. It was officially war (and not civil war), since these
nationalistic leaders did not want to coexist in one country. They each wanted to have their own
country, but could not agree concerning the territory
of each country. While these leaders were arguing,
the people in towns and villages were slowly killing
each other. People were bombed with grenades,
whole villages and monuments were bombarded,
people were captured and tortured in camps. No one
was secure anymore (Praamsma et al. 2005, p. 11).
At the beginning of November 1991 both
regimes in Belgrade and Zagreb asked for help from
the United Nations. Help came a couple of months
later in early spring of 1992 (De Graaff 2002, p. 489)
in the form of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) unity. The goal of UNPROFOR, as a
peacekeeping operation, was to create conditions for finding political solutions for the conflict between
these different groups. These soldiers had to divide the groups by being present in this area with only
light arms at their disposal (De Graaff 2002, p.498). In order to perform this task they were stationed
in the United Nations Protected Areas (UNPA’s) in East-Slavonia (sector East), West-Slavonia (sector
West) and Krajina (sectors North and South). Within a short period of time the fifth sector, Sarajevo in
Bosnia was announced. On April 3rd 1992 the first Dutch 'verbindingsbataljon' arrived at Zagred as a
UNPROFOR unit (De Graaff 2002, p. 513).
Dennis and I meet each other at his place one week later on a cold but sunny Wednesday morning. As I
walk through his hallway, I am greeted by the bright sunlight coming from the tall windows in his living
room. He offers me something to drink, while I take a seat in his comfortable arm chair. He comes from
the kitchen carrying two cups of delicious coffee and sits down on the couch next to the chair. By the
look of the heat coming from the coffee, I just leave the coffee for now. However, Dennis slowly takes a
sip from his coffee, as if he needs some encouragement to start his story about his time in Bosnia in
1994.
‘It had been a busy day’, Dennis says to me. First, Dennis, the oldest Dutch officer at this camp,
had to accompany a minister from the Netherlands. The minister had come by to show his soldiers
some support. ‘Bullshit’, was what he was thinking. ‘It just distracts you from your already hectic work’.
After this frustrating visit, he had to work the night shift. At the end of his shift he had to inform the
next group about what had happened the last twenty-four hours in that area. Finally he was done for
that day.
He went to bed in one of the mobile homes he was staying in. However, these mobile homes
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were better described as klapdozen. They had no wheels and were only supplied with a roof, a door
and some very small windows and nothing more. However, this would not offer any protection or
security. ‘I slept with one other colleague in this thing with the door facing a path. They had made this
small path, because they had found out the Yugoslavs had left their munition and mines at this terrain,
which had been a Yugoslav army camp’. They could not cross this terrain safely. They could not walk
over the grass. They could only walk on this small path and after he took his leave of absence and got
back home in the Netherlands, he was still afraid to walk on the grass in his own garden.
He had fallen asleep in his cabin. He heard an enormous bang. He woke up and opened the
door to see a military truck turning on the terrain. He went back to bed and continued to sleep. Again
he heard an enormous bang. He opened the door not see a military truck turning, but a grenade
thrown into a building. ‘I heard the glass tinkle and the stones and iron raptured. The whole street was
empty and it felt as somebody had formed a vacuum after that enormous bang and impact. The only
sound you heard was the high sound of birds chirping’. Dennis looks up to me and I see tears in his eyes.
‘Finally, the attack had stopped’, Dennis continues. According to Dennis it appeared to be the
Serbs who had attacked them. ‘Our base was stationed right between the two warring parties and the
Serbs were watching us. They were watching us receive goods from the white planes of the UN and they,
the Serbs, had come to the conclusion that we were supplying the Bosnians. As a consequence they decided
to shoot whenever they saw a white bird’. Luckily the soldiers of this camp were able to nip the attacks
in the bud. Dennis was, however, not the only one who had been a victim of attacks during his time in
Bosnia.
Two weeks later at the veteran's cafe, I am introduced to a very tall but small man wearing his
ripped jeans and 'kisten'.7 While he is introducing himself as Sam, I see a very frolicsome appearance.
We walk towards the table in the back of the cafe. While we slowly moved to the back, I hear somebody
say to Sam he has changed his hair colour. Apparently he had dyed his hair a couple of days ago; from a
dark blond colour to a kind of red that has the tendency to be more orange.
‘We had to drive to Sarajevo numerous times’, Sam starts to tell. ‘During our drive we had to go
through several checkpoints in Croatia and when we came to Bosnia these checkpoints changed. They had
put two large pieces on the ground covered with mines and with strings to it. If we had to pass these
checkpoints, a guy would pull the string to move aside these two pieces. Here I definitely learned how to
drive’.
According to Sam, the people at the checkpoints could also be very aggressive instead of only
intimidating. Here, people would attack you. ‘One time, as we were driving through one of the
checkpoints in Bosnia, the people standing there were checking our vehicles. During these checks they
logically had seen the stock in the back of my truck. A couple of miles further down the road we were
raided at gunpoint. Well, I drew my Uzi and I got the attacker out of my truck without shooting him”.
7 Black military boots.
22
Martijn, who was also sent to Bosnia several times between 1992 and 1995, tells me about his
near death experience while he is sitting on his black leather couch. ‘I know what it feels like to die, he
said to me. It was very close. I saw several pictures of the time I was younger moving in front of my eyes. It
was like a film playing in front me, as I was lying on the ground. Finally, I saw twenty years of film rapidly
coming by. It only lasted a few seconds’.
‘This all happened after being shot by grenades in Sarajevo. I was thrown to the ground and I lay
there for a few seconds. I got up and I told my boys to leave. As we were walking, somebody started to jell
at me about my pants being completely red. I looked down and I saw a piece of grenade that was
launched, was stuck in my leg. I never felt this piece in my leg during or after the attack. However, when I
looked down and I saw the splinter, the pain got almost unbearable. I had to pull through, though, and not
show any signs of pain to my boys’.
However, this was not the first shooting Martijn had experienced. ‘One evening I was driving
with a female colleague of mine. We had to drive without a shred of light and could, therefore, not see
properly. Our vehicle came to a stop, because it broke down. At the same time we were put in gun sights.
The two armoured vehicles of UNPROFOR, one in front of us and the other at the end, left as quickly as
they could. And we were left with a broken vehicle in the dark while we were being shot at’. According to
Martijn, these moments were really terrifying, especially since they could not fire back. Furthermore, it
was really difficult not knowing who was targeting them and whether they were the target. There were
also times the UNPROFOR soldiers were not the direct target.
At one point, according to Dennis, his unit had built an observation post, OP, in the area where
they were stationed. The Dutch soldiers would observe the acts of the Serbs and in times of fire they
would report back to the base. ‘One day the shootings were directed at our OP’, Dennis says to me. ‘After
the shootings stopped, the commander of the OP handed us a report about what had happened. According
to this rapport, there were eight incoming grenades and six outgoing grenades. This could not be true! We
would not shoot!’ According to Dennis, the Bosnians had built their own post right next to our OP. In
times that the Serbs were shooting, the Bosnians would shoot back for the continuation of the
shootings and for a further involvement of the UN.
Dennis recalls other incidents where Bosnians pushed for a further involvement of the UN.
First, he tells me about the marketplace in Sarajevo, a Bosnian city in a Serbian area, which had been
under severe attack. These attacks had severe consequence; 300 injured civilians and 190 deaths The
Serbs were suspected to have instigated this attack. However, after research it appeared to be the
Bosnians who had killed Bosnians.
He then tells me about a Bosnian cemetery just behind the border in Serbian area. ‘The
Bosnians had asked the Serbs whether they could commemorate the deaths one day each year. That day
the Bosnians went to the cemetery. Suddenly there were explosives and grenades flying around. The
Bosnians fled back to their own area and pointed there finger to the Serbs’. However, only after research
it appeared to be the Bosnians who had attacked their own people. Although these three cases had
23
made quite an impact on Dennis’s perspective of the situation, both Sam and Martijn had rather
different experiences that had formed their perspective of war.
‘We were driving through Bosnia’, Sam says, ‘through the villages. On one of the houses I saw an
Ustase sign’.8 He stops talking and he looks at me for some recognition. ‘With that point stripe, you
know’, he continues. ‘On the other house I saw a chetnik9 sign. A cross with four c's. Both signs were
written in dark red and at that moment you knew it was written in blood. You did not see this in just one
village, but for several miles it was the only thing you saw. As you drove through these villages the scent of
wood and coal of burning fireplaces had already evaporated. There was nobody there anymore. Only
silence and emptiness could be found. You knew these villages were cleansed. Yes, this idea still hurts’.
While I am sitting on that same black leather couch diagonally from Martijn, he tells me about
his experience with body exchange. ‘Two trucks would pull up from two different parties and they would
exchange corpses right then and there. Everyone wanted, of course, to bury their own people. However,
the first corpses that were put in these trucks might have been lying there for more than six weeks during
a hot summer. That smell coming from these bodies, I will never forget. I had seen corpses before, but that
smell. Horrible’. According to Martijn, these corpses were being unloaded in white body bags. He was
ordered to referee the process. ‘If one party would say, for instance, I have one hundred corpses, the
other party had to offer exactly the same amount. Otherwise the deal was off. They were, of course,
warring parties and it could go wrong’.
In this section I have showed situations of acts of violence these UNPROFOR soldiers were
confronted with. The stories told in the above are mainly concentrated on the perspectives victim and
audience, which are two perspectives around the ‘triangle of violence’. Although I have not shown in
this section how these soldiers acted in the role of perpetrator, it is suffice to know for now that this
role will be made clear in chapter three.
1.3. The narrative of Srebrenica: Dutchbat
I met Garey during the last month of my research at the Home Base Support. The Home Base Support,
HBS, was built somewhere in the middle of the woods, making it a beautiful place to visit. As I am
slowly walking through the high grass and the many branches that were thrown to the ground by last
week’s storm, I am approaching the HBS. It is an oblong building with tall windows covering the front. I
walk through the entrance, through a small hallway and through a sliding door to enter a bright and
sunny space.
8 The Ustase were members of the Croatian Revolutionary Movement, who propagandised a 'pure' Croatia. This
entailed genocide against, amongst others, the Serbs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usta%C5%A1e) 9 Chetnik refers to the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army. This militia stood for a Greater Serbia were Non-
Serbs were not welcome. The non-Serbs would be cleansed, terrorized and demoralised
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chetniks).
24
I am happily greeted by one of the employees who was cleaning the two showcases right
across from the sliding door. As she tries to get up, she asks me what brings me to HBS. At the moment
I want to answer her, two people sitting at an oblong timbre table call me over. I walk towards them
'You are the girl that called us', they say to me, while gesturing me to sit down at their table.
The room is filled with the same kind of oblong timbre tables, alternated by round tables. In
the middle of the room three couches are placed in a U-shape facing the television hanging from the
wall. Behind this wall there are two pool tables and a place to play with a PlayStation. As they see me
observing the room, they tell me about soldiers in training who would come to the HBS to relax a little
and to order other meals than is served in the cafeteria at the base. Veterans, on the other hand, would
come together and talk about life while enjoying their cup of coffee or tea. I decide to come back the
next week to sit among the veterans and join the conversations they are having.
During my second visit I meet Garey. I am already sitting at the same table where I sat last
week as Garey walks in. I see a casually dressed man walking in, wearing a black t-shirt, some dark
jeans and 'kisten'. He looks cranky or angry as he is coming in. However, greeting his fellow veterans
brought a smile to his face. He is looking around the table for a place to sit. The only place left was right
across from me. He starts to talk with the other veteran next to me while he pours himself some coffee.
They talk about their hobby, riding motors. Suddenly the conversation switches. The five veterans
sitting at this table start to talk about their time in Bosnia. During the conversation it becomes
apparent Garey was one of the soldiers of Dutchbat II.
At the beginning of April 1992, a military unit consisting of Bosnian Serbs arose. Their goal was to
disarm the Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica and to intimidate them into leaving the area. Indeed, a lot of
people fled to either Tuzla or the mountains (Dijkema 1996, p.18). However, the Bosnian Muslims
stroke back and the conflict slowly came to a boiling point on May 6th and May 7th 1992: the battle of
Srebrenica. The Bosnian Muslims gained back their area, Srebrenica, by paying the price of the cruel
murders of their own (Dijkema 1996, p.20).
On the 20th of January 1993 the Bosnian Muslims lost the fight and lost their area, Srebrenica
and the surrounding villages, to the better equipped Serbs. The Bosnian Muslims were forced back to
what later would be called the enclave of Srebrenica. For the next couple of months the inhabitants and
refugees of Srebrenica were put under heavy fire till it stopped at May 6th 1993 with the arrival of the
French General Morillon. He was the one who asked for worldwide attention for the Bosnians in the
enclave that was continuously surrounded by the Serbs. Finally, the United Nations decided to declare
the enclave as a safe area (Dijkema 1996, p.21). The UN had further decided to send a Canadian
UNPROFOR unity to the safe area monitoring observance of the mandate. However, in February 1994
the Canadians had to hand over their assignment to Dutchbat I (Dijkema 1996, p. 22).
Dutchbat lived together with both the inhabitants and Bosnian refugees in a valley that was
surrounded by the Serbs. At the border of the enclave, the Dutch soldiers had several observation posts
25
in order to monitor these warring parties. They had to walk patrols through this area and observe any
changes in violent acts among the Bosnians towards the Serbs. If there were any changes, they would
have to report back to the UN (Praamsma et al. 2005, p. 16).
