Do you believe America is committing genocide in Iraq?

[seemslikeadream]

And if you do, do you think people/M$M that are ignoring it are genocide deniers?

[Bonobo]

1. Country-cide.

[Karenina]

30. It's G-E-N-O-C-I-D-E

Try as you may to soft-pedal it.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

205. Sorry using the language properly is not soft pedaling..

Genocide: murder of entire ethnic group: the systematic killing of all the people from a national, ethnic, or religious group, or an attempt to do this

--

No entire race, ethnic, religious, or national group is attempting to be killed...

1) Dont cheapen what Genocide is
2) Dont lay ridiculous claims on the us because youre handing war supporters straw men to use..

[Karenina]

209. Iraq has been turned into a toxic waste dump.

The United States has exploded ordnance containing depleted uranium all over the country. All those who breathe that dust have been handed a death sentence, INCLUDING YOUR SOLDIERS. Those sentences are long, slow and painful. The use of du was indeed intentional and will deliver a systematic killing of the Iraqi people and anyone else who has had the misfortune of participating in this clusterfuck on their soil.

The American MIC is good at GENOCIDE. It's had LOTS of practice, even before being industrialized. Read Henry Kissingers "Memo 200" and get back to me. GENOCIDE IS AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY. The only ones who try "angelization" of that FACT are the mushrooms who are kept in the dark and fed manure.

[King Coal]

375. The name originated as the poison used to kill lizards on Gallapagos.

After that it was called Zyclon B. Nasty stuff.

[JackRiddler]

271. Where did you get that definition?

Dictionaries are written by people, too. Here's what mine tells me:

genocide
noun
the deliberate killing of a large group of people, esp. those of a particular ethnic group or nation.

---

The systematic mass killing of a population is genocide, even if it's not an attempt to kill all of a particular ethnicity or nation. Even if the killing is claimed as collateral in the course of a war. Even if -- in fact especially if -- the casualty figures are falsified downwards by the entity responsible for the killing. Even if that entity is the United States.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

282. According to your definition...

Any war, legal and just or not, is genocide wars are fought nation against nation... In any war you will see "the deliberate killing of a large group of people, esp. those of a particular ethnic group or nation."

---

The revolutionary war, genocide! the Napoleonic wars, genocide! Clinton going with the UN into serbia, genocide!

Words have a set meaning in time if someone does not fit into what the word is then use another word...

Illegal, unjust, criminal, wrong, .... All these can apply to the action of the Iraq war
careless, reckless, tragic, moronic, .... All these can apply to the performance of our leader during this war

But according to the English language and the commonly understood legal international definition of genocide thats not what is going on. YOu can call blue 'yellow' if you so choose but if the rest of the world says no, its blue, don't act all surprised..

All this captain hyperbole crap does is hand the right wing a straw man to use against us... a large majority of Americans know the difference between an unjust war and genocide, when you start yelling genocide they are going to tune out what ever you say after that because what happening there while criminally tragic is not genocide..

[JackRiddler]

284. I notice your avoidance seems to extend even to the concept of mass murder.

The words you choose, "Illegal, unjust, criminal, wrong" also describe embezzling $1000 from an Arby's. "Careless, reckless, tragic, moronic" can apply to a teenage drunk driver.

What you are trying to avoid, it seems, is the idea that your government using your taxes and under criminal leadership is the aggressor state, committing crimes against humanity and, undeniably, mass murder for reasons of power and power alone.

The non-aggressor nation of Iraq, which did nothing to provoke or threaten the United States or Britain, was invaded by the two powers on a pretext of demonstrable lies, in order to fulfill a geostrategic plan on behalf of empire.

This was an unprovoked war of aggression. In the process, the aggressors killed as many Iraqis as got in their way. This was intentional and systematic. That they would have preferred for the Iraqis to surrender their country peacefully is irrelevant. Those who drop millions of bombs on a country, invade it, and in the process know that they are poisoning the water and the air, cutting off the electricity and killing directly or causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilian non-combatants are committing genocide.

Since then, however, the genocide has taken on a directly ethnic character, as the United States has armed and encouraged ethnically based militias to kill each other using death squads, and has overseen the incorporation of many of these death squads directly into the Iraqi Interior Ministry. Many thousands more have died and that is once again genocide.

On the whole hundreds of thousands have died and the criminals at the top who started it and oversee it today have committed genocide. They understand that themselves, which is why they lie about the casualty numbers.

And yes, war usually is genocide. In the modern era, in which 90 percent of casualties are civilian noncombatants, that's what it amounts to. Knowingly taking actions that lead to the violent death of large numbers of civilian non-combatants on behalf of a war of aggression qualifies as genocide.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

294. Thank you

"mass murder for reasons of power and power alone. "

This, my friend is *exactly* why its not genocide..

[JackRiddler]

295. In that case, almost no genocide is genocide.

Even the Nazis have their apologists who find that it was all a matter of excess and zealotry concomittant to a deadly war.

This is how it's always justified.

The motive was to conquer, the people (civilian noncombatants) were predictably killed. It's genocide, no matter how you try to avoid it.

[seemslikeadream]

325. WE HAVE JUST NOT KILLED ENOUGH IRAQIS YET

give folks some time to come around, probably another million or two or four

[Bolo Boffin]

328. There could be five Iraqis killed with demonstrable intent, SLAD

No intent, no genocide. No genocide, no smear labeling of your opponents as "genocide deniers."

Game over.

[seemslikeadream]

331. Just how do you know georgie's intent?

[Bolo Boffin]

335. You first, since you're the OP. How do you? n/t

[seemslikeadream]

338. Because I see a MILLION DEAD IRAQIS in my dreams

[JackRiddler]

341. So what was the intent?

To liberate Iraq? To prevent a WMD attack? To punish terrorists linked to 9/11?

Or was there no intent at all? An accident. Oops. How did that happen?

[nadinbrzezinski]

105. Self delete wrong place

[Bolo Boffin]

2. No.

There is no need to throw the crimes of Bush in Iraq into such an exaggeration. They are bad enough. We don't have to be so fascinated with how EVIL Bush is that we make up crap about how EVIL he is.

[seemslikeadream]

7. How many millions does it take to be called GENOCIDE?

[Bolo Boffin]

12. It takes a dedicated effort to wipe out an entire ethnic group.

The killing done by Bush in Iraq is too indiscriminate for this.

Please stop making crap up.

[Mr Rabble]

21. How about a definition?

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group.

While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Article 2 of this defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."<1>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

[Bolo Boffin]

27. That clearly isn't happening in Iraq.

There are many evil things happening in Iraq.

Genocide at the hands of American soldiers is not one.

[Mr Rabble]

54. Genocide at the hands of US soldiers isnt happening?

So then if we didnt have 150,000 troops there, we would still see a million deaths due to violence and the effects of war?

While I can understand that you dont want to believe that the US government is carrying out a genocide, it is in fact doing exactly that. As was made VERY clear in my last post- which used the officially accepted definition of genocide- the illegal war of aggression that US leadership started is responsible for the deaths.

There are lots of tools one can use to do a job.

Genocide can be accomplished using concentration camps.

Or sanctions.
Or small arms with death squads.
Or fire.
Or machete.
Or nuclear weapon.

In this case, US leaders have chosen to do half the job with direct military violence and killing, and the other half will happen in the ruins of war.
Saves bullets that way too I suppose.

I am continually amazed at the lengths people will go to in order to deny truths that are plainly obvious to all objective viewers. Here, that this is genocide is so obvious that it should not even warrant a discussion, but since it's our country doing it, suddenly it requires nuance...

[Bolo Boffin]

64. No, it is not.

I have no problem accepting the US government carrying out a genocide, if that's what they were doing.

But they aren't. As I have said, I think that our being there is wrong and many terrible things are happening.

Genocide isn't one of them. Idiotic hyperbole only hurts the people spouting it.

[Mr Rabble]

80. Ok, Ill go over the genocide convention to show you-

Here again is the definition:

1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Article 2 of this defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."<1>

1- "any of the acts committed". Got that? ANY.
2- " a national, ethnic, racial or religious group"

What are the acts that qualify?

1- "killing members of the group" That is happening, right?
2- "imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group" Depleted uranium ammunition is know to US military to cause this. We are using it. Further, we specifically targeted the water and electrical systems. What effect does that have?
3- "causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group "Shock and Awe" ring a bell? You do remember that this was in fact the exact intent of "Shock and Awe", right?


Now look again at the word "any" as laid out in Article 2.

Good day to you sir.

[Bolo Boffin]

85. "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part..."

"With intent to destroy."

You have yet to demonstrate that. This is the crucial part.

Please take your Depleted Uranium nonsense elsewhere.

[Mr Rabble]

88. What exactly was the intent then?

Were we in fact, going to be greeted as liberators?

Im having a hard time understanding how you can possibly be so indoctrinated as to not see what is.

Even though the US government is now admitting that DU is responsible for Gulf War Syndrome, as well as the largest ever increase in infant mortality rates,(Iraq) I will be more than happy to "take that nonsense elsewhere".

Care to address the other points?

[Zynx]

106. The intent was the control of the country and political manipulation at home.

A successful war would have done wonders for Bush and the Republicans politically. Beyond that, they wanted a way of extending regional influence. The extermination of the Iraqi people is hardly a goal. We are not even close to on pace to "achieving" that.

[Bolo Boffin]

131. You say "indoctrination," I say, "words mean things."

Genocide isn't happening in Iraq.

[uppityperson]

250. Intent matters. I'd call it homicide, or mass murder

Doesn't mean it is ok by any means. But the definition of genocide lays on intent.

[The Straight Story]

268. It seems like Iraqi's are killing more of each other than we are

So what do we call that?

[seemslikeadream]

23. I AM NOT MAKING CRAP UP

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1564270,00.html

Gregory Stanton, a professor of human rights at Virginia's University of Mary Washington, sees in Iraq the same troubling signs of preparation and execution of genocidal aims that he saw in the 1990s in Rwanda when he worked at the State Department. Sunni and Shiite militias are "trying to polarize the country, they're systematically trying to assassinate moderates, and they're trying to divide the population into homogenous religious sectors," Stanton says. All of those undertakings, he says, are "characteristics of genocide," and his organization, Genocide Watch, is preparing to declare the country in a "genocide emergency."

[Bolo Boffin]

28. In that wonderful quote you've produced...

who is committing the suspected genocide?

[seemslikeadream]

32. Who is paying them to do it, WHO made it possible for that to happen?

[Bolo Boffin]

34. God. n/t

[seemslikeadream]

41. the Majority of deaths due to VIOLENCE

http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf

In nearly 92% of cases family members produced death certificates to support their answers. The survey estimated that 601,000 deaths were the result of violence, mostly gunfire.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6495753.stm

[Bolo Boffin]

45. Are the deaths focused on an ethnicity?

Are the deaths directly attributable to American soldiers?

Is there an direct order to American soldiers to target a specific ethnicity?

Post all the damn links you want. You're still making crap up.

[seemslikeadream]

25. How to stop genocide in Iraq SAMANTHA POWER,

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-power5mar05,0,3348120.story?coll=la-opinion-center

[Bolo Boffin]

31. Who would be committing the anticipated genocide?

I see we're in for a patented SLAD docudump...

[seemslikeadream]

37. Genocide by design?

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/56124 /

Is the United States Killing 10,000 Iraqis Every Month? Or Is It More?

By Michael Schwartz
<http://www.afterdowningstreet.org >.
Posted July 6, 2007

300 Iraqis killed by Americans each day sounds like an impossible figure, but a close look at the reported numbers of violent deaths and rate of armed patrols makes it all too likely.

A state-of-the-art research study published in October 12, 2006 issue of The Lancet (the most prestigious British medical journal) concluded that -- as of a year ago -- 600,000 Iraqis had died violently due to the war in Iraq. That is, the Iraqi death rate for the first 39 months of the war was just about 15,000 per month.

That wasn't the worst of it, because the death rate was increasing precipitously, and during the first half of 2006 the monthly rate was approximately 30,000 per month, a rate that no doubt has increased further during the ferocious fighting associated with the current American surge.

The U.S. and British governments quickly dismissed these results as "methodologically flawed," even though the researchers used standard procedures for measuring mortality in war and disaster zones. (They visited a random set of homes and asked the residents if anyone in their household had died in the last few years, recording the details, and inspecting death certificates in the vast majority of cases.) The two belligerent governments offered no concrete reasons for rejecting the study's findings, and they ignored the fact that they had sponsored identical studies (conducted by some of the same researchers) in other disaster areas, including Darfur and Kosovo. The reasons for this rejection were, however, clear enough: the results were simply too devastating for the culpable governments to acknowledge. (Secretly the British government later admitted that it was "a tried and tested way to measuring mortality in conflict zones"; but it has never publicly admitted its validity).

Reputable researchers have accepted the Lancet study's results as valid with virtually no dissent. Juan Cole, the most visible American Middle East scholar, summarized it in a particularly vivid comment: "the US misadventure in Iraq is responsible for setting off the killing of twice as many civilians as Saddam managed to polish off in 25 years."

