Iceland’s peacekeepers given frosty welcome home

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/nov2004-daily/07-11-2004/world/w7.htm

Iceland’s peacekeepers given frosty welcome home

REYKJAVIK: Far from being hailed as heroes, three Icelandic peacekeepers wounded in Kabul last month received a frosty welcome on returning home as Icelanders proud of their country’s peaceful past seethe over photos of the trio armed to the teeth. The three, who were participating in NATO’s peacekeeping efforts in war-torn Afghanistan, were injured on October 23 in a suicide bombing in which an American woman and an Afghan girl were killed along with the bomber.

Following the attack, which was later claimed by the Taliban, photos and video-footage of the heavily armed Icelanders wearing camouflage uniforms were published in the media here, sparking controversy in a country that considers itself one of the world’s truly non-military nations. Iceland has not had an army or even armed police since the population was converted at gunpoint to Lutheranism and disarmed by Danish colonial troops in the mid-16th century.

SNIP

I have to say that we should stick to what we know how to do, and soldiers we are not," opposition MP Gudmundur Arni Stefansson of the Social Democratic Alliance said. Other MPs pointed out that not only did the Icelandic peacekeepers carry machine guns and grenades but they were also obviously treated as soldiers by other NATO peacekeepers as well as the Taliban. After dodging the opposition’s bullets for two weeks, the government announced on Wednesday that the head of the country’s peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, Colonel Halli Sigurdsson, would be recalled. Yet Foreign Minister David Oddsson insisted Iceland would continue to contribute to NATO’s peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, and maintained that the Icelanders there "are not soldiers". Iceland’s historic dedication to peace did not prevent the country from becoming a founding member of NATO in 1949, or from soon thereafter permitting an important US military base to be built at Keflavik, some 75 kilometres from the capital, where it remains to this day. Following the Cold War however, the US has drastically downsized its military presence in Iceland and had it not been for a phone call from former Prime Minister David Oddsson directly to President George W Bush, the US would have completely withdrawn its air force from the country.

In an attempt to create a new place for itself in a post-Cold War world Iceland has stepped up its peacekeeping efforts, running the Pristina airport in Kosovo and since June 2004 making a major contribution to the running of the NATO airport in Kabul. Despite its lack of a military, Iceland also joined the US-led "Coalition of the Willing" in the war in Iraq, and was along with the Tonga and the Solomon Islands made a laughing stock in Michael Moore’s controversial film "Fahrenheit 9/11". Icelanders have accepted this military participation as long as their country only contributed to keeping the peace, but the seeming assimilation of Icelanders into an international armed force has been too much for many to stomach.

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Following the Cold War however, the US has drastically downsized its military presence in Iceland and had it not been for a phone call from former Prime Minister David Oddsson directly to President George W Bush, the US would have completely withdrawn its air force from the country.

This David Oddsson is anyone's dog who'll feed him, I suspect.

who ignited these conflicts, and not the Peacekeepers, who are just doing their jobs.