It Could Happen Here - What It's Like to Be a Peacekeeper

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

James talks to Kevin McDonald, in an interview recorded before the ceasefire, about his experience as a peacekeeper with the Irish Defence Forces within UNIFIL and UNTSO in Lebanon.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It's me, James, and I'm joined today by Kevin MacDonald, who previously served as a senior officer in the Irish Defense Forces with special forces experience and has significant experience working all over the world after that with the United Nations and other organizations. Kevin, welcome to the show. I'm glad to be here, thanks for having me. Yeah, hopefully I've done a good job introducing you. I'm always terrible at that. Yeah. What we thought we'd talk about today, Kevin, is your significant experience in Lebanon with Unifil. And I think obviously when we've spoken about this before, we've spoken about it from a sort of looking at it from above strategic level.

But what we've not spoken about is what it looks like on the ground. So hopefully you can give us some insight into that, especially having been there both as an enlisted soldier and as an officer, I think. Can you explain at first? I think there's been a lot of confusion or misinformation about like, how do these Irish, if we look at the Irish soldiers, that's the one you've obviously the most experience with, how do they end up deployed to Lebanon? Is it a voluntary thing? Do they sort of say, put their hand up and say, I want to do this, or is it your unit's going, so you're going? Okay. Well, just to suppose as a brief reminder to your listeners, UNIFIL is the United

Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. And it's been interim since 1978. When it started first, the Irish were one of the first countries to sign up to deploy a battalion there. And we had a battalion in Lebanon from 1978 until 2000. And in 2000, the Israelis withdrew from what they called a security zone, about like a 10 kilometer buffer zone in Southern Lebanon. So when they did that and retreated to the frontier between the two countries,

Ireland departed its battalion. It left a few staff officers there, but it didn't supply a battalion anymore. It was concentrating on the missions in Syria and other places. And then after the 2006 war, they were asked to come back with a battalion. And we've been there ever since with an infantry battalion. In relation to your question about, is it a volunteer mission? It is for most people. However, there have been people who would be what's known as mandatory selected.

However, there have been people who will be what's known as mandatory selected. If they have certain skill sets, whether it be a doctor, whether it be, but whatever it happens to be, if, you know, if, if the army can't get sufficient volunteers, then they will mandatory select. But generally speaking, certainly in the early years, it was actually quite difficult to get, to become a volunteer for Lebanon because so many people wanted to go there because there is, you know, there's a bit of financial incentive to do that as well. I deployed there as a private soldier in 1984.

I wasn't even 12 months in the army at that stage. And within two months I was made an acting corporal. So then I went back as an officer in 1993 where we had a seven day war operation accountability. I was back in 1996 as an officer for another seven day war operation, Grape Subrath. And I ended up there with my family as an unarmed military observer in 2006 for a full 34 days of carnage. So Lebanon was always well regarded by the Irish Defense Forces because it did a couple of things. It exposed troops to not just new cultures and new areas, but it exposed them to danger as well. And it also gave a chance for young NCOs and young officers to physically lead their troops in a challenging environment, which you don't always get, you know, when you're at home in Ireland or with the UK or whatever, you don't always get that type of leadership experience.

Yeah. Plus you're exposed to other cultures, whether it be the Nordic countries or, you know, you're exposed to different ways of operating. And yeah, all in all, it's been a positive experience. But I would find out that since we started there, we've lost far too many troops killed in Lebanon. Yeah, that's because not an insignificant amount, especially considering the Irish defence forces are much smaller. When people are more familiar with the US military, which is more than a million people, 48 is a significant amount. You talked about how it exposes you to other cultures and obviously one of them is like the Lebanese people, but it's a very international deployment, right?

It's not, you're not just sort of sitting there on your Irish base with, with Irish defense forces, people are not interacting with other militaries. So can you explain like some of the other countries that have this long history there? Well, I went there in 1984. There was a battalion from Fiji, Finland, France, Ghana, ourselves, the Netherlands, Norway, and Senegal. Wow.

What a strength at the time of about 6,000. When I was there as an unarmed military observer with UNSO, which is a different mission, the strength had dropped to 2000 in 2006 with just two battalions, a Canadian battalion and an Indian battalion. And now essentially since after the war in 2006, they started building up, there's probably about 10,000 troops there at the moment. There isn't a huge interaction at the battalion level between different nations.

