Military
The Tongan government supported the American "coalition of the willing" action in Iraq and deployed a small number of Tongan soldiers (as part of an American force) to Iraq in late 2004. The contingent of 40+ troops returned home on 17 December 2004. In 2007 a second contingent went to Iraq, and two more were sent during 2008 as part of Tonga's continuous support for the coalition. This Tongan involvement finally concluded at the end of 2008 with no reported loss of Tongan life.
In 2010, Tongan Brigadier General Tau'aika 'Uta'atu, Commander of the Tonga Defence Services, signed an agreement in London committing a minimum of 200 Tongan troops to cooperate with Britain's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.
Tonga has also contributed troops and police to the Bougainville conflict in Papua-New Guinea and to the Australian-led RAMSI force in the Solomon Islands.
Read more about this topic: Tonga
Famous quotes containing the word military:
“I’m not a military man, Captain. War holds no romance for me. The side effects are repulsive.”
—Richard Bluel, and Henry Hathaway. Major Hugh Tarkington (Clinton Greyn)
“The military mind is indeed a menace. Old-fashioned futurity that sees only men fighting and dying in smoke and fire; hears nothing more civilized than a cannonade; scents nothing but the stink of battle-wounds and blood.”
—Sean O’Casey (1884–1964)
“Who are we? And for what are we going to fight? Are we the titled slaves of George the Third? The military conscripts of Napoleon the Great? Or the frozen peasants of the Russian Czar? No—we are the free born sons of America; the citizens of the only republic now existing in the world; and the only people on earth who possess rights, liberties, and property which they dare call their own.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)