Gays Lead to Genocide, Asserts U.S. General; Dutch Disagree

Getting gays in or out of the military is one issue. What they do and have done in the military is turning out to be wholly another, related as they undoubtedly are. The views of a U.S. General became painfully clear yesterday: openly gay soldiers lead to weakness and defeat that, in turn, allow the worst of all barbarism to take place, genocide.

As the War in Bosnia was winding down in 1995, 8,000 Muslim Bosnian soldiers, mostly men and boys, were massacred in Srebrenica by Serbian forces. Two years earlier, the city was declared a UN Safe Zone, guarded by a small unit under the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR). Both the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice judged the act as a genocide.

So where does what gays do in the military and the Dutch fit in?

U.S. General John Sheehan, retired since 1997, asserted to the BBC that Dutch leaders told him that the presence of gay soldiers was a key factor in the Muslim genocide. Dutch peacekeepers made up the bulk of the unit that was meant to protect Srebrenica, and have often been blamed for failure (regardless of their sexual orientation), an untenable claim because they were vastly outnumbered by fighting soldiers. Nonetheless, General Sheehan sees the problem as running much deeper.

According to Sheehan, the root of the problem is the "socialization" process of the Dutch military, which included open homosexuality. This, in turn, led to "a focus on peacekeeping operations because they did not believe the Germans were going to attack again or the Soviets were coming back" during the Cold War, again in his view. So when it came to protecting the city, in Sheehan's account, the "gayness" of the UN agents made their "peacekeeping gene" kick in rather than their "war-making" gene. This "weakness," in turn, led directly to the genocide.

Sound like a deluded, not to say bigoted, slippery slope to you? You're not alone.

Dutch officials were quick to denounce Sheehan's views as nonsensical. Even the chairman of the U.S. Armed Services Committee, Senator Carl Levin, called the comments "totally off target." If what Sheehan said were true, ending militarism would be as easy as homosexuals infiltrating and taking over armies. 

Homosexuality has, historically, been a vital part of the military traditions of the greatest armies ever assembled, including the Ancient Greeks and Romans, continuing today in the UK, Canada, Australia and Israel. The parts LGBT people have played in peacekeeping is less known.

Photo credit: combust