[Peace-discuss] genocide - was - We all make mistakes...even Howard Zinn.

[John W.]

At 11:07 AM 8/28/2007, Ricky Baldwin wrote:

>Thanks for passing this along, Mort-
>
>It's interesting how we use the word 'genocide' to
>mean different things.  I wonder if we sometimes
>search for a way to emphasize that killing huge
>numbers of people is damnable, disgusting and
>horrible, because we get so used to hearing of big
>numbers of deaths, and we're afraid that others aren't
>suitably upset by it.
>
>I've just finished Gerard Prunier's "Darfur: The
>Ambiguous Genocide", for example, which was very badly
>proofed and a little too condensed in places, but
>contained some valuable information and analysis
>(although he never really says exactly what he thinks
>should be DONE).
>
>Anyway, Prunier discusses the international legal
>definition of "the big-g word" - and its implications
>for action - as well as offering his own, without
>wasting too much time on semantics.  He points out
>that, although Darfur doesn't fit his own definition
>of genocide, and a lot of other mass killings don't,
>we are still talking about hundreds of thousands of
>deaths, over a million refugees, etc. - all horrific
>and (should be) intolerable.
>
>I'm not sure that it even makes a lot of sense to
>label as genocide, actually, some of the mass killings
>that Herman (rightly) demands recognition for below.
>But it's disturbing to deny these heinous crimes the
>label, perhaps because somehow killing hundreds of
>thousands or millions of people, and letting millions
>more die of starvation and disease, or live out their
>lives in madness, as amputees, people without a
>community, etc., has somehow become less bad when we
>don't call it genocide.  Almost, that's life.
>
>It's almost as if we think the main issue is the
>*purpose* of the slaughter.  But I wonder if we really
>believe that.


Who is "we"?  The purpose of the slaughter is always defined by the 
perpetrator(s) of the slaughter.  And it's invariably some lofty, noble 
purpose, no matter how gruesome the slaughter.  History sometimes corrects 
the original premise, and sometimes not.  It depends on who's writing the 
history.

There is truly nothing new under the sun.

What difference does it all make, anyway?  In the article Roger Epperson 
posted on Blackwater, immediately following this one, to most folks 
Blackwater represents jobs, financial security.  They're not thinking about 
the legal and moral implications of a mercenary private army.  Only when 
it's too late will they realize what they were silently complicit with...if 
ever.

I still say, and will say until my dying breath, that the only people who 
ever learn anything from history are a tiny minority who are relatively 
powerless to affect history.



>The Administration likes to tell us, as Zinn points
>out in this NYT letter, how "accidental" so much death
>and destruction was.  The Khartoum govt tells us they
>didn't mean for the Janjawiid militia to raze the
>Baggara villages and massacre civilians when they
>armed them.  Libya and Chad and the CIA probably
>didn't intend that either, when they made Darfur their
>playground.  Does this matter to the people there?
>
>Is this genocide the US is perpetrating on Iraq?  I
>wouldn't call it that, but that doesn't mean we should
>let our politicians dismiss the brutal criminality of
>it.

Precisely.  Genocide is just a word, but the brutal criminality is very real.