Not Getting What We Paid For

During the darkest days of the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia, a place called Srebrenica became one of the most hellish places on earth.


It was supposed to be a safe zone because the United Nations said so. They dispatched a handful of soldiers from the Netherlands with orders to fire only in self-defense. Ethnic Serbians under the orders of the notorious General Ratko Mladic swept into the region. Mladic's troops intimidated, but scrupulously avoided shooting at the Dutch. 8,000 men and boys died under the so-called protection of the powder blue flag. I cannot imagine an American soldier standing by and watching that kind of horror, orders or no orders, whether outgunned or not.


This certainly reinforces the idea stated here before that only warriors can be peacekeepers. How can you protect anyone if your gun is always on "safety?" Sure, many of the perpetuators have ended up tried for war crimes, but for rape and mass murder they get sentences that in the United States would be light for major drug felonies or attempted murder. It has led to another result, a lawsuit. Bosnian female relatives of the dead have filed suit against the United Nations and the Dutch government for their lack of action.


Although it is always fun to see the UN inconvenienced, the problem is that if they lose a lawsuit and actually pay up, American money goes towards the lion's share of the bill. One more reason why the taxpayer dollars from the Potomac Highlands and the rest of the United States ought not support that white elephant of an international organization.