[Bolo Boffin]

39. Are "Iraqis" an ethnic group?

I was under the impression that there were several ethnicities united in the country of Iraq. Can you point to American soldiers carrying out a genocide against any of them?

[seemslikeadream]

43. John Edwards used the word

http://www.cfr.org/publication/13433 /

Thank you very much for coming to the Council. You’ve laid out a fairly detailed timetable for how you’d like to see the drawdown take place in Iraq and the eventual withdrawal. There’s some skepticism about the ability of the United States to affect things in Iraq once we do withdraw, and the possibility of a genocide is something you’ve made reference to. So, how does that change your figuring on what the United States would have to do if you did get out and then this happened?

First of all, the long-term stability and chance for success in Iraq is dependent on the Iraqi leadership itself. My view is that until and when we shift the responsibility for Iraq to the Sunni and Shia leadership, it's unlikely based on history that they're going to reach any political reconciliation. And so we need to do that in a smart, orderly way by telling them we’re doing it, withdrawing troops over a period of ten to twelve months. We ought to engage in every effort we can to help bring them together, to encourage political compromise, and we ought to engage the Iranians, the Syrians, and other countries in the region into helping stabilize Iraq. The Iranians clearly have an interest in a stable Iraq. They don’t want refugees coming across their border, they don’t want the economic instability, and they don’t want a broader Middle East conflict between Shia and Sunni. The Syrians have a similar interest, although they’re Sunni, not Shia.

And then, the president has a responsibility beyond that. We have interest in the region, that’s obvious, we need to maintain a presence there, in Kuwait, in Afghanistan, maybe in Jordan, depending on what we can agree to there, and we definitely need to maintain a naval presence in the Persian Gulf. And the president has got to prepare for the two things that you raise. One is the possibility that the civil war becomes all-out, so that it can be contained, and the second is the possibility of genocide. My view is that this is something that’s crucial for America to plan for. In the case of the civil war, there are strategies for dealing with it, to contain it—buffer zones, moving away from population centers. And in the case of genocide, this is something we clearly need to be doing with the international community, not America doing this alone. We have to prepare for that. I’m not going to say now this far in advance exactly what the mechanism should be, but America has to have a plan for that.

[Bolo Boffin]

46. He also used the words "Sunni" and "Shia."

Hey, why not post a few more links that don't support your fantasy?

[eridani]

53. They are a nation

US policy is in the process of obliterating Iraq as a nation.

[Zynx]

107. It takes more than the opinion of a "expert" to make something true.

[TheWatcher]

127. Says the unapologetic "Economic Expert"

Oh the Irony is so rich here tonight!

:rofl:

[seemslikeadream]

29. Iraq: The Genocide Option

http://www.zmag.org/Sustainers/Content/2007-01/24herman.cfm

[Echo In Light]

145. It appears that some rightward "Dungeoners" have branched out tonight...

You can practically smell the belligerence.

Thanks for the Edward Herman link!

[Bolo Boffin]

154. Again, Echo, if you think you see any right-leaning people, take it to the moderators.

Rules are here to enforce civility. Quit your uncivil attacks.

[JackRiddler]

272. Bullshit.

See 271, above, or the UN's definition as given in 80 by emperor72.

(Hm. Fancy meeting you here.)

[Bolo Boffin]

281. Au contraire. "Dedicated effort" is most definitely required.

Without that, there is no genocide.

(If you post at DU, you'll meet me all over the place. Get over it.)

[JackRiddler]

285. There was a dedicated effort to steal a country

in a war of aggression, understanding that in the process of bombing, invading and re-bombing hundreds of thousands or more in civilian non-combatant deaths would result.

And as the U.S. government now backs competing death squads in a civil war it engineered as the solution to the insurgency, any question is settled. It's genocide.

(Hairtrigger & apparently humorless.)

[Bolo Boffin]

289. You go too far and reduce your position to absurdity. n/t

[Name removed]

164. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[robertpaulsen]

262. Looks like a certain poster I liked to call Ignored is in DENIAL!

You and Octafish have made a valiant effort, but some people are just too MORANIC to educate.

[Mr Rabble]

15. Congratulations! Delusional post of the day to you!

You can not possibly be suggesting that a war of aggression killing more than 1 million people isnt genocide. You must be joking.

[Bolo Boffin]

36. I am not joking. n/t

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

207. well unless the goal of the war is

to exterminate the race or religion then yes a war killing 10 million people is not genocide...

[napoleon_in_rags]

19. I agree. We don't need to constantly reference past evil

to define current evil. The violence in Iraq does not have an ethnic motivation as far as what US forces have done. Ours is also a multi-racial and multi-ethnic force.

I just saw another post regarding Iraq's "Tet offensive" moment. I think we are losing scope of this particular disaster when we compare it to Viet Nam. Talk of our "losing" in Iraq like its something that can still happen loses scope of the fact that with the amount of time, lives, and money we have already given we have already lost.

[FiveGoodMen]

40. The violence in Iraq DOES have a sort of ethnic motivation

Far fewer Americans would support the completely unnecessary killing of a million white people overseas.

[napoleon_in_rags]

42. I'm not sure that's the case.

Put a million white people on top of 5% of America's oil input, and they'd find a narrative to use against them, just like they did with Germans and Soviets in past conflicts.

[FiveGoodMen]

49. The Americans who support this killing don't believe it's about oil

Yes, there'd be a narrative, but it would be a lot tougher sell.

[treestar]

401. Totally true, and the war supporters have no problem with the

deaths of Muslims. To rabid right wing warmongers, the Muslim is the enemy, and they would gladly exterminate that group of people, though mostly they won't admit it. But they are forever hinting that there is something inherently violent about the religion itself and that all Muslims support the attacks of 911, no matter how little they may have had to do with it.

[msongs]

3. wars of agression based on lies are violations of international law = war crimes

Those who intitiate them and vote to SUPPORT & FUND them after they have started may all be culpable.

genocide, maybe/maybe not under legal definitions. useless killing, yes.

Msongs

[Initech]

4. Read this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3057056

Quite disturbing but I dont know if I'd consider it genocide or not. :scared: :nuke:

[chixydix]

5. It is more like panacide.

I think...

[billybob537]

6. It's homocide.

Just murder for money, same old puke exploitation.

[slackmaster]

8. No, there is a civil war in progress in Iraq and our presence is not helping

We really need to hand the whole mess off to France.

[seemslikeadream]

10. Now remind me

How did that civil war start?

[slackmaster]

20. I believe the civil war has been inevitable since the 1921 creation of the state

It's been held in check by tyrants ever since.

Oil was discovered there in the late 1920s, providing an economic incentive to keep the place artificially stable.

The removal of the Baathist regime has allowed the inevitable to finally happen.

[seemslikeadream]

24. I suppose it's kinda like that art exhibit of the starving dog then, huh?

The dog was gonna die any way

[slackmaster]

35. More like the development process that led to the Edsel

Flawed at all levels from the beginning.

[mike_c]

9. no, I don't....

War crimes, yes-- the most fundamental war crime of all, a war of aggression against a nation that was no threat to the U.S. or to anyone else. Every American in Iraq is a war criminal on that account, but I don't see an attempted genocide. I think there ARE Americans who would love to expand their religious insanity into a genocidal war against muslims, but that's not what's happening in Iraq now, IMO.

[seemslikeadream]

17. attempted genocide?

but that's not what's happening in Iraq now, IMO.


I guess we'll have to wait a couple of years to see how things turn out

[panader0]

11. I think bushco's philosophy is : "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out"

[wildbilln864]

18. I can't believe Bush believes in god...

else he'd be worried about his own ass burning. Just sayin...
:hi:

[varelse]

13. No, I don't think that's what they're doing

it's more like Armed Robbery imo. Blood for oil.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

14. Not genocide, just the murder of a country.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

16. Anyone of any age carrying a weapon is a target. Yes, I'd say that's

a fair use of the term.

http://www.peaceandjustice.it/wp-post.php
In a matter of just a few days, a protest was organized in front of the U.S. Embassy in Rome after RAI News 24 aired a 30-minute documentary on the use of white phosphorus by the U.S. military in Fallujah last November, confirming what independent journalists and human rights groups had been reporting for a year.

USC4P&J endorsed the demonstration and a number of our members participated. It was very important for us to make our voices heard and to speak out against the atrocities documented in the film. White Phosphorus is a chemical agent the burns the skin on contact. The video included graphic images of the horribly disfigured bodies of men, women, and children; their clothes still intact.

The protest was called to condemn the use of this chemical weapon and to demand the immediate withdrawal of all troops from Iraq. Participating in the demonstration was a wide slice of the Italian anti-war movement, from Cobas to Beati Costruttori di Pace. There were a few politicians present as well as Giuliana Sgrena, the Italian journalist kidnapped in Iraq and then shot by U.S. soldiers on her way to the Baghdad Airport. Our group held signs with Stop the War on one side and slogans on the other such as "Fallujah = My Lai with Phosphorus" and "Impeach Bush for War Crimes".

[Donnachaidh]

22. considering they have used depleted uranium not once, but TWICE

in Iraq, I'd have to say YES.

Even if the fighting stopped at this very moment, the effects of the use of DU will be multi-generational devastation. And not just for the Iraqi's - you're going to see a lot of young Americans in the future with children born with birth defects caused by being in an area saturated with DU.

I'd like to see some of the COWARDS in the MSM do reports on the problems for the families of the FIRST Iraqi war. :grr:

[Fireweed247]

115. Yes, Depleted Uranium is genocide, a war crime

The deformities that the babies are born with are worse than horrible. I feel just sick over what we have done.

[lovuian]

403. Yes

Yes and to our own troops too

[bryant69]

26. I don't

But I'm pretty sure that's the wrong answer to this question.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Swamp Rat]

52. LOL!

:D

[seemslikeadream]

33. I just want to know HOW MANY MILLIONS OF DEAD IRAQIS does it take

to be considered genocide?

[Bolo Boffin]

38. How many times are you going to repeat yourself?

There's been a great definition of genocide posted here. What's happening in Iraq doesn't begin to fulfill that definition.

[Name removed]

47. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

99. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[WildEyedLiberal]

198. Genocide isn't about NUMBERS

If you have a tiny ethnic group comprised of 100,000 people, and there is a systematic effort to exterminate said group which results in the death of 60,000 of them, that is genocide.

I don't know why you're on a crusade to enforce the idea that the mass murder and war crimes that are happening in Iraq HAVE to be called "genocide" or that if it's not techinically "genocide" it's somehow not as "evil." What has been done to Iraq is certainly evil and it is certainly mass murder and no one here is denying that. But the very etymological root of the word "genocide" means "death of a race of people" and that IS NOT THE INTENT OR THE RESULT of what is happening in Iraq. The Iraqis don't consider themselves of one standard race or ethnicity; they see themselves as Sunni, Shia, or Kurds. SO UNLESS the US is specifically targeting one or more of these groups and ensuring that they are all being wiped out, to the last man, woman, and child - systematically, purposefully, and deliberately wiped out - then IT IS NOT GENOCIDE.

Jesus, isn't mass murder bad enough on its own? Apparently not, to people who think that x amount of people dead de facto = genocide, regardless of what the word actually means.

[uppityperson]

251. Yup. "Genocide" is about intent. Mass murder is bad enough. eom

[spanone]

44. i have no fucking clue what we're doing in iraq....

[Octafish]

48. White people directing the deaths of a million brown people would appear to qualify.

One death is a tragedy -- the loss of infinite possiblities.

Imagine how the heavens must weep at the loss of a million infinities.

[Bolo Boffin]

50. A silly generalization.

Do you have evidence that American troops are being directed by Bush to carry out a genocide against a specific ethnic group in Iraq?

[Octafish]

51. America's armed forces are following orders.

The same can't be said for the contractors like Blackwater.

The end result of both are 1,000,000 dead Iraqis who had nothing to do with the attacks of September 11.
They also had no WMDs.
They also had no ties to Osama bin Laden.

They are dead as a result of Bush and his cronies' orders.

PS: How's the Amazing Randi these days, boloboffin?

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=68752

"Master Poster." Wow! Your mother must be very proud!

[Theres-a]

56. Ouch!

Nicely done.

[Bolo Boffin]

61. ?

Octafish hasn't figured out what a genocide actually is yet. Lots of vague generalizations that let him believe what he wants -- that's not what I asked for.

[Swamp Rat]

65. Here is your opportunity to learn the term "genocide":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

"Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group. While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Article 2 of this defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.""

(snip)

More links:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genocide
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/genocide
http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html

[Bolo Boffin]

67. You're repeating yourself. n/t

[seemslikeadream]

72. no YOU ARE REPEATING yourself

[Bolo Boffin]

73. Because my questions are not being answered.

Attacking me isn't answering my question. Posting great definitions of genocide over and over again isn't answering my question.

[seemslikeadream]

75. POST 60

[Bolo Boffin]

81. Post 60 fails to show that Iraq is experiencing a genocide at the hands of Americans.

Try again.

[Occulus]

201. And that would be a lie.

Several people have in fact answered you, but you, bolo, have hot received an answer you like.

Ever considered that you might in fact be just flat out wrong on this?

[Bolo Boffin]

211. It is against DU rules to say that something is a lie.

Because that calls me a liar.

