Finnish ISAF soldiers heading for Northern Afghanistan can no longer be photographed or identified by name in the media because of potential extremist threats to their families, according to a Finnish commander interviewed by my hometown newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. Does anyone else find this rather unlikely? Josh? Christian?
Afghanistan: Extremists ‘Target Families of ISAF Soldiers’
June 14, 2009 by Jari
Posted in Afghanistan | 6 Comments
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I don’t know what the situation inside Finland itself it. I know Osama bin Laden used to make it a practice to tell reporters visiting him in Khost about their own families, home addresses, and so on, as an intimidation tool. Whether or not it matters now… well, I mean, you can look up anyone on the internet, and with a full name and hometown (as is the practice in American papers) you can find out anyone’s home address. Oddly perhaps, the U.S. doesn’t have nearly the same worry about family harassment. Best I know, it hasn’t happened, whether from anti-war types or Islamist crazies.
But again: I don’t know about Finland, or what its situation is. Embarrassingly, the majority of Americans who know even a little bit about Islam in Europe know it from Bruce Bawer. And I have to admit to never studying the issue to any detail. Just… it’s not really an issue in the U.S.
That’s the thing — as far as anyone can tell, there isn’t any Islamic extremism in Finland. So I really am at a loss as to who exactly would do the threatening. Also, this presents the media with a bit of a conundrum, as it will be next to impossible to cover the Finnish ISAF mission on the ground without proper access to the grunts. The general public in Finland is already in the dark about what exactly it is we are doing over there, and I’m afraid this will make things even worse.
Same as Josh, the only potential I see is online harassment. And I would see more potential for that in the UK.
In Denmark the surnames of combat personel send overseas is not public known.
While DANCON/IRAQ (’03-’07) were deployed, several families were harassed by immigrated iraqis. Usually it was late night telephone calls with a arabic voice shouting different things. Not direct threats, but enough to make mothers worry.
The numbers were easily intercepted GSM-phones for private calls used by deployed personel. But I have not heard there should be any problems with the ISAF-force regarding this matter.
cheers
If the Fins came up with the idea, they probably have some good reasons. In 2000, I was in Bosnia with NATO and one of my Norwegian friends’ family was being harrassed by some Islamic Fundamentalists back home. I’ve served in both Afghanistand and Iraq and would love not to see everyone’s name released. I never allowed my name to get out when speaking with the press, and many American units do the same.
Thanks for the valuable input, gentlemen. Obviously it’s not up to the media to decide these things. My experience embedding with Americans in Iraq is rather different — no one’s ever requested anonymity. But I’m sure it happens.