A pebble in the pond

While this blog is focused on the CF, this incident involving the Dutch may have far-reaching consequences for the ISAF effort in Afghanistan:

A roadside bombing killed the son of the Netherlands' top military officer on Friday, a day after his father assumed command of the Dutch armed forces, officials said.

Lt. Dennis van Uhm, 23, was one of two Dutch soldiers killed in the explosion 7 miles northwest of Camp Holland, the Dutch military base in Uruzgan province, spokesman Lt. Gen. Freek Meulman said.

The Dutch are fighting alongside U.S, British and Canadian troops at the forefront of NATO's battles with the Taliban and other insurgents in southern Afghanistan. Other NATO nations such as Germany, Italy and Spain are based in the relatively safe north and west and have been criticized for not sending their combat troops to help out in a fight.

Friday's casualties bring the death toll of Dutch soldiers to 16 since the Netherlands began contributing combat forces to the NATO mission in Afghanistan in August 2006. The Dutch have 1,650 troops in southern Afghanistan.

There was no immediate comment from Gen. Peter van Uhm, who took up a new job as the overall commander of the Dutch military in a ceremony outside parliament in The Hague on Thursday.

First of all, my condolences to General van Uhm and his family at this difficult time. As the Dutch Defence Minister says later in the article, such an incident couldn't be in starker contrast to the festivities with the changeover in command yesterday. As the sidebar at this new Canadian milblog says, "Heaven has only gotten safer."

From a broader perspective, though, I wonder how this incident will affect the public consciousness domestically in the Netherlands? Remember, the Taliban don't plant roadside bombs because roadside bombs can defeat us militarily. The odd explosion simply can't do that. They plant roadside bombs in order to kill our will to continue the mission. And while that doesn't kill the military's morale, it may well smother the civilian support for the mission that is required in any democracy.

The parallels between the Dutch and Canadian situations are pretty clear, and I'm wondering if this incident will provide the "hearts & minds" jackpot that the enemy hopes and expects it will. At this point, I'm not even sure how the Canadian population would react to such a high-profile death, let alone the Dutch.

This is a pebble thrown in a pond; we have yet to see how far the ripples will travel.