Dutchbat I and II, which arrived on 29th of June 1994, both returned to the Netherlands
completing a successful mission. During Dutchbat I and Dutchbat II there were no significant incidents
and their task was accomplished (Praamsma et al. 2005, p. 16). In January 1995 Dutchbat III was ready
to leave for Srebrenica. They arrived in a relatively safe area, but this was about to change. Around
April the atmosphere changed; the Serbs did not hold up to their agreements with the UN, the
increasing shellings by the Serbs and the militarization of the Bosnians (Praamsma et al. 2005, p. 17).
This Dutch mission eventually came to a dramatic end in July 1995. The Bosnian Serbs conquered this
region and killed nearly eight thousand Bosnian Muslims10.
This is the safe area Srebrenica. The
blue helmets show the different
observation posts within the area. If
they had finished their tasks at the
op, they returned back to the Dutch
camp in Potocari
Two weeks later, when Garey and I meet each other at his home, Garey tells me their mission could not
be called successful while he is showing me the pictures of his time in Srebrenica. The pictures slowly
slide across the screen of his computer. At one picture he stops. 'Every window you see here, a whole
family was living behind that window. They lived with at least twenty people in the apartments'. While I
was looking at the picture I saw multiple bullet holes. 'Here, in top of the building, they had shot an extra
window from only a mile away. That was a sniper who had done this. Just for fun, you know.' Later he tells
10 http://www.veteraneninstituut.nl/missie/voormalig-joegoslavie/)
26
me the Serbs had done this. ‘They would shoot people from only a mile away’.
As we continue to look at these pictures, he tells me there have been enough shootings.
‘Especially from the OP's surrounding the enclave. There the Bosnians would lie underneath your post and
they would shoot at the Serbs. The only thing we could do, was to fire a fireball inside of a mortar. The
shooting took place in the middle of the night. However, firing a fireball turned it to daylight. Everyone
turned away quickly and the shootings came to an end’. According to both Elmer and Dax, Dutchbat III
soldiers, the Bosnians were trying to provoke violence. Making it look as if we were shooting at the
Serbs. This was the only thing we could do.
‘It was not like Serbs were always shooting at us’, Garey continues. ’It was only not always clear
when or where we would be under attack. Usually the Serbs were just bullying us when we were walking
our patrols. They would, for instance, drop something in front of your feet. However, one time it did not
end well. A sergeant was shot in his foot and could not continue his mission. As a consequence we had
ordered F16s to fly over Serbian area and to shoot flares, magnesium balls, as a warning. Next it would be
real bullets’.
Just like Garey, Elmer and Dax had to walk patrols near the border between the Bosnians and
Serbs. However, every time they were passing by with their blue helmets on, they got shot. ‘During one
of these patrols’, Elmer continues, ‘we had to walk towards the dumping ground. That was just horrible.
Children were going through the rubbish. Sometimes containers from one of our camps were delivered
here and you saw these parents literally throw their children inside of these containers to obtain the
better things’. As I glance at him, I still see the hurt in his eyes.
At one point during the conversation with Garey, he mentioned he had been taken hostage by the Serbs
for a week. At that time he did not understand why he had been taken. However, when he got back
from the mission he went to look for more information about it. It appeared that the UN had carried
out air strikes and as leverage they were taken hostage.
At that time during the interview he quickly changed the subject when I asked him about his
experience. However, near the end of the interview he came back to this topic. Again he mentioned he
had been taken hostage. ‘Seventy men were taken hostage in November. We were put in three rooms and
we only had forty-five mattresses to our disposal. More mattresses would not even fit in these small rooms.
Thus, one was sleeping while the other kept watch. And every day we received a bowl of soup and some
bread. That was it’.
This was not the first time I heard about Dutchbatters being taken hostage. Elmer, Dax, and
Murrie arrived at the beginning of January 1995. Within a week after their arrival, both Elmer and Dax
who were stationed at the same OP, were taken hostage. Instead, they were not taken to a separate
building, but were ordered not to leave the OP. If they would try, though they would have been shot.
Murrie, who was stationed at a different OP, was taken hostage near the end of the crisis in
Srebrenica. After he and his unit were released, he was sent back to the Netherlands. Back home he
27
would finally find out the enclave was under Serbian control and 8000 Bosnians were brutally
murdered. According to Elmer, he had been one of the many Dutch soldiers who had been taken
hostage by the Serbs. These Serbs used the Dutch soldiers as part of their negotiation tactics; stop
threatening with the use of F16s or we will just kill these soldiers.
However, both Elmer and Max were still present at the time the enclave was declared to the
Serbs. The Serbs were using heavy artillery, according to Elmer. ‘They were shooting with those heavy
things and shot our defence wall. They kept shooting at us and at one point it flew over our defence wall. I
could feel the grenades falling next to me. They were really targeting us. At that moment we decided to
withdraw.’
1.4. The narrative of Afghanistan: ISAF
After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the United States started Operation Enduring Freedom. According to
research carried out by the United States, the terrorists were educated and trained in Afghanistan. The
operation entailed a mix of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, which could better be
understood as destroying Al Qaeda and ousting the Taliban from Afghanistan. From the end of 2001
the Dutch armed forces have also been involved in this military operation.
In 2001 Jochem, a hefty, tall, blond guy wearing a permanent scowl on his face, arrived at
Kabul at a British camp. ‘It was really extreme’, he says to me. ‘Temperatures rose between fifty or sixty
degrees. We were not able to shower because the water, stored in big aluminium silos, rose to a
temperature of one hundred degrees. Also at night, in those tents we were sleeping in, it was horrible. It
was unbelievably hot. Finally, we were sleeping outside on our camp-beds surrounded by wild dogs and
God knows what…’, he tells me while he looks at me with sarcasm. ‘However, within two months we had
a camp that offered more comfort’.
While Jochem speaks of his time in Kabul, it becomes apparent he was not part of Operation
Enduring Freedom. 'I think we have played an important part in the build-up of Kabul. We were able to
realize several projects and I think we have accomplished good things.' He was, indeed, not speaking of
'search and destroy', instead he was part of International Security Assistance Force, better known as
ISAF. Together with soldiers from forty different countries, the armed forces were trying to build up a
nation in Afghanistan according to western value. (Van der Meulen et al. 2012, p. 11).
‘Afghanistan is a country that has been in war for several years, Jochem continues. First the
Russians, followed by the Taliban, the Russians again, to end with the Taliban. These people have been
raped and murdered. Clearly, they have been under pressure for quite some time. However, they have
become familiar with this. It is part of their lives’.
‘During my time in Kabul I also witnessed how unhygienic the lives of these people were. There
was one big river flowing through Kabul. The water from this river was used for many purposes. They
28
bathed and brushed their teeth while at the same time using the river as their own personal restroom. It is
as if you go back a hundred years’.
'I do not know how the situation was in Uruzgan, because Uruzgan was totally different from
Kabul. The only thing I know is that the mission of Kabul was first and Uruzgan came second.' Although, it
is beyond the scope of this thesis to discuss whether and how the mission of Kabul is different from the
operation in Uruzgan, Jochem is right about Kabul being the beginning of the ISAF operation. This was,
however, about to change.
In 2003 the NATO council had decided to expand the operation to four different parts in
Afghanistan. The expansion was completed according to four different stages beginning with stage one,
the northern part of Afghanistan, in 2004. In 2005 stage two, the western part, was realized.
Subsequently, in 2006 both stage three, the southern part, and stage four, the eastern part were
realized (Warren 2010, p. 7).
On February 2nd 2006, Dutch parliament had decided the Dutch armed forces would be part of
one of these four Provincial Reconstruction Teams, PRT. Together with the Canadians in Kandahar
province and the British in Helmand, Dutch soldiers would be placed in the Southern part of
Afghanistan leading Task Force Uruzgan (Duivenbode, 2010, p. 29).
Uruzgan is situated in the middle of Afghanistan. Camp Holland was situated near the town Tarin Kowt, TK. The pink area refers to an area controlled by the Taliban. The green coloured spots indicate areas that were relatively safe.
Initially Dutch parliament had decided the Dutch armed forces would only be there for two years, since
the public did not agree with both the international society enforcing their agenda on domestic politics
and on the mission Uruzgan (Van der Meulen & Mantas 2012 p. 24). According to the Dutch minister,
after two years this mission would be assigned to another NATO country (Van Kampen et al. 2012, p.
48; Van der Meulen & Mantas 2012 p. 24, 25).
29
However, after the summer of 2007 it slowly became apparent there were no other NATO
countries offering their armed forces (Van der Meulen & Mantas 2012 p. 26). The only solution found
by both international and national politics, was keeping the Dutch armed forces in this area. Finally,
this accumulated into two more years, making it a four year total from 2006 till 2010 (Van der Meulen
et al. 2012, p. 11) .
‘In 2006 it was a great mission’, Dennis explains to me while he nervously tries to light up his
cigarette. ‘As I returned to the Netherlands and to the base, my commander asked whether I would go
back. I did not hesitate for a second. In 2007 I returned to Uruzgan, Tarin Kowt, in anticipation of again a
great mission. However, I soon came to the realization this was not the operation of 2006’.
According to Nick, in the beginning of 2006 the Dutch armed forces were only exploring the
area. ‘At the end of 2006 we had established several observation posts in the surrounding area of Tarin
Kowt, TK. Everything went according to plan. However, we soon realized we had not tightly secured the
whole area and in 2007 the Taliban, had surrounded us’. ‘The Taliban was closely near us’, Nick explains,
‘if we would throw an apple over our defence wall, we would have hit somebody’.
‘2007 was really bad’, Dennis continues, ‘I will never forget. During one of my first patrols two
marines stepped on an IED, Improvised Explosive Device. From that moment on, it went downhill. Many
soldiers started to panic and did not know what to do. It was crucial that I made sure nobody would make
mistakes leading to more IED's to explode and more people injured. As everything was secured, I glanced
at the two marines. Luckily one was not severely injured, but the other... It was horrible. His body was
lacerated’.
Max also had a hard time forgetting two days, in particular, during his mission in 2007. ‘On the
2nd of October our Bravo commander drove with his vehicle onto an IED. We had six wounded soldiers
lying in the desert. We had to take that vehicle’... He stops in the middle of his sentence and wonders off.
I see him gazing through the window. ‘The vehicle was taken away by the Quick Reaction Force, he
continues. The next day we were ordered to come back to camp Holland. As we were driving to TK, we see
a car on a paved road two miles in front of us. The way the vehicle was moving drew our attention and
within a split second the car drove towards us. It was a suicide bombing’.
‘If a vehicle moves towards you’, Bobbie explains to me, ‘it is probably a suicide bombing’.
According to Bobbie, you will first have to order the driver to stop by using a stop sign. If the driver of
the vehicle keeps coming towards you, you have to use the stop sign again. After giving the driver two
warnings, well, you must shoot the driver through the wind shield. In case the vehicle strays off, you
know you have killed that man.
‘I was in the tower guarding camp Kandahar, an American camp, together with another soldier. It
was very dark’, Charlotte says to me. Usually, no vehicles are allowed to enter our camp. Only during the
day for Afghan people working here. ‘As we were looking into the darkness of the night, I saw a vehicle
approaching us at incredibly high speed. It ignored our first stop sign and I decided to give a warning
shot. However, the man in the Afghan vehicle thought he was under fire and he increased his speed. As a
30
consequence, I decided to shoot at him. My whole body was shaking at that moment, Charlotte tells me. I
thought it was a suicide bomber’.
Max continues his collision with an IED while riding the YPR.11 According to Max, the inside of
an YPR has a two-part space making sure the soldiers will not be pierced by shrapnel. However, this
time they were clearly out of luck. As a consequence of the explosion, the commanders’ leg was injured
by shrapnel, the deputy was thrown out of the vehicle for several miles and the artilleryman had severe
burns on his legs due to some leaking of hydraulic liquid. However, they were all still alive.
The stories of Dennis, Bobbie, Charlotte and Max have shown how they and other Dutch
soldiers have been involved in several instances where they were a victim of an act of violence
conducted by the Taliban. The following instances, though, portray the soldiers as both a perpetrator
and a victim.
While Bobbie and I are flipping through his photo album he had made of his time in
Afghanistan, he says to me quietly, 'My task was to search and destroy. It was very simple. I only had to
find the scoffers and kill them. I used a .50 as my weapon. That is a heavy calibre with a huge amount of
power. I have seen people burst into small pieces of flesh. If we had to ransack a home from where we
were shot’, Bobbie continues, ‘we had a special tactic’. According to Bobbie, the walls of the houses in
Afghanistan are made of a very thick kind of clay. To go through this wall, we had to use a 'pantser
vuist', an anti-tank weapon. We shot a hole in the wall, followed by several grenades. Sometimes we
also used a forty millimetre grenade launcher to shoot a hole. After that we would throw some
grenades inside and shoot around.
Max, also a soldier in the field, was not unfamiliar with using his weapon. He could still
remember his first, big shoot-out. ‘It was just above Poentjak.12 Finally, the shoot-out lasted for almost
two days! I can still remember it like it was yesterday. I was standing on a jeep in the back holding a
machine gun. On my right a patria, and next to the patria an YPR.13 Meanwhile, our artilleryman already
ran between the houses. At one point you hear shots fired. You hear your radio. You look at each other and
you go for it. From that moment on, everyone wants to run as quickly as they can towards the
artilleryman to help him. You are surrounded by dust from the fired shots. You see everyone bouncing
around. Grenades are thrown towards you. It was crazy’!
