What does it matter what the media say? There are at least two expert reports on Srebrenica and those are the ones we should be discussing:

Srebrenica - a 'safe' area

Reconstruction, background, consequences and analyses of the fall of a Safe Area

In November 1996, the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) was instructed by the Dutch Government to carry out a study of 'the events prior to, during and after the fall of Srebrenica'. For the purposes of this independent historical analytical research, the Government undertook to do everything in its power to grant the NIOD researchers access to the source material at its disposal. On 10 April 2002, this report was made public with the presentation of the first copy to the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Loek Hermans, as representative of the Government.

The Dutch government commissioned this report, which when released in 2002 failed to pin the blame on the Dutch peacekeepers so the victims got angry. But still the government resigned

"The international community has failed to protect the people in the UN safe areas (in Bosnia)," Mr Kok said in a short explanation of his resignation in parliament.

Then there is Srebrenica and the Politics od War Crimes

Findings of the Srebrenica Research Group into the allegations of events and the background leading up to them, in Srebrenica, Bosnia & Herzegovina, in 1995.

The UN press conference (July 12, 2005) claims

* The premise that Serbian forces executed 7,000 to 8,000 people "was never a possibility,"

• US policy in Bosnia endangered safe zones by opposing UN requests to provide enough personnel to demilitarize these enclaves and by facilitating illegal arms shipments to Muslim forces through C-130 Hercules night time deliveries to the Tuzla airport.

• Despite signing the demilitarization agreement, Bosnian Muslim forces in Srebrenica were well armed and under orders to engage in provocations ("sabotage operations") against Serbian forces.

• Instead of defending the town with a force of 5500 well armed soldiers, the Bosnian Army 28^th Division was ordered to evacuate Srebrenica two days before a small force of 200 Bosnian Serb forces (according Muslim General Halilovic and the London Times) entered the nearly empty town on July 11.

• The International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia (ICTY) whose staff had been largely appointed by Madeleine Albright, then US Ambassador to the United Nations, acknowledged political considerations when they issued indictments for genocide against Bosnian Serb leaders

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith