Were The Dutch Hoodwinked?

Uruzgan, Were The Dutch Hoodwinked?

By Louise Dunne
11-07-2007
RadioNetherlands

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Tuesday's suicide attack in southern Afghanistan, which left at least 17 civilians dead and a number of Dutch soldiers injured, has again raised questions about Dutch involvement in Afghanistan. A year ago, the deployment of Dutch troops in the Afghan province of Uruzgan was widely seen as primarily a reconstruction mission but it's becoming clearer by the day that this is a military operation with all the attendant risks.

It's not the case that NATO's stated aim in Afghanistan has changed but public perception here in The Netherlands has, with reports of deaths and casualties a rude awakening for many. So how did this original misperception arise? Were Dutch voters hoodwinked by the politicians into supporting a fighting force dressed in the sheep's clothing of peacekeepers?

The Original ISAF Mission

The International Security Assistance Force's (ISAF) primary role is to support the government of Afghanistan in providing and maintaining a secure environment in order to facilitate the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

The official NATO statement on the purpose of the ISAF seems clear enough: establish security so rebuilding can begin. And security means fighting. But in the run-up to the 2006 decision to participate in the mission, the government put the emphasis on reconstruction.

While some opposition parties pressed the cabinet on the dangers involved, it was ultimately the prospect of helping to rebuild Afghanistan which won a majority of parliamentarians over.

But was this naivety or a more calculated attempt to "sell" a controversial decision to the voters?

Different Views

Marico Peters, defence spokesperson for the opposition GreenLeft party:

"People are feeling deceived by the government. What they initially thought of as a reconstruction mission is in fact a fighting mission. It is partly a naive idealism, but partly I think it was also political opportunity.

From the outset the mission was controversial and in order to obtain parliamentary approval the government had to redesign the mission to make it look like a reconstruction mission."

Hans van Baalen, of the conservative VVD party, is less critical of this "soft sell" approach. Van Baalen insists that it's impossible to predict what will happen in a war-like situation.

"I don't believe that the Dutch cabinet or NATO tried to mislead the public or parliament in The Netherlands. No, today it is more or less a fighting mission with reconstruction as follow-up. That has nothing to do with misleading but with changing circumstances and trying to look at it from the brightest side instead of being more realistic."

Blind Spot

But Dick Pels, a sociologist and political commentator in The Netherlands, believes both the Dutch public and the politicians have a blind spot when it comes to this sort of decision.

"This has something to do with the Dutch national character, maybe our pacifist history, but we're not prepared to think hard about war. I think we were all shocked by what happened in Srebrenica when the Dutch army was unable to prevent the killing of about 7,000 Muslim men. This made us re-think what our army actually is.

And I think most politicians were not prepared to see that inevitably we would have to fight. The 'yes' to the mission was expressed on the basis of this optimistic notion. But there was also a selling operation, a spin operation going on in order to sell this difficult and costly mission to the Dutch voter."

A Successful Spin

If it was a spin operation, it was a successful one. Dutch troops were deployed in the Afghan province of Uruzgan in August last year, and since then it's become clear that those troops are too busy with security to offer much in the way of assistance.

This makes the debate about extending the mission beyond its current 2008 deadline a controversial one. Now that it's clear the Dutch are in Afghanistan to fight, how will the government persuade the country to accept the dangers of staying on? Van Baalen has no doubts about the importance of the mission:

"We are fighting terrorism in the interests of the West, in the interest of Europe, in the interests of The Netherlands itself. So we're not - and let us be honest - not in Afghanistan for the well-being of the Afghan people. It is essentially a counter-terrorist fight and that's in our own best interest."

Non-Flyer

But is this an argument that will be acceptable to Dutch voters? Dick Pels doesn't think it will fly.

"Afghanistan is a very different country from Iraq and the war in Iraq is very different from the war in Afghanistan. So I don't think it will be successful if Hans van Baalen repeats his argument that we are here at war with al-Qaeda.

"Also, because we started the mission with the humanitarian inspiration and ambition, it will be difficult to switch to that more warlike notion of military intervention in a far-away country."

Finding The Line Between Propaganda and Truth

Opinions on whether the ISAF mission can be seen as an important element of the war on terror will inevitably differ. Mariko Peters isn't convinced by the government's rhetoric and doesn't think the public will be either.

"People have now become a little bit more sceptical about the strategies that the government presents to them because they have seen how what has been earlier sold as a reconstruction mission was in fact not. If you are fighting a war on terror then we should be honest about it.

"And then the government runs into problems because it denies it is solely about terrorism. It wants to sell the mission as a reconstruction mission. So there we run into the problem that democracy often runs into, that whatever is being sold sometimes turns out to be propaganda instead of the truth of what we are doing."

The line between propaganda and truth is sometimes hard to determine, the only sure thing is that there are going to be some fireworks in the Dutch parliament when the extension of the mission is debated later this summer.

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External Links:

NATO in Afghanistan
International Security Assistance Force
Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs newsflashes