Although, Max had not been part of the battle of Chora14 in the summer of 2007, his platoon
arrived after the battle, they could still feel the aftershocks during their stay. Every soldier there
thought the Baluchi valley was secured. However, Max and his buddies had been involved in a shoot-
out for at least two days. According to Max, the shoot-out happened near the end of October and it was
11 A Dutch caterpillar 12 Poentjak is the name of an Observation Post in the greenzone. See image in index, p. 13 A Patria is an armed vehicle. 14 The battle of Chora took place in and around the town of Chora. The battle lasted for four days, from June 15 till
June 19 2007. The purpose of the battle was to control the Chora District centre. The Taliban regarded Chora as the
centre of their smuggling activities. The battle resulted in the death of one American, one Australian, two Dutch and
sixteen Afghan soldiers (http://www.raacansw.com.au/Documents/Newsletters/Armour_March_2013.pdf).
31
the largest operation since WO II. This operation, operation Spin Ghar, was intended to rid the Baluchi
Pass that is known to be a Taliban supply line.15
‘At a given moment’, Max continues, ‘the situation was uncontrollable. Our whole platoon was
engaged. They were taking everything and everyone under fire. We had two cars that were solely used as
ammunition vehicles during this operation. They were speeding from one spot to the other. They were
driving with three man right through the greenzone. In any other situation that would not even be
possible because of the possible danger of driving onto an IED. The situation was that bad’.
While he catches his breath, he softly says to me, 'these men were not all Taliban. They were
also Chechen rebels.' According to Max, at one point he was taken under fire by snipers while he was
trying to enter the greenzone. However, the presence of these rebels made it impossible for him to
enter. The same situation occurred near Kala Kala where several soldiers in a patria got injured. ‘Two
of my colleagues were also sitting in that same car, but they got out on time. As they were walking back to
one of their own vehicles, the patria was shot at by several rocket-propelled grenades, RPG's.16This vehicle
could not be used anymore and had to be taken away by us. However, as they were trying to approach the
vehicle, they got targeted numerous times’. These were definitely not people from the Taliban, because
the Taliban could never have shot with such precision.
Nick, who had been working for several months at camp Holland, remembers how he was
looking at the QRF, Quick Reaction Force, leaving the camp. ‘Right before the QRF drove away, I had been
talking to the commander of the combat engineers to wish him good luck during his operation. That night
the commander was killed and the other soldiers were unable to free him out of his vehicle. Every time
they would try to come closer to the vehicle they got shot at. I heard it the next morning. It was such a
strange feeling...’ I look at him and I see tears in his eyes. ‘It still hurts me thinking about it’, he says to
me.
Although the idea and image of the death and injuries of their buddies aches, these veterans
also mention the pain among Afghans. According to Bob, children would sometimes come to the gate
with injuries from playing with IED's that at one point exploded. They had lost a foot or both hands.
Young girls would also come to the gate asking and begging for help. They were severely injured.
Somebody had thrown boiling water over them. Their skin was completely burned and blistered and
flies would swarm around the body. ‘Young boys would also pay visits to our camps asking and begging
us for help. Sometimes we would take them in’, Max says to me, ‘only to discover how their anus was
brutally torn apart’.
Although 2007 proved to be an eventful year, the threat of IED's in 2009 did certainly not disappear.
‘That same year we lost two marines, because they drove onto an IED. Did we lose more soldiers’? Markus
asks his wife. ‘I believe you lost one more soldier, but I cannot remember it anymore. I know you have
15 http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/11/operation_spin_ghar_1.php 16 A shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPG).
32
been involved in some serious fights. I really cannot remember. I remember we had some soldiers who lost
their legs during one of our attacks’, he says to me. ‘Every time I would accompany the Special Forces, we
would be attacked or we would find IED's. On my first patrol the Taliban had surprised us with six IED's.
Luckily we found them’.
‘During one of our patrols, Charlotte says, we were also surprised by an attack. We entered one
of the villages and at the same time another unity of ours was leaving that village. As they were going
away they were shot at, but we could not see were the shots were coming from. We got back into our
vehicles and drove away. However, the guy in the vehicle behind me drove onto an IED. Unbelievable, since
we had just searched that area. Right before shots were fired. I still hear the frustration and disbelief in
her voice as she continues. They, thus, had distracted us in order for them to hurt us’.
This was, however, not her only collision with the danger of an IED. ‘One day the radio had
reported one of the vehicles of another platoon had driven onto an IED. The vehicle could not be used
anymore. We drove towards them to offer our assistance. However, when we arrived we also drove onto
and IED. Two vehicles we could not use anymore and we drove into an ambush. We got attacked by
missiles and mortars coming from the mountains. Shots were fired at the soldiers who got stuck in these
two vehicles. They had nowhere to go. We reacted by firing mortars and the Apache helicopter fired
explosives into the mountains. Finally, we were able to prepare the two vehicles whereupon we could
withdraw’.
In the above section, I have not mentioned the constant threat soldiers experience due to
possible missile attacks on the camp. However, during the periods 2006, 2007 and 2008 the missiles
were poorly fired by the Taliban. They constantly missed. They probably could not find camp Holland
on the map, even though it was right in front of them. In 2009, however, they found it. ‘Seven missiles
were already shot before the last one hit that part of camp where the land forces resided. The first seven
ended up between our Air Force side and that of the army’, Boy says to me. ‘I do not know what the
Taliban had changed about the direction, but the eighth missile caused a lot of damage and injuries’.
‘We were just sitting there with our group’, Boy explains to me. ‘We had a briefing about the
operations we were involved in. Another group in front of us was loading up when we suddenly heard an
enormous bang. We were completely startled by this loud sound. This bang sounded completely different
from all the other attacks. We jumped up and looked around. What is happening? We did not see any
damages, so we calmed down. In just a few seconds we hear the sound of the alarm. We grab some items
and we walk towards the bunker’.
The calm reaction of Boy during the attack, differs from Charlotte’s experience who described
the incident as violent. ‘It happened near me’, she says to me. ‘It happened right next to my bedroom. I
and my colleagues were standing near the attack. We were only ten or twenty metres away. That was
really frightening. I was at that time sitting in my bedroom in one of the containers and I heard the
missile striking in next to my container. First you hear a whistle followed by a pervasive bang. I ran
outside and I saw them lying on the sand. One guy was severely injured in his stomach. His intestines lay
33
on the ground next to him. It was horrible to look at’.
He was, however, not the only soldier who got injured. There were at least five or six wounded
soldiers, according to Charlotte. One soldier, Azdin Chadli, died that day due to a piece of shrapnel
launched into the back of his head. According to Roy, however, it was not that piece of shrapnel that
had killed Azdin. He was hit by a part of the roof of the building where the soldiers could refresh
themselves. He, thereby, had lost a big part of his head and passed away. ‘I will just keep the details to
myself ’, Roy says to me quietly. ‘It will, however, be obvious he would not survive such a violent event’.
‘Before the event had happened, I just had some dinner and I was walking towards the post.
Suddenly, I hear a bang and I started to laugh. 'Did somebody drop the post?' I asked bystanders. As I walk
outside, I see a soldier standing on a partition wall looking flabbergasted. Apparently, the sound was not
the sound of post being dropped on the floor. As I ran towards the sound, I see an enormous black smoke
plume pointing towards the sky. I, then, heard the sound of the alarm, warning us for other incoming
missiles’.
Together with Azdin Chadli there were five other wounded soldiers, of whom one female
lieutenant of the combat engineers. ‘One of my colleagues’, Roy says to me, ‘pulled her out of the shower.
Right before the attack, she was washing her hear and what do you do when you wash your hear?’ He
asked me. ‘You have your hands on top of your head. This has protected her from the explosion. All
fragmentation was launched into her hands and arms instead of her head. This has saved her life.
Afterwards, she tells me, ‘it had felt as being under continuous electrical shocks’.
In this chapter I have discussed the violent acts these Dutch soldiers have suffered, inflicted or
observed while being in either Bosnia or Afghanistan. One of the differences I discovered from these
narratives of both peacekeeping operations is the role of the soldier. In Bosnia these soldiers were
expected to act as a buffer zone between the Bosnians and Serbs. These narratives have shown how
these soldiers were a victim of the violent acts of either the Bosnians and Serbs, how they were a
witness of the atrocities inflicted by either the Serbs and Bosnians, and how these soldiers tried to
inflict violence with their hands tight on their back.
These Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan have clearly suffered, inflicted and observed violence.
However there is a divide between soldiers in the field and soldier at camp Holland with regards to the
experience with acts of violence. Soldiers staying at the camp were only a witness or observer, while
soldiers in the field operated in all three roles: perpetrator; victim; audience.
34
Chapter two
The moral soldier
'If only you would care to remember that fighting evil does not render one virtuous! Good and evil are
enemies, but there may not be much to distinguish between them
(Dragt in Ducheine & Pouw 2012, p. 33).
This citation was used in the introduction discussing the similarity between good and evil. This saying,
however, also expresses that doing ‘the right thing’ is not always sufficient. ‘The right thing’ has to be
executed in the right way as well (Ducheine & Pouw 2012, p. 33). According to Ducheine and Pouw
(2012, p. 33), this double standard is closely related to what they call legitimacy.
Within our democratic society, legitimacy is to be understood as part of the legal system.
Similarly, the operations assigned to the armed forces are based upon that understanding of legitimacy.
This would imply that the military requires a legal basis for their operations and these operations
should comply with an applicable legal regime (Ducheine & Pouw 2012, p. 33). However, having
decided how ‘the right thing’ could be legally right, it still needs to be executed by the military, by the
soldiers.
According to Kraugerud (2011) and Pitte (2007), the term ‘soldier’ entails certain ethical
aspects (p. 264, p. 183). Within current debates this particular ethical responsibility is explained as a
new development. Soldiers of the past, that is up to and including the Cold War, would not have been
morally constrained and would not have to consider the moral consequences of their actions.
Especially not conform public opinion, who, more recently, have expressed an increased concern over
the atrocities of war (Kraugerud 2011, p. 264).
Kraugerud continues by referring to Christopher Coker who described this post-modern idea
where soldiers are not seen as the real heroes of war. They would be too violent and would lack moral
purity (Coker cited in Kraugerud 2011, p. 264). According to this perspective of the soldier, his
profession is in need of a moral revision. Subsequently, there have been several attempts to rewrite the
role of the soldier. This role is to be understood as the soldier who is no longer engaged in or exposed
to the severe aspects of warfare, who exercises restraint and caution in combat, and who shows
35
empathy towards the population (Kraugerud 2011, p. 264, Sarkar in Hughes 2014; p. 239).
However, the previous chapter concerning the acts of violence these soldiers have inflicted,
suffered or observed, in Bosnia and Afghanistan contradicts this idea of the ‘new soldier’. Soldiers are
still confronted with severe aspects of warfare. Central to this chapter is how these acts of violence are
legitimized by the legal, international community and, consequently, by the soldiers themselves.
In this chapter I will build up the theoretical frame that will be used to answer, ‘did the soldiers
ever assess violence, used, received or observed, in terms of morality of the army culture, and if so when
and in which situation?’ and ‘when did soldiers assess experienced acts of violence by the contradicting
moral standards of the army and life outside the army?’ I will first discuss the Bellum Justum tradition,
otherwise known as the ‘just war’ theory. This theory is divided in jus ad bellum and jus in bello.
Accordingly, I will discuss the topic of practical reason that offers a critique on the idea of jus in bello.
The last section concerns the concept ‘moral injury’.
2.1. Bellum Justum- jus ad bellum
The 'just war' theory deals with the morality of war under two headings. It asks, first, what the
conditions are for a morally justified decision to go to war (Walzer 2006 [1977], p. 43). According to
Begby, Reichberg and Syse (2012), no war can be just unless the criteria, just cause, legitimate
authority, right intention, proportionality, reasonable hope of success, and last resort, are satisfied.
This is referred to as jus ad bellum (Walzer 2006 [1977], p. 43).
According to the criterion of just cause, armed force should never be employed without having
met this criterion. In case this criterion of just cause is not satisfied, the other criteria are repelled
immediately. Just cause, according to Walzer (1977), is to be understood as self-defence against
territorial regression. To determine what could be classified as self-defence, Walzer distinguishes
between preventive war and pre-emptive strikes. Preventive war refers to the attempt to stop another
state from building a potential threat, while the second, pre-emptive strikes, involves strikes to halt an
imminent attack (Walzer in Begby, Reichberg & Syse 2012, p. 329).
As was discussed in chapter one, the United States started Operation Enduring Freedom after
the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The operation involved the immediate response of the United States and its’
allies by launching attacks on both Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The United States believed
the attackers to be educated and trained in this country and they should be destroyed or ousted from
Afghanistan. The United States had claimed it was out of self-defence (Ducheine & Pouw 2012, p.38).
According to Walzer, self-defence would be a just cause for states to intervene. One could,
however, question the legitimacy of this claim. It received a lot of criticism from the international
community, since it was only implicitly condoned by the UN. Was the immediate attack by the United
36
States really a response out of self-defence or were there other reasons why they invaded Afghanistan?