In other words, a battalion will have its own area of responsibility. It's responsible for patrolling in that area. Yeah. No, with the likes of UNSO, you're much more exposed to other armies, other nationalities, because essentially every time you go patrolling, you can't, like two Irish officers couldn't patrol together. Cause if they see an infringement, whether it's a firing close, whether it's one side sending drones into Lebanon or the other side sending Qatusha rockets into Israel, they're

all violations. But to record it as a violation, you can't have two people from the same country. So you're much more exposed as I said to foreign nationalities. Yeah, yeah. And there's certainly a lot of nationalities. I know the Indonesians are there now and the, uh, contingent from India. When people talk about Unifil now a lot, you'll see one of two accusations, right?

You'll see that they're either like they're as allies of Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is not the case, or you'll see that they're there as observers for the IDF or spies for the IDF. And like, obviously the fact that they're being accused of both probably suggests that they are neither, because it would be fairly obvious if they were. But can you explain the tripartite agreement? It seems to me like that might make it difficult to do the things that Unifil is supposed to be doing.

Is that fair? It's not, I think it's, I think it's a fair assessment. And if, if you're, if both sides are complaining about you, as you say, it probably does indicate that you're at least doing something right. So UNIFIL, it's a peacekeeping mission and they're there with the agreement of both parties. So in other words, the Lebanese government and the Israeli government have agreed that UNIFIL be established in Lebanon. That's the first thing to point out. The second thing, which is kind of contentious now, especially with the extent of Hezbollah's tunnels is being exposed, is that there's a lot of generally misinformed chatter about

what UNIFIL can and cannot do. So after the 2006 war, Resolution 1701 was brought in to develop more thoroughly the mandate for what UNIFIL can and cannot do. And one of the stated paragraphs is that UNIFIL will assist the Lebanese armed forces in taking steps towards the establishment between the Blue Line and the Latanian River of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL deployed in this area. And this is one of the failings, but it should be pointed out that it's the responsibility of the LAF, of the Lebanese armed forces, to instigate it's supported by UNIFIL.

Right. Not UNIFIL going in looking for arms and weapons supported by the Laff. It's the other way around. And one of the difficulties that you're always going to have is that Lebanon is a divided society. It's an extremely rich and significant society and I live there quite a lot and have great respect for the people and their traditions. However, the sectarianism is kind of baked into how the government works and that kind of works its way down. So the president has to be a Marianite Christian. Speak with the house has to be Shia and the prime minister has to be Sunni.

And that division was based on the last time there was a census in Lebanon, which was 1932. And since then, the dynamics have changed. So Hezbollah is not just a military organization. It's a political organization and it's a wealthier organization. Yeah, I think a lot of people don't get that. And it's Shia and the majority of the people in the South are Shia. And, you know, a lot of them get their schooling and their medication from Hezbollah. So it's not just a military organization.

And there's various estimates, but you could be looking at, but we said prior to the present conflict, maybe 70,000 Hezbollah in south of Beirut, shall we say. Yeah. And some of them are full-time, some of them are part-time, some of them are just sympathizers, helpers, friends, you know, it's difficult. Another factor that has proven extremely difficult is, so when you need to fill patrol with the

LAF, there is certain restrictions that even the LAF have in terms of entering certain areas. And what Hezbollah have done is that they have designated certain nature reserves and generally speaking, the Laf won't go in there. And if the Laf won't go in, the Unifil can't go in. Right. So the Laf, they have a balancing act to do in terms of retaining the trust of the people in the South and also not causing a sectarian divide within their own ranks. Yeah, of course.

And also they have another problem in terms of equipment. They're sort of relying on other countries, UK, the US, France to supply them with equipment, but like Saif Nass, they have no tanks. Yeah. They have a few helicopters. They're very much like there's no way they will take on Hezbollah. No way. Right.

Yeah. Or the IDF. And the unit unit for the self is likely armed. You know, it's not going around in tanks or anything. Armored cars. Yes. The only time the last time you had tanks in Lebanon was just after the war when the French deployed with the Kirk tanks, right, which did not please the locals because the Kirk tanks driving up and down the roads was nearly doing as much damage

as the Maccava tanks during the war. And plus Lebanon isn't a very tank friendly area to be operating in shall we say. Right. Yeah. Was that when the IDF came in and then Maccava tanks and the French like physically blocked them with their own tanks? I can't remember when that was. And I'm not aware of that. It could well happen because I know certainly back in the 90s. That may have been when it was. When Israel was operating the security zone, we, the Irish and our colleagues from Finland and Norway had had numerous standoffs with Israelis trying to enter certain villages.

And yeah, but yeah, I saw the day before yesterday, the two, I think two bulldozers in the Merkava, I said two D9s broke down a UN watchtower and a UN fence at the UN UNIFIL headquarters in Nakura, which is a few k from the frontier with Israel. I should point out as well for your listeners that Israel and Lebanon have been at a state of war since 1948. Yes. They've never had a peace agreement. And the tripartite agreement is the only place where they actually meet, right?

