Dallaire recalls Rwandan death threat
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Old School my first post were thought‘s of the personal troubles he suffered on his return home.Originally posted by OLD SCHOOL:
[qb] The man was thrown in the middle of an ocean and when he requested flotation...he was thrown an anchor...over and over and over.
How he continued on in those conditions is beyond me. That is not the same situation as a tough course or reg. mission as there was NO support. Constantly being ****ed by his own side he and the rest of UNAMIR soldiered on through atrocious conditions. I would serve beside him anytime or place.
Look at his efforts since...still trying to help and improve peoples lives.
How many UNAMIR soldiers were casualties of this mission. All?[/qb]
As many know he suffered a guilt at what he saw as his failure as a Soldier.
WRONG!
He did not fail the World failed him!
He did his best!
It is the failure of OUR Gov. and the U.N. that caused the Genocide in Africa.
I,also would serve with him any day.
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Intelligere wrote:
That‘s a crass and stupid statement from someone having the experience you claim. Unless you were in his hip pocket, you have no idea of the trials and tribulations witnessed by Lt.-Gen Romeo Dallaire or the effects they caused. Who are you to judge how anyone should react.
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I‘m appalled that you could say something so crass.
Romeo Dallaire saw something few have ever seen - genocide - hundreds and hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children murdered, hacked to death, until the rivers ran red with their blood, and the crocodiles were so engorged they couldn‘t eat any more.
He also lost troops under his command - something no commander ever "gets over".
How dare you say something so insensitive, so callous, so unthinking? Shame upon you!
E
Engineer Corporal
Guest
Try reading his book. It will open your eyes. He did everything in his power.
D
Duotone81
Guest
What an ignorant thing to say. I‘d feel lower than dirt if I even thought that. It‘s real easy to shoot bullshit comments like that through the anonymity of the internet eh?
I tell ya what. I‘ll loan you my copy if you‘re too cheap to go out and spend a couple bucks on one so you can read for yourself what he experienced for a year with little to no support.
Show some respect.
I tell ya what. I‘ll loan you my copy if you‘re too cheap to go out and spend a couple bucks on one so you can read for yourself what he experienced for a year with little to no support.
Show some respect.
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As far as I know, Dallaire never went to pieces during the mission. He did his job as best he could. The poor guy had to argue with the UN for a month just to get a shipment of flashlights, and even then, they never got the batteries. He was left out in the cold. It was our fault the mission failed, not the people on the mission.
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I have to agree. Gen Dallaire is an outstanding Soldier who cares for his troops and the mission. His book, while depressing is a great book. It compliments Gen MacKenzies book WRT the poor direction of the UN. After the first deployment of troops under NATO I agree that they can do the job much better than the UN, as far as armed Soldiers go. They might be good with duties such as, the UNHCR and alike. But I feel that they are totally incompitant as far as deploying armed troops. We need former or current soldiers in charge of armed UN forces in New York.
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One dark night in Rwanda, a man who called himself Jean-Pierre warned the UN about a plan to exterminate Tutsis at a rate faster than the Nazis killed Jews.
In a lamp lit room in Kigali, Jean-Pierre offered to lead the UN to arms caches in return for asylum for his family, but UN officials in New York refused permission. Nobody knows "Jean-Pierre‘s" fate, but we do know the fate of those he tried to help.
Because three months later - in the spring of 1994 - gangs of renegade soldiers and machete-wielding street kids organized by the extremists of Hutu power set about murdering their Tutsi countrymen and leading moderate Hutus.
They killed at least 800,000 in 100 days, aided by ordinary men and women who were somehow convinced this was their "umuganda", their work and civic duty.
Never again
The UN declined for many of those hundred days even to use the term "genocide"
Steve Bradshaw
This was not tribal frenzy, not anarchy, but the work of an organised, hierarchical and obedient society. One that would certainly have noticed if the rest of the world had said "Stop It" and backed the warning up with a little force.
But while the UN voiced its disapproval, it declined for many of those 100 days even to use the term "genocide".