Quit being uncivil.

No, no one has demonstrated a shred of evidence that the intent of U.S. policy is genocide in Iraq. That is not me straining over answers I do not like. That is me waiting for people to stop beating straw men and start answering my question.

[Occulus]

263. Fine, then. Your claim that nobody has answered you isn't true.

.
I don't know how else to describe your assertion.

You've been answered, repeatedly. I'm sorry if you don't like the answers coming from other posters, but the fact is, you got an answer.

Don't go about saying you didn't.

By the way- I will judge the level of civility you deserve from me, not you. Stop acting as obtuse as you come across on this thread, and you'll be the recipient of more 'civility' from me and many others. That goes not only for your attitude toward myself, but also the others on this thread.

[Bolo Boffin]

278. List the answers to my question in your very next post.

Be sure to include all the ones with actual evidence of intent. All I've seen are assertions of intent backed by zero evidence.

[Bolo Boffin]

59. Are those orders specifically targeting a specific ethnic group?

Perhaps you have some images of these orders you'd like to post for us?

PS: I don't know how the Amazing Randi is doing these days. We aren't correspondents.

[Swamp Rat]

63. The definition of "genocide" does not require the limitation to a "specific ethnic group."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

"Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group. While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Article 2 of this defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.""

(snip)

More links:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genocide
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/genocide
http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html

[Bolo Boffin]

68. You're repeating yourself. n/t

[Occulus]

203. National group = Iraqi people, as a whole.

Why do you not get this?

[Bolo Boffin]

213. "intent"

Why do you not get this?

[Grateful for Hope]

242. And you know the intent of those responsible for the war?

How?

[Bolo Boffin]

245. If you don't yourself, what is your point?

Can you present evidence that the intent of those responsible for this war was indeed genocide? Can you?

If not, shaddup.

[Karenina]

253. National Security Study Memo 200

[Grateful for Hope]

256. I don't pretend to know the intent

but, since you are INSISTING that this is not genocide, then you obviously think you know the intent.

BTW, who are you to give orders?

[Bolo Boffin]

280. Then you cannot assert that this is a genocide and you have no business doing so

As you did below. Why are you slandering American troops when you yourself cannot "pretend to know the intent"? How dare you? How dare you?

[Grateful for Hope]

371. what kind of garbage is that?

You know full well I am referring to those responsible for the war, not our troops. How dare you put words in my mouth? You don't know what their (those responsible) intent was, so you cannot rule out that this is genocide.

Again, you have no right to attribute something to me that I have never said. You are way out of line.

[Bolo Boffin]

377. In post 243, Hope, YOU said this was genocide. Now you say you can't know intent.

That's not me putting words in your mouth. That's YOU putting words in your mouth.

So scuttle back to your corner and sharpen another toothbrush for me for another day. YOU are the one who attributed an intent to the people in charge and then said you couldn't know for certain what that intent was.

[Grateful for Hope]

379. You do not know their intent either

Count your posts in this thread. You are adamant that this is not genocide. And I maintain that you do not know this for sure because you do not know the intent of those responsible for the war.

Looking at the amount of devastation (and, I am sure it is worse than any of us know), I believe this is genocide.

Carry on with your insults and ad hominems. Wonderful debate techniques.

[Occulus]

267. Because they intended to n/t

[Grateful for Hope]

372. Given what the outcome has been so far

this seems very likely.

[Swamp Rat]

216. PNAC n/t

[fascisthunter]

260. Ok... You Guys Won Me Over on the Genocide Argument

The "orders" have consequences... I think the argument was whether the orders were designed for the intent of genocide. That may be harder to prove., however one would have to be completely ignorant to the possibility of a genocide resulting from their orders.

[Swamp Rat]

62. Straw Man

The definition of genocide does not require the limitation to a "specific ethnic group."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

"Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group. While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Article 2 of this defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.""

(snip)

More links:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genocide
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/genocide
http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html

[Bolo Boffin]

66. Please demonstrate with specific citations how the US occupation fulfills that definition.

Please leave vague generalization and idiotic hyperbole out of your explanation.

[Swamp Rat]

69. I gave you concrete, codified definitions. You offer a Red Herring and Ad hominem.

We are done.

[Bolo Boffin]

You gave a great definition. You neglected to show how American soldiers are fulfilling it.

Bye-bye.

[Rex]

91. I guess the word 'national' goes over his head everytime you post

the correct definition. :shrug:

[Swamp Rat]

94. amusing

:D

[Bolo Boffin]

130. Nope. I'm pointing out that "intent" is just as important a part of the definition

as anything else.

And the intent to commit genocide is not seen in Iraq on the part of American soldiers.

[Grateful for Hope]

257. It does appear that way. n/t

[Zynx]

104. I could hardly call what is happening in Iraq systematic and deliberate.

It is bungling in its most tragic form.

[Swamp Rat]

117. PNAC - They deliberately and systematically planned for the war in Iraq over a decade ago.

How long did it take for the Third Reich to plan the Anschluss, the invasion of Sudetenland, and Poland?

Not as long as the PNACers deliberately and systematically planned their invasion of Iraq.... and soon, Iran.

I know, because I read their plans long ago.

[Zynx]

118. There is a difference. The administration does not seek the elimination of the people

of Iraq to replace them with Americans. Not even close. Germany did seek such a thing in Poland.

[Swamp Rat]

120. And I would not argue that, which is why I did not bring it up.

It's apples and oranges to me. At least this time it's not MY relatives getting exterminated.

[Zynx]

121. My point is that the ethnicity of the Iraqi people is immaterial to Bush

and that crowd. He cares more about strategic positioning than ethnic cleansing. I would go so far as to say Bush isn't even a racist, at least not an active one. Cheney probably is, but I think he cares more about profit than anything. That said, if there was money in the act of genocide, Cheney would partake.

[The Stranger]

136. Given their actions at Guantanamo Bay and a separate set of laws to apply to Arabs and Muslims,

their ethnicity is PRECISELY what is material to Bush, Cheney and the racist Neocons.

[Echo In Light]

141. Bingo. Amazing how the buzzword of this thread brought out the rightists in staunch defense

[Bolo Boffin]

143. If you see any "rightists" here, you should alert the moderators, Echo.

You know the rules.

[Echo In Light]

147. Funny how you perceived that in a personal way...or, revealing, anyhow

Unlike macho, uptighty righties, I'm not exactly big on "rules." So I won't be taking your advise.

[Bolo Boffin]

153. We have history, Echo, and I know you meant to include me.

Stop your stupid attacks and discuss the OP, why don't you?

[Echo In Light]

159. "History?" Funny you remember, cause I don't...then again, that doesn't surprise me

[Bolo Boffin]

Yeah, right. n/t

[The Stranger]

135. It doesn't have to be absolutely successful in every facet to be "systematic and deliberate."

It was planned and is succeeding in wiping out the Iraqis. The run up to the war, the design of the war, the inevitability and inability to pull out. They knew this was going to happen -- maybe not every detail, but there is a method to their madness.

[Bolo Boffin]

142. In five years, 2.5% of the population has died.

So this "genocide" will be complete in 200 years.

:eyes:

[The Stranger]

171. Genocide -- repeating myself here -- doesn't have to be successful to still be genocide.

And the statistic you site is extraordinary -- 2.5% of a whole nation and people have been exterminated.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

[Bolo Boffin]

175. Genocide has to be part of the intent to be genocide.

Are YOU fucking kidding ME?

[The Stranger]

239. Those who commit genocide are not likely to admit it, spell it out, or even let on that what they

are doing is bad, wrong, or misguided. They will tell you they are doing something good in the world, or saving their own people, or that those being exterminated deserve it somehow.

All the while, they are hoping that dissonance between their words and their horrific deeds escapes justice.

[Bolo Boffin]

247. But the intent will still be plain to see.

The Holocaust is a prime example. With the rhetoric of the Nazi party about the evils of the Jewish people combined with the death camps, the label of genocide is easily applied to this event.

Where is the similar rhetoric in the case of the Iraqi war? Can you point to a single place where Bush and his administration have denigrated the Iraqi people like that?

The war is immoral and evil, but it is not a genocide.

[The Stranger]

283. This isn't the Holocaust, but it is a genocide.

In this particular genocide, the intent is on the ground, in the actions of those committing the genocide. You cannot look at their press releases for genocidal intent. And you mustn't be so naive that they would tell you what their true intentions are.

Over 100,000 Iraqi children were killed due to the known and intentional actions of the U.S., and that was even before the current "war." The true death toll from the five years of torture, destruction, shock and awe, bombings, random shootings of innocent people, unknown gulags now being exposed -- will not be known for years to come.

Moreover, the obliteration of infrastructure, social services, including hospitals, medicine, water, electricity, plumbing, sewage -- all of these things lead to more death, disease, higher infant mortality, criminal activity -- this is the destruction of a people.

[Bolo Boffin]

286. "the intent is on the ground" -- Incredible.

You are actually accusing American troops of committing genocide on a Democratic website during an election year.

What the FUCK is wrong with you???

You have absolutely ZERO evidence that anyone is trying to assault the Iraqi people with the intent of eradicating them. You are making politically suicidal claims here for what purpose? For What Purpose?

All so you can glory over your moral superiority to Bush. Amazing.

[The Stranger]

287. What, did I touch a nerve?

I almost started laughing when I read your non-sequiter, ad hominem attack "response."

In case you haven't noticed, the question was posed, and people are talking about it. If you feel responsible for what is going on, that is understandable. If you enraged for that, well, that is understandable as well.

[Bolo Boffin]

288. Yes, you did, and I won't apologize for it.

God damn.

Apply that idiotic generalization you're using to condemn American soldiers -- apply it to ANY war waged in the history of humanity. You have stretched the term "genocide" beyond usefulness.

Words mean things, and if your idiotic posts weren't being countered, other idiots could take it and use it against Democrats and progressive movements in America. All so you can smugly look down your nose at George Bush, as if he were worth the effort.

That is what makes me mad here. Your improper use of a term that can work against your own political aims. I'd like to stop this war. Making absurd and unsupportable claims against it is a great way of making sure that never happens.

[The Stranger]

296. Then calm down.

The fact that troops are involved in a genocide does not make it solely about troops. But that seems to be what you are trying to do. Read post No. 293.

In genocide prosecutions, troops are never even implicated. The leaders of the genocide are the ones indicted and prosecuted. Look at the history of it.

[drmeow]

293. I noticed that you are frequently asking

if people are accusing American troops of committing genocide or some variation on that question. Is it possible for the American leadership to be committing genocide using unwitting American troops as their agents? Does calling what it happening in Iraq genocide automatically mean that the troops are the ones who are guilty?

The troops are not responsible for:

the decision to invade in the first place
the use of DU
the systematic destruction of the infrastructure
the sanctions that preceded this war

I'm still thinking about the intent question myself but it seems to me that if someone believes that Bush's intent was genocide, that does not automatically mean that the troop's intent is genocide. I do not think that those who are arguing that this is genocide are directly accusing the troops of committing genocide, I think they are accusing the Administration of using a group of people who have been deliberately trained to be loyal and not to question the intent of the leadership to carry out a genocide of the Administration's making. The orders have come from on high. I do not think that the actions of the soldiers in Iraq have crossed the line from "just following orders" to perpetrating genocide (assuming, of course, that it is genocide) and I think that it is important to make that distinction at this point (I do think that what is happening is radically different from what happened in Germany and that needs to be acknowledged).

[Zynx]

102. Genocide is not just the domain of white people.

[warren pease]

55. The international legal definition of genocide according to the 1948 Geneva Convention...

The international legal definition of the crime of genocide is found in Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

Article II describes two elements of the crime of genocide:

1) the mental element, meaning the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such", and

2) the physical element which includes five acts described in sections a, b, c, d and e. A crime must include both elements to be called "genocide."

Article III described five punishable forms of the crime of genocide: genocide; conspiracy, incitement, attempt and complicity.

More on Articles II and III:

Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

a) Killing members of the group

b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group


Article III: The following acts shall be punishable:

a) Genocide

b) Conspiracy to commit genocide

c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide

d) Attempt to commit genocide

e) Complicity in genocide

Here's an updated and reformatted chart showing the elements of genocidal crimes agreed upon by the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court in New York on June 30, 2000, way back in the foggy mists of time forgotten when the US was actually part of an international community of law-abiding states (soft of) rather than the world's most despised purveyor of state-sponsored terrorism.

So yeah, when you look at the recognized elements of the crime and consider what Iraqis have been subjected to since Gulf War I, labeling it genocide is pretty straightforward.

Consider the continued presence of depleted uranium and a toxic soup of various chemicals and heavy metals in plentiful supply wherever battles were fought in the glorious campaign to liberate Kuwait (and its oil) from the evil Saddam.

A dozen years of UN sanctions -- which the US rammed down the throats of the Security Council and then the General Assembly -- killed conservatively a million people through starvation or disease, since imports of food and critical medicines were contingent on Saddam playing nice with the US, meaning that Iraq continued to ship their oil to the West in mass volume and at bargain prices.