Yeah. So there is a unifil post, a meeting normally right at the frontier where you can cross between one country and the other. And I keep using the word frontier because it's not a border. It hasn't been officially demarcated. Right. The blue line, which I mentioned earlier on, simply verifies that the IDF has withdrawn into Israel, but it's not the border.

Right. However, going back to your point about the tripartite agreement and that that's where the senior Israeli officials, senior Lebanese officials under the chairmanship of Unifil meet. And they discuss items of concern that maybe Unifil can help or know between the two of them. Right. And in 2022, they managed to organize a maritime boundary.

Okay. Yeah. Between Lebanon and Israel, which was kind of fascinating because on the Western side of Lebanon and the Northwestern coast and Israel, which was kind of fascinating because on the Western side of Lebanon and the Northwestern coast of Israel, there's huge gas fields. So the two countries actually, they've agreed their maritime boundary under the auspices of UNIFIL.

They still haven't agreed their land, but it's the first time that a peace keep mission has arranged and courage developed and led successfully discussions about a maritime boundary. So the Unifil does have some successes. Yeah, yeah, no, I think it would be wrong to overlook those. We'll take a quick break for adverts and we'll come back. Welcome to Decisions Decisions, the podcast where boundaries are pushed and conversations

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Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We're back. Kevin, you've mentioned that you were in Lebanon in 2006. I think you said you were an unarmed observer at that time, is that right? Yeah, that's right, Che. So one of the oldest missions in the world is UNSO, United Nations Troops Supervisory Organization. And that essentially was established, I suppose, after the 1948 war. And it had, we'll say, offices and observers in Egypt, Israel, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. You know, they were quite effective in certain ways.

Like, certainly the eventual peace agreement between Egypt and Israel was very much helped along by the presence of UNSO in Cairo and Shamr Sheik. The peace agreement between Jordan and Israel, again, was very much assisted by also, so they have a kind of a fairly good track record. And what they bring to the table is that, first of all, their unarmed military observers, which takes some of this thing out of having, you know, a heavily armed guy with a helmet and sunglasses walk around. And some armies, as you know, can heavily armed guy with a helmet and sunglasses walk around. You know, that, yeah.

And, and, and some, some armies, as you know, can tend to be more intimidating than others in, in how they, how they carry themselves. Yeah. So I went there, I went to the region in 2005 and I was working on the occupied Golan Heights, living in the, in Tiberias on the sea of Galilee with my wife and two kids who then were four and five. And in February, zero six, I was transferred to Lebanon and we were living in the city of Tehr. The kids were going to a local English speaking Arab school and Lebanon was absolutely

thriving. It was hopping. Uh, we had the kids in Beirut, we had them in Amman, down in Wadi Rum. And my normal routine, we had four observation posts along the frontier with Israel staffed by five guys who spent a week, seven days up there. Then you come down for four or five and then go back up again. And each team had its specific area to operate with and we'll say a specific battalion that we would interact with. And also quite importantly, we had liaison assistants who were locals like translators, but they're a lot more important than that. And based on the sectarian nature of the area, you'd always have a Christian, you'd always have a Shia, but you could have the Druze if you were further up to the north, you could have Sunni and each team had four or five of these because we used to send two patrols out each day. So we had huge

interaction with the local gendarmerie, with the mayors and the muqtars and we were very much a force multiplier for UNIFIL because we could get information from people. We used to stop and have lunch in some of the little restaurants and we were always talking to people and, you know, it was the window down, waving out, having a chat, learning a bit of Arabic, whereas Unifil by its nature goes around in armored cars. Right. And even if you stop and you get out and you take off the sunglasses, people will just react differently to two guys with a local that they know in the car.

Yeah. As opposed to someone in full battle rattle getting out. We definitely were, but the war kicked off on the 12th of July, 2006. And I had gone on patrol to pick up our Christian liaison assistant in her village. And literally we were heading off on patrol and over the radio all stations go to the nearest UN position immediately. The nearest UN position to us at the time was an Indian platoon position on top of a hill. From my past experience I had reckoned that there was a bit of stuff going on either in Sheba Farms which is a disputed area in

the southeastern part of Lebanon, up in the mountains. So I said to the guy that was with me, I said, look, this could be over in a couple of hours. Let's go straight back to our patrol base. And we knew we had a food facility and we also knew we had a good bunker in the place. So we headed back at a fair rate or not, shall we say. And normally when we would have two patrols out, there'd be one guy left in the patrol base. And he'd be responsible for radio checks and all that kind of stuff. But what we'd do is when we were about maybe a kilometer away, we would inform our headquarters in Nakura that we're closing down at our final in, in, in, uh, in the Cora that were closing down at our final destination,

which would give this guy time to come out and unlock the gate to let us in. Yeah. And just as I had transmitted that he comes up on the year and he said, don't come in, don't come in. We're getting hit up. So we, at that stage, we were at the gate and about maybe two kilometers away, there was a huge IDF position and they were just banging with the fine fives and GPMGs, not directly at us but kind of in the general area. Yeah, explain those weapon systems for people who aren't familiar, like what's a GPMG for someone who's not.