Over half a century after the world swore "Never Again" to the Holocaust, what are we to make of this exercise in what political scientist Norman Geras has called balefully the "Contract of Mutual Indifference"?
It wasn‘t that the rich, developed nations - not to mention landlocked Rwanda‘s African neighbours failed to intervene in Rwanda. Given the debacle earlier that year of Somalia, when 18 US marines died in a humanitarian mission to Somalia, a refusal to intervene might at least have been understandable.
The sin, if you want to call it that, was that the world was already there.
A force of UN peacekeepers had been despatched to Rwanda in 1993 to help enforce an emerging peace deal between the Hutu government and invading guerrillas of the Tutsi-led RPF.
Tragic fiction
Piles of bones show the scale of the slaughter
They‘d been kept short of weapons, ammunition, vehicles, medicine, you name it. (It has to be said this was partly the fault of some of the governments who sent them there, like Bangladesh). The helicopters didn‘t even have hostile environment insurance, and were flown out when the killing started.
Then the UN voted to withdraw all but a handful of the peacekeepers (only to try to put them back when most of the killing was done). It has been claimed that even with the support of Western troops, flown in to evacuate Europeans, there weren‘t enough to stop the murders.
But whatever aggressive action they might have taken, some of the UN troops were actually guarding civilians.
When Belgian troops were pulled out of the Don Bosco camp - codeword Beverly Hills - the killers who had been driving around the camp with their machetes, AKs and fluorescent wigs moved in and killed about 2,000 men women and children.
Shortly afterwards - with UN troops still protecting many civilians - the British team at the UN was privately claiming it would be a "tragic fiction" to suppose the UN could help protect any more beleaguered Tutsis.
The ultimate insults to the dying are now well known. The US State Department‘s spokeswoman Christine Shelley - acting on orders - declined to use the term "genocide" unqualified, insisting on saying only "acts of genocide" were occurring.
What colour?
When the UN did decide to summon up an intervention force, the US delayed over the despatch of armoured vehicles - the arguments ranged from what colour to paint the vehicles to who would be paying for the painting
Steve Bradshaw
The department‘s legal team feared that recognising the G Word would oblige the US to intervene because of the UN Genocide Convention. In fact the convention mandates no such thing, merely makes it a possibility. The lawyers knew this but politicians feared the public wouldn‘t follow such subtle reasoning.
Then, when the UN did decide to summon up an intervention force, the US delayed over the despatch of armoured vehicles. The arguments ranged from what colour to paint the vehicles to who would be paying for the painting.
And when they did arrive - they didn‘t have radios. Although the killing was already over.
And then there was the suggestion of jamming the Hate Radio station that was giving the killers orders. The trouble with that - apart from a few technical hassles that could surely have been overcome - it would surely breach the US‘s constitutional commitment to free speech.
There were other episodes of mass murder in the 20th Century. But - other than the Allied planes flying over the Nazi death camps - there has been no other such demonstration of the Contract of Mutual Indifference in a country where the onlooking world - in an age of mass media - has had a military presence.
Ashamed
Hence the title of Panorama‘s 1999 film "When Good Men Do Nothing" a phrase attributed to the English philosopher Edmund Burke, and his condition for what he called The Triumph of Evil.
We could also, I suppose, have called it And Who Is My Neighbour? That, you may recall, is the sardonic question a lawyer asks in Saint Luke, a question that prompts the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
One official who originally backed the do nothing policy, Anthony Barnett, told Panorama he could never have believed he would be a bystander to genocide.
"You should be ashamed," he told himself on camera. I think he would like to feel he speaks for the rest of us.
Steve Bradshaw made his first Panorama programme on Rwanda - A Culture of Murder - in the weeks after the genocide. He has made two other films on Rwanda including the award winning When Good Men Do Nothing, which investigated the failure of the international community in Rwanda in detail.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/3577575.stm
In a lamp lit room in Kigali, Jean-Pierre offered to lead the UN to arms caches in return for asylum for his family, but UN officials in New York refused permission. Nobody knows "Jean-Pierre‘s" fate, but we do know the fate of those he tried to help.