And when the food and meds finally arrived, were snapped up by the ruling Baathists and whoever else had the biggest guns. The US of course knew the routine and chose to do nothing about it since all they really gave a shit about was the oil. The people could rot in hell -- as long as enough skilled petroleum company employees survived to run the oil fields and pipelines.

And now various sources -- Amnesty International, The Lancet, the UN itself and various other NGO relief agencies -- tell us that between 700,000 and 1.2 million Iraqi civilians, mostly kids and women, have been killed since these demon-spawn unleashed Harlan Ullman's Shock and Awe on Baghdad. That doesn't even count the unendurable physical pain, the horrible maimings and dismemberments visited on these people by the world's most vicious bully. Add another 2 to 5 million who have become international refugees, since to remain in Iraq almost inevitably meant joining the war dead, and you're starting to get to pretty serious numbers.

Parenthetically, this is the same Harlan Ullman who's turned out to be one of the DC Madam's best customers. He denies it all, of course, as good republicans always do when caught with their zippers down. Still, he'll be sure to cry in public for the pain this has caused his family, blame the librul media, implore gawd for understanding and forgiveness, then announce his plans to enter rehab, as if seeking sexual pleasure were grounds for retaining professional help. Then again, I suppose it is in this ridiculous Puritanical medieval jerkwater culture. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

The only tough thing about pinning genocide on them is the word "intent," which allows a huge grey area for interpretation and guess work, since mind-reading isn't considered part of the investigatory tool kit.

Actually, I take that back. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act -- or whatever the hell it's called -- must mean that the feds can tap into a whole community of mind readers since the whole thing's about identifying potential perps before they act out. And it's pretty tough to combat thoughtcrime without a lot of really good mind readers on staff.

So yes, genocide is a fair term for what the Bushies are doing in Iraq. If they nuke Iran, it'll apply 100 times more powerfully there.

wp

[Bolo Boffin]

78. "The only tough thing about pinning genocide on them is the word "intent,""

And there the applied definition fails to capture the actions of American troops in Iraq.

There is no intent to destroy the whole or any recognizable part of the Iraqi people.

There is no genocide.

[warren pease]

116. Nonsense. The intent's there for anyone to see if they understand context, weapons capabilities...

... and the concept of "shock and awe" as Ullman has described it, which was essentially to scare the living shit out of the entire civilian population of Iraq that they somehow would prevail upon Saddam to surrender or give himself up or... anything to avoid another 48 hours of missiles and bombs raining down non-stop.

Attacking civilian populations is easily supportable as an attempt to wipe out a certain ethnicity, so that seems to qualify as genocide. And it's not like anybody kept their intentions a big secret. Anything but; they openly bragged about how they were going to obliterate anything that moved in the entire city of Baghdad. And they did their level best to deliver on that promise.

And there certainly have been "...acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." That's what their repeated failed attempts to eliminate Iraq's Shi'ites were all about, at least until the Sunnis decided to make up the other side in the ongoing religious civil war.

And Iran's Shi'ite majority isn't all that popular with the mighty Dickster at the moment either. If he nukes them, would that count as genocide?


wp

[Bolo Boffin]

140. Nope.

Do people still live in Baghdad? Do lots of people still live in Baghdad? Are they Iraqis?

Your assertions without evidence are nonsense. There is not and has not been any genocide being perpetrated in Iraq by American forces.

[Grateful for Hope]

258. Thank you. n/t

[leftchick]

57. Yes indeed

and those that do not obviously consider the killing of 3 million Vietnamese in another generation not genocide either.

[Laelth]

58. Is this a trick question?

Yes ... on both counts.

What makes me angry is that it's being done in my name.

:grr:

-Laelth

[alfredo]

60. Yes. They are killing, torturing and imprisoning one specific group.

That group are Iraqis that want control over their own country.

[bdamomma]

70. yes, they are committing genocide in Iraq.

a million Iraqis have been killed.

[Bolo Boffin]

71. A number does not make a genocide.

There is intent to utterly wipe out the group being attacked. That isn't the case in Iraq, not from all the evidence I've seen.

It may feel great to cast Bush as a genocidal maniac, but if it's not true, then whose credibility suffers?

[seemslikeadream]

74. bush is responsible for a million dead and he's NOT a genocidal maniac???

I'd sure like to know your definition of a genocidal maniac

[Bolo Boffin]

76. My definition of a genocidal maniac is

a maniac that is carrying out a genocide.

Bush isn't carrying out a genocide in Iraq. He is doing many evil things, in Iraq and in our own country. Genocide is not one of these things.

[Octafish]

93. I'd laugh, were it not for a million dead Iraqis.

In post #2, you wrote:

No.

There is no need to throw the crimes of Bush in Iraq into such an exaggeration. They are bad enough. We don't have to be so fascinated with how EVIL Bush is that we make up crap about how EVIL he is.

So. Which is it?

[Bolo Boffin]

129. There is no contradiction in what I wrote. n/t

[Octafish]

165. If you say so.

"Master Member"

[Bolo Boffin]

167. What do you imagine the posting of a picture of James Randi proves?

You are aware that I was here at DU four years before I discovered the Randi forums?

[Name removed]

180. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Zynx]

108. Homicidal is different from genocidal.

Napoleon was homicidal, not genocidal, North Africa not withstanding. Hitler was both. That's the shortest, easiest example I can come up with.

[bonito]

77. My thinking is this

And I've stated it before, with every birth comes a whole new world... and with every killing that world does indeed end...

I think my religion, "The Golden Rule" is easily recognized by the actions of the people, would not let these things happen.

[Bolo Boffin]

79. I agree 100%. n/t

[Ordr]

83. Well put.

n/t

[The Stranger]

137. But that doesn't make any sense.

Maybe you can expand upon it or show how it applies.

[Ordr]

82. Reckless imperialism.

[TrogL]

84. It's a Crusade

masquerading an Oil War.

[greyghost]

86. Yes, the death toll is so high one can't call it anything else.

[Zynx]

110. The Great Leap Forward caused far more deaths, but was not genocide.

Death tolls do not equal genocide.

[greyghost]

146. Really? I always considered it genocide.

[Pastiche423]

87. Yes and yes

[Rex]

89. One million Iraqis dead at the hands of Coalition Forces.

You tell me.

[They Live 1988]

90. Semantics aside

What is happening is that hundreds of thousands of women, men, and children are dying and being injured because of greed for wealth, greed for resources, and greed for power. And the 4000 dead US soldiers have died in vain. The fact that Hillary voted in favor of this catastrophe and funded it makes me ill. I do not think I have been this disgusted in an election in all of my life. I want one of these people to definitively say they will end this madness and definitively say they are not going to attack any more countries for profit and power. I am so tired of the doubetalk and blantant lies.

[noamnety]

92. yes

it was genocide under clinton, it remains genocide under bush.

[greyghost]

148. Indeed

[chknltl]

161. Good to see you still posting in DU

I haven't seen the name Iwfern in many many months. FWIW: I recognize and honor you on occasion. I do this at the end of posts where I speak out against sexism and it's subtle yet inherent promotion of violence. I end such posts with: "Thank you fellow DUer Iwfern". (Sometimes it is 'Ilfern'...my bad, sorry). I suspect that when people make a difference they often never even find out about it. You made a difference! It is good to see someone with your strength still posting here in the DU. I hope life treats you well.
:grouphug:

[Orwellian_Ghost]

95. It's not a belief

so please stop using such a mealy-mouthed questioning pose and say it like it is.

Anyone can argue the semantics of "is" til the cows come home but the fact is straight as an arrow that the US slaughterhouse has caused several million deaths in Iraq over the last 15 years and if the occupying hordes left today it would take decades for the impacts to fully come to a halt. That means several million more deaths.

Genocide is in fact far too technical and clinical a term.

What's the word for blowing millions of children to smithereens?

Thanx Seems...

K&R

[seemslikeadream]

96. a thousand pardons Mr. Ghost

[seemslikeadream]

97. I've heard that Saddam Hussein committed genocide on the Kurds

TRUE/FALSE

:shrug:

When he does it, it's genocide. When we do it it's an accident??




http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4555000.stm

[Zynx]

122. He specifically targeted the Kurds.

The same goes for Shiites. I do not see systematic targeting by our forces.

[seemslikeadream]

98. “It had bones in it,” HE CALLED IT THE CREMATORIUM

“It had bones in it,”
Nobody had expected luxury at Saddam Hussein’s old prison, but morale was low to begin with—the M.P.s just wanted to know when they were going home—and there was something about living in cells at Abu Ghraib that never felt right. “We had some kind of incinerator at the end of our building,” Specialist Megan Ambuhl said. “It was this huge circular thing. We just didn’t know what was incinerated in there. It could have been people, for all we knew—bodies.” Sergeant Davis was not in doubt. “It had bones in it,” he said, and he called it the crematorium. “But hey, you’re at war,” he said. “Suck it up or drive on.”
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/24/080324fa_fact_gourevitch

[rhett o rick]

100. Depends on what the definition of "is" is.

Why should we quibble about what we call it? The results is horrible no matter what we call it.

[Zynx]

101. No. It is not an intentional action aimed at exterminating them.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

103. The Sanctions Are Working Says Madeleine

Clinton administration blocks easing of sanctions against Iraq

By Barry Grey
28 September 1999

After two weeks of intensive negotiations within the United Nations Security Council, the United States has blocked efforts by France, Russia and China to lift sanctions against Iraq. Washington has thereby ensured the continuation of a policy which must rank as one of the great crimes against humanity of the twentieth century.

Only last month the UN children's agency, UNICEF, released a study showing that nine years of economic embargo, compounded by the devastation from two air wars, have produced a “humanitarian emergency.” UNICEF reported that mortality rates among infants and children under five in the central and southern parts of the country which are controlled by Baghdad, where 85 percent of Iraqis live, have more than doubled since 1989. The study further concluded that 20 percent of Iraqi children under five suffer from stunted growth caused by malnutrition.

UNICEF estimated that 500,000 child deaths are attributable to the sanctions.

A number of other reports and eyewitness accounts have documented the existence of a social catastrophe in Iraq, resulting from the relentless economic, political and military assault by the most powerful nation in the world. In recent years Bill Clinton and his counterparts in Europe have employed the term “genocide” with near abandon to demonize leaders and regimes targeted for attack. But if anything in the past decade approaches the level of genocide, it is the systematic destruction of an entire nation carried out by the United States against Iraq.

To cite some of the indices of this tragedy:

* Iraq claims that from August 6, 1990, when UN sanctions were first imposed in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, to late August of this year, 1,187,486 Iraqis died from sanctions-related causes. The United Nations estimates that 1 million have died, mostly children.

...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/sep1999/iraq-s28.shtml">LINK

Iraq Genocide by UN Sanctions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2irN1G5HiRo">The Sanctions Are Working Says Madeleine

[Zynx]

113. I could not possibly argue the goal of the UN was the extermination of the Iraqi people.

Can you argue that?

[nadinbrzezinski]

109. By the international law definition of the term... no, but just barely

that said, we have committed plenty of war crimes.

Now here is the definition ok

Article 2 of this defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

This is article 2 of the UN Declaration.

We have not stated any of these goals.

We have not forcibly transfered people (now our surrogates have)

We have not prevented the births of people within the group, which you may or may not argue that our surrogates have.

And we are saying that we are trying to respect civilians.

That said, our surrogates (the Shia) have engaged in ethnic cleansing et al

So you could argue that we have not... by the letter of the definition

But we have stood to the side. This makes us party to it, at least by some international scholars

In an international court proving things like aggressive war is far easier. Hell, I think I can do it that with one hand tied behind my back.

Now this does not mean we have not unleashed hell on earth over there, we have.

Ah, having done this for real (as in human rights in the field) I am careful about using certain terms... mostly because they are HARD to prove... and I am sure a much younger counterpart of mine is engaging right now in the same practices I did twenty years ago over another front in the war for the Empire... interviews... and filing them for the war crimes tribunal that I doubt will ever come.

Sorry, by the way, with the gray as it can get response

[Zynx]

112. This is a tricky road to go down because there is no doubt at all Saddam engaged in genocide

so one could argue that the genocide that we see between various segments in Iraq is just inevitable. Iraq is a complicated issue. We should not have gotten involved.

[nadinbrzezinski]

114. We should not have gotten involved

and many of us who knew a tad about the history of the area warned bout this.

But as I said, if I were to please the court at the Hague, I think proving aggressive and a crimes against peace can be done by a half descent lawyer

Proving genocide is always tricky. I think Nuremberg had an easy time with the holocaust because the Nazis were so damn annal retentive about records... but we still could not prove that HItler ever gave the actual orders

We know that Bush has given certain orders... but I doubt he's been that stupid...

And I am sure officers in the US Military and civilian leadership are very cognizant of what records could do

And as I said, we have stood to the side while the Shia take revenge over what the Sadam boys did.

[chknltl]

162. Don't forget that we arm and pay Shia and Sunni.

Perhaps the very fact that we arm and pay them is germain to what is being said here as well. Perhaps that fact combined with the data as you have laid it out is enough to cross the line into 'genocide' in a court of International law.

