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Originally posted by Gorgo

I don't think he attempts to make the massacre of 8,000 people small. That isn't a small thing. Nor do I think the massacre of 150 people is a small thing, nor do I think he thinks that.

The problem is, there just isn't much evidence that 8,000 people were massacred. I don't think a "Clinton conspiracy" is necessary here, nor does he say that. What he says is that certain ideas, though they may not have been proven, were convenient to certain people, including Clinton. There were others in the West who found those ideas convenient as well.

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Srebrenica genocide denial or Srebrenica genocide revisionism, is the belief that the Srebrenica genocide did not occur, or that far fewer than around 8,000 Bosniaks were killed by the Bosnian Serb Army (numbers below 5,000, most often around 2,000 are typically cited); that there never was a centrally-planned Bosnian Serb Army's attempt to exterminate the Bosniaks of Srebrenica; and/or that there were not mass killings at the extermination sites. Those who hold this position often further claim that Bosniaks and/or Western media know that the Srebrenica genocide never occurred, yet that they are engaged in a massive conspiracy to maintain the illusion of a Srebrenica genocide to further their political agenda. These views are not accepted as credible by objective historians. [44] [45]

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The 8,000 figure is also incompatible with the basic arithmetic of Srebrenica numbers before and after July 1995. Displaced persons from Srebrenica-that is, massacre survivors-- registered with the World Health Organization and Bosnian government in early August 1995, totalled 35,632. Muslim men who reached Muslim lines "without their families being informed" totaled at least 2,000, and some 2,000 were killed in the fighting. That gives us 37,632 survivors plus the 2,000 combat deaths, which would require the prewar population of Srebrenica to have been 47,000 if 8,000 were executed, whereas the population before July was more like 37-40,000 (Tribunal judge Patricia Wald gave 37,000 as her estimate). The numbers don't add up. [45]

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Was there “Genocide” at Srebrenica?

Unlike US-supported attacks by Croatian troops on Serb-inhabited UN Protected Zones (Western Slavonia and the Krajina), the Bosnian Serb Army's capture of Srebrenica was a predictable response to military provocations. Unlike the Croatian operations Flash and Storm, the Bosnian Serbs helped arrange a massive safe passage operation to Tuzla for thousands of Srebrenica residents who chose to leave from nearby Potocari where the buses were deployed. By the first week of August 1995, 35,632 people had registered with the World Health Organization and Bosnian Government as displaced persons, survivors of Srebrenica. If the goal of the Serbs had been genocide, or even an act of genocide, there would have been no safe passage for the civilian population. According to Carlos Martins Branco, “if there had been a premeditated plan of genocide, instead of attacking in only one direction, from the south to the north – which left the possibility of escape to the north, the Serbs would have established a siege in order to ensure that no-one escaped.”

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Middle East Review of International Affairs:
So how did the claim of more than a million sanctions-related deaths in Iraq persist? In 1999, UNICEF released a glossy, detailed report that again concluded that sanctions had contributed to the deaths of one million Iraqis. UNICEF did not complete the report independently however, but rather co-authored it with the Iraqi governmentís health ministry (according to the reportís own front cover). It is this report that is most often cited by activists and journalists, although seldom do they refer to it as a joint publication of Saddamís government. Both current and former UN personnel admit this report to be problematic especially because its statistics come from the Iraqi government, which blocks independent information gathering.(10) Former UN officials related that many statistics are of questionable veracity.(11) One troubling sign of lack of objectivity is a map on the first page of the first chapter. While purporting to show the region, the map omits Kuwait, and makes it appear that the country is actually part of Iraq.(12) The inclusion of the map raises issue of what compromises UNICEF made to complete the study.

Many academics as well as those in the activist and conflict resolution communities nevertheless accept the UNICEF statistics at face value. However, a careful examination shows that the reported results make no sense. According to data presented in the report, the mortality rate for children under five years old and the infant mortality rate increased after the adoption of the oil-for-food program almost doubled caloric intake. For example, in 1995, the infant mortality rate allegedly was 98 deaths per thousand while, in 1998, it was 103 deaths per thousand. Likewise, the under five years old mortality rate reportedly rose to 125 deaths per thousand in 1998, from 117 in 1995.(13) Ironically, the suspicious implication here is that the reduction of sanctions increases suffering in Iraq.

Further, according to the UNICEF study, child mortality rose in the portion of Iraq controlled by Saddam Hussein from 56 per thousand before sanctions to 131 per thousand in 1999, a magnitude rise for which there is no evidence. Curiously, UNICEF (or perhaps the Iraqi government) did not provide a breakdown of the figures by quarters of Baghdad, where one-third of the Iraqi population lives. Accordingly, no comparison among various constituencies in the city is possible, to see if food is getting, for example, to Arab Sunnis, but not to Arab Shiíi or Kurds. (14)

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