Unfortunately, the space here is rather limited to determine the legitimacy of the United Sates
(Ducheine & Pouw 2012, p. 38).
It has been stated that OEF and ISAF are two intrinsically different operations each with their
own purpose. Indeed, the operation ISAF was not based on a claim of self-defence, it was labelled
under the term ‘peacekeeping’. The soldiers of ISAF had to protect the civilians from the Taliban in first
Kabul and later, in 2006, in Uruzgan. However, ISAF would not be involved in Afghanistan without the
attack on 9/11 and the United States’ reaction after the attack (Ducheine & Pouw 2012, p. 42). One
could wonder whether the presence of ISAF is just since there was already disagreement about the
righteousness of OEF. Furthermore, it has also been questioned whether the operation could be
labelled as peacekeeping since the soldiers were not neutral.
Walzer accepted the moral justification for humanitarian intervention only reluctantly. These
days, however, the perspective of humanitarian intervention or peacekeeping has changed
considerably by the universal recognition of the intervention as a justified cause for the armed forces.
There is, however, no clear consensus concerning the urgency and gravity of the cases to warrant an
intervention. Furthermore, if the intervention is approved, one still needs to decide who can rightly
undertake such interventions and what the aim of a humanitarian intervention should be. Is the aim
concerned about ending the atrocities or about changing regime and the deeper political institutions
(Begby, Reichberg & Syse 2012, p. 329)? Or to put it differently, is there a good enough reason to
intervene (Ceulemans 2005, p. 25)?
According to the conditions of the United Nations Charter, states can only intervene when all
parties have agreed upon arrival of UN soldiers and the situation in a certain state has come to a cease-
fire. The Un soldiers would try to ease the situation by standing in between both warring parties. In
case the situation between the warring parties would come to another conflict, the soldiers could not
step in. The soldiers could only use their weapons out of self-defence (Duijzings 2002, p. 490).
The origin of the Bosnian conflict in 1991, the growing nationalistic preferences and hatred
between the three ethnic groups, led towards ethnic atrocities and massacres. The task of the UN
soldiers was to divide the groups by only using weapons with a small calibre and with approval from
both the Croatian and Bosnian governments. Furthermore, the soldiers were expected to demilitarize
the three groups in order for political negotiations to take place. Their presence should have led to
political solutions for the conflict (Duijzings 2002, p. 497).
According to Ceulemans (2005, p. 30), one can understand a just cause in relation to
humanitarian intervention as trying to correct or punish injustice that has already been perpetrated,
or to prevent an injustice from happening. The ethnic atrocities, therefore, justify the presence of the
UN soldiers. The soldiers were trying to prevent further development of the conflict by being present
and impartial towards the population. However, the impartiality and the restrictions of the use of
weapons led to the soldiers not being capable of correcting or punishing the atrocities of warfare.
37
The second criterion, legitimate authority, states that only an entity possessing legitimate
authority can instigate war. However, in the context of humanitarian intervention it would be best if
this authority were to reside with the United Nations or any other ethically challenged organization.
Only if the situation is either severe or acute, the authority should be given to willing and able
bystander states that are guided by right intentions and not by the idea of regional hegemony (Begby,
Reichberg & Syse 2012, p. 329).
In both cases of Dutch involvement it was, indeed, authorized by the United Nations. Its
mandate both recognized the just cause and the intention of the involvement in either Bosnia or
Afghanistan. Right intention, the third criterion, is closely related to just cause. However, if permission
is granted to a state to intervene based upon rectifying the injustice, just cause, one might also use the
intervention to introduce democracy and diminish human rights violations. However, they do not
provide just cause in their own right (Begby, Reichberg & Syse 2012, p. 329).
According to Dimitriu and De Graaf (2010), the intention of ISAF could be understood as
promoting good governance, setting up efficient police and armed forces, and assisting in the building
up of a constitutional state (p. 431). The intention of Dutch involvement in Bosnia on the other hand, is
described as making an end to the massacres between the Bosnians, Serbs and Croatians in order for
them to co-exist in the different states (Duijzings 2002, p. 497).
According to the fourth criterion, an intervention will not be considered just unless the
proportionality of the intervention is met (Begby, Reichberg & Syse 2012, p. 329). This entails that an
intervention with military means should not generate more damage that it wants to prevent
(Ceulemans 2005, p. 25). The consideration of this criterion is of much importance to the moral
assessment of, first, the use of force by the armed forces directed at the opposing opponent, and
second, the harm caused among non-combatants as a result of the intervention (Begby, Reichberg &
Syse 2012, p. 329).
In order to restrict the acts of violence, Dutch government has decided upon developing ‘Rules
of Engagement’, ROE. According to Kersten (2002, p. 1192), the ROE is meant to optimize the safety of
one’s own forces by preventing incidents from happening and limiting the chance of further conflict.
This second purpose is related to the next section concerning the discrimination criterion of jus in
bello. Furthermore, its goal is also to prevent non-combatants from being involved in acts of violence.
The last purpose of these rules is limiting the acts of violence in order to prevent its consequences to
influence the negotiations between states.
During the Bosnian conflict, the ROE was to be interpreted by the UN forces. These rules were
based on not carrying out offensive operations without specific approval, being obligated to use the
minimum amount of force necessary, using weapons solely as a last resort, and the obligation to cease
fire when an opponent ceases fire (Kersten 1994, p. 636). The underlying problem, according to
Kersten, is that the ROE during the Bosnian conflict did not provide much guidance for the UN soldiers.
These rules could only be effective in a true peacekeeping operation and not in a situation in which
38
there is no peace. The UN soldiers were expected to secure multiple areas in Bosnia, to protect the
civilians, and to monitor the opposing forces. However, these rules did not provide the proper means
to carry out the operation effectively or to guard against possible risks (Kersten 1994, p. 636).
The Rules of Engagement of ISAF soldiers was rather different since weapons were not
considered to be a last resort. ISAF soldiers were allowed to take both active and defensive actions in
case Opposing Militant Forces, Taliban, would threaten these soldiers. Furthermore, they were able to
stop the developments of threats by acting pro-actively (Ducheine & Pouw 2010, p. 38).
The fifth criterion, reasonable hope for success, refers to whether military forces could offer a
solution to the reason of intervention (Ceulemans 2005, p. 25). This criterion restricts states from
undertaking futile military initiatives. This means that force can only be rightly used when assisting an
ally or aiding civilians when the hope for success is possible. If the intended force would lead to the
severe loss of soldiers’ lives, states should decide to intervene (Begby, Reichberg & Syse 2012, p. 334).
The difficulty of this criterion is, however, the expectation of states to judge beforehand about the
causalities.
However, before deciding whether there is a reasonable hope for success, it should first be
determined whether the state has exhausted other non-intervening options. According to Begby,
Reichberg and Syse (2012), this last resort criteria refers to the demand of the consideration of all
reasonable non-violent options before armed forces are deployed (p.34).
2.3. Bellum Justum- jus in bello
The concept Jus in bello is understood as what may and may not be done in the course of waging war
(Walzer 2006 [1977], p. 43). According to Begby, Reichberg and Syse (2012, p. 336), jus in bello is to be
measured according to the two criteria, which are proportionality and discrimination. The first
criterion refers to the employment of more force than is necessary for achieving a strategic end, or
employing more force than is warranted by that end. The difference between both dimensions of in
bello could be understood as the use of force only as is necessary, and asking whether the end is
important enough to warrant the level of force that would be necessary (Begby, Reichberg, Syse 2012,
p. 336).
The criterion of discrimination says that only combatants can be targeted in a just war. This is
also called non-combatant immunity, the divide between combatants (soldiers) and non-combatants
((Begby, Reichberg, Syse 2012, p. 337; Rietveld 2012, p. 62). Non-combatants - civilians, wounded
soldiers and prisoners of war - cannot be attacked at any time (Walzer 2006 [1997], 151). Only
military targets could be attacked and civilians can definitely not pose as a target (Rietveld 2012, p. 62)
39
This criterion is particularly difficult. Not only are non-combatants endangered by their
proximity to battle, there is also the possibility they are endangered by some contribution to the
fighting.
‘I have probably killed children. I have never witnessed it, so I will never know for sure. The only thing I
knew was, we were ordered to blow up houses where families were to reside. These families had hid
multiple explosives in their houses. These children of these families were also dangerous, Bobbie says to
me. I knew if I would not kill them, ten miles further down the road I would be surprised by an IED. When
you think about it, it is difficult. However, in Afghanistan I did not think. I quickly realized this is real. It
was not a practice anymore. We were in their country and they carried hate towards us. They had just one
goal and that was to kill us all. Eventually, it was either them or me’.
(Bobbie, 21st February 2015)
According to Walzer (2006 [1997], p. 153) non-combatants, children in this case, become
liable to attack because of their contribution to the war. To reconcile the absolute prohibition against
attacking non-combatants, Walzer (2006 [1997], p. 153) introduced the notion of double effect. Double
effect is a complex notion, but, at the same time, it is closely related to the ordinary ways of thinking
about moral life. According to Rietveld (2012, p. 62), actions or interventions could have multiple
negative effects or consequences, for instance the loss of non-combatants. According to Walzer (2006
[1977], p. 152), the double effect notion, is to be used exactly in this instance where the activity could
lead to severe consequences.
It is permitted to perform an act likely to have negative consequences according to all four
conditions: 1) the act is good in itself, thus a legitimate act of war, 2) the direct effect is morally
acceptable, 3) the intention of the actor is good, thus the evil effect is not one of his ends, nor is it a
means to his ends, 4) the good effect is sufficiently good to compensate for allowing the evil effect
(Walzer 2006 [1977], p. 153). Since these consequences could not always be foreseen, it could create a
certain tension within the field (Rietveld 2012, p. 62).
According to Walzer (2006 [1977], p. 153), it is exactly the third clause that brings moral
difficulty. The killing of soldiers and nearby civilians are to be defended only insofar as they are the
product of a single intention. The evil effects need to be directed only at the combatants and not the
non-combatants. If non-combatants are to be hit, but the intention of the actor is good, he would not be
held responsible for his actions. The intervention or action could only be just if the negative
consequences were not the intended purpose (Rietveld 2012, p. 62). The argument suggests the great
importance of taking aim in wartime, and thereby restricting the targets at which one can aim (Walzer
2006 [1977], p. 153).
40
2.3. Practical reason
Although Walzer (2006 [1977], p. 154) does mention 'the thinking individual' in his notion of double
effect, he does so implicitly. He takes for granted the individual who thinks about right and wrong in
immediate danger. Arendt (in Butler 2011, p.283), though, puts more emphasis on the individual who
reasons about right and wrong, good and bad. She reasons that the crime is not the use of violence as
such, whether good or bad, but the person failing to think. He failed to judge and to make use of
practical reason.17
According to Immanuel Kant(1788, p.14), practical reason is concerned with the grounds of
determination of the will (p. 14) that is based on practical principles, i.e. practical rules. These rules
can be both subjective and objective. Subjective in the sense that conditions are regarded by the
subject as valid only for his own will. Objective is the validity for the will of every rational being. When
the condition is recognized as objective, it is referred to as practical laws (Kant 1788, p. 16).
Thus, according to Arendt, ‘Every man is a legislator the moment he started to act’. By using his
'practical reason' man found the principles that could and should be the principles of law’ (cited in Butler
2011, p. 282). Human beings are not led by mere obedience, but individuals are led by judgement.
Here, the normative exercise of judgement is to be understood as thinking. The difficulty, however, of
judgement lies in the difference between subjectivity and objectivity. If the general law states to act
brutally, individuals still have the capacity to think whether this act would be valid to their own
subjective will (Arendt in Butler 2011, p. 283). Individuals are thus their own moral agent; individuals
refrain from behaving in ways that violate their own principles, because they carry a sense of self-
condemnation when they go against their own moral standards (Montrose 2013 p.327).
Being in a moral situation, thus means the possibility of being good. The first step towards
goodness is to listen to the unspoken demand, to take responsibility for one's own responsibility
(Bauman 1998, p. 17). This, however, could lead to eternal hesitation and anxiety about one's actions
failing to match up to the demand (Bauman 1998, p. 18). And the greater the moral responsibility, the
dimmer is the hope of its normative regulation (Bauman 1998, p. 20).
However, in relation to the unjust and just war dichotomy, Estlund (2007, p. 213) argues when
the political institutions producing the commands are looking after the question whether the war is
just, the soldier would be wrong to impose his own private verdict and go against the state's will.
Montrose agrees with Estlund and adds that a soldier has a certain duty to obey lawful orders
(Montrose 2013, p. 325).
This does not mean, however, that the soldier does not have to think for him/herself, Estlund
17
Arendt’s research is aimed understanding the decisions SS soldiers made in World War II. Although she offers
interesting insights about conflicting norms and values, I am not comparing these Dutch soldiers and the situations
they have been in with these SS soldiers
41
(2007, p. 213) continues. The soldier is not exonerated simply because he was following orders
Montrose 2013, p. 325; Estlund 2007, p. 213). This also relates to Arendt's differentiation between
judgment and obedience. However, according to Estlund (2007, p. 213), when the state and its
procedures are of the right kind, the soldier's participation in an unjust war is sanitized precisely
because he was following orders.