[McCamy Taylor]

111. No, we are committing colonialism, stealing their oil. There is no $$$ in genocide right now.

When the progeny of Standard Oil can make $$$ off genocide, then the Bush administration will begin the ethnic purge. Right now they need the civil war to justify a US military presence that will keep Iraq from nationalizing its oil fields, so a genocide is that last thing you will see them do.

The US will commit equal opportunity wide scale crimes against humanity without regards to race, religion or nationality.

[proud2BlibKansan]

119. yes

[greyl]

123. South America, Central America, or North America?

I think you mean "The United States of", right?
Let's not forget the others.

[chknltl]

124. Yes: The use (misuse) of Depleted Uranium...

...has rendered much of Iraq inhospitable to human habitation. The horrors that have already happened due to Depleted Uranium,(DU), might be considered a form of genocide.

I further feel that war has been profitable to some who are in the bfee. Haliburton and Blackwater come to mind. Peace in Iraq one year after this invasion would arguably not have been as profitable for those two. It would not have been as profitable for the Military Industrial Complex either.

This leads me to suspect that the powers that be which brought us to Iraq wants Iraq to remain in chaos for as long as possible in order to gain as much profits as possible. I further suspect that those same powers that be want to expand that chaos into Iran in order to gain even more profits.
This could also be called a form of genocide.

I am no geo-political lawyer but I think that future world-history will look back at America as having committed genocide in the Middle East. I think that a world-court today would debate this but in the end conclude that the bush-crime-family as being criminals who brought genocide to the Middle East and did so for profit only, not for anything else. This is proof that capitalism unregulated is a bad thing.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

125. I don't think that's America's (by which I mean our neo-con elite's) intention.

I think the neo-cons are just interested in spreading American military-industrial complex hegemony and making a buck. However, there are groups over there who are bound to commit genocide and the neocons are complicit in their actions to the extent to which it accomplishes their goals. So indirectly, yes we are guilty.

[leftofthedial]

126. done did it

a million corpses prove it

[Voltaire99]

128. It doesn't have to rise to the level of genocide to be evil.

Slaughtering thousands -- let us call it over a million by adding the deaths Clinton and Bush the Elder created through sanctions -- is bad enough.

[Bolo Boffin]

132. Thank you. That's my point entirely. n/t

[The Stranger]

133. Without question.

[DFW]

134. No, and no

Genocide implies a strategy and a plan. Cheneybush and Rumsfeld had neither, and they still don't.

[The Stranger]

138. No strategy and plan -- have you been ignoring things like PNAC and the masterful orchestration of

lies in the run up to a war completely against U.S. national interests? The think tanks that installed Cheney and Rumsfeld and protected them until the worlds only superpower was into Iraq and could not get out? The massive re-writing of law to sanction torture on a large scale? The construction of a concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay and the extraordinary expenditure of legal resources to protect it and maintain it there?

These are all parts of a strategy and a plan. Not one you will find neatly published in the internet in Adobe Acrobat format for download, but all the better, a strategy and a plan nevertheless.

[DFW]

139. Not necessarily the same

The PNAC wanted to take over Iraq (and elsewhere), not exterminate the population.
The results of the invasion were completely unexpected, and the fact that we are still
there with a new excuse-of-the-week for doing it indicate to me that they have been
playing the whole thing by ear since the end of the first week. Whatever PNAC envisioned,
this wasn't it. What they had in mind was Hitler in Holland. Instead, they got Napoleon
in Russia.

[The Stranger]

172. PNAC's goal was to reconfigure the Middle East -- not to "take over" Iraq.

To divide Iraq or render it no longer a viable nation -- that was exactly what PNAC intends to do. As far as wiping out Iraqis -- and Ba'athists in particular -- that also fits with a reconfigured, better managed and controlled Middle East.

That there is no exit strategy is part of the plan. They must, however, appear to look as if there is some exit strategy. Or they sought to appear that way until recently.

[Karenina]

173. GENOCIDE is U.S. Foreign Policy.

See: Henry Kissinger's National Security Study Memo 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests

"Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign poicy towards the Third World because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries." H.K.

A link to the document can be found in this article:

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/printer_2757.shtml

[Echo In Light]

177. "Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy."

[Bolo Boffin]

178. Now you're quoting forged Kissinger quotes?

Why?

[slackmaster]

189. I believe that alleged quote is usually attributed to Alexander Haig

:hi:

[Swamp Rat]

217. Liebling!

naaaaa duuuuu! :hug: Wie gehts? :loveya:

[Karenina]

221. Frühlingsmüdigkeit! Besonderes HIER!!!

;-) :loveya::hug:

[fascisthunter]

261. OMG....

it's right there.. I have never seen that quote before. What a sick man....

[HamdenRice]

222. Actually it does not require a strategy or a plan

It requires results. For example, the Turks committed genocide against the Armenians, but their strategy was "relocation" and "expulsion" not the destruction of the Armenian people.

The Hutus of Rwanda were mainly trying to prevent the successful invasion of the country by a Hutu army led by Paul Kgame.

The slave trade is generally acknowledged to have been genocide, but the main goals were commercial, for slave traders to make a profit and for plantation owners to acquire labor.

The German genocide against the Jews was highly unusual and unfortunately has given many laymen the false idea that genocide must require explicit plans and strategies to eliminate an entire people.

It doesn't.

[uppityperson]

252. It requires Intent. Not a strategy or a plan beyond Intent.

[rAVES]

144. 1 million dead.. yes, yes it is Genocide...

[seemslikeadream]

149. a million is just not enough for some

who are in denial

[rAVES]

150. some need the dictionary to tell them what to think...

[seemslikeadream]

152. 655,000 in 06

I guess we just haven't killed another 250,000 in the last two years

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html


This denial thing reminds me of something similar happening to another genocide

[Bolo Boffin]

156. At this rate, the "genocide" will be complete in 200 years.

:eyes:

[seemslikeadream]

157. So I'll just call it a holocaust then

[Bolo Boffin]

160. You would be just as wrong in doing so. n/t

[seemslikeadream]

185. Your opinion

[Bolo Boffin]

186. Words mean things. n/t

[seemslikeadream]

187. yes I know I posted the definition of holocaust, in case you missed it

hol·o·caust (hl-kôst, hl-)
n.
1. Great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of life,

[WildEyedLiberal]

204. "some need the dictionary to tell them what to think"

Dictionaries are helpful in determining the exact definition of specific words, yes. You sound like a right-winger who knows things in his "gut" and doesn't need any silly "books" or "dictionaries" to tell you what you already know.

[uppityperson]

254. Hey SLAD, 1/2 a million is enough for me, but still it doesn't fit Intent.

For me, calling it mass murder is enough. For me, even 1 is enough. Unfortunately "Genocide" needs intent. Mass murder doesn't. And so long as we are all working to end it, that is what is important.

[slackmaster]

174. Actually, 1 million dead would technically be Megacide

:hide:

[NNN0LHI]

151. If it were Iraqis doing to us what we are doing to them we would call it genocide

So the answer is a definitive ... yes.

Don

[seemslikeadream]

155. Maybe I've been using the wrong word for it

hol·o·caust (hl-kôst, hl-)
n.
1. Great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of life

[Bolo Boffin]

158. Yes, more attention to your flamebait, right?

That's what this stupid little bullshit thread is about, isn't it? Calling someone like me, a staunch opponent to the Iraqi war, fully aware of exactly the nature of the evils being committed by BushCo over in Iraq -- calling someone like me a Holocaust denier.

You really need to lighten up.

[seemslikeadream]

182. I didn't invite you here

you follow ME all over DU and to add insult to injury you put words in my mouth

[Bolo Boffin]

212. That is a factual inaccuracy, SLAD.

When you post on a public message board, you invite all participants to contribute.

I certainly do not follow you all over DU. If you have accusations like that to make, you better alert the moderators and you BETTER have backup. I'll bet I haven't responded to even 10% of the posts you make at DU. Would you care to make a wager on this?

I don't put any words in your mouth at all. Get OVER yourself.

[seemslikeadream]

215. That's correct you are free to ignore or respond

I did NOT mention your name so there was NO "calling" you out, if this thread was really flamebait it would have been locked by now.

Contribute away bolo I'm sure your rantings have brought quite a bit of attention to the genocide QUESTION

REMEMBER bolo THE OP WAS A QUESTION????? Thanks for all the responces

[Bolo Boffin]

219. Oh, so you really think the genocide thing is an open question?

And your willingness to start calling people "genocide deniers" who don't see a genocide in Iraq, that's simply an innocent little thing that occurred to you, right?

Go sell that bullshit somewhere else, SLAD. You're doing flamebait the whole way down the line.

[seemslikeadream]

227. Now there is something wrong with asking questions?

[Bolo Boffin]

246. There is something wrong with the way you ask questions, SLAD

when part of one of your questions, indeed, the point of both of your questions, is to be able to sling around accusations of "genocide denier".

You cheapen both genocide AND the condemnation of people who deny the Holocaust when you do that.

[NNN0LHI]

218. Don't need any invitation to post on a website open to the public my friend, seemslikeadream

You started a good thread on a difficult subject for some and received input from all sides of the issue which is all good we know that.

Soooo, irregardless of what someone wants to call what we are doing in Iraq we need to stop doing it. I bet we can just about all agree on that.

Take care and see you later.

:hi:

Don

[seemslikeadream]

269. Hi Don I guess I didn't speak clearly, I didn't mean it that way

He's been accusing me of flamebaiting him or some such thing, I didn't mean he couldn't be here cause I didn't invite him. Of course he can post in this thread, more than welcome, He's just under the impression this thread was started because I was out to get him,:crazy: it's all about him. What happens in the dungeon should stay in the dungeon :)

[Bolo Boffin]

279. This is a factually inaccurate statement or two, SLAD.

"He's just under the impression this thread was started because I was out to get him, :crazy: it's all about him."

I have no paranoia as you have described. You're quite indiscriminate when it comes to tossing flamebait around. Quit putting words into my mouth.

[seemslikeadream]

184. I guess it depends on the people being destroyed

[Bolo Boffin]

214. Are you trying to make sense? n/t

[rAVES]

163. Actually Holocaust works too.

[dysfunctional press]

181. and those who did would be wrong.

the answer is...No.

[NNN0LHI]

223. If it were happening here on the same scale as in Iraq about 12 million Americans would be dead now

Another 50 or 60 million Americans would be displaced from their homes either internally or as refugees in Canada and Mexico.

What would you call that?

Don

[dysfunctional press]

241. tragic.

but not genocide.

words have meanings.

for a reason.

[Lex Talionis]

166. Well if we are, we're not very good at it. Do you not know what real

Genocide looks like? Ask some Tutsi, Jews, Native Americans, etc. Maybe they can, and I doubt it, enlighten you on what it really is.

[Echo In Light]

168. East Timorians

[Lex Talionis]

176. Yea, them too. Plus many more, now and in the past.

I can understand the hate fest for America. Just can't wrap my head around the logic of the "America is committing genocide" crowd. Why no outrage over what is happening now in Tibet, Burma, Darfur, and many other places?

Oh yea, I know. Its just a lot easier to type "bushitler and the Military are evil". Makes some feel like they are really doing something, I guess. Nobody is going to kick your door in and drag you off either, so it's a lot safer. Then you can feel all good and smug that your at least 'trying' to make a difference.

[seemslikeadream]

197. I've posted about Tibet, Congo, the Hmong, Native Amereicans...........

Holocausts happen, will continue to happen, did you know 4 million have died in Congo since 1998?

4 million

[Lex Talionis]

229. Yes I do. Why is no one marching on the U.N. headquarters then,

Demanding something be done? Is it because American Military 'Nazis' are not doing the killing? Why do those who hate the Iraq war and call our troops murderers and baby killers,so silent on the horrors happening in the Congo, Burma, Tibet. etc.? Post something negative about Mugabe or any other despot who is anti-USA, who crush dissent, starve their own people, kill the opposition, and watch the fireworks. Not much sympathy for the average subject though.

You are very correct about Holocausts. Its seems to be human nature to do such things. Those that should and can do something to stop it, won't. The will to do what's right, no matter the cost, is no longer there. I once thought that Freedom, free will, and Democracy should be the right of all humans. Iraq proved me wrong. When we do leave, and we eventually will, you'll get to see some real Genocide. It will make what happened in Cambodia seem mild in comparison.

[mogster]

230. Are there no outrage over Tibet, Burma and Darfur?

Where have you been? ;-)

We're multitasking people and can do separate work/criticism as the need arises. I do freelance work with people who was involved in the East-Timor conflict, now engaged in other conflicts. That does not stop me from keeping watch on the US, and other parts in the so-called 'war on terror', and try to make a difference in that area. Wrongdoing is wrongdoing no matter who commits it, and holding weak groups up against each other is no good way of making the point.

[Lex Talionis]

232. Yes, there is outrage, but no marching in the streets.

No raising of bloody hands to U.N. officials. No blocking of offices. Sometimes, and I mean no disrespect, Being outraged and sending out emails is not enough. When I see on the news where Code Pink storms the Offices of the U.N. about the Congo,instead of a recruiting office, then I'll believe they are serious about world peace.

Yes your right, holding weak groups up against each other is no good way of making the point, I'm not very articulate when it comes to making my point, sometimes. Neither is saying that U.S. troops are committing genocide either, when far worse in the world is going on.

