Politics: Oops: U.S. general apologizes for criticizing gay Dutch soldiers
- I am sorry that my recent public recollection of those discussions of 15 years ago inaccurately reflected your thinking on some specific social issues in the military. To be clear, the failure on the ground in Srebrenica was in no way the fault of the individual soldiers.
- Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander John Sheehan • Regarding some comments he made about Dutch soldiers last week. He claimed that European armies had been weakened by those who tried to “socialize” them (a.k.a. allow gay soldiers), and specifically mentioned the Srebrenica massacre, a 1995 atrocity where a small group of Dutch peacekeepers were ambushed by Serbian soldiers – an attack that led to the deaths of over 7,000 Muslims men and boys, as well as the resignation of many Dutch leaders in 2002. Sheehan’s comments sparked such outrage that a defamation suit was threatened against him – well, until this apology was accepted not long after Sheehan wrote it. source