Soldiers are, thus, not responsible for the overall justice of the wars they fight. However, as
opposed to the argument of Estlund (2007), they do have the responsibility to fight it in a 'clean' way
whether the cause is just or not. Fighting in a 'clean' or 'dirty' way is, according to Walzer (2006 [
1977], p. 43), a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate acts and targets in war. First , the act
should be considered good in order for it to be perceived as an legitimate act of war and furthermore,
the claim is that soldiers and a certain class of civilians may be deliberately attacked, while other
civilians may not. The trait common to soldiers and those civilians who are legitimate targets of deadly
violence is that they are "currently engaged in the business of war". Other civilians, that is the
overwhelming majority, are not so engaged, and consequently must not be attacked.
2.4. To face moral judgement
“ This also counts for soldiers: they could be confronted with certain situations where they instantly
should make a decision between life or death. It concerns here profound decisions that demand a sense of
responsibility18 (Verweij in Rietveld 2012, p. 67)”
As is stated in the previous section and in the above quotation, soldiers have the responsibility to make
judgement. It is, however, not just a judgement, it is a moral judgement about life and death. Soldiers
are confronted with numerous moral and ethical challenges in war (Litz et al. 2009, p. 695).
They may act in ways that transgress deeply held moral beliefs or they may experience moral
qualms about the unethical behaviours of others. Soldiers may also bear witness to intense human
suffering and cruelty that shakes their core beliefs about humanity. Soldiers are put in situations where
there is almost no time to consider concrete action. Consequently, they cannot oversee the
consequences and the moral implications of their actions (Rietveld 2012, p. 63). Soldiers and their
units, thus, face unanticipated moral choices and demands (Litz et al. 2009, p. 695).
Psychologists have recently coined the term moral injury. This concept is based on the
discovery that once soldiers are demobilized and separated from the military culture and context,
some service members may have difficulty accommodating various morally conflicting experiences
18
This text is translated from Dutch: “Dat geldt zeker ook voor militairen: zij kunnen in bepaalde situaties geconfronteerd worden met beslissingen over leven en dood. Het gaat hier om ingrijpende beslissingen die een groot verantwoordelijkheidsbesef eisen.”
42
(Litz et al. 2009, p. 697). So moral injury could be understood as an act of transgression that creates
dissonance and conflict because it violates assumptions and beliefs about right and wrong and
personal goodness. How this dissonance or conflict is reconciled is one of the key determinants of
injury (Litz et al. 2009, p. 698; Drescher et al. 2011, p. 4).
Both Litz (et al. 2009) and Drescher (et al. 2011) have moved away from a focus on the impact
of life-threat trauma and have shifted their attention towards the impact of events with moral and
ethical implications. The latter, the moral and ethical implications of certain events, are within this
research understood as the cultural models, the moral standards, that are employed to assess the acts
of violence these soldiers have inflicted, suffered or observed.
According to Jarrett Zigon (2009, p. 258), morality can be considered as three different, but
certainly interrelated, aspects that are themselves pluralistic. First he refers to the institutional level of
morality. Institutions can be very loosely defined as those formal and non-formal social organizations
and groups that are a part of all societies and that wield varying amounts of power over individual
persons. Part of what it is to be an institution is to claim that it is the bearer and securer of the truth or
rightness of a particular kind of morality.
Closely related to the institutional level of morality, is that of public discourse. According to
Zigon (2009, p. 259), the public discourse obtains a certain morality which is often based upon the
morality that is decided by the institutions. However, this might not always be the case. The public
discourse could also have a different sense of morality. In this case they are less closely related to the
institutional discourse.
The last is that of the embodied dispositions. According to Zigon (2009, p. 260), morality is so
often considered as rule following or conscious reflection on a problem or dilemma. Zigon, however,
reasons that morality, is not thought out beforehand, nor is it noticed when it is performed. It is simply
done. Morality, as embodied dispositions, is one’s everyday way of being in the world. All persons are
able to embody morality in this unreflective and unreflexive way. Most persons are, most of the time,
able to act in ways that are acceptable to others in their social world (Zigon 2009, p. 260).
Exactly this latter form of morality, most people are able to act in ways that is acceptable to
others, stroke my attention. Because what happens when soldiers are confronted with frightening
situations? Situations in which the soldier has to act and think quickly. Will he always make a decision
that is acceptable to people outside the military world? If we have to believe Zigon, the soldier would
make an acceptable decision.
‘During my time in Afghanistan, there was one day I remember well’, Mel continues. I was ordered
that day, to search and destroy. However, we got involved in a certain situation where I just could not pull
the trigger. I saw two or three people praying and I just could not do it. I could not be that coward. I could
not execute these men while they were saying their last prayers. If these men were to be found dead while
performing their ritual, we, the Dutch military, would be demonized. I took a lot of risk waiting for these
43
men to finish. As they got up and took on their arms, I confronted them. Luckily the incident came to a
good end and me and my men were able to shoot these men. A lot of my men, however, were furious. They
did not understand why I chose to wait and was willing to sacrifice our safety.’
(Mel, 11th March 2015)
According to Zigons’ (2009) understanding of morality, Mel has been able to consider all three
levels during this altercation. According to Mel, shooting these men during their prayers would lead to
a demonization of the Dutch military and the loss of the strong position they had within the internal
community. He was, thus, aware of the moral standards of both the institutions in society and the
public discourse. However, the action performed within this situation could not qualify as acting in
ways that are acceptable to others in their social world (Zigon 2009, p. 260). These soldiers are, thus,
not only confronted with changing moral standards, but also with the uncertainty of choices.
Zygmunt Bauman (1998, p. 13) distinguishes between being moral as facing a choice between
good and evil, or following commands that assume obedience and righteousness. Where the first
presents morality as a cruel predicament, eternal uncertainty, a perpetual agony, the latter presents it
as obedience to the Law creating conformity. The drama of choice, uncertainty created by the choices
between good and evil, is eliminated in that latter, obedience to the Law, that creates certainty by not
being faced with choices.
Contrary to most theorists that define morality within the confines of elimination of choice,
Logstrup and Levinas define morality within the context of drama of choice. Where Logstrup speaks of
unspoken demand, Levinas speaks of unconditional responsibility that he defines as a brute fact, the
ultimate given of human being, brought forth uncompromisingly by the other. Here, morality is not
understood as being defined by Law. Instead, humans have to reside to the incurable uncertainty and
ambivalence of the human condition laid bare by the postmodern transformations (Bauman 1998, p.
15).
The strength of Logstrup’s and Lavina’s reasoning lies in the unspoken and the unconditional,
since one does not know and will never know whether a demand has been fulfilled. There is
responsibility, but it is unconditional. No one knows whether their responsibility applies to the
demand. No one could ever know where responsibility begins and where it ends. We only know,
however, where morality ends. Trying to create certainty by eliminating uncertainty through setting
conditions for responsibility, one leaves the territory of morality. Codes and norms are merely the end
of moral relationship and of the moral self (Bauman 1998, p. 16).
In this chapter I have provided a theoretical framework that is necessary for understanding chapter
three about the moral choices they have faced in Bosnia and Afghanistan. First I discussed the ‘just
war’ theory according to the principles jus ad bellum and jus in bello. While the first is concerned with
44
a legitimized conduct to go to war, the second discusses the rules during war. Especially the later, jus in
bello, could cause moral difficulty among soldiers. According to the discrimination principle, non-
combatants may not be attacked at any time during a war. However, as the example of Bobbie indicates,
it is not always clear whether civilians, non-combatants according to Walzer, are not engaged in the
course of war,
As a critique on Walzer’s theory, Arendt (in Butler 2011) proposes to centralize the individual
who is capable of thinking about his or her own actions. Arendt states, ‘Every man is a legislator the
moment he started to act’. By using his 'practical reason' man found the principles that could and should
be the principles of law’ (cited in Butler 2011, p. 282). Human beings are not led by mere obedience, but
individuals are led by judgement.According to Arendt, people should not just obey orders, because
they are orders. An individual is obliged to think about his or her own actions.
In the last part of this chapter I have discussed the psychological concept ‘moral injury’.
According to Litz et al (2009, p. 698) and Drescher et al. (2011, p. 4) moral injury could be understood
as an act of transgression that creates dissonance and conflict because it violates assumptions and
beliefs about right and wrong and personal goodness. With regards to the next chapter, the concept
‘moral injury’ is based on the stories of these Dutch soldiers who returned from Bosnia and
Afghanistan and on Zigon’s (2009) understanding of morality. He explains morality according to three
levels: institutional level of morality; public discourse; and embodied dispositions. These three levels
assess the judgements these soldiers faced while being in Bosnia and Afghanistan
45
Chapter three
Morally injured soldiers
‘These acts of violence will certainly not leave these soldiers unscathed. Some soldiers have severe injuries
that will remind them of the past. Some soldiers, though, will never forget how they have killed their
enemy, or how they have killed someone from up close. They will never forget the image of a motorcycle
that drove onto an IED or mine, or the sound of shooting arms. The image of dying friends, buddies and
colleagues with whom they have shared everything, will never leave their mind. These horrifying images
will be on their sight for the rest of their lives’.
(Klaas, 30th January 2015)
According to Natasja Rietveld, the ethical problems during peacekeeping operations could be defined
as moral dilemmas (Rietveld 2012, p. 67). Both Bauman (1998, p. 15, 16) and Montrose (2013, p. 326)
understand moral dilemma as a conflict of obligations in which an agent must choose one of two
equally imperative duties. As became apparent in the previous chapter, the term ‘moral injury’
concerns the choice between different duties. The choice of one duty could lead to the violation of
another duty. This conflict of choice could cause feelings of regret for not following ones’ own
conscience (Litz et al. 2009, p. 695 & p. 697, Montrose 2013, p. 326).
Rietveld (2012; p. 67) specifies moral dilemma in terms of the soldiers’ choice to either choose
their own safety or to choose the safety of the vulnerable other, the civilians that had to be protected by
the soldiers. In terms of justice, self-defence, although acceptable, has not been considered, because
self-defence is seen as a contradictio in terminis. Justice and self-defence are regarded to be
contradicting each other (Rietveld 2012, p. 67).However, during both interventions, self-defence was
seen as legitimate.
These soldiers have, indeed, been involved in situations where they had to choose between us
and them. This could definitely qualify as a moral dilemma. It is, however, not solely this dilemma they
46
experience while being in the field. It concerns a conflict about the unethical behaviours of others, and
being a witness of intense human suffering and cruelty (Litz et al. 2009, p. 695). In the next section I
will consider these dilemmas that these soldiers have experienced while being involved in either
Bosnia or Afghanistan.
3.1. Moral dilemmas and choices among soldiers
‘The military gave us, soldiers, an Uzi’, Sam says to me. ’I still do not know what I should have been doing
with that thing, because we were ordered not to use our weapons, Sam continues. ’The only thing I did
know was that thing being in the way. It did, however, give me a sense of power. In the beginning I was
determined to finish the job well. As time went by, though, and that feeling of power grew on me, I became
reckless. I would use more and more violence and I would even enjoy using it. I would beat them without
having any feelings about my actions. I did not care for these people anymore. Not even when I drove over
corpses that were thrown onto the road by either the Bosnians or the Serbs’.
Eventually, Sam experienced feelings of guilt and regret towards the population in Bosnia.
Dennis, however, has only felt frustration ever since he had gone to Bosnia. He had felt betrayed by
both the Bosnians and Serbs. He did not believe in the innocence of either one of them. ’There were no
innocent civilians there. They were playing a game and UNPROFOR was the victim. However, one time we
were able to turn tables. That night the Serbs were shooting at us again and we were just fed up with
them. We drove towards the hiding place of the Serbs and we started to fire. Everything was destroyed.
That was an great decision, because we, finally, were able to take control. However, we soon learned our
actions had consequences; they had slowed down our supplies to Srebrencia’.
Martijn, on the other hand, refuses to see himself as a victim. The true victims, according to
Martijn, were these children. ‘Every child in Bosnia was starving. It was horrible to see and
unimaginable. Sometimes I would bring two pieces of bread with me during my patrols. I remember
thinking that I could give one piece of bread to one of these children. However, if I would decide to offer
one of these children my piece of bread, I knew they would kill each other. It was very hard, because I did
not know what to do. However, after all these years I still do not know what decision I should have made’.
‘Sometimes you just do not have the time to think properly about your actions and you will have
to decide quickly’, Martijn continues. ‘In these situations, not making a decision would be considered
wrong. I had, for instance, put a gun on a local truck driver’s head. There had been a traffic accident and
two of my men were trapped under their vehicle. I had to stop all traffic. However, that driver did not
want to stop, so I had to make him stop. Luckily he stopped, otherwise I had no other choice but to shoot
him. Although, it is a decision and, thus, not wrong, I could have decided differently if I had had more
time’.
From the beginning of 1995 the situation changed. Although the soldiers of Dutchbat could
47
still use their firearms out of self-defence, self-defence would not be possible for these soldiers. ‘There
was no useable ammunition left on our camp in Potocari’, Henk says to me. Self-defence, thus, became
impossible. This time the feeling of power was traded for a feeling of powerlessness. Both the mandate
and the ROE were unclear to these soldiers. At one point during my conversation with Dax, he asks
whether they were there to protect these Bosnian civilians or to solely observe these horrible
atrocities? ’I did not know it back then and I still do not know it’, Dax says to me. ‘However, if our task was
to protect these fugitives from the Serbs, we failed miserably. I know we did not have ammunition, or food,
or gas, but we should have tried’.
