>I wonder if Netherlands will contribute a Dutchbat and an air element like they did for OPERATION JOINT ENDEAVOR? Heck, they could take Belgium on their own, after all Dutch fighter jets took part in the NATO air strikes that resulted in 500 to 2,500 civilian deaths.
The numbers I remember from the time was about 2000 soldiers (no troops at all, not one single troop!), 2000 civilians in Serbia proper and improper (i.e. Vojvodina) plus 2000 in Kosovo. About third of the last were done by bombs, third in fighting with army/police, and third in infighting - purges within the ranks, getting rid of weaker allies of KLA, their own of Catholic faith, their own who weren't sufficiently anti-Serb and generally becoming monolithic.
> They bombed Radio Television Serbia and the cluster bombed the Nis marketplace and handed Bosnians over to Serbs. They just do what they've always done - blame others just like they blamed the UN for all of their actions during Yugoslavia and the Srebrenica massacre. Pacifism didn't work out too well for those at Srebrenica.
I'm not quite sure what happened there. After all the lies and propaganda that were circulating, whoever claims anything about the case, I can only say "of course, if you say so". There were a dozen smaller massacres in the surrounding villages in the years before that, which were underreported. There is a documented order of the Bosnian commander that his forces are leaving the city, pretty much knowing what will happen - sounds like setting a stage. The forces he took out are, and by some accounts aren't counted as victims. Also, a number of those who fled is allegedly counted and allegedly not counted - and we're talking about 1500-2000 people in each case.
As for the actual number of victims and how much were the numbers blown out of proportion (up or down), whatever goes. For a while I was trying to keep track of the alleged 100,000 dead on Kosovo and Metohija during the bombing, thinking that all these mass graves must be found now that there are no Sloba's forces there to hide anything, and that the locals, being so numerous and densely populating the area, must know every move that was made during those 77 days. But no... only about those 2000, almost all of them in solo graves - except that one infamous truck with dead bodies that was discovered when the driver spoke up. But that can't be more than one or two a week, or else the satellite imagery would have found that out and it would have been all over the news ten years ago. And then Helena Ranta spoke up and we got the confirmation that Ra[c caron]ak was staged. Another that Markale were staged.
So, know what, why would I believe anything? The Dutch may have been duped, or may have arranged the whole thing, or they didn't do anything because nothing much was actually happening, or they didn't do anything because they couldn't believe what they saw? Whatever. The modern political discourse has taken decomposition not as a way to read between the lines and to get to the unspoken parts, to what the poet didn't want to say, but rather as an excuse to declare the truth unfashionable, and introduce truthiness instead. Whatever you say, guys. I believe you just like I did yesterday, about zero or thereabouts.
>Most western nations have made terrible mistakes in military actions.
The first one is taking them. The rest is implied.
> No country is immune even with the best of intentions.
I somehow can't put "good intention" and "military action" on the same side of a sentence.
> The hope is that history will not repeat itself any longer...
It doesn't. The periods are getting shorter and shorter.
