Hi Tracy,

Thanks for your insight.

We all know that we will never hear the entire story. Some things will be classified and remain classified.The military and the UN for obvious reasons do want to keep certain things internally.

Walter,



>Somehow when I clicked on Send, some of what I typed dissappeared. I will try to fill it in:
>
>I agree with what you wrote. I cannot put the blame on any single group of UN soldiers or even the Dutchbat leaders. When working under the auspices of the UN, even the commanders are limited to what they are allowed to do. I do not know what specific instructions were handed out by the UN - either when first arriving on scene or during the events. UN Commanders onsite do not act without the direction of the UN. Few understand that. I was involved in UN missions in the past and it is often a case of 'we have to wait for our instructions' situation. It is always possible that when they first arrived on site they had one understanding of their role, and when the events unfolded, they were given different instructions. I did not find anything regarding specific directives at the time of the events from the UN to the DutchBat leader. I cannot directly place the blame on any single leader or group of people at this time other than the UN and the individuals committing the
>acts and their leaders. If the UN gave instructions to act and the Dutchbat did not, that would be an entirely different scenario but I have not read anything which points to that. I am still concerned by the meetings which took place (supposedly according to reports) between all of the parties concerned before the events began and the departing Bosnian soldiers. It is very very fishy and I am astounded that none of the after action reports (released to the public) refer to that.
>
>
>>Metin,
>>
>>>>Metin's argument that it would not have happened if it would have been Turkish troops is probably not valid. How would a Turkish force have stopped it without adequate weaponry?? Sure, the Dutch are not really Warriors, but the Dutch cannot bear the idea that they are responsible for the death of other people, no matter whether that are christians or muslims. Metin's understanding of the morale of the Dutch is wrong, it is a prejudice.
>>
>>
>>>First:
>>>They couldn't be attack UN forces. They couldn't dare take all of the world be opposite....
>>
>>>Second:
>>>If dutch soldiers didn't believe them they can defend bosnian civilians, why they asked the civillians "left your guns, we will survive you!..", why? Can you explain that too?
>>
>>The dutch were there for peacekeeping, not to fight. As for the claim, that they said they would protect them, I can't answer that one. Maybe they thought they would be ok, Maybe they thought that the serbs never would do this under the eye of the UN. They just wanted to prevent (innocent) people being killed on the scene. Of course the outcome was dramatic.
>>
>>Can you imagine that it could have been even worse?
>>1 - Dutchbat being eliminated ?
>>2 - All citizens (including women, children, elderly) being killed ?
>>
>>So the options of dutchbat:
>>
>>1. Do nothing (essentially what they did), outcome known
>>2. Retreat, outcome would certainly not be better
>>3. Fight, outcome would certainly not be better
>>
>>So tell me, what should have been done ???
>>
>>In short, dutchbat was trapped and could not do much. Sure other mistakes have been made, but you cannot blame that entirely on dutchbat as this could happen on any military force in the world. Dutchbat at that point was not trained for handling these situations.
>>
>>We have learned a lot since then. Our military now is a professional (voluntary) army for more than 10 years now. Our army now have been more equipped and trained for those situations. We have learned from the experience (I certainly hope so) and have been participating in a few other UN missions (like iraq and afghanistan and a few african countries). A large percentage of our military force in on a mission at any given point, just to help in others in need, to protect the innocent people. To prevent escalation of wars. we are NOT dirven by commercial gains (We have no oil benefit from iraq, and there certainly is nothing to gain in afghanistan). At least we try to be there when there is a conflict in the world, trying to help. However this is not a guarrantee for success. Failure still will happen.
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>>This does not take away it is a black page in our history (we also have our own vietnam in Indonesia)
>>
>>Walter,