[seemslikeadream]

237. I did do this thread awhile back

.http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2538643

[LanternWaste]

169. By the classical definition of the word, no

By the classical definition of the word, no-- I do not believe that is the intent.

[theboss]

170. We triggered an unnecessary civil war but it's not genocide

Iraq is a big enough disaster without resorting to unnecessary hyperbole.

[seemslikeadream]

183. Are we not to blame for the civil war, for AL-CIA in Iraq?

[dysfunctional press]

179. no.

you really need to look up the definition of genocide.
what we're doin' ain't it.

[seemslikeadream]

188. I looked up the definition of holocaust I guess we could use that word if you want?

hol·o·caust (hl-kôst, hl-)
n.
1. Great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of life,

[dysfunctional press]

240. i wouldn't do that if i were you...

aipac will be all over your ass.

they apparently own the rights to that word in perpetuity.

[seemslikeadream]

190. How about calling it "passive genocide" then

Mass mortality in an Occupied country in the absence of provision of requisite medical services by the Occupiers is a war crime that can be categorized as "passive genocide".
http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-polya110305.htm

[seemslikeadream]

191. for it is not the fact of annihilation that constitutes the crime of genocide,

“Genocide is a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual humanbeings.”1But this definition bears reading again, for it is not the fact of annihilation that constitutes the crime of genocide, but rather denial of the right of existence of an entire given group. This nuance is important.Article 2 of the 1948 Genocide Convention —now the legal standard2— makes this point clear by focusing on the concept of intent, supplementing this with the important phrase,“in whole or in part”, thus grounding genocide


http://www.brusselstribunal.org/pdf/NotesOnGenocideInIraq.pdf

[NuttyFluffers]

192. i can't believe there's even an argument on this one...

ever since the British left (and deliberately carved up the country of Iraq so it'll be an eternal mess of antagonistic encounters -- surprisingly like most modern countries now, but that's an unintended irony of the age) the British and Americans have done nothing but harass that poor land.

our horrible history goes way back, but let's just start with the high point of Iraqi development with a "national consciousness." by placing Saddam in power we essentially enslaved these people to utter agony and oppression. then we give him chemical weapons to "stabilize his region" -- wiping out whole towns. next we instigate Saddam as a proxy to fight against Iran -- a country we recently lost control from our routine destabilization techniques -- and, insanity of insanity, we supported both sides militarily.

after that we tacitly give the green light to Saddam, after 9 years of playing both Iran and Iraq off each other, to attack Kuwait. but wait! we suddenly find Iraq a convenient boogeyman and organize a massive coalition to wipe out most of his army -- that we supplied and were essentially working with us for the past few decades. we literally leave a Highway of Death. later, since we're not satisfied with that, we lead the world in some of the harshest sanctions ever seen, killing at least a million -- 500K of those children.

not satisfied yet we overthrow Saddam's gov't, abolish all vestigial forms of civil and military control and reduce the land to anarchy. in the ensuing melee we kill another million people through violence alone, displacing many more and leaving others to die from mal-nourishment, disease, and lacking health supplies. and then there's Depleted Uranium....

Casualties of US interference with Iraq specifically:
Current Iraq War = @ 1 million and growing
Iraq Sanctions = @ 1 million (500K at least being children)
Iran Iraq War (America's Proxy War) = @ 500k
Saddam's Chemical "Gift" = @ 30k
Depleted Uranium = 10000 years of future Iraqi generations to dead or maimed directly because of (preventable) exposure

that, on the most conservative estimates, is 2.5 million people and growing. continual harassment and torment of an entire nation and all its people that reside there for well over 50 years by another country -- ours -- and leaving lingering poisons, let alone destroyed infrastructure, that will still affect them for generations to come. by any sane sense of the word, as its definition has repeatedly been shown in this thread, this is Genocide.

to come to any other conclusion is unconscionable or ignorance.

[seemslikeadream]

193. The Genocide of Christians in Iraq

Forced to choose between Islamist terror and Kurdification, the overwhelming majority of Assyrian Christians have simply voted with their feet and left the country entirely. With over half of the population now gone, the term genocide has slowly begun to creep into the war's lexicon. According to Jackie Bejan, a prominent Assyrian American activist, "There are many who think that we are now witnessing another cycle of Genocide, very similar to the one inflicted upon our people in 1915 by the Ottoman Turks ...What is happening now to the Iraqi Christians and other minorities is certainly and rapidly approaching all requirements and measurements of the most horrific crime against humanity, Genocide."

http://www.aina.org/releases/2007053195824.htm

[NuttyFluffers]

275. thank you, there's little horrors within great horrors too. we mustn't forget.

to add to that one of the longest standing Jewish communities in the world, Baghdad, is all but gone now because of our unrelenting interference. who knows how the Zoroastrian and Yezidi groups are enduring this.

we couldn't even leave it alone as a cruel, but marginally stabilized, ruthless secular dictatorship. we were not happy until that place was an untenable mess to every single ethnic, religious, cultural, and national community -- both minorities and majorities. some are already, for all intensive purposes, wiped off the map. if that isn't the hallmark of Genocide then i cannot help some people see the light...

[countryjake]

248. Thank you for laying it out so well! n/t

[El Pinko]

194. I think it's mass murder, but not genocide.

Genocide is about wiping out a whole race of people.

The US is only slaughtering those who oppose our illegal occupation there, as well as some innocent civilians who get in the crossfire.

In the course of 5 years of illegal and unjust invasion and occupation, the US has killed many tens of thousands of Iraqis, many of them innocent civilians.

It is a hideous slaughter, but I don't think it's genocide.

The MSM are in denial of the very fact that it is an illegal and unprovoked and unjust occupation, so obviously they are in denial that every death of every American or Iraqi in Iraq is a murder by proxy committed by Bush, Cheney and Rice.

[seemslikeadream]

196. I don't think they got around to calling the Native Americans destruction a genocide

for many years after it happened

[El Pinko]

199. To be fair, I don't think the term existed while it was happening.

And I don't think the occupation of Iraq is comparable. The US isn't moving in and trying to kill off most Iraqis so that WE can replace them, which was essentially what Europeans did to the Native Americans.

The US wants to kill as few Iraqis as possible while killing those who still wish for an independent Iraq rather than a puppet state of the US. They want the obedient Iraqis alive so they can be a low-wage slave force to service the newly privatized and US-dominated companies there...

[seemslikeadream]

202. The word extermination was I think

[txwhitedove]

299. Thanks, my thoughts exactly. Then as now, Government "White Fathers" wouldn't

admit their "intent". And, even if "intent" was not total destruction, elimination of specific race of people and their way of life, this is exactly what happened and is happening now.

On recent news interview of Iraqi college students, young girl commented that they do not make a distinction between Shia and Sunni when speaking of their country, and "someone is benefiting from separating the two!" We can say they are killing each other in a civil war, but who is benefiting from that civil war?

Thank you for an outstanding thread and discussion.

[HamdenRice]

224. Wrong. Genocide is NOT "wiping out a whole race of people"

Most genocides of the 20th century did not involve wiping out an entire race of people -- not the Turkish genocide of the Armenians, not the Serbian genocide of the Bosnians, not the Hutu genocide of the Tutsis, and not even the German genocide against Europeans Jews.

Most people have extremely misinformed ideas of what genocide is.

[El Pinko]

226. I think I have a pretty good grasp, and I don't think Iraq qualifies.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/genocide


7 results for: genocide
(Browse Nearby Entries)
Sponsored Links
Free Mandarin Dictionary
The most innovative web dictionary Easily find the words you need now!
www.nciku.comImprove Your Vocabulary
See your words in a map for visual thinkers. Give it a try!
VisualThesaurus.com Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This
gen·o·cide Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.


—Related forms
gen·o·cid·al, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
gen·o·cide (j?n'?-s?d') Pronunciation Key
n. The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.




gen'o·cid'al (-s?d'l) adj., gen'o·cid'al·ly adv.
(Download Now or Buy the Book)
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
genocide
1944, apparently coined by Polish-born U.S. jurist Raphael Lemkin in his work "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe" , in reference to Nazi extermination of Jews, lit. "killing a tribe," from Gk. genos "race, kind" (see genus) + -cide, from L. -cidere "kill," comb. form of caedere "to cut, kill" (see concise). The proper formation would be *genticide.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This
genocide

noun
systematic killing of a racial or cultural group

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.
Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary (Beta Version) - Cite This Source - Share This
genocide noun
the deliberate killing of a race of people

American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition - Cite This Source - Share This
genocide <(jen-uh-seyed)>

The deliberate destruction of an entire race or nation. The Holocaust conducted by the Nazis in Germany and the Rwandan genocide are examples of attempts at genocide.


World Politics


The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
Main Entry: geno·cide
Pronunciation: 'jen-&-"sId
Function: noun
: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group —compare HOMICIDE —geno·cid·al /"jen-&-'sId-&l/ adjective



Granted, some of these definitions do allow for "political" groups, but I don't think anti-occupation militants is what they mean by that.

[HamdenRice]

233. Non-legal definitions are not very accurate

Granted, it's a slippery concept. International law is not like physics in which there are clear cut answers.

The definition of an international law concept like genocide is best found in international treaties, the practices of states, decisions of international bodies and the decisions of international courts. Some of these will be similar, some will be different.

But in a way we are asking the wrong question. The right question is: Can or will the actions of the Bush administration in Iraq lead a legitimate international body or tribunal (such as the InternationalCourt of Justice) to decide, in accordance with accepted international law, that the Bush administration has committed genocide in Iraq?

The answer is, most probably yes.

One of the most recent authoritative decisions about genocide we have by a legitimate international tribunal was the decision by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. It ruled the Srebrenica massacre officialy was a genocide. Subsequently, the International Court of Justice confirmed ICTY’s ruling in a judgment of Bosnia vs Serbia.

The decision was based on the murder at Srebrenica of 8,000 to 9,000 Bosnian Muslims men of military age. The total population of Bosnian Muslims was about 2 million. Obviously, genocide does not require the complete destruction of a national group.

Genocide has a complex definition in international law that has been cited upthread. It does not require the total destruction of a group, nor systematic plans, nor complete extermination.

Sorry, but that's just a myth.

[seemslikeadream]

195. The Iraqi Genocide - If one is a genocide, so is the other.

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts10162007.html

Why has not the Turkish parliament given tit for tat and passed a resolution condemning the Iraqi Genocide?

As a result of Bush's invasion of Iraq, more than one million Iraqis have died, and several millions are displaced persons. The Iraqi death toll and the millions of uprooted Iraqis match the Armenian deaths and deportations. If one is a genocide, so is the other.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

200. I think it's more like pre-meditated murder.

[durutti]

206. "Genocide" is a problematic term in general.

Very hard to pinpoint concretely. But crimes against humanity, certainly.

[SteelPenguin]

208. As an Iraqi American, No I don't think that

I have Iraqi family still living in Iraq. I have Iraqi family that have fled to Jordan and other countries. I have Iraqi family that I've helped get into the U.S. to live with our family here.

I don't believe America is committing genocide in Iraq.

I just believe that our current government and the way they apply their policies to Iraq are examples of their utter and bewildering incompetence and idiocy.

[Lex Talionis]

244. well there you have it! Good point. Its stupid policies put forth

by those who are supposed to be intelligent. Not wanton killing.

[Karenina]

255. Not wanton killing? Obviously you ignored the Winter Soldiers.

[HamdenRice]

210. Yes, there is a very, very strong case that this is genocide

It is almost a foregone conclusion that the U.S. has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. Aggressive war is the paramount international crime, and since we now know that not only did Iraq not have WMDs, but that the Bush administration fabricated the case that WMDs were there, there is little doubt that the Bush administration is guilty of the supreme crime against international law.

One aspect of the crime the Bush administration is committing is genocide. In the past, because the crime of genocide developed around the Turkish genocide against the Armenians and the German genocide of European Jews, international law emphasized the ethnic dimension of genocide and in particular with reference to the European Jews, the intent requirement that a particular ethnic group be annihilated.

The problem with the ethnic intent requirement, however, is that it ignores the scale of killing of certain crimes. For example, should the international community consider it to be the crime of genocide for a regime to completely wipe out an ethnic group of, say, 10,000, but not consider it the crime of genocide to kill 1,000,000 people -- 100 times more human beings -- if the relevant ethnic group simply happens to be much larger, as is the case of the Iraqis? I am sure that in the wake of the Iraqi disaster, international law will evolve to answer that question in the negative.

The Bush regime is responsible for the deaths of some 1,000,000 Iraqis. Moreover, it has displaced millions more and injured even more. It has destroyed Iraq's infrastructure, making millions of Iraqis suffer drastic losses in living standards, and colluded in the destruction of the professional classes.

There is little question in my mind that if and when the Bush regime is shoved off the main stage of history, it will be adjudicated as guilty of all of the worst international crimes -- war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

[Enrique]

220. the Iraqis might be committing ethnic cleansing

when I hear of attacks on particular ethnic groups, or of communities being expelled from an area, I think ethnic cleansing. Genocide, I don't know. By the Americans, certainly not.