Oh, okay, sorry. So, everyone is familiar with, we'll say, an AK-47 or an M16, which would be known as small arms. In other words, the caliber is 5.56 or 7.62. Yeah. Then you have medium machine guns, which are generally belt fed, and they're 7.62. Yeah. And then you have heavy machine guns, again, belt fed, and they're 12.7 or 50 caliber.

Yeah. So we were getting a fair bit, but it took us maybe an hour of listening to various news channels, both in Lebanon and in Israel to realize that Hezbollah had carried out a cross border attack, hit up an IDF convoy, kidnapped two who were seriously injured and subsequently died and killed initially four. And then against their own orders. And Israeli Merkava went into Lebanon to have a kind of commanding view over where they thought that Hezbollah were bringing these guys. Hezbollah knew that that's what they do and big anti-tank mine and killed four guys inside of the Merkava. So Israel had lost eight and two kidnapped in the space of maybe an hour.

So the reaction was fast and furious. And it took us nearly six days to get our liaison assistant back to her village. It took the UN nearly two and a half weeks to have acted with the families because at that stage also was a family mission. Yeah. And where I was, I could see the jets dropping bombs into here and my wife could look up on the skyline, knowing where I was and see the same thing happening.

Oh, I was sort of used to being under fire, but it's a different thing to see your family on under fire as well. Yeah. And eventually when they chartered a sort of a cruise liner from Cyprus to come over and like stand offshore and send in its lifeboats to bring the families out. So when this was being planned, UNSO had tried to organize that an armored convoy would bring those unmoors that were deployed on the four posts down to Teer to say goodbye. But where I was, we were getting hammered with artillery fire and tank fire.

So I was the only one with family that couldn't get out. So when my wife and two kids that were five and seven, that's it, were getting into the lifeboat to bring them out to the ship, I rang her and I said, look, I'll see you when I see you. Um, which is not a great way to end a family mission. That we tell you now, uh, and then in the space of the next three days, we had a strength of 52 officers and in about three days we lost over 10%. We had one Italian captain shot in the back.

He's now on a wheelchair. We had another Australian captain seriously injured when the convoy she was in was, I suppose targeted is probably the way to explain it, but she, she was thrown up against the inside of the armored car and essentially her back was broken. She was evacuated with my wife and kids. And then I think it was the day later or two days later, the Israelis dropped the JDAM, which is a bunker busting missile into the post just up for me killing four very good friends of mine.

So yeah, 2006 was a bit rough. Yeah. If you're comfortable, could we talk about that last one a little bit? Cause I think it's one of the ones that like, there's no mistaking that UN position, right? It's not, you don't, and you don't accidentally just go dropping J dams left, right and central over the place. Like the first thing I should say is that 21 years previously, that

observation post was completely destroyed, but there was no one in it at the time. Yeah. So when it was rebuilt, it had the best bunker in Lebanon. So they dug down first and had like a lot of the bunkers currently in Lebanon are overgrown bunkers. But this was dug down into the rock essentially. And it had its roof was about a meter and a half of reinforced steel and concrete. With the two-story concrete building on top of it. So without doubt, it was the best bunker in Lebanon.

So that on the distance happened on the 25th of July. And on that particular day, we'd already lost the patrol base in Maroon Arras when Roberto was shot. And they had to have to say in fairness, there's a liaison branch that kind of liaises between IDF and UNIFIL. Okay. And UNIFIL couldn't launch one of the helicopters to do a medevac. So the decision was made that the guys would get into an armored Land Cruiser and follow