Because three months later - in the spring of 1994 - gangs of renegade soldiers and machete-wielding street kids organized by the extremists of Hutu power set about murdering their Tutsi countrymen and leading moderate Hutus.
They killed at least 800,000 in 100 days, aided by ordinary men and women who were somehow convinced this was their "umuganda", their work and civic duty.
Never again
The UN declined for many of those hundred days even to use the term "genocide"
Steve Bradshaw
This was not tribal frenzy, not anarchy, but the work of an organised, hierarchical and obedient society. One that would certainly have noticed if the rest of the world had said "Stop It" and backed the warning up with a little force.
But while the UN voiced its disapproval, it declined for many of those 100 days even to use the term "genocide".
Over half a century after the world swore "Never Again" to the Holocaust, what are we to make of this exercise in what political scientist Norman Geras has called balefully the "Contract of Mutual Indifference"?
It wasn‘t that the rich, developed nations - not to mention landlocked Rwanda‘s African neighbours failed to intervene in Rwanda. Given the debacle earlier that year of Somalia, when 18 US marines died in a humanitarian mission to Somalia, a refusal to intervene might at least have been understandable.
The sin, if you want to call it that, was that the world was already there.
A force of UN peacekeepers had been despatched to Rwanda in 1993 to help enforce an emerging peace deal between the Hutu government and invading guerrillas of the Tutsi-led RPF.
Tragic fiction
Piles of bones show the scale of the slaughter
They‘d been kept short of weapons, ammunition, vehicles, medicine, you name it. (It has to be said this was partly the fault of some of the governments who sent them there, like Bangladesh). The helicopters didn‘t even have hostile environment insurance, and were flown out when the killing started.
Then the UN voted to withdraw all but a handful of the peacekeepers (only to try to put them back when most of the killing was done). It has been claimed that even with the support of Western troops, flown in to evacuate Europeans, there weren‘t enough to stop the murders.
But whatever aggressive action they might have taken, some of the UN troops were actually guarding civilians.
When Belgian troops were pulled out of the Don Bosco camp - codeword Beverly Hills - the killers who had been driving around the camp with their machetes, AKs and fluorescent wigs moved in and killed about 2,000 men women and children.
Shortly afterwards - with UN troops still protecting many civilians - the British team at the UN was privately claiming it would be a "tragic fiction" to suppose the UN could help protect any more beleaguered Tutsis.
The ultimate insults to the dying are now well known. The US State Department‘s spokeswoman Christine Shelley - acting on orders - declined to use the term "genocide" unqualified, insisting on saying only "acts of genocide" were occurring.
What colour?
When the UN did decide to summon up an intervention force, the US delayed over the despatch of armoured vehicles - the arguments ranged from what colour to paint the vehicles to who would be paying for the painting
Steve Bradshaw
The department‘s legal team feared that recognising the G Word would oblige the US to intervene because of the UN Genocide Convention. In fact the convention mandates no such thing, merely makes it a possibility. The lawyers knew this but politicians feared the public wouldn‘t follow such subtle reasoning.
Then, when the UN did decide to summon up an intervention force, the US delayed over the despatch of armoured vehicles. The arguments ranged from what colour to paint the vehicles to who would be paying for the painting.
And when they did arrive - they didn‘t have radios. Although the killing was already over.
And then there was the suggestion of jamming the Hate Radio station that was giving the killers orders. The trouble with that - apart from a few technical hassles that could surely have been overcome - it would surely breach the US‘s constitutional commitment to free speech.
There were other episodes of mass murder in the 20th Century. But - other than the Allied planes flying over the Nazi death camps - there has been no other such demonstration of the Contract of Mutual Indifference in a country where the onlooking world - in an age of mass media - has had a military presence.
Ashamed
Hence the title of Panorama‘s 1999 film "When Good Men Do Nothing" a phrase attributed to the English philosopher Edmund Burke, and his condition for what he called The Triumph of Evil.
