soldier x

Coffee with Soldier X in the Whitewater Centre.
"Are we making a mistake sending Irish troops to Chad?" I asked him.
"What do you mean?" replied Soldier X.
"I mean are the troops safe there?" I said.
The discussion related to a recent deployment of about 400 Irish soldiers to Chad as part of a UN peacekeeping mission.
He frowned.
"Well," he said. "You'd probably prefer us to be fighting Jihadi's in Iraq or Afghanistan..."
"Yes," I said. "Yes I would. I'd prefer us to be playing our part in the war to save humanity from Islamic fascism. I would yes. No doubt about it. I would prefer that. To be fighting for a real cause where Ireland's vital interests are at stake."
"Vital interests such as?"
"Freedom, democracy, civilisation, oh and the right of our children to get on a bus without some half wit blowing himself up in their midst while shouting Allah U Akbar, the right of our daughters to walk down the street without some low life who smuggled himself into the country in the back of a lorry from Arabia shouting Infidel Whore at them, those sorts of rights generally, those are the ones we should be fighting for."
"Alright, alright," Soldier X murmured, "Let's get back to the subject. The answer to your question is that the troops in Chad are safe."
"I don't think they are."
"Look," said Soldier X, "it's true that conditions are pretty miserable in our camps. We expected that and we can deal with it."
"My worry," I told him, "is that we're supposed to be protecting Darfurans expelled from Sudan by their own Islamist Sudanese government. I'm not sure these Darfurans want to be protected by us. I wouldn't give one Irish soldier's life for a Darfuran who's liable to shoot us before he'd thank us. And if the UN really wanted to protect Darfurans it should have reconquered the Darfur region of Sudan with overwhelming force, attrited the Islamist Sudanese army and its Arab militias where they hid, detached Darfur from Sudan, enforced the rule of law there indefinitely, established political parties, and ensured that those people got their country back. What we're doing now, protecting Darfurans who have been expelled to Chad, that's just upholding the Islamist Sudanese government's expulsion of those people."
"That's politics," said Soldier X. "Not my field."
Around us the cafe bustled with life.
"Do you think our troops have a sufficient force to threat ratio for the people we're up against?" I asked.
Soldier X considered the question.
"We're up against a few challenges," he mused. "There's more than one Darfuran army wandering around the camps. Then there's the risk of Sudan using its proxies for an attack. But you see James, all of them know we're associated with the French in the UN mission. The French have a big stick when it comes to military hardware. It's like if you've got a large dog in your house. The burglars won't rob you because they know what's waiting for them."
"So you really think the Irish troops are safe in Chad?" I persisted.
"I think we're safe," said Soldier X.
"Do you think we have the tools to do the job we're being asked to do?" I pressed.
"My opinion is that in conjunction with the French, we do," he said.
I had one more question.
"Is the Irish army being deployed in Chad to make a clownish Irish government Minister for Defence look impressive at miserable pretentious Euro socialist parvenu soirees in Brussels?"
Soldier X chose not to answer this question.