Israeli tank tracks back into Israel. They couldn't deconflict the airspace to launch it or what was stopping them launching the helicopter to evacuate? There was too much kinetic activity at that site. They wouldn't have been able to land it. It was a battle ongoing. So they essentially followed Israeli tank tracks that had come into Lebanon. They followed those tank tracks back into Israel where they were met by an Israeli patrol

and Roberta was flown to Rambam hospital. Well, yeah, going back to, going back to Kiam on the 25th of July, as we were all taking a fair bit of, of incoming, where I was, it wasn't targeting. It was more sort of harassment fire. Yeah. And like the house next door took three direct tank rounds and it was five meters away. Jesus. From our post. And our post was tiny. Yeah. But in the guys in Kiam were taking a couple of artillery, but there was a lot of airstrikes coming in close. And again, for your listeners, the UN has a designation,

what it calls a firing close. So we'll say a firing close from an M16 is, I don't know, something like 50 meters or something like that. Firing close from an artillery shell is 500 meters. And a firing close from an aerial bomb is a kilometer. So if it lands within a kilometer, it's officially designated as a firing close and it's recorded and both sides get, it's an official account of what's happening. So the guys were getting a good few firings close area bombs. And there was three distinct waves of attack in the general area. So naturally, first commander, Unifil, chief of staff,

also UNHQ in New York were screaming at the Israelis, stop targeting this position. Yeah. Was there Hezbollah in the area? Of course there was. Kiam is Hezbollah stronghold. But eventually that evening, the decision was made that the patrol base is going to be evacuated.

Because of the level of kinetic activity that evening, it was going to be done at first light the next morning. And since the war had started, we had all been on a 24-7, 20-minute radio check. So every 20 minutes you had to respond to a radio check. So the last transmission from the post was from a Canadian friend of mine, ex-special forces, really, really cool.

And I could hear it in his voice. He requested a log in time for firing close. It's danger close, it's danger close, get them to stop. And that was the last transmission. So when they missed the next radio check, we presumed another shell had come in and blown all the aerials off the building. So myself and an Aussie friend of mine requested permission to take our armored Land Cruiser and try and drive up and see what was happening. That was refused by Unifil. So they sent a patrol from the Indian battalion, which was kind of in fairness, it was nearer.

So we switched on to their radio frequency to hear what they were saying. And so they approached the base, they obviously had to break down the gate. And they said the base had taken a direct hit by an aerial bomb. And at that stage, we were still thinking maybe they're trapped under the rubble or something like that. And then one of them transmitted, we have found the body of a Chinese officer. So we knew the four guys were were killed. And the Indians found three bodies that night and brought them to the mortuary

in Maratayun, which is a large Christian town. So the next morning, there was, I think, five of us tasked to open, identify the bodies. Yeah. So the first guy was Chinese, it was over pressure, killed him. So that was an easy one to identify. The next guy had no arms, no legs and wide Jesus. And where his head should have been was the chain of a dog tag. And I went down into his body paracetamol. And the other guy, yeah. So it was a difficult procedure. And then we had to try and arrange to get the bodies transferred into Israel to where you and colleagues from Jerusalem.

So they could go to Rambam hospital and have, have, you know, a proper identification and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Eventually be returned to their families, I suppose. And that was a difficult procedure because where the IDF said they could meet us, there was a minefield in front of us. And where we said we could meet them, they thought it was too exposed. So eventually we went into an all small, tiny Indian platoon position and about a hundred meters away there was a gate that the Israelis used to use to come in and out when the security zone was there. But the area between the UN position and the gate hadn't been windswept in six years. But we had no choice. We couldn't bring the guys back to the mortuary because it had resorted to using refrigerated trucks the guys back to the mortuary because it had resorted to using

refrigerated trucks to store bodies because the mortuary was full. Yeah. So there was, there was an IDF company there under a, I think it was a full brigadier and there's a war going on naturally. Yeah. All the time. Gunships and Catoosh's passing each other over our heads. So when we had the three lads transfer over

to our colleagues from Jerusalem, I stood in front of the IDF Brigadier and I lined up all the UN troops and I says, we're not going to have a minute silence in memory of our friends who were murdered in the cause of peace. And no, having a minute silence in the middle of a battle is a nod, a nod experience.

In fairness to this guy, he stood to attention. And because I lived in Tiberias, I had a small bit of Hebrew, and I went over afterwards and thanked him for his respect. And we didn't find the fourth body until after the ceasefire. Jesus. Yeah. Yeah, that's rough. Sorry, Ferdinand, that's terrible to think about.

So the obvious question is, I know what the one you want to ask. Why? And I should have said it at the start. Anything I say here, it's it's my personal opinion. So it can't be construed as being the views of the Irish defense forces. Yes, of course. Or certainly not the views of the United Nations. They're my personal views. So, you know, people should just take it that it's it's

Kevin MacDonald describing what happened to him and what his personal views. So, you know, people should just take it that it's, it's, it's Kevin MacDonald describing what happened to him and what his personal views on it are. So why did they do it? Well, I think there's a couple of things. Hubris is one. I think at that stage, they were, they were like a schoolyard bully who got bet and wanted to lash out at anything and everything. A second, probably more tactical reason is that the village of Qiam is on a ridge.

