[Peace-discuss] Re: Peace-discuss Digest, Vol 38, Issue 14

[David Key]

Dear Everyone,

I know am a stranger at this point, but I am going to DC next weekend
for the March on the Pentagon. If you are interested in carpooling with
me, I have a spacious car with 3-4 seats available, depending on if the
people sitting in back want to b cramped with 3 people...

If you want to ride with, let me know! My cellphone is 217-417-4688

Peace,

Dave
Labor Organizer
SEIU Local 73
(Chicago, Urbana, Springfield)


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>Today's Topics:
>
>    1. An honest account? (Morton K. Brussel)
>    2. Fwd: IL Annual Mtg Township Statute-they vote	Wednesday at
>       2pm- URGENT!Call Now!! (Chuck Minne)
>    3. Anybody going to Washington D.C? (Cody Bralts-Steindl)
>    4. Re: The Politics of Naming:	Genocide, Civil War,	Insurgency
>       (C. G. Estabrook)
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Message: 1
>Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 21:39:39 -0600
>From: "Morton K. Brussel" <brussel4 at insightbb.com>
>Subject: [Peace-discuss] An honest account?
>To: peace-discuss at anti-war.net
>Message-ID: <2F7C10A6-B11C-4E89-B75D-C77B7674FCD9 at insightbb.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
>  From ZNet.
>
>
>ZNet Commentary
>Last Sunday: Liberal icons and the problem of bipartisan empire- building 
>March 06, 2007
>By Robert Jensen
>
>In a political culture defined by a centrist-to-reactionary political  
>spectrum, Paul Wellstone was a breath of fresh air when he brought  his 
>progressive politics to the U.S. Senate in 1991. His death in  2002 robbed 
>the country of a humane voice on the national political  stage.
>
>I lived for a time in Minnesota and followed Wellstone's career  closely. 
>The last time I saw him speak was December 1998 when I was  part of a peace 
>group that conducted a sit-in at his office to  protest his support for a 
>U.S. attack on Iraq and force a meeting to  challenge the former anti-war 
>activist's hawkish turn. Yes, that's  right -- a group sat in at 
>Wellstone's St. Paul office when he  supported Bill Clinton's illegal 1998 
>cruise missile attack on Iraq,  which was the culmination of a brutal and 
>belligerent U.S. policy  during that Democratic administration.
>
>It might seem odd to recall such a small part of contemporary history  when 
>the United States is mired in a full-scale occupation of Iraq,  but there's 
>an important lesson in this little bit of history -- one  that's is often 
>difficult for many liberals and Democrats to face:
>
>Illegal and immoral U.S. aggression is, and always has been, a  bipartisan 
>affair. Democrats and liberals are responsible for their  share of the 
>death, destruction, and misery caused by U.S. empire- building along with 
>Republicans and conservatives. I mention the  Wellstone incident not to 
>suggest he and George W. Bush are equally  culpable, but to make the point 
>that even politicians with  Wellstone's progressive politics can be twisted 
>by the pathology of  power and privilege.
>
>Precisely because we face such crucial policy choices in Iraq, the  Middle 
>East, and the world, we must remember that while W. and the  neocons are a 
>problem, they are not the problem. Sweep this  particular gang of thugs and 
>thieves out of office, and
>   what? A kindler-and-gentler imperial policy designed by Democrats  is 
>still an imperial policy, and imperial policies always have the  same 
>result: The suffering of millions -- others that are too often  invisible 
>to us -- in support of policies that protect the affluence of
>   us.
>
>Name a politician at the national level today who has even come close  to 
>acknowledging that painful reality. Go ahead, think about it for a  minute 
>-- I can wait.
>
>I'm reminded of a meeting that a group of Austin activists had with  our 
>congressman, liberal Democrat Lloyd Doggett, as part of a  national 
>grassroots organizing effort in the late 1990s to end the  punishing 
>embargo on Iraq that the Clinton administration imposed for  eight long 
>years. Those economic sanctions were killing an estimated  5,000 Iraqi 
>children a month, and it's likely that as many as a  million people died 
>during the Clinton years as a result of this  aspect of the U.S. policy of 
>dominating the politics of the region.  We asked Doggett -- who had 
>courageously spoken out against U.S.  aggression in the past -- to 
>challenge this policy of his Democratic  leadership, which he declined to 
>do. One of us mentioned our  opposition to this in the context of a larger 
>critique of U.S.  empire. Doggett's response: "That was never my analysis."
>
>
>In other words, even though the United States has been pursuing  imperial 
>policies since it was founded -- first on the continent it  eventually 
>conquered and later around the world -- that wasn't his  analysis. In other 
>words, his analysis was apparently to deny the  reality of how the United 
>States became the most powerful nation- state in the history of the world. 
>In other words, his analysis  required obscuring difficult truths, which 
>might be called a
>   I'll leave that sentence for you to complete.
>
>Again, my purpose in pointing this out is not to suggest that there  is no 
>difference in the policies of Doggett and Bush, but rather to  point out 
>the disease at the heart of conventional politics in the  United States: 
>The willingness to lie about the history and  contemporary policies that 
>have made us the most affluent society in  the history of the world.
>
>The political elites of the United States of America are united in  their 
>acceptance of these historical fabrications and contemporary  obfuscations. 
>Whatever their particular policy proposals