According to Henk, Dax has experienced feelings of guilt and regret due to what happened in
Bosnia. According to Dax, these eight thousand Bosnians should not have been killed while they were
there. ‘I, however, do not share these feelings of guilt and regret’, Henk says to me, ‘but I do think about
the choices I made. At one point we just knew Srebrenica would not be a safe area for long. The day the
attacks began, we had already heard from other observation posts that the Serbs were coming. Some
observation posts were already under Serbian control. It would not be long before they had reached our
observation post. A view soldiers had even written their farewell letters, before we would be taken
hostage as all the others were’.
‘But do you tell the civilians to flee? The civilians did not know what was about to happen.
According to regulation, we could not tell them. However, some of these civilians I had seen for six months
every day; the man that brought us our water and his wife who did our laundry’. I tried to warn them,
Henk says to me. ‘Go away! Today I do not want water! And there he was with his can of water. This was
very difficult for me. What do you tell them? And even today, I still do not know the answer. I do wonder,
though, what has happened to him’.
Although Henk earlier stated he does not experience any feelings of guilt or regret, he slowly
starts to doubt his statement during our conversation19. ‘I do not know whether I feel guilty, Henk
continues. I do know I tried my best. Our observation post was not taken over by the Serbs. I stayed till the
end and I said goodbye to a Bosnian friend of mine. He was the Mayor of the town nearby. We spoke often
and sometimes we would exchange information. Even though he was poor, he would invite me over for
dinner and drinks. That last day, I had brought him my running shoes and something to eat. Although I
did not have the proper means to help him, I tried to offer him some relief. I sometimes think about him
and wonder where he is today’.
For Henk the most important thing was to bring his boys back home safely. He had been their
leader and he saw it as his personal job to take care of his men. ’They would look at me if decisions had
to be made. Although it was a very hard and difficult responsibility, I am still very proud for being able to
guarantee their safety. If that were to fail, however, I do not think I would be sitting here today’.
Although these soldiers have experienced feelings of guilt and regret, it is not solely based on
19
Henk’s change of mind during the conversation is a fine example of how knowledge is created in the interactions
between interlocutor and researcher. Knowledge is not ‘out there’ to be found, as positivists scholars believe.
48
prioritizing one’s own safety above the safety of civilians. It is about personal goodness. About whether
these soldier were and are able to feel good about the choices they made during their time in Bosnia, as
the above paragraphs picture these soldiers.
The choices or judgements made by these soldiers, are not solely about not being able to think. It is
neither solely about a choice or judgement between good and evil. It is about judging a certain
situation conform one’s own moral standards, the moral standards of the military and the moral
standards of society. It is, however, rather difficult to take these different standards into account. These
soldiers do not have time to judge a certain situation according to these different norms. They are
expected to make quick judgements without hesitation. They had to survive.
As was shown in chapter one, Charlotte was involved in a morally conflicting experience. She
was ordered to guard camp Kandahar together with another soldier. During the night, she suddenly
saw an Afghan vehicle approaching with an incredibly high speed. They, she and her colleague, thought
it was a suicide bomber. She had shot with her weapon. This was, according to Charlotte, a warning
shot. The car, however did not pull over.
‘The vehicle kept on moving towards us’, Charlotte says,’ and after the warning shot I did not know
what to do. In these situations, my colleague had to riddle the car with bullets from his machine gun.
However, as I looked next me, I saw him standing in front of his machine gun. He froze on me and did not
do anything! I knew I could not panic, because I had to decide what to do next. I pointed my gun at the
front seat of the vehicle and I shot. Although I missed, the vehicle finally stopped. The man stepped out of
the car yelling we should not shoot him. It appeared to be an American soldier who was undercover’.
This situation shows the difficulty of making a quick decision about multiple lives. Charlotte
had the responsibility, together with her colleague, to protect every man that was walking around on
that camp. They had the responsibility to stop the suicide bomber from exploding. In order to stop the
attack, they were to be expected to kill the man in the vehicle. Although they were trained to react
instantly, the reality showed that being in an morally conflicting situation right, and even quick,
decisions are difficult to make.
Mel agrees that everything in Afghanistan happened so quickly. ’It was bang bang and you went
on to the next operation, Mel says to me. ’After a while you got used to the flow of things. Sometimes it
even gave you a good feeling. You were able to be better and faster, and you managed to do the right
things at the right time. After these confrontations, you were congratulated for the positive outcomes.
Although our behaviour might sound unbelievable to you, at the end of the day I was really proud with
myself ’.
Mell still believes in the righteousness of the judgements he made in Afghanistan. ‘In
Afghanistan I considered every situation to be black or white. I did not allow myself to hesitate during an
operation. I had to decide within a few seconds what we should do and what the consequences would be'.
According to Mel, soldiers are expected to make quick judgements without hesitation. ‘However, back
49
home I would think about whether I could have made different choices, Mel says to me. Perhaps I could
have solved the problems without using arms. However, what would have been the consequences for my
boys?’
Eventually, I do not know how my decisions have affected these soldiers since it is only after the
fact you start to consider all the possibilities within a certain situation. According to Mel, in
Afghanistan you just do not always have the time to consider all the consequences for each of your
men. ’I do, however, still believe in the choices I have made in Afghanistan. I know this might sound hard.,
but in order to survive I needed to become more hardened. I needed to change my norms and values. Mel
is, however, not alone in this experience’.
‘When I first arrived’, Markus says to me, I saw how civilians were flogged by soldiers. While I was
witnessing this horrible act, I was thinking that I would and could never do that. I thought wrong. At the
end of our mission, I was doing exactly the same thing and maybe even harder. It sounds really strange
how quickly one is willing to lower one’s standards. However, in these countries they are used to these
kinds of treatments. Sometimes children would stand on each side of the road waving at us as we drove by.
At one point, I saw a man walking towards these children and he slapped them across the face. I
remember I was just standing there being flabbergasted. We were ordered not to step in. We were not
allowed to interfere in the conditions of these people. It was, however, very difficult to just stand there and
do nothing’.
‘I also have had situations’, Bobbie says to me, ‘where I would kick and beat children, because
they wanted to grab my weapon. I did not have problems with them touching me, but my weapon… No
that was forbidden. However, we do not speak the same language. The only language we both understand
is sign language. I would first push them away. If they did not understand that gesture, I would use my fist
or foot to make sure they kept their distance.20Perhaps I make it sound really easy to do. It was, however,
very difficult, because they also brought me joy. If we would drive through the villages, Bobbie says, the
children were already waiting for us. They would stand on each side of the road, waving and hoping for
presents. It was just a delight to watch these children play with the balloons we brought. They had never
seen a balloon before and they played with it for several hours’.
‘It was also striking how battles became normal’, Bobbie continues. The first time shooting at
somebody, was really shocking. After a while, however, it was part of our lives. Max agrees with Bobbie.
After a while the thrill of shooting became less and less. Since we were often involved in multiple battles.
we started to see shooting as ‘fun shooting’, Max says to me. ‘There was one group, however, who had not
been involved in any battle. As a consequence, these soldiers decided to incite violence. They would loudly
play Rammstein in the middle of the dessert. According to the Islamic religion, music is forbidden. This
20
This situation shows that acts of violence have a communicative aspect. It is used as a language to get a certain
message across. Although in this instance it is an ‘one on one’ interactions, this language of violence could send out
a message to the wider public. This takes us to the performative quality. It will only reach the wider public if these
acts are considered to be socially meaningful
50
group had hoped the Taliban would have reacted. However, they did not. It is only in the last week these
soldiers were finally involved in a battle’
‘Sometimes’, Max continues, children would come to Poentjak, our observation post. They were in
serious need for medical treatment. Their bodies had been burned by boiling water or they had been
raped by their elders in the village. We were only able to treat them. We were, unfortunately, not allowed
to take care of the problem. From the moment they walked away from your observation post, you just
knew these children would receive punishment by the people of the village. This time, however, they would
not come back. They would be too terrified’.
Mathijs had a rather different experience. He was not allowed to help the children that would
come to the gate of camp Holland begging for help. He could not offer them any treatment and had to
send them home. ‘That was truly awful’, he says to me. According to Mathijs, he was just a part of some
political game. Only people who were considered to be important received treatment. Civilians were
not considered to be important people.’ I could, however, not help them either. I do not have a medical
background and I was just there to secure the area surrounding the camp. What could I have done? It was
really frustrating and hurtful for me, because I thought I was there to help these people. I still think about
what happened or, rather, what did not happen. I do not think I will ever forget it’
Sometimes’, Mathijs continues, ‘orphans would also pay us a visit. It was so sad to see them
walking around hungry and thirsty, no clothes covering their meagre bodies and with both feet scraped
and covered with blood and dust. They would beg for food and water. I had to say no, because it was
against regulation. If we would approve such behaviour, they would come back each day. It really hurt me
to say no, but what could I have done? If I would have offered them food and water, I would go against
orders. My hands were truly tight’.
According to Bauman (1998, p. 16), orders are the end of the moral relationship and of the
moral self. Orders, therefore, create certainty and, eliminate the question of right and wrong. However,
in the case of Mathijs, these orders were not conform the moral self. He, thus, violated his own
principles and went against his own moral conscience (Montrose 2013, p. 327). Individuals are,
indeed, not bound by regulation. We still have the capacity to think about our own moral standards.
Human beings are, thus, not led by mere obedience, but individuals are led by judgement (Arendt cited
in Butler 2011, p. 282).
Although both Bauman (1998) and Arendt (in Butler 2011) present a valid point, it could be
very difficult to act as your own legislator when you are controlled by organizational structures. In
Mathijs’s case, he felt he had not the means to go against orders. Furthermore, going against orders
could also have consequences. According to Dennis, soldiers will be punished if one does not adhere to
the orders he received from his superior.
Although the pressure to obey orders is apparent, Charlotte remembers she had difficulty
dealing with the pressure of the group.
51
There was an important operation we (recce)21 had to execute that day. We had entered a village. In that
village, we were each appointed to a house were the Taliban would be staying and where the Taliban had
hid dangerous ammunition The house our group was appointed to, there was nobody home. But we had to
get in, because the person living there was suspected of hiding a lot of explosives. As we were trying to
enter, we saw a huge dog standing in the living room. Usually the dogs in Afghanistan look starved, but
this dog did not. His owner had taken care of him. As we were trying to enter, others had asked whether
they could shoot that dog if the dog would attack them. Suddenly a shot was fired. They had shot that dog!
But the dog had not even attacked them. It was just fun for them. They were just looking for sensation.
The dog was, however, not dead. The dog ran into another room and started to cry. It was just horrible to
hear. We had to stay outside that house for a while, because we had to search the place for booby-traps.
Finally everything was cleared and we could enter the house and end the dog’s misery. It was awful. When
we returned to camp Holland and I was alone in my room, I started to cry. It was so sad what had
happened (…) But as a woman it is really difficult to say anything, because the infantry world is a tough
world. It took me a very long time to proof myself to them. That was really hard and difficult I received a
lot of beatings. (…) As a woman you need to proof yourself even more.
(Charlotte, 3rd March 2015)
This group of soldiers did not adhere to the proportionality criterion of jus in bello. According to
Walzers’ ‘just war’ theory, the proportionality criterion concerns the employment of more force than is
necessary for achieving a strategic end, or employing more force than is warranted by that end. Thus,
the end must be important enough to warrant the level of force that would be necessary (Begby,
Reichberg, Syse 2012, p. 336). As Charlotte states, the dog had not attacked these soldiers. This kind of
force would indeed not have been necessary. They were just looking for sensation.
As I mentioned before, Charlotte’s story refers to the high pressure of the group and the fading
away of one’s own personal believes. She was very much against the actions of her fellow soldiers.
However, she did not confront these men or report the event to a superior. Charlotte felt she could be
excluded from this group of men if she said something about her personal believes.
According to Navarro (in Kummel et al. 2009, p. 63), soldiers are, known for having deeply
rooted feelings of internal cohesion promoting an exclusive and unconditional loyalty. Although
Navarro refers to the overall military organization, these feelings of cohesion and loyalty can also be
found within the multiple groups that form this organization. Simultaneously, the limit between
individual and group identity fades away. The individuals share the main status of being ‘army men’
reducing any other component of their identity. This feeling of loyalty together with sharing the status
of being ‘army men’, could lead to feeling obligated to act conform the group norms.
21
According to Bobbie, recce (pronounced as ‘rekkie’) or recon refers to scouting men.
52
Charlotte continues, ‘maybe these men had perceived the situation different. Maybe they thought
the dog really had to die. I, however, did not see whether the dog had attacked these men. He did bark, but
what do you want with all these strangers in your home.’ At first I thought she was trying to justify her
inaction during and after the incident. However, perhaps she tries to re-establish that limit between
the individual norm and the group norm since she is no longer part of the organization.
3.2. Humour is a strong weapon
‘Not all days were bad. There were also a lot of fun days. We would walk our patrols and nothing would
happen, since that area would be relatively safe. We would chat and play with the children of the villages.
We would throw our ballpoint pens somewhere on the ground and the children would go crazy for it. They
all dove onto these pens. Some units even learned these children some Dutch words or hand gestures. This
way you could name call the other units that would come by this village. A girl would stand alongside the
road yelling some bad Dutch word. Soon all the other kids would pick this word up and they would all yell
this word while loudly clapping. That was actually really funny. Or we had to cross a deep river and
soldiers would be pulled away by the current. That was really funny too. Or when we would walk our
patrols somebody would fall. It sounds really stupid, but that makes you laugh and forget about
everything. One time it was really awful. I had to climb into a helicopter, but my backpack got stuck
behind the propellers. I was thrown out of the helicopter right onto the ground. We had to laugh for
several days. It was, thus, not all bad. We had a lot of fun with each other. We shared a lot of laughters.