We say at the end of the ridge closest to Israel, because it's only about four miles away, is where this OP was. And that's the reason it was there. And between Qiam and we say the frontier with Israel is the Hula Valley, which is the biggest maneuver space. If you want to maneuver armor and stuff into Lebanon with plenty of space, that's where you do it. In fact, decided is an old Vichy French airfield from the Second World War. So it's low space. And I think they didn't want eyes on the ground seeing what they were doing. And like one of the things for military observers is you observe and you report.

That's your task. Yeah. So was there Hezbollah in the area around the, around the OPE? Yes, there was. But as you probably know, if you want to attack troops in the open, you use air burst artillery shells, which the Israelis did in 1996 when they fired 15 of them into a UN battalion headquarters, killing 106 Lebanese men, women, and children seeking shelter in the UN headquarters.

Yeah. But you don't fire a bunker, bust a missile into a UN post to attack Hezbollah. There's a subtle difference. Yeah, there's a huge difference. Yeah. I suppose what people will ask is like, it's, I think it's important to explain this from the point of view of someone on the ground is obviously UN troops are not there to fight, they're there to keep peace, but they are an armed presence.

And so they wonder how or why the UN can or can't defend itself, the UNIFIL troops specifically in these positions. So can you explain your rules of engagement and how that works for from sort of on the ground perspective? Okay. Well, the rules of engagement we said that works for from sort of on the ground perspective. Okay, well, the rules of engagement we say for a peacekeeping mission, like we pack also to one side because they're unarmed, but for a peacekeeping mission. Yeah. So peacekeeping is generally based on three principles, consent, impartiality, and the

use of force in self-defense of the mandate. So naturally, like the guys there at the moment aren't going to try and take on 304 Markafa tanks. First of all, they don't have the capability to do it. Yeah, that's an interesting... Do they not have... If you can't answer this, that's fine. Do they have, for instance, javelins, things like that? Do they have those weapon systems available? I'm not sure what they have currently.

Certainly we didn't have. Okay. And it wasn't ever going to be an issue because that's kind of not our job. Yeah. Like the sole responsibility to protect the people of Lebanon is the Lebanese government. UNIFIL is there to assist. It's not there to say, okay, you step back. You know, we stand up and protect you.

That's not, that's not what UNIFIL or any peacekeeping mission. The only peacekeeping mission that eventually had an offensive capability built into its mandate was the mission that's now closing down in the DRC, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and it's minuscule. And they specifically changed the mandate to include an offensive capability to go after the M23 rebels in the Kivu's and sort of the Northeast. And when they did it, you know, attack helicopter special forces, the last, it was quite effective, but which kind of brings me to another point because I just last year I completed a master's in peace and conflict studies and mandates was

the evolution of mandates was what I sort of looked at. And having robust mandates is all well and good, but the TCCs, the true contributing countries, have to have the ability, the capability, the training and the will to carry out the robust nature of the mandate. So, you know, we have a saying in Ireland, paper never refuses ink. You can put whatever you want into a mandate, but you have to be able to effectively implement the mandate. Yeah. And I think often that's, that's the reason that maybe people are kind of broad in how mandates are written, but that's, that's, that's for someone way, way

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W. Bush would be the next president of the United States. Listen on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. So for those like the people on the ground then and now, there's not a great deal they can do, right? They can attempt to ask the IDF to stop, which they did, which has historically not worked. And they can take shelter in their bunkers, which they did, which is only helpful if they're not going to use bunker busting missiles to destroy that bunker. It must be terrible. It's one thing to be engaged in combat with someone, especially if you're a soldier, it's another thing. I found myself in this situation last year to be effectively unable to respond. I'm thinking here of the Turkish drone bombing and fighter jets and bombers in Syria,

where I was, but it's a horrible thing to be in that situation. And is it for those peacekeepers, it must be a really difficult sort of place to be. Well, it is. Yeah. And of course, you know, the, the role conscious of the fact that their families back in Ireland are, are fully aware of, of what's going on. And shortly after the invasion, the IDF decided that they told Unifil they wanted them out essentially and not just the Irish but other nationalities said we're not going.