We could also, I suppose, have called it And Who Is My Neighbour? That, you may recall, is the sardonic question a lawyer asks in Saint Luke, a question that prompts the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
One official who originally backed the do nothing policy, Anthony Barnett, told Panorama he could never have believed he would be a bystander to genocide.
"You should be ashamed," he told himself on camera. I think he would like to feel he speaks for the rest of us.
Steve Bradshaw made his first Panorama programme on Rwanda - A Culture of Murder - in the weeks after the genocide. He has made two other films on Rwanda including the award winning When Good Men Do Nothing, which investigated the failure of the international community in Rwanda in detail.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/3577575.stm
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I don‘t like what you are insinuating.
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Sherwood,
I know you‘re just trying (once again) to get a rise out of us Canucks here... There are so many things wrong with your post I don‘t know where to start. But here goes:
Dallaire condemned Canada‘s inaction as well, not just in his book, but in interviews. We‘re fully aware that we as a country could have done much more, but that doesn‘t "undo" the situation.
The truth is however, even if Canada threw all it‘s available military might at the situation, it wouldn‘t likely be sufficient. (More so now than in 94 I suspect!) The US on the other hand could handle the mission without feeling the pinch. It just chose not to.
The Canadian flag campaign has zero to do with this issue. Or maybe I‘m missing the connection...? (Surely you‘re not trying to say *Canadian* patriotism is overdone!)
And yes, it would have been a great thing if Canada had stepped in to stop the genocide, but nobody did, so now all the participating countries have blood on their hands. You have to ask: is the responsibility proportional to the amount and ease of aid each country *could have* provided, but chose not to?
*NOW* it‘s "nuff said."
I know you‘re just trying (once again) to get a rise out of us Canucks here... There are so many things wrong with your post I don‘t know where to start. But here goes:
Dallaire condemned Canada‘s inaction as well, not just in his book, but in interviews. We‘re fully aware that we as a country could have done much more, but that doesn‘t "undo" the situation.
The truth is however, even if Canada threw all it‘s available military might at the situation, it wouldn‘t likely be sufficient. (More so now than in 94 I suspect!) The US on the other hand could handle the mission without feeling the pinch. It just chose not to.
The Canadian flag campaign has zero to do with this issue. Or maybe I‘m missing the connection...? (Surely you‘re not trying to say *Canadian* patriotism is overdone!)
And yes, it would have been a great thing if Canada had stepped in to stop the genocide, but nobody did, so now all the participating countries have blood on their hands. You have to ask: is the responsibility proportional to the amount and ease of aid each country *could have* provided, but chose not to?
*NOW* it‘s "nuff said."
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I‘m curious to hear comments regarding the incident in which Dallaire saw a few of his Belgian troops dead or dying on the ground in a compound as he drove by. I‘ve never really understood why he didn‘t immediately contact his other units to intervene in the situation (whether it was too late or not). Instead, the story goes that he just drove on, stunned, to meet with the bad guy leadership and attempted to convince them to pull their forces back. According to CBC/Frontline, during that meeting he didn‘t mention his dead/dying soldiers. Does anyone have any insight here?
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Hopefully somebody else will add their comment, based on Dallaire‘s book and what he has said about the incident.
However, it is a slippery slope to be an "armchair judge" ...
First of all - very few armies conduct "genocide recognition classes" (i.e. ‘everybody who has ever PERSONALLY witnessed the murder of 800,000 civilians, take one step forward‘ - I‘ve spoken with folks who were there, and it was traumatic for all of them).
Secondly - "discretion is the better part of valour" - I remember reading once that it would have been suicide for Daillaire and his relatively unarmed escorts to have stopped at the murdeer site - and if the Belgique paratroopers were already dead, it would might have been foolhardy.
Thirdly - the Belgian inquest into the incident revealed that the Belgian commanding officer used radio orders to tell his own soldiers to surrender their weapons (as opposed to the deputy commanding officer who tried in vain over the radio to tell the doomed soldiers to use their own judgement based on their assessment of the situation on the scene, using one particular phrase "your fate is in your own hands").