(Charlotte, 3rd March 2015)
As I discussed in chapter two, the concept of moral injury offers new insights concerning the impact on
soldiers of the moral and ethical implications. Litz et al (2009, p. 697) argue that soldiers have
difficulty dealing with the conflicting norms and values once they are demobilized and separated from
the military culture and context, Although the conflicting norms are key to my argument, I disagree
that soldiers are only confronted with these conflicting moral standards once they are separated from
the military context. The story of Markus in the above section about flogging civilians, shows how
soldiers’ norms and values already shift while being in the field.
The above citation shows that Charlotte had been aware of the atrocities and moral choices she
had been confronted with during her time in Afghanistan. These ‘fun happenings’ she described have
been a way for her and the other soldiers to laugh and forget about everything. ´We even laughed about
a man we saw hanging from the trees. We would make pictures, dance around and make all kinds of other
jokes with this man’. According to Charlotte, this man had been killed for his friendliness towards the
soldiers. The Taliban would not tolerate any form off contact between the civilians and the soldiers.
53
‘Although it was funny at that time’, Charlotte continues, ‘I would tell this story to nobody’. According to
Charlotte, the soldiers liked what they saw. It was something new, interesting and exciting. ‘It is striking
how your feelings and thoughts in Afghanistan and within the military are very different from the outside
world’.
In the previous section, I quoted Charlotte about a dog who got shot by her fellow soldiers. In
that same quote she states she had cried after the incident.by herself in her room. According to
Charlotte it was uncommon for a soldier to show this kind of emotion about a certain incident. It was,
however, only tolerated during, what the soldiers call, a ‘rem ceremonie’.
Charlotte had been part of this ceremony after Azdin Chadli had died. The unit would come
together in a small space and would mourn the loss of a fellow soldier. According to Charlotte, they
would show pictures of him and would play his music. ‘During his music I just had cry’ Charlotte says to
me. During these ceremonies it was accepted that male soldiers would cry. However, from the moment
they would leave this ceremony, they could not show this kind of emotion. Bobbie agrees with
Charlotte and adds, ‘you were expected to move on. Otherwise you would be a sissy.’
‘During this ceremony, the group commander went totally ballistic’, Charlotte continues. ‘He got
so mad and he started to kick at everything around him. That left an impression on me’, Charlotte says to
me. ‘Our group, got really aggressive too. We left through the gate with the idea to shoot at everything.
We wanted to kill every person that would come our way. The next night we went back to the mountain
from where the Taliban had shot at our camp. We ordered the artillery group to throw grenades at that
spot’. Charlotte knew the Taliban would definitely not be there anymore. She, therefore, did not
understand the purpose of them going to the mountain. ‘Perhaps we wanted to show ourselves we were
capable of standing up for one of our own’.
Bobbie also explains to me how the loss of one of your men would intensify that aggressive
feeling. ‘You start to think these people are barbarians. The whole population of Afghanistan were
barbarians. How could you kill one of our men??’, Bobbie says to me. ‘From that moment on everything
that would come our way, we would just destroy. We did not hesitate about that. There was only one law
in Afghanistan: ISAF owns the road!’
According to Max, they, he and the other soldiers of that unit, would also have a very strange
kind of humour during battles. ‘One time in the middle of the dessert of Afghanistan, a buddy of mine was
looking through his binoculars at the Taliban. Suddenly shots were fired in our direction. My buddy fell off
of his vehicle on the ground. We all looked shocked at each other. However, a second later he stood up,
grabbed his weapon, walked back towards his vehicle and started to laugh’. This kind of humour, Max
states, is not understood by people outside the military. Laughter was a way for these soldiers to
unwind. Since thinking about what happened or what might happen, could, finally, lead to soldiers
being unable to preform
According to Mel, humour is, indeed, the strongest weapon we, soldiers, have. ‘I would
sometimes play the song ‘It is a good day to die’, Mel says to me. According to Mel, this song is about an
54
Indian tribe who will not give up and rather die honourably. He would play that song in the car during
their patrols. Although the situation did not lend itself well to the song, he did appreciate his own
sarcasm. Even in a situation where a soldier would be injured, this sarcasm was important. ‘One time
one of my men got shot and we asked him… That car of yours, if you do not make it, can I have it? And
those cigarettes in your bag, are those for me? I also noticed you have a very nice girlfriend, what are your
plans with her’? Although not many people would understand this kind of humour in these situations, it
does help soldiers to deal with what they see or experience. Humour, according to Mel, breaks the
tension.
Sam also remembers how he would sing a song in order to break the tension. ‘Me and the
soldiers were driving through Busovaca and it was literally hell. I could feel the grenades, I could hear
shots fired from machine guns and the impacts these bullets made. I started to sing a song from R.E.M.
However, the soldier next to Sam started to panic. Consequently, Sam started to panic too. Finally, these
soldiers were able to escape this ‘hell’. Instead of laughing about the situation, these soldiers, according
to Sam, got really aggressive towards him. They wanted to kill him. The only thing Sam could do, was
laughing.
These Dutch soldiers in both Bosnia and Afghanistan were involved in multiple moral dilemmas while
acting in the role of perpetrator, victim and audience. These soldiers were confronted with situations
where they had to choose between us and them, where it concerns a conflict about the unethical
behaviours of others, and where they were a witness of intense human suffering and cruelty.
The difficulty for these soldiers of being confronted with moral dilemmas during these
operations is how they are expected to make ‘the right’ judgement according to public discourse while
also obeying orders. Consequently, they are in a constant conflict between what is ought to be ‘right’,
what they are ordered to do and what their own moral judgement is. The latter however, their own
moral judgement carries moral difficulty, because these soldiers understanding of morality has shifted
while being in Bosnia or Afghanistan.
This, the shifting of their understanding of morality, is also apparent in the way these use
humour to deal with everything they are confronted with. They laugh or make jokes about, for
instance, the suffering of civilians, while being aware of it not being conform their everyday way of
dealing with moral dilemmas.
55
Chapter four
Together we stand strong
‘You can also smoke in here’, says the man waiting for the bus to come. I look up from my attempts to lit
up my cigarette in the rain and I see a tall, bald man waving at me. I walk over and I stand in the corner
of the bus stop. ‘Not many people do that you know. Not many people in this day and age are concerned
about another person. But what brings a young girl like you to this place?’
As I am flabbergasted by his remarks and question, I stay quiet for a couple of seconds not
knowing what to say. ‘I work here’, he says quickly to me while pointing at a military base right across
from us. ‘I have been working here for almost thirty years now’. As he sees me observing him, he says to
me, ‘I am on my way home. I am done for the day, so I am not wearing my uniform now. It is not allowed
anymore, because of these attacks lately. They do not want us to stand out’. As I am trying to reply, he
continues, ‘I was always so proud wearing my uniform.
But what brings you here’, he asks me again. I explain the essence of my research and he replies
that it is really good initiative that people from outside take the time to research them. He also states
that he himself had also experienced such a moral dilemma. ‘I was in Bosnia in 1997 and we were
driving around. Suddenly we came to a stop near a bridge. There were a couple of other vehicles in front
of us and blocking our view from what was happening on the bridge. I stepped out of the vehicle and
ordered my men to stay there while I would walk towards the front of the line. As I was walking towards
the front, I saw a family on a bridge standing next to their car with all their belongings on top of the roof .
I asked one of the soldiers what was happening. This soldier did not know. The only thing he knew was
that he would shoot this family if they did not clear the bridge in ten minutes. According to this soldier,
they had received orders that the bridge should stay clear from any vehicles and civilians at any time.
Otherwise these soldiers were given the possibility to shoot civilians. Well this was just absurd. Why did
56
they not ask these civilians why they were blocking the bridge? I walked over to these civilians and they
told me their vehicle suddenly came to stop. I called my boys over, we repaired the car and these civilians
remained alive.22’
‘But you know’, he continues, ‘that is the difference between us. According to Leo, the soldiers
that wanted to shoot these civilians were part of the infantry. ‘’They just do not think’, he continues.‘
They only know how to follow orders. If they just had taken the time to ask these civilians what was
happening, it would have saved them from waiting and possible consequences’.23
I look down at my watch and I see I only have a couple of minutes left before the bus would
arrive. I hesitate about asking further about this dilemma or any other dilemma’s he has experienced
over the years. Since there was not much time left, I ask him about whether he already knows what he
is going to do after his time in the military. ‘No I do not’, he says to me, ‘ I Do not want to leave. The world
outside is scary you know. No I prefer to stay inside.’ He starts to laugh and makes me doubt whether he
is serious about his fear for the outside world
‘You think this world his scary, while you have been in situations an average person will never
experience’, I say to him. He starts to laugh again. ‘They (civilians) do not understand us. They do not
understand the situations we have been in. They are not brought up like we are. They will never be able to
experience the things we have experienced’. ’But what makes them so scary? Is it their judgements’, I ask
him. Leo does not know why he thinks the outside world is so scary. ‘Perhaps it is these judgements. We
are just different you know. That (the moral dilemma) what I just told you, that makes me different from
you’.
4.1. The Dutch army
Culture, according to Mats Alvesson (2013, p. 3), is a difficult concept to grasp since it entails so many
meanings but at the same time these meanings do not offer a clear understanding of the concept. It is,
unfortunately, beyond the scope of this research to go into the various understandings of this concept.
However, Alvesson offers some clarification about how to understand culture. He states, ‘Viewing
culture broadly as a shared and learned world of experiences, meanings, values and understandings
which inform people and which are expressed, reproduced and communicated partly in symbolic form’
(Alvesson 2013, p. 3). Culture can be understood as a system of common symbols and meanings
(Alvesson 2013, p. 4).
Alvesson (2013, p.4) continues and argues that organizational culture is concerned
22
I did not mention this example in the previous chapter, because the dilemma’s I refer to are experiences of soldiers
who were present during the Bosnian conflict and present in Afghanistan. This could pose as a clear example of
Arendt’s plea for not simply obeying orders, but to think about one’s actions. Leo indeed sought for another solution
to avoid killing these civilians. 23
I automatically assumed he referred to Dutch soldiers. Unfortunately, I did not confirm this with him.
57
with the importance of symbolism – rituals, myths, stories and legends – and about the interpretation
of events, ideas and experiences. This interpretation is influenced and shaped by the groups in which
one lives. This is however, not a one way interaction, because the external surroundings influence the
groups we live in.
In a similar vein Gideon Kunda (2009, p. 8) explains that culture within an organization is
often defined in terms of shared rules governing cognitive and affective aspects of membership, and
the means whereby these aspects of membership are expressed. Kunda (2009, p. 8) emphasized the
importance of shared meanings, assumptions, norms and values that regulate work-related behaviour.
Furthermore, the way culture is encoded in symbolic, textual and narrative structures also form an
important aspect of understanding culture in an organization.
Donna Winslow (2000, p. 25, p. 28) in her work about army culture makes a division between
‘organizations have culture’ and ‘organizations are culture’. Whereas the first perspective,
‘organizations have culture’, is based upon the idea that one needs to understand culture with regards
to the whole group, the second approach, organizations are culture, views organizations as a cultural
setting. Within this cultural setting human actors define themselves in relation to the outside world,
and the human actors are also defined by others from the outside world. It is a constant interaction
between the cultural setting and the outside world through which human actors move .
Within the military culture, the organizational structure is based upon norms, values, customs
and traditions, which over time create shared individual expectations. According to Snider (in Winslow
2000, p. 28), it is a form of glue which holds these soldiers together. To better understand
‘organizations are culture’ Winslow divides three levels of culture: artefacts; espoused values; and
basic underlying assumptions24.According to Mary Jo Hatch and Majken Schultz (2002, p. 1001), the
explicit claims members of an organization make about what the organization means to these
members, these claims carry with them some of the cultural meaning in which they are embedded. In
this way culture is embodied in material artifacts. The artifacts can be seen as symbols that express
who or what the organization is. Hatch and Schulz (2002, p. 1001) conclude that artifacts contribute
culturally produced symbolic material to organizational identity. A more specific and perhaps simple
understanding of artifacts is suggested by Winslow (2000, p. 29), artifacts can be understood as the
uniforms they wear, the unit patches attached to their uniforms and the berets.
In the first paragraph of the above extraction, Leo mentions the importance of wearing his
uniform outside of work. For Leo, the uniform stands for pride of the organisation, of his profession
and perhaps even for his fellow soldiers. Noteworthy is how the uniform is an important artifact in
showing who the organization is and who its people are who belong to this organization. Furthermore,
the uniform differentiates Leo from civilian society.
24
I am aware that the following paragraphs offer a rather limited perspective of all the different features of the army
culture. It is however beyond the scope of this research to discuss it at lengths.