[NNN0LHI]

225. So Bush gets to take credit for the schools he had painted but doesn't get blamed for the deaths?

Be nice if it worked that way but it doesn't.

The occupation forces are responsible for whatever happens, good or bad, in a country it is occupying by military force according to every international law I have read. Shouldn't it be that way?

If Iraqi death squads the US forces payed, trained, armed, put in uniform and then gave them free reign to go out and drill peoples skulls with electric drills who's fault is that?

Don

[mogster]

228. Good thread, SLaD

Thanks for the effort ;-)

[Swamp Rat]

231. Hêia mogster!

:hi: Hvordan står det til med deg? :hug:

[mogster]

297. Hi Swamp Rat!

Sorry for late reply! :hi:
I'm fine though tired of winter and snow, lol. Got any hot winds to send over here? ;-)

Nice one hehe, is it McCain?

[Swamp Rat]

302. Yes

McHitler. :D

[seemslikeadream]

236. I think there is a bit of the "Cave" mentality in this thread

:hi:

[mogster]

298. I will immediately sport my leotard tonga

and grab a club, lol ;-) :hi:

[SidDithers]

234. No. It's an immoral, illegal, reprehensible war...

but it's not genocide.

Sid

[countryjake]

235. Yes & it has been ignored & swept under the rug since it began...

back in 1990. Leaders of the USA can be counted on to verbally condemn and initiate action against other nations they accuse of committing genocide, but both dynasties, the Bushes and the Clintons thought nothing of the systemic devastation they brought upon the Iraqi people and we most certainly have allowed it. Just the number of deaths of the children alone in that nation, since the sanctions were implemented and now, with the occupation, can be classed as nothing less than deliberate genocide. Total in all the deaths in Iraq due to our foreign policies during the past 18 years and we have the elimination of a sovereign nation. Could there be any other word to describe it? Wish someone would put this question to Hillary and Barack during one of their war-waffling sessions!

[seemslikeadream]

238. So very true but we can go back a bit further

Iran/Iraq war, now someone remind me who's side were we on then and how many people died?



1980, that's almost 30 years we've been "meddling"

[Grateful for Hope]

243. Yes and yes.

Without a doubt.

[uppityperson]

249. Unfortunately Intention matters with a strict definition of Genocide.

According to the strict (world court? un? Whatever the hell it is) definition, the intent is not there, so are not committing genocide. However, the end result of a whole hell of a lot of people of a country dead is there. Not calling it genocide in no way makes it better.

[pitohui]

259. i don't know if it's genocide because it seems to be a mass murder of everyone standing around

my understanding of genocide is that it targets a specific group

the attitude in iraq seems to be "kill em all and let god sort em out"

i don't know what this crime would be called, but it's mass murder and a war crime, for sure -- i'll leave it to the attorneys to figure out the technical terms

[earth mom]

264. Yes! Beyond a doubt! The Iraqis did NOTHING to deserve this. NOTHING!

:cry:

[Kip Humphrey]

265. Whatever you name it, its a huge crime against humanity - Bush's crime, Cheney's crime, Republicans'

crime, Democrats' crime, America's crime.

[Kip Humphrey]

266. Whatever you name it, its a huge crime against humanity - Bush's crime, Cheney's crime, Republicans'

crime, Democrats' crime, America's crime.

[seemslikeadream]

270. How to create an Angry American

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgfzqulvhlQ

[seemslikeadream]

273. I wonder what their plans might include and who will die

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3065853

[greyl]

274. Do you think people who pay taxes to the IRS are complicit in genocide? nt

[Laughing Mirror]

276. Yes to the first question

and Yes to the second.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

277. Suicide

, too.

[Xenotime]

290. Yes.

[TheWraith]

291. No.

Typically genocide is defined as the targeted elimination of an ethnic group. Randomly killing people, and allowing people to kill each other, thanks to gross strategic incompetance, doesn't meet the definition. It's just ordinary levels of atrocity.

[Karenina]

300. There is NOTHING "ordinary" about

the holocaust Americans have permitted in their names in Iraq. It is NOTHING short of G-E-N-O-C-I-D-E.

[seemslikeadream]

292. Please answer this question, How long did it take for the world to call what Hitler was doing

a holocaust, genocide?

[Thothmes]

309. Shortly after the Western allies and the Soviet Union

killed millions of Germans, bombed/burnt their cities to smoldering rubble and completely overran the German nation.

[seemslikeadream]

315. ****************************

[gollygee]

380. It was genocide from the start, because he was trying to wipe out groups of people

Jews, GLBT, the Roma people, etc. Groups of people were targeted as groups to try to eliminate the groups.

"Genocide" doesn't mean "Worse murder" or "Murder of lots and lots and lots of people."

[JackRiddler]

301. This thread illustrates how modern propaganda and wishful thinking allow genocide in fact...

to be debated as genocide in definition, until the crime is complete and the millions of Iraqis (and others) are buried and gone.

For once, history should not be the one to judge - it's already known what happened.

[seemslikeadream]

303. Thank you JackRiddler

reducing the devastation in Iraq to a definition is amazing to me

[uppityperson]

304. Aren't you asking if the atrocities, the mass murder, meet that definition?

Seems that most of us agree that it is horrific, mass murder, atrocity, etc, but you are asking if it meets the definition of genocide. Now you are amazed that some of us don't reduce "the devastation in Iraq to a definition"? And the poster you are replying to accuses us of falling for propaganda or wishful thinking?

[seemslikeadream]

321. I'm sorry we disagree on this uppityperson but that is not what I'm asking

I never asked if it meets a certain definition. And a couple of folks here love to come up from the dungeon to insinuate and put words in my mouth and misdirect

[Bolo Boffin]

323. That is a factual inaccuracy, SLAD

You used a word with a specific meaning and asked if that was going on in Iraq, so that you could smear your debate opponents with the term "genocide deniers."

And still you spin and pretend that's not what you did. Maybe in Dreamland, you are innocent -- but in the real world, your words are right there for anyone to read.

Shame on you.

[seemslikeadream]

327. NO SHAME ON GEORGE BUSH AND HIS ENABLERS

[Echo In Light]

332. Haters aren't interested in 'shame' - they only seek opportunities to fight

You say one thing, they retort with a loaded response, hoping to get you riled up so they can feign the 'high road' and calmly condescend to you and explain why you're wrong, and they're "Right." That's what blowhards do.

[Bolo Boffin]

333. I think you need a comma in that statement.

Again, if you see people enabling George Bush here, take it up with the moderators.

For someone who was suspended for a while for posting links to anti-Semitic websites, maybe you shouldn't be flirting around with trying to smear people as "genocide deniers." People might start to get the idea that you're trying to weaken the notion of Holocaust denial as many anti-Semitic websites would love to do.

That's advice strictly meant in the purest of intentions. When you get all capital letter, you don't always realize how you come off.

[seemslikeadream]

334. Stop putting words in my mouth and twisting them

[Bolo Boffin]

336. Stop pretending that you weren't posting this as heinous flamebait. n/t

[seemslikeadream]

337. Have you alerted the mods? The thread is 300 posts it hasn't been locked YET

BUT YOU SURE ARE TRYING AREN'T YOU BOLO???

[Bolo Boffin]

339. I managed to keep the discussion to the idea of what is a genocide, SLAD

and just exactly how that term might or might not apply to the situation in Iraq.

I did that by ignoring the second part of your OP, SLAD.

While doing this, I was constantly attacked by several people. Go back and count up the deleted posts and sub-threads. All attacks on me.

You just couldn't stand that, though, so you deliberately started talking about the second part of your OP. That showed that it was your intent all along not to have a serious discussion, but a flamewar.

And now you have it. Look at your thread in the past 24 hours. A spirited discussion on whether or not Iraq can be classified as a genocide is now a flaming bullshit thread. When you couldn't win the real debate, you pressed the smearing home anyway -- in an area of discussion dangerously close to the reason you were suspended for over a week.

The moderators can read, SLAD.

[seemslikeadream]

342. I'm sure they can, and very well also

[Echo In Light]

329. "so that you could smear your debate opponents." No, that's your m.o.

[uppityperson]

353. Got it. I think we agree then.

If we are talking definition, then, unfortunately, the definition has part that means no. If we are talking end result of too many dead Iraqis, we agree. And I'm not from the dungeon.

[seemslikeadream]

358. but the other 3 who are posting here are from the dungeon

and it seems they have a history with me that they can't let go of and there is an underlying reason for their presence here in this thread, not being from the dungeon you may not understand, they think it's all about them

[Echo In Light]

307. It's a pointless, circular argument; playing armchair semantics re strict definitions...

Doesn't change the reality of the dreadful situation, it only allows some to go on their little rampages of supposed superiority ... and for what reason? To what end? Neither side will make any claim that won't immediately be denounced by the other. Most of the naysaying posts I've read only demonstrate the tendency to be argumentative for its own sake - every forum has em dime a dozen.

[Bolo Boffin]

310. Words mean things. n/t

[seemslikeadream]

319. Yes and calling this an Iraqi genocide would be a great problem for you

wouldn't it bolo?

[Bolo Boffin]

326. Yes, because it is not a genocide, SLAD.

Many bad things are happening in Iraq. A genocide ordered by the Bush Administration is not one of them.

[seemslikeadream]

330. we'll meet again when it's the correct definition for you

[Grateful for Hope]

370. I couldn't agree more

the end-result is a minimization of the horror that is occurring in Iraq.

[Name removed]

305. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Echo In Light]

311. Check out the "dungeon:" you'll spot some of the names dedicated to belligerent argument

Perhaps you're already up to speed, perhaps not...

The "dungeon" is the 9/11 forum here at DU. "Twoofers" is the schoolyard bully taunt geared toward the broad 9/11 "truth movement," or anyone who offers the bully the opportunity to do what they enjoy doing.

An offshoot/byproduct of this outgrowth is a virulent strain of authoritarian backlash which is encompassed by people who are seemingly filled with contempt and rage over what they perceive {I guess} as the outrageous audacity of the 9/11-inside job claim.

By extension, this contempt of theirs carries over into any controversial or even vaguely conspiratorial issue or incident, whereby assailing anyone not on board with 'them' is not only applicable in their estimation, it's clearly sought after and eagerly engaged in with marked zeal and vitriol.

Even going back into the mid to late 90s I recall this phenomenon taking shape at various forums where this type of seriously hateful, Mr Know It All aggression began to manifest ... usually a small group of males with a few "me too!" lackeys and females who 'join that side' as it ostensibly acts as The Voice of Reason even though its true motive and intent is anything but.

These types are quite easy to spot as their rhetoric is usually dripping with condescension and name-calling. If anyone disagrees at all with such a poster, that person is immediately attacked personally as ignorant, crazy, tinfoil, etc.

They intentionally provoke fights, and then when met with the exact type of response they seek, accuse the responder of "incivility," the exact tact they themselves take. It's classic authoritarian projection: imputing to others that which they embody. This is where terms such as "snarky," and "please don't feed the trolls" came about.

[seemslikeadream]

316. ************************

[SidDithers]

312. Well, you've been here for 2 months...

so you've obviously got it all figured out. :eyes:

Sid

[seemslikeadream]

318. See how gracious you are to new folks, how do you know how long he's been lurking

not nice to accuse folks of things like that

[SidDithers]

348. Uhhh, you might want to check who was making accusations...

There are a lot of apologists for Bush in this thread.

I see lots of people agreeing that definitions are important. People holding the opinion that you're wrong calling the willfull mass-murder in Iraq a genocide.

I don't see anyone being a Bush apologist.

Sid

[seemslikeadream]

352. Could you point to that please?

Definition of "lots of people" :rofl: oh the irony, I can barely stand it

[uppityperson]

354. Me, for one. I'm not lots, but I am one.

"People holding the opinion that you're wrong calling the willfull mass-murder in Iraq a genocide."

I am not a "Bush apologist" though.

Read the thread and you will see others.

[seemslikeadream]

356. I just found it odd that he would use the lots

AND I NEVER CALLED ANYONE A BUSH APOLOGIST

[SidDithers]

365. Then why did you jump to the defense of someone...

who did call disagreeing posters "Bush apologists"?

Sid

[seemslikeadream]

376. please add a post number or something

There's 365 posts here to go through

[SidDithers]

383. Oh, look. The poster you were defending...

has had their post deleted. #305.

Perhaps there was a reason I responded the way I did.

Sid

[seemslikeadream]

384. BULLSHIT

he was a newbie and I wasn't defending him

Don't you know by now I save every post? Ask sal he'll tell ya

[SidDithers]

389. Then why reply with this?...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3072794

He was a noob accusing other posters of being Bush apologists. And you rushed to his defence.

Sid

[seemslikeadream]

391. EXACTLY WHAT IT SAYS

YOU SHOULDN'T BE SO NASTY TO NEW PEOPLE, IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT HE SAID IT WAS COMMENTARY ON YOUR BEHAVIOR

[SidDithers]

364. I don't know if that meets your definition of "lots"...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3063072
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3060038
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3064630
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3060074
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3060045
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3060048
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3060054
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3060063
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3063000
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3061096
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3061102
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3061586
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3061645
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3062663
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3062178
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3062655
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3062979
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3063033
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3063102
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3063102
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3068071
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3072212

But it does mine.