So the IDF everywhere they go in Lebanon, the first vehicle is a D9 Bulldozer because that is more robust than a Merkava. And it can also very quickly throw up earthen ramparts to sort of, you know, protect from direct fire at the IDF troops. So they decided that they would literally conjoint an IDF position to the Irish position, hoping that they could intimidate the Irish into leaving. And the position's name was 6-5-2, very close to the frontier. Ironically, when the Israelis withdrew in 2000, they recognized that this particular area was what we in the miners would call key terrain because that area overlooked a vulnerable part of northern Israel, villages like Avivim and a few others. So the IDF requested Unifil to put a position there, which would say stop

Hezbollah from putting a position there. And then suddenly they're up close and personal trying to intimidate the Irish and other nationalities as well. So it's one of the things and I think one of the reasons that they didn't want Unifil and there's about 20 small of these small positions, mainly close to the frontier. I think one of the reasons that they, and again, this is a personal point of view, I think one of the reasons that they didn't want UNIFIL in any of these positions was A, to turn it into a free fire zone. But B, one of the things that UNIFIL is supposed to do is to monitor and report, monitor and observe. Of course, if you're not there, you can't do it. That's actually one of the things that UNIFIL, even though they're hunkered in their bases with very little mobility,

they can still monitor and observe what's happening in the general area. Now, we'll say in the case of this position 6-5-2, if the IDF's ultimate gain or goal was to take a major Hezbollah stronghold, which is called Bint Jibail, that's a good bit further north than this position. So the focus of attention would move on from what's our guys and go a wee bit further north. Yeah. So that's sort of where they find themselves now, right? Is these, can you explain, like, you've got these positions along the frontier and then you've got the headquarters that you just mentioned two days ago have been,

I don't know, infringed by a bulldozer, attacked, depends how you want to say it. Well, it makes a change from having a tanker on fired into an OP, which they did a few days previously. Yeah. And they've done consistently, right, for a month or so now, is firing directly into these observing positions. Are these positions that are now, are they left isolated? Because the IDF will advance past and around them,

in addition to firing directly at them. They're somewhat isolated. Now, all these positions would be well stocked with water and emergency rations and stuff like that. And as I mentioned before, Unifil do have a liaison branch, which I'm sure are talking to the IDF on a on a narrowly basis. And they will coordinate the movements of Unifil with it to supply their positions or I think last week they had a convoy went into the city of Tyr which is probably 12k from the headquarters to distribute aid especially medical aid because Tyr is getting fairly whacked like all of the south

I suppose. So there is engagement to make sure that these posts aren't completely isolated, that there is a means of doing resupply. Yeah. Israel stopped one of those at some point, didn't it? Was it a resupply movement? They stopped things on a regular basis. As I said, there is interaction. Like nothing happens in a vacuum. Like we said, the Irish, the Italian headquarters would not send a convoy

to 6-52 without it being communicated to the Israelis saying, we're going to go on three vehicles at 700 hours, blah, blah, blah, and get the confirmation back. But yeah, that's okay. Because, you know, they mentioned the fog of war that that's often very real, as you can imagine yourself, it's a fairly real thing that happens, you know, sometimes, you know, instructions don't get passed down or sometimes instructions are ignored for whatever reason. So it's a bit of a delicate, delicate balancing act, but, um, from what I understand it's working well. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's working well in terms of like what's happening in Lebanon is, is

bad and it'd be better if it wasn't, but it's not at the same tier as it has been in Gaza. No, well, you're looking at, it would be three and a half thousand compared to 43 and a half thousand killed. Yeah. And so many of those being civilians, right? People who are absolutely no business targeting and like that genocidal violence that we've seen in Gaza hasn't come to Lebanon. And in part, I think we can attribute that to there being observers there. Is that fair to say?

I think it's a fair point. Of course, there's no real, the UN footprint in Gaza, my understanding is it's extremely, extremely light. Yeah. And as you know, they've banished UNRWA. Yeah. Whereas, I mean, the UNIFIL has 10,000 troops in Southern Lebanon. So there's very much more, maybe there's more consciousness, but they're still flattening the place. But in terms of civilian casualties, as we said, it's not going on as long as Ghazi either.

But on the, we'll say the combat front, they're not exactly having things the wrong way either. They've been trying to take the village of Khyan for the last, I think, two weeks. And my understanding is they've destroyed it, but they haven't taken it. And it was like in 2006, they claimed that the town of Binchubail was the Hezbollah capital of the south, which in wasn't a way it was. But they turned it into Grosny, but they never controlled it. They were still getting attacked, you know, days after they had seized it.

Right. Yeah. They've never really established like control or like a monopoly on violence in the area. And then, yeah, they've not done that this time. And I think, I suppose the last thing I wanted to ask about is like, we've just talked about like why this mission is important and we've spoken about for like, you had your family there when they were being bombed. And like this investment in being there in Lebanon being alongside the Lebanese people in your case with your own family, like it's

one that Ireland's had for a long time. Ireland has historically amongst European nations been much better on the rights of Palestine and Palestinian people than most European nations. How is this peacekeeping mission perceived in Ireland? Are people proud that they're there? Oh yeah, hugely proud. And the Irish have always been extremely proud of what our defence forces have achieved, despite us being a very small defence force. I think at the moment between the Navy, the Army and the Air Corps, we're probably looking at in total 9,000. In total.