58
During my research, I further discovered, that the interlocutors were very proud of their
medals. Jorit, for instance, had a small space reserved in the sideboard that was standing in the living
room. With a lot of pride, this was one of the first things he showed me when I entered his home. ‘The
medals show what I did and what I am capable of ’, he says to me. ‘And it shows who I was and who I still
am. You will always be connected’. Dennis had also kept his medals, but he had burned his suit. He could
not stand the idea that his suit was still in his house. ‘Burning my suit was a way for me to say goodbye
to the military and everything that had happened in Bosnia’. ’
Markus, on the other hand, was very proud of his red beret . If a soldier was to wear the red
beret, it showed others you were part of the
‘luchtmobiele brigade’25. If you were part of this
brigade, according to Garey and Dax, you could
take on anything, because the training was very
tough. Markus agrees with both Garey and Dax
and ads, ‘if people did not make the training, they
would go to the ‘blanco’s’.26 Because these people
did not make it, they would act tough and very
manly. That is very shady behaviour, I think. They
would cry at our trainings, but they are the man somewhere else. I am sorry, but that does not fly with
me.’
According to Alvesson (2013, p. 35), within the military there are many smaller organizations.
There is a differentiation between, the Army, Air
Force, Navy and Marine Corps. During my visit at
the Veterans café, I noticed this differentiation
between soldiers from the Navy and from the Air
Force. They sat at different tables and they did
not chat with each other. However these smaller
organizations could also be further divided. In
the above extraction of Leo the differentiation
between his group and the infantry is highly
visible when he says to me, ‘they just do not
think’ (…) ‘they only know how to follow orders.
Apparently, his group does think and does not
solely obey orders
The beret is not merely an artifact that shows one belongs to a particular group in a certain
organization, the beret also refers to a story about certain espoused values, such as manhood and
25
Airmobile Brigade 26
Blanco is another word for a soldier of the infantry group.
59
toughness. Espoused values are sets of values that are defined as self-sacrifice, discipline, obedience to
legitimate authority, physical and moral courage, mental toughness, and loyalty and respect for
comrades, unit and nation (Winslow 2000, p. 29).
‘You would like to be the man that you thought you would be’, Mel says to me. ‘However during
my time here in the military, I have seen men who were unable to perform in certain situations because
they could not move anymore out of fear. That is not how it should be. These men have not been able to
accept what happened and they finally committed suicide. It is finally all about being the man amongst all
the other men. That is what it is all about here.’
Mel shows the importance of physical and moral courage, mental toughness and perhaps even
self-sacrifice by the idea of not being the man you thought you were. Max also mentioned it was not
common to say that you were scared. ‘People will look at you as if you are a coward. You do not want
that there’. Mathijs agrees with both Mel and Max. He says, ‘You do not say something is bothering you to
the rest of the group. We are of course a bunch of tough dudes that belong to the military. So you just keep
your mouth shut. If you do not have your act together, you can be excluded. You know how it is among
guys. It all about macho behaviour’. According to Mathijs, if you do not have these attributes of physical
and moral courage and mental toughness, you do not belong to the group anymore.
Other interlocutors also mentioned the importance of loyalty among the soldiers. As I
mentioned in chapter three, soldiers are known for having deeply rooted feelings of internal cohesion
promoting an exclusive and unconditional loyalty. Although Navarro(in Kummel et al. 2009, p. 63)
refers to the overall military organization, these feelings of cohesion and loyalty can also be found
within the multiple groups that form this organization. Simultaneously, the boundary between
individual and group fades away. The individuals share the main status of being ‘army men’ reducing
any other component of their self
As a consequence of these reduced personal identities and forming of a shared feeling based on
being army men, these soldiers will be bound for life. ‘I have two brothers by birth, Bobbies says to me,
but my buddy from the army is my real brother. It sounds strange but that is how it works’. Roy shares
these same feelings, ‘if one of my close friends would say…you cannot walk any further otherwise you will
fall from the railing, and my buddy tells me I can walk a little bit further, I believe my buddy. No doubt
about it’.
According to Klaas, he will never be part of the unit he worked with in Afghanistan. He was not
raised with them, because he does other work for the Ministry of Defence. In Afghanistan he would not
leave camp Holland due to his work. This unit, however, would be out in the field for days. Every time
this group got back, he would observe a growing feeling of togetherness that he describes as
something amazing, ‘It is a feeling that you will always be there for each other no matter what the
circumstances will be and that is an ongoing process. This bond these men share is not to compare with
the friendships we have here (civilian society)’.
The third and last level of culture, according to Winslow’s approach of ‘organizations as culture,
60
are the basic underlying assumptions (2000, p. 29).These assumptions are the ultimate source of
values and actions. According to Klaas, the underlying assumption of focussing on loyalty and
solidarity within the army, is the idea that soldiers will participate in these operations or will go into
these warzone areas to look out for the safety of their buddies.
Noteworthy though, the other soldiers did not mention this during my conversations with
them. The reasons these soldiers mentioned for wanting to go on a mission were excitement,
adventure and ‘it is all part of being a soldier’. Bobbie’s story appeared to be no different. However, at
one point during our conversation he mentioned he had difficulty dealing with feelings of guilt about
not finishing his job in Afghanistan ‘We only had a few injured soldiers during our mission and when I
got back home the first Dutch soldier was killed. I could not handle this. I was under the impression for a
long time I had not finished the job well. I wanted to go back and help my men’. This last statement, ‘I
wanted to go back and help my man’, affirms the underlying assumption Kees had mentioned.
Aside from these three levels of culture, Winslow also mentions the importance of language.
According to Morgan, Frost and Pondy (cited in Winslow 2000, p. 35), ‘the use of language is rich in
symbolic significance. It carries patterns of meaning which do much to evoke and define the realities of
organizational life, and is a topic central to the analysis of organizational symbolism.’
In the beginning of this chapter’s introduction Roy states, ‘we always speak about ‘civilian
society’ and the people living in this society that we call nukubu’s. And the Ministry of Defence ‘we called
the CEO of the Netherlands’. The word nukubu, which might be considered rude, carries a lot of
meaning. First, it refers to the outside world of the military. It is often used in a humoristic manner
towards people in the outside world. However, it does create a distance between organizational life and
civilian society. Nukubu could also refer to the people working within the Ministry of Defence, MoD. Not
all employees working at the MoD are soldiers. The use of this word within the organization creates a
separation from civilians and soldiers and creates a stronger bond among soldiers.
In this chapter I have discussed how soldiers experience the ‘army culture’ within the organization of
the army. Important is their strong bond together that is created by certain artifacts, the norms and
values they share and the narratives they share about being part of a peacekeeping operation. At the
same time, the artifacts, values and narratives, create a separation with life outside the army. As Leo
stated at the end of our encounter, ‘Perhaps it is these judgements. We are just different you know. That
(the moral dilemma) what I just told you, that makes me different from you’.
Conclusion:
61
I started this study with the idea that there is a thin line between good and evil. A line that is not
always clear to the naked eye. A line we stumble upon when we are confronted with choices about
good and evil. This assumption led to a study about the process of justification (legitimation) among
soldiers of UNPROFOR, Dutchbat and ISAF concerning the violent acts they have suffered, inflicted or
observed within the army culture and within norms of civilian life outside the army.
According to Schroder and Schmidt (2001) and Strathern and Stewart (2006), violence only
becomes socially meaningful through its performative quality. Due to this quality, many acts of violence
are seen and judged differently by different people. Each of these different perspectives, perpetrator,
victim and audience, evaluates violent acts according to the different moral systems they have.
Schroder and Schmidt (2001) argue that it is not always possible to take these three
perspectives into account. Instead, a researcher can also rely on only two perspectives. Strathern and
Stewart (2006), on the other hand, argue that some individuals will be victims, some will be
perpetrators and others will be witnesses of the violent acts they are confronted with. Especially this
later statement is rather unclear. Although Strathern and Stewart acknowledge the presence of the
three roles when confronted with violent acts, their statement also implies that these roles are rather
static and cannot change over time or place. Secondly, this statement treats these roles as independent
entities that do not intertwine when confronted with violent acts.
This study, however, shows that these soldiers did experience many acts of violence within the
three different roles of the ‘triangle of violence - perpetrator, victim and audience - during the
peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Afghanistan. It further showed how all three perspectives were
intertwined within the operations. If one would treat these perspectives as separate entities, it would
create a rather limited perspective of these soldier’s role during these operations
The story of Max in Afghanistan in 2007 shows how on an individual level Max operated within
these three roles: he had been involved in multiple shootings; he was part of an IED explosion where
six of his fellow soldiers were injured; and he was a witness to the atrocities among Afghan children
which was inflicted by the elders of the villages. Sam, a UNPROFOR soldier, was also a witness of
corpses lying around on each side of the road as a consequence of the Bosnians and Serbs murdering
each other. He had also been a victim of multiple shooting while he was driving through Bosnia.
Instead of focussing merely on this individual level of role division, one could also look at the
overall operation to determine how these roles were situated and how these different roles together
give a deeper understanding of the operation.
In Afghanistan there was a division between the perspectives of soldiers staying at the camp
and soldiers who would ride and walk through the dessert and the villages. The soldiers who stayed
out at the camp were witnesses of the atrocities among Afghan civilians while also being victims of the
missile attacks done by the Taliban. The soldiers that went out into the field, for instance Max, were
62
confronted with being a perpetrator, victim and witness. In Bosnia, however, there was no clear
division between soldiers staying out at the camp or soldiers going into the field These soldiers took
on these multiple perspectives .
With regards to theses narratives of the soldiers who were in Bosnia and Afghanistan and the
moral choices they are confronted with, I have referred to the term ’moral injury’. Psychologists
understand this term to refer to an act of transgression that creates dissonance and conflict because it
violates assumptions and beliefs about right and wrong and personal goodness. In order to avoid a
psychological quest, I have understood moral injury as the moral choices these soldiers were
confronted with in the roles of perpetrator, victim and witness and the assessment of these choices
according to different moral standards. These moral standards are divided in institutional morality,
public discourse and embodied dispositions.
I have further argued in this research with regards to making moral choices, that these choices
are not solely about not being able to think. According to Arendt (in Butler 2011) people are obliged to
think about the consequences of ones actions. Every man is its own legislator and should not be guided
by obeying orders. Instead people should be guided by their capacity to think. People are the moral
agent of their moral consciousness.
However the narrative of Charlotte showed the difficulty of making a quick decision about
multiple lives. Charlotte had the responsibility, together with her colleague, to protect every man that
was walking around on that camp. They had the responsibility to stop the suicide bomber from
exploding. In order to stop the attack, they were to be expected to kill the man in the vehicle. They are
expected to make quick judgements without hesitations. Theses soldiers had to survive. And if thinking
will to one’s death, obeying orders is what one will do.
It would be unfair not to mention that I have been confronted with making moral choices
during the course of my research. During the second week of my research, I noticed that I could not
only observe at the Veldpost because there were not many people coming by. I called other walk-in-
houses in the hope they would allow me to conduct my research there. The first walk-in house I called
denied my request. The veteran explained to me that he recently had become a father and he could
share his story with me. ‘I cannot take this one now’, he says to me, ‘I know I cannot be a good father if I
will cooperate. ´You will open a wound that is still not completely healed.’ I did not only realize the
sensitivity of this topic, but my role as researcher could harm them all over again.
Furthermore, I noticed how I was taken away by the narratives of these veterans. It was at first
very difficult to hear the different situations they has been confronted with in either Bosnia or
Afghanistan. However, after two moths these stories were not new to me anymore. The excitement
these experiences had brought me in the beginning, was not there anymore. These stories had become
part of life for me. However I missed that feeling excitement so I went searching for it by approaching
more interlockers. It was only near the end that I realized I went searching for that feeling of
63
excitement.
On a final note, I hope this research will inspire more researchers into researching the moral
conflicts of collective violence. As Martijn, a interlocker from Bosnia said to me, ‘In my mind I have
written a book, but there is no end to the story. The story begins with ‘once upon a time’, and it has to end
with ‘they lived happily ever after’.
Appendix
64
Overview of the respondents
Name of veteran Mission Year working for Ministry of Defence
Jochem Afghanistan/Kabul 2001 no
Dennis Bosnia 1994 no
Klaas Afghanistan/Uruzgan 2007 yes
Mathijs Afghanistan/Uruzgan 2006 no
Sam Bosnia 1993,1994 no
Sarah Bosnia 2000 no
Ray Afghanistan X yes
Dax Bosnia 1995 no
Freek Bosnia 1997 no
Roy Afghanistan/Uruzgan 2009 no
Henk x x no
Daan Afghanistan/Uruzgan 2006,2007 no
Rex Afghanistan/Uruzgan 2007 no
Martin x x no
Bart Afghanistan x yes
Karin Afghanistan/Kabul 2006 yes
Jorit Afghanistan/Uruzgan 2006 no
Elmer Bosnia/Afghanistan 1995, 2007 yes
Charlotte Afghanistan/Uruzgan 2007, 2009 no
Bobbie Afghanistan/Uruzgan 2006, 2007 no
Murrie & Danny Bosnia: court hearing 1995 no
Robbie Afghanistan/Uruzgan 2008 no
Max Afghanistan/Uruzgan 2007 no
Boy Afghanistan/Uruzgan 2007, 2008, 2009 no
Helga x x no
Nick Afghanistan/Uruzgan 2006, 2007, 2009/2010 no
Mel Afghanistan 2009/2010 yes
Bob Afghanistan/ Uruzgan 2007 no
Paul Afghanistan x yes
Leo Afghanistan x yes
Markus Afghanistan 2009/2010 no
Garey Bosnia 1994/1995 no
Martijn Bosnia 1992,1993,1994,1995 no
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