I don‘t know - I wasn‘t there - Dallaire has suffered enough.
However, it is a slippery slope to be an "armchair judge" ...
First of all - very few armies conduct "genocide recognition classes" (i.e. ‘everybody who has ever PERSONALLY witnessed the murder of 800,000 civilians, take one step forward‘ - I‘ve spoken with folks who were there, and it was traumatic for all of them).
Secondly - "discretion is the better part of valour" - I remember reading once that it would have been suicide for Daillaire and his relatively unarmed escorts to have stopped at the murdeer site - and if the Belgique paratroopers were already dead, it would might have been foolhardy.
Thirdly - the Belgian inquest into the incident revealed that the Belgian commanding officer used radio orders to tell his own soldiers to surrender their weapons (as opposed to the deputy commanding officer who tried in vain over the radio to tell the doomed soldiers to use their own judgement based on their assessment of the situation on the scene, using one particular phrase "your fate is in your own hands").
I don‘t know - I wasn‘t there - Dallaire has suffered enough.
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If your tired of the crap that goes along with being a member of a nation‘s military, why don‘t you leave? I didn‘t sign up because I thought I‘d make more friends, or because I knew that the CF had the collective support of the Canadian public no matter what it did. A nation‘s military will always take some misplaced criticism because of the fact that the military represents the current government‘s position. That will never change. But for you to lash out at Canadian‘s (gov‘t or military) because of your discontent due to the possibly unfair treatment of the U.S. military in this issue reeks of immaturity.Originally posted by S_Baker:
[qb] I guess bottom line is as a member of he US military I am tired of being collectively blamed for all of the crap in the world. It is one of those ****ed if you do...****ed if you don‘t!
Sherwood [/qb]
It sounds like most of your discontent lies with the overall unpopular position the U.S. finds itself in. That goes along with being the world‘s major police force. It sucks but too bad, nobody ever said you were going to have a career full of ticker tape parades and young nubile females throwing themselves at you. Your frustration sounds a tad misplaced, like your blaming Canadians because the world likes us better.
I‘m not entirely sure why everyone is dumping on Maj. Baker here. (Is it because of his comments about Lt. Gen. Dallaire?) What I infer from his posts is that he feels Canada as well as the rest of the world (pointing fingers at New York = pointing fingers at the UN, does it not?) also holds responsibility for what transpired in Rwanda, not just the US, or France, etc. and that they should start accepting that responsibility. And he is right about that, as most of the other posters here have already noted in your own posts. Maybe I‘m wrong but I think the point Maj. Baker was trying to raise is that the politicians around the world need to start taking responsibility for their actions. Unfortunately the dominant feeling in the general populations around the world is to blame Americans as a people when the stuff hits the fan, for whatever the malady might be. It‘s a "perk" of being the main policing power in the world, but that‘s how it always is.
Of course, being politicians, they never will.
Edit after Maj. Baker‘s last post above. Popularity always seems to win out. This has to do with media attention. If no one hears about it, no one is going to protest it. The more media attention something receives, the more activity will happen in respect to that something. It‘s all about topic education, which is greatly lacking and biased due to emotions and media coverage.
Of course, being politicians, they never will.
Edit after Maj. Baker‘s last post above. Popularity always seems to win out. This has to do with media attention. If no one hears about it, no one is going to protest it. The more media attention something receives, the more activity will happen in respect to that something. It‘s all about topic education, which is greatly lacking and biased due to emotions and media coverage.
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No, I didn‘t say that Canada bases it‘s decisions on popularity (although I think the government does), my point was that it isn‘t the fault of the Canadian public that people worldwide generally "like" us more than Americans. In the words of one of the obscure, dime-a-dozen rappers out there, "Don‘t hate the player, hate the game."