So :rofl: all you want. Personally, I don't find genuine disagreement so funny. Or are you agreeing with the poster you were defending, that all those posters above are Bush apologists.

Sid

Edit: not sure what you were asking me to point to. If you were asking about the Bush apologists comment, it was here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3060032&mesg_id=3071894

[seemslikeadream]

324. When did you start calling the Native American destruction a GENOCIDE?

[SidDithers]

349. I don't think I've ever commented on Native Americans...

and why do you always have to respond multiple times to the same post? Is it that you can't organize your thought into one coherent reply? Is it some twisted way of boosting your post count?

Sid

[seemslikeadream]

351. Oh yea like I'm even worried about something so trivial as post cout

any hoo do you think there was a Native American genocide/holocaust? Quit the little games sid

[SidDithers]

362. So, then, it's because you can't organize your thoughts...

And I don't know if what was done to Native Americans was genocide, because I don't know enough about that history to have a well informed opinion.

Sid

[seemslikeadream]

363. Very telling about you Sid, not knowing that part of your American history

[SidDithers]

366. Why would I be expected to know that part of American history, slad?...nt

Sid

[seemslikeadream]

367. I suppose not, you don't seem too interested in genocide

[SidDithers]

369. Got caught in an assumption, eh slad?...nt

Sid

[seemslikeadream]

374. I guessI should have used the word North

since you are sooooooooo interest in what we do down here one would think you'd know something about our history, one would also think you'd be up on the most important part of our past

[SidDithers]

382. Your history doesn't affect me nearly as much as your present...

and no way were you referring to North American history. You thought you could get in a cheap insult by calling me out on my lack of knowledge about Native Americans.

Sid

[seemslikeadream]

386. You don't have Native Americans in Canada...............or have they all been

"sent away" somewhere?

[SidDithers]

388. We have First Nations in Canada...

Native Americans is generally agreed upon as a term referring to natives in the United States. You mean they didn't teach you that in your North American history classes?

Sid

[seemslikeadream]

390. Oh Canada is not part of North America and no I didn't learn anything remotely truthful

about the history of this country in school

Why should I know more about Canadian History than you know about American History though you usually seems to be well versed in our country's goings on

[SidDithers]

392. Now you're just not making sense, so I think I'm done with you here...

You accused me of not knowing my American history, obviously meaning how Native Americans were treated in the US. Then, when I gave a perfectly reasonable reason why I wouldn't be familiar with the history of Native Americans, you try to imply you were talking about North American history. But, just as obviously, you've never studied anything approaching North American history, because you've never learned anything about Canadian history.

I'm well versed in the current goings on of your country, because the actions of the US affect everyone in the world. And because we're inundated with American media on a daily basis.

So, continue to make your breathless predictions, your error-filled definitions, and your link-dump posts, and I'll continue to read what you post with bemused indifference.

Sid

[seemslikeadream]

393. I have not a clue why you would waste your time then

following me around, you must have WAY more important things to do

YOUR FASINATION WITH ME IS BEYOND COMPREHENSION. Pray tell since you are so above my pay grade isn't this all a waste of your precious time? And if not you really need to get a life!

[SidDithers]

395. Last post on the matter...

1. I'm not following you around. You have 28,000 posts. It's hard to not see a post you've started, or contributed to, every time I log into DU. Not everything is about you.

2. I don't get involved in the vast majority of your discussions. It's only when you post inflammatory crap like this OP that I tend to reply. And in this case, it was only after many other posters spelled out why the situation in Iraq doesn't meet the definition of genocide, and you continued to put your fingers in your ears. My first post in this thread wasn't until post #234, and it was you who first replied to me with your post #318. Are you stalking me, slad?

3. How I use my time is of no concern to you.

Sid

Edit: 'cause I hit post before i was finished my message.

[seemslikeadream]

396. Just how many posts is the right number for you?

You crap on folks with a low post count you crap on me cause I have too many posts,


Who started this thread Sid? Yea you showed up alright, like when some one else got tired?

[AZCat]

402. Your comment is confusing.

Please further explain the meaning of the following:

Yea you showed up alright, like when some one else got tired?

[greyl]

306. seemslikeadream: "reducing the devastation in Iraq to a definition is amazing to me"

Post 303, in this thread.
This one.
The one you're in right now, begun by seemslikeadream.

[seemslikeadream]

322. We'll talk again in the FUTURE when everyone will be calling it a HOLOCAUST

GENOCIDE


OR CAN WE NEVER SHARE THOSE WORDS WITH ANYONE ELSE?

[BoneDaddy]

308. No, I don't believe we are

I think we are extremely destructive, disruptive and the cause of much of the suffering there, but I do not think it is genocide.

[JackRiddler]

340. euphemisms

"extremely destructive, disruptive and the cause of much of the suffering"

Do you realize this language can apply to someone being hurtful in a relationship - or even on an Internet board?

Given that the US supported the rise and arming of Saddam Hussein, then bombed the country into the stone age and starved it with sanctions for 13 years prior to 2003, "cause of much of the suffering" is a weasel phrase. I'm sorry.

What the US government (and the UK) have undertaken in Iraq is mass murder. It's not so hard to say, no one's going to accuse you of it after all, so why do you reach for euphemisms? This was an unprovoked, planned war of aggression, illegal by both international law and the US constitution, justified only by outrageous Big Lie propaganda, on behalf of an imperialist plan for plunder. A crime against humanity. War crimes. By wittingly and systematically causing mass casualties among civilian non-combatants, amounting to hundreds of thousands of deaths, and most definitely aimed at an ethnicity (Arabs as opposed to Americans) it is also genocide. And there is a demonstrated willingness and preparation to kill thousands, even millions more, rather than withdraw, try the criminals and pay the reparations that the Iraqi people are entitled to.

[seemslikeadream]

343. "extremely destructive, disruptive and the cause of much of the suffering"

sounds like my ex husband

[BoneDaddy]

394. smoke a joint

do some yoga or just try and relax friend... Genocide carries with it some very specific guidelines. I do not disagree with the term mass murder. Genocide calls for a specific destruction of:
1) the mental element, meaning the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such", and

2) the physical element which includes five acts described in sections a, b, c, d and e. A crime must include both elements to be called "genocide."

Although I think the Bush administration is evil and destructive, they did not intend on genocide based up national, ethnical, racial or religious groups. Their purpose is not any of the above. Their purpose is greed and power. The rest is rhetoric. Is it mass murder, yes. Is it genocide? Not like the genocides of the past... Evil yes. So you may be the one caught up in sematics or euphemisms.

[SidDithers]

313. If the intent was to target Iraqis, why are they not targetted in the US too?...

The Germans weren't only genocidal in Poland and Austria. They were pretty genocidal in the Fatherland too.

Sid

[seemslikeadream]

314. Well that's kinda amusing WE'RE NOT LETTING IRAQ REFUGEES TO COME HERE!

[Echo In Light]

317. And Muslims were whisked away post 9/11, and crime incidents increased...

Against those whose ethnicity was close enough to be associated with them tear'ists. Brought to you with more than a little help from the corporate media.

[seemslikeadream]

320. JUST LIKE THE HMONG

[uppityperson]

355. What about Iraqis who are in the USA already? Have they been

targeted too?

[seemslikeadream]

357. I believe there are 4 million Iraqi refugees?

and we're not letting them in what do you think will happen to them, did you know I think it's Sweden that is sending all 20 thousand Iraqi refugees out of the country?

[uppityperson]

359. As other war refugees a lot of them will die.

Perhaps they will go to refugee camps, or to other countries, or become travelers within their own country, lacking decent shelter, food, etc. The whole situation just sucks. And I know you weren't the one saying "bush apologist"

[seemslikeadream]

360. Here's that article about Sweden sending more than 20,000 back

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89022332

Morning Edition, March 25, 2008 · Human rights groups in Sweden are outraged that the government has decided to send Iraqi refugees back to Iraq. Sweden has taken in more than 20,000 Iraqi refugees since the war began — more than any other Western country. The Swedish government is citing an improved security situation in Iraq as the reason for returning the refugees.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7695224


After four years of chaos and violence, nearly two million Iraqis remain outside their country, according to the UN agency for refugees. Most are overwhelming neighboring countries, particularly Jordan and Syria. In Europe, Iraqi applications for asylum have doubled over the past three years. But few European countries are offering much refuge, with one exception: Sweden.

In 2006, almost 9,000 Iraqis applied for asylum in Sweden — triple what the country was expecting, and more than 40 percent of all Iraqi refugee claims in Europe.

50-year-old Laura paid a smuggler about $30,000 to get her and two daughters to Sweden. She arrived here three months ago. The turning point for Laura was when her son was kidnapped.

"That was the day I decided to leave," says Laura, who is afraid to use her real name because her husband and two children are still trying to leave Iraq.

Her son was released after three days and a $25,000 ransom. Laura is a Christian and she blames Muslims for the chaos in her home country. But Iraqi Muslims are also seeking refuge in Sweden.




What is going to happen to all these refugees, and aren't they refugees because of us?

[uppityperson]

368. oh fuck them and their "improved security" crap.

Yes, they are refugees because of us and I don't know what will happen to each except some will be killed, others will die, some will survive with help of others.

[seemslikeadream]

373. Christians flee genocide as fear sweeps Iraq

http://www.christiansofiraq.com/fear2.html

Iraqi Christians seem to think it's genocide

[seemslikeadream]

344. Is it only genocide if that was the original intent?

[Bolo Boffin]

346. Won't someone tell SLAD when she can start calling her opponents "genocide deniers"?

Openly, that is.

[seemslikeadream]

347. Did you miss that QUESTION MARK in the op bolo?

maybe it was not big enough for you? I'll start using biggers ones and make them red so you won't miss them from now on


?

[Bolo Boffin]

378. Did you miss the question mark in my post, SLAD?

Oops, there was another.

[seemslikeadream]

345. Somebody's baby is not coming back

Hush-a-bye little one, never you weep
For we've got a toy that can put you to sleep


Ah, this is a thing that I'll leave up to you



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Py5I8Z-aM0


The sheep's in the meadow
The cow's in the corn
Now is the time for a child to be born
He'll laugh at the moon
And cry for the sun
And if it's a boy he'll carry a gun
Sang the crow on the cradle

And if it should be that this baby's a girl
Never you mind if her hair doesn't curl
With rings on her fingers
And bells on her toes
And a bomber above her wherever she goes
Sang the crow on the cradle

The crow on the cradle
The black and the white
Somebody's baby is born for a fight
The crow on the cradle
The white and the black
Somebody's baby is not coming back
Sang the crow on the cradle

Your mother and father will sweat and they'll save
To build you a coffin and dig you a grave
Hush-a-bye little one, never you weep
For we've got a toy that can put you to sleep
Sang the crow on the cradle

Bring me my gun, and I'll shoot that bird dead
That's what your mother and father once said
The crow on the cradle, what can we do
Ah, this is a thing that I'll leave up to you
Sang the crow on the cradle
Sang the crow on the cradle

[seemslikeadream]

350. I also wonder what the Iraqis think of this question

after all.......their opinion is the only one that really should count

[seemslikeadream]

361. More mud right at McCain: A Tragedy- GENOCIDE ! Right here in America !!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3073706

[leftofthedial]

381. genocide AND suicide

[asteroid2003QQ47]

385. Without a doubt!

Exposing it's own to "depleted" uranium equals eugenics/genocide
thus how can there be any question as to guilt regarding intent in
the Amerikan war of agression (genocide) in the Middle East?

[seemslikeadream]

387. Yes thanks so much asteroid2003QQ47

You are correct EUGENICS/GENOCIDE

[lib2DaBone]

397. THE WAR IS GOING "SWIMINGLY"..Laura Ingraham

[lib2DaBone]

398. Correction...Maan Coulter Said that...

[asteroid2003QQ47]

399. Move along, no generational genocide here...

Another Mother asks, Why?
Soldier's tortuous death blamed on exposure to DU

By Stephanie Hiller

<snip>
Slowly she began asking questions. Whenever she asked doctors why this was happening to her healthy son, doctors always said the same thing. "Bad luck."

All the patients were told the same thing, Lori said. "They were all military doctors. They're on the same playing field."

But it appeared that Dustin's cancer cells had different characteristics from other cancers. When Lori's father asked the head oncologist if this were the case, he said no; but another oncologist on the team said yes. These are different types of cancer

Her caseworker seemed touched by the anguish of Dustin's case. She said she had seen an article about depleted uranium. She suggested Lori do some research on the computer.

"But Dustin's situation was so volatile, I just couldn't find the time."

Later a nurse in the ICU asked Lori, "are you satisfied with Dustin's diagnosis?"

"I said No!"

She told Lori to look into depleted uranium.

"I asked her, Have you looked into it?"

She didn't reply.

"You don't have to tell me," Lori told her, "I can tell from your eyes."

"Dustin isn't the first," said the nurse, "and he won't be the last."
<snip>

http://www.awakenedwoman.com/brim_dustin.htm

[seemslikeadream]

400. She told Lori to look into depleted uranium.

The gift that keep on giving..........

and giving and giving and giving