"if you want peace prepare for war". For too long, esp after Vietnam, major western countries have gone down the road of appeasement and the cost in human life and dignity etc has been high. Using force and esp sending in ground troops is a huge decision and one that must be taken with great care, BUT unfortunately freedom always has a price (and it is our young men who constantly pay that price). It is easy to blame the Austalian government for being slow to react BUT to take it upon ourselves to effectively invade a territory of Indonesia and thus go to war with that country would have been a mistake. The East Timor scenario was one where militarily we could have defeated Indonesia on our own(that is we could have driven them out of Timor and kept them out), but a war with Indonesia would have almost certainly resulted in a military coup and the deaths of who knows how many other people. The US and UN would not have come to our aid and we would have been left with possible long term instabilty and even anarchy on our doorstep. The UN should have been in a position to forsee the violence that errupted once the results came in, and should have already pressured Indonesia to accept a peacekeeping force before the referendum if the violence escalated and the Indonesian military couldn't control the situation. The UN has a long and glorious record of doing nothing until a situation is absolutly critical. By UN standards the response to East Timor is lightning fast. The Australian government was right to ignore all of those who wanted our troops sent in with or without Indonesian approval. The Australian government - along with others - was culpable of not preparing properly for a worst case scenerio BUT to have risked going to war with Indonesia would only have been to heap more bad decisions upon those already made. To the boys at the sharp end ie 1,2 and 3RAR, SASR and those combat troops from Britain and NZ etc and to all of the troops and other personnal who are in or will soon be heading to East Timor...the very best of luck and a safe return. After recent events in the Balkans and now East Timor one can only hope that the UN learns some important lessons so that the magnitude of such disasters can be contained in the future. Unfortunately this is all wishful thinking. Ferret