It is not my intention to disparage my fellow columnist Ivan Eland’s otherwise excellent book, “The Empire Has No Clothes: US Foreign Policy Exposed” (reviewed today by Anthony Gregory), but I do have to note an objection that concerns my field, such as it is.
Gregory’s review indicates that on page 140, Eland says:
“[I]n the year before the NATO bombing campaign, the number of Kosovar Albanians killed by Serbs was only about 2,500. In contrast, during the eleven weeks of Allied bombing, with no longer anything to lose, the Serbs slaughtered 10,000 Kosovar Albanians.”
Unfortunately, these figures are as accurate as claims about Saddam’s WMD’s.
Some 2000 Albanians were estimated to have been killed prior to the NATO intervention, most of which were pro-Yugoslav Albanians murdered by the KLA. Though there were civilian casualties caused by the Yugoslav military, it is difficult to say how many of the remaining casualties were actual civilians, and how many were KLA.
The figure of 2500 actually reflects the total body count from the war, esatablished by international investigators, and encompassing Serbs, ethnic Albanians, and members of other communities in Kosovo. This included casualties of NATO bombing and KLA attacks (presumably KLA casualties as well), as well as any killed by the Yugoslav military.
The number of 10,000 Albanians “slaughtered” by Serbs is a complete fabrication, a scaled-down claim by NATO after the war (when it became obvious that allegations of “100,000 dead” were bogus). It has been repeated uncritically by the media, just like the claim of “250,000 dead” in Bosnia, without a shred of evidence.