Wow, yeah, very small. And then we're overseas in a lot of places as well. So like deduct that from the 9,000 and you're probably down to 8000. Yeah. But we do tend to punch above our weight internationally. We obviously have no colonial baggage, which affects some other countries. And I think generally speaking, we're seen as a, I'm not sure if honest broker is the right word, but certainly not as threatening and not coming with an agenda. Right. Yeah.

Whereas other countries might have a certain agenda for whatever political reasons at home. And it's certainly in Ireland's case, as I said, we were there from 78 to 2000 and now from 2006 to present day. And a lot of it has been in the same general area. So people would know Irish soldiers. Some Lebanese talk with an Irish accent. I've heard that. Yeah, it's mad. Yeah, yeah, it's true. general area so people would know Irish soldiers. Some Lebanese talk with an Irish accent. I've heard that. Yeah, it's mad. Yeah, it's true.

And depending on what part of Ireland the troops were from, you could even go further down. Like some of them talk with a very broad Dublin accent. Some of them would talk with a very broad Cork accent because of that interaction. And I know one of the first big projects the Irish did, certainly from the early 80s, was to build an orphanage in a provincial capital called Tipnene. And they've been doing that.

Like even when we had no troops there, guys were still sending money and toys and everything. That's been demolished last week. Unfortunately. Jesus, an orphanage. It's like storybook evil stuff. Isn't it like, yeah, well, you know, it's just, yeah, there's a lot of evil stuff going on in the middle East at the moment, unfortunately. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've personally seen hospitals bombed and all that kind of stuff myself. And it's, it sometimes doesn't even make the news. I mean, that orphanage evidently didn't really make my news diet. Kevin, thank you very much for sharing some of your experiences over there. And I'd have to have you on again to talk about the things, the work you've done in Africa and the line after Levin.

And you've written a book, right, about your experiences, peacekeeping and other things. Where can people find that? OK, so this this initially started off as a lockdown project during the COVID lockdown in the Central African Republic and initially it was just for my wife and family, but as it starts writing you kind of start remembering and it's not just your typical military guy tells about how brave he was. I have a separate career in mountaineering and a separate career in archaeology as well, so it's a kind of a much more different mishmash of of stuff going on.

So the book is called A Life Less Ordinary and it can be purchased online at mayo-books.ie, M-A-Y-O-B-O-O-K-S. Yeah, I like that balance. I've always thought that, like, I'll go somewhere and I'll write about the worst things I saw there and the worst days I had there and that'll be my story. But I've always wanted to write about the mountains of Kurdistan are beautiful and I really loved being there. There are other places that people think of them as wars, not countries.

I'd love to write about mountaineering, backpacking in these places where often it's really sad that you don't get to share that part. I'll write about this in the book. I mean, I've lived a few times in Lebanon and I've lived and worked in Jerusalem a few times. And it's a fascinating region. Oh, yeah. And the people in both countries, I have some really good friends in Israel and some really

good friends in Lebanon. And I've been treated extremely well by people in both countries. I have some really good friends in Israel and some really good friends in Lebanon and I've been treated extremely well by people in both countries. Certainly if you have an interest in archaeology, where else could you not want to be? The Phoenicians in Tyre and no matter where you go in Tyre you can pick up Roman pottery or you can see all these amazing sites, whether it's from the Phoenicians, from the Romans, from the Crusaders, it's just, it's all there in front of you. Yeah, yeah, cradle of civilization there. Well, thank you so much for sharing your experiences, Kevin. Thanks so much. Okay, cheers.

It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonedmedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Welcome to Decisions Decisions,

the podcast where boundaries are pushed and conversations get candid. Join your favorite hosts, me, Weezy WTF. And me, Mandy B. As we dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday and Wednesday, we both invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms.

Tune in and join the conversation. Listen to Decisions Decisions on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories, inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Noturno on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's John, also known as Dr. John Paul. And I'm Jordan, or Joe Ho.

And we are the Black Fat Film Podcast. A podcast where all the intersections of identity are celebrated. Oh, chat. This year, we have had some of our favorite people on, including Kid Fury, T.S. Madison, Amber Ruffin from the Amber and Lacey Show, Angelica Ross, and more. Make sure you listen to the Black Fat Fam podcast on the iHeart

radio app, Apple Podcast, or whatever you get your podcast, girl. Ooh, I know that's right. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson-Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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