As for nobody protesting the genocide in Rwanda, I agree on that point. I find it really pathetic to see anti-war signs whenever the U.S., Britain, and (when it‘s popular) Canada goes peacemaking but not a peep is heard when some third world warlord sees fit to eliminate a third of his country‘s population. Where are the anti-war activists then? So you see, Maj Baker, I understand your discontent and frustration with the way the U.S. is viewed in light of the good you guys are trying to do. It‘s like I always say to anybody who slams the U.S. as being bullys,
"The U.S. is the worlds police force, sometimes they screw up, but imagine the world without police, it would be a lot worse off."
I do find your finger-pointing at Canada as a cheap way to deflect some blame. It really isn‘t needed. Take it as a compliment that everyone is gunning for you, that‘s what happens when your on top. And that‘s all the kiss *** I‘m going to do for Americans for a while.
xFusilier
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S_Baker,
If I have understood Gen. Dallaire‘s thesis correctly it is that all off us, including the US, Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, and EVERY other nation in the so-called western world sat back and allowed 1,000,000 people to be butchered along in the period of 100 days, simply for what basically amounts to reasons of political convienance. And guess what? WE DESERVE TO BE BLAMED FOR LETTING IT HAPPEN, all of us, everyone of the countries I listed above, lets face, it we sat back and watched it happen live on TV because it was easier that commiting military forces to STOP it. POPULARITY has nothing to do with the situation that occured in Rwanda, we (the western world) were given the opportunity to step up to the plate and really show that the "new world order" rhetoric was anything but, instead we chose to stand by and watch one of the greatest acts of barbarism since WWII occur because we couldn‘t be bothered to stop it.
If I have understood Gen. Dallaire‘s thesis correctly it is that all off us, including the US, Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, and EVERY other nation in the so-called western world sat back and allowed 1,000,000 people to be butchered along in the period of 100 days, simply for what basically amounts to reasons of political convienance. And guess what? WE DESERVE TO BE BLAMED FOR LETTING IT HAPPEN, all of us, everyone of the countries I listed above, lets face, it we sat back and watched it happen live on TV because it was easier that commiting military forces to STOP it. POPULARITY has nothing to do with the situation that occured in Rwanda, we (the western world) were given the opportunity to step up to the plate and really show that the "new world order" rhetoric was anything but, instead we chose to stand by and watch one of the greatest acts of barbarism since WWII occur because we couldn‘t be bothered to stop it.
xFusilier
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It is irrelevant whether or not we had colonies in West Africa. The most ****ing thing of the whole affair is that those of use, who could have (with minimal expenditure of resources) put a stop to the Rwandan genocide did not. No moral relativism, absent of historical context the cold hard, facts of the matter is that we (the nations of North America and Western Europe) who like to believe in the moral supremacy of our actions, when given the opportunity to "put or money where our mouths are" did not, irrelevant of the various political or historical considerations that may or may not mitigate our actions.
As for Gen. Dallaire, it is, truly hard to say what a Zuhkov, Patton, Montgomery, Slim, or even Simonds (though I would prefer Hoffmeister as a Canadian allegory), given the same situation. Dallaire was but in a situation where he was given only the minimum of support from not only his government, but those brothers in arms that he thought were his comrades (Gen.Baril). Needless to say that regardless of what your take on Gen. Dallaire is, it cannot be said that the man is not dealing with his own demons in regard to what happened in Rwanda.
I respect your above post and should you wish to pursue this freely on PM please feel free this is interesting.
By the way, I thought you couldn‘t be a US officer and bear allegiance to any other country that the US, enlighten please!
As for Gen. Dallaire, it is, truly hard to say what a Zuhkov, Patton, Montgomery, Slim, or even Simonds (though I would prefer Hoffmeister as a Canadian allegory), given the same situation. Dallaire was but in a situation where he was given only the minimum of support from not only his government, but those brothers in arms that he thought were his comrades (Gen.Baril). Needless to say that regardless of what your take on Gen. Dallaire is, it cannot be said that the man is not dealing with his own demons in regard to what happened in Rwanda.
I respect your above post and should you wish to pursue this freely on PM please feel free this is interesting.
By the way, I thought you couldn‘t be a US officer and bear allegiance to any other country that the US, enlighten please!
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