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What do you think of this (Why Americans hate foreign policy) written by P.J. O'Rourke, who also spent time in the Balkans?

In the fall of 1996, I travelled to Bosnia to visit a friend whom I'll call Major Tom. Major Tom was in Banja Luka serving with the Nato-led international peacekeeping force, Ifor. From 1992 to 1995, Bosnian Serbs had fought Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Muslims in an attempt to split Bosnia into two hostile territories.

In 1995, the US-brokered Dayton Agreement ended the war by splitting Bosnia into two hostile territories. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was run by Croats and Muslims. The Republika Srpska was run by Serbs.

IFOR's job was to "implement and monitor the Dayton Agreement." Major Tom's job was to sit in an office where Croat and Muslim residents of Republika Srpska went to report Dayton Agreement violations.

"They come to me," said Major Tom, "and they say, 'The Serbs stole my car.' And I say, 'I'm writing that in my report.' They say, 'The Serbs burnt my house.' And I say, 'I'm writing that in my report.' They say, 'The Serbs raped my daughter.' And I say, 'I'm writing that in my report."'

"Then what happens?" I said.

"I put my report in a filing cabinet."

Major Tom had fought in the Gulf war. He'd been deployed to Haiti during the American reinstatement of President Aristide (which preceded the recent American un-reinstatement). He was on his second tour of duty in Bosnia and would go on to fight in the Iraq war.

That night, we got drunk.

"Please, no nation-building," said Major Tom. "We're the Army. We kill people and break things. They didn't teach nation-building in infantry school."

Or in journalism school, either. (snip)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;sessionid=X0NZR23ED5X0NQFIQMFCNAGAVCBQYJVC?xml=/opinion/2004/09/18/do1801.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/09/18/ixopinion.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=17114

What do you think of this ... written by P.J. O'Rourke, who also spent time in the Balkans?

A good one--I read P.J. O'Rourke's "Bad Capitalism" chapter on Albania in Eat the Rich while I was there--made it twice as funny.

Unfortunately, P.J.'s take on Major Tom is pretty true to life. Although law enforcement was part of the original IFOR concept, the focus was on simply keeping the factions apart. It wasn't until later with SFOR and the arrival of international civil police and better training for local police that individual crimes began to get addressed.