Lizard King said:
This might seem like a stupid question, but why was there so much brutality?
Number of reasons.
1) Ethnic division was deeply entrenched. What most foreigners don't know is that they haven't suddenly appeared out of nowhere. They have been brewing 10 years prior to war. Kosovo tensions were high even 20 years prior to Kosovo war, but communist regime covered up all of that with particular attention. Even during full blown communist rule, Serbs were leaving Kosovo for example due to sectarian tensions.
2) Not a single nation, Serbs, Croats, or Bosniaks had clearly carved out territory. Bosnia was
heavily mixed up. Therefore to carve out ethnic territories by definition demanded force.
3) As necessity for national division was mounting, so were battlefield difficulties. Pressure was high. Every ethnic group was at one point close to total collapse. Serbs at the beginning and at the very end of war, Croats during operation Corridor, Bosniaks every now and then. Under such circumstances, quick, brutal solutions seemed to military leaders, no matter how bizarre this sounds, as least painful ones. For example, quickly after Srebrenica was overrun, Mladic was immediately transferred to western Bosnia to face Croat offensive that was mounted by Croatian Army rather than Bosnian Croats. One of the reasons why he probably didn't want to prolong Srebrenica siege
Irenicus said:
Also, likely in a fit of rage from seeing their families and relatives being terrorized, the local Serbs killed Muslim women and children as well, alongside aforementioned captured Muslim troops.
This is absolutely not true. Not even Hague prosecutors claim this, and they are particularly biased. Shot were only males, those who were deemed after brief visual inspection to be of military age.
My 2 cents: The whole Srebrenica controversy is not about whether there were mass shootings there. The controversy is about:
1) Scope
2) Nature of crime
First of all, numbers of dead males are wildly exaggerated. The only reason why they cannot be questioned is solely because of narrative, extreme pressure and demonization of everyone who dares challenge them. Same as with Holocaust.
Just a brief look at the census stats shows that it is impossible that 8000 males from Srebrenica were shot,
when 15.000 people lived in entire municipality (not only besieged town)
In besieged Srebrenica, there were not even 4000 males, let alone 8000.
The official (no joke) method that "researchers" use is number of buried bodies (so far 6000 were buried) at memorial complexes, which is completely outrageous since at the complex were buried and can be buried: people who were not victims of shootings, but actually simply combatants who died in combat; people who died elsewhere; people killed in combat elsewhere; people who died after the war (!!); people who died even today are buried there, particularly family members.
The number 8000 is a wild guess, just as number 6 million of Jews is nothing but complete fantasy. Narrative, shaming, demonization, repeating, cannot ever replace the truth and factual analyzes.
2) Massacre of max 2-4000 males in a single area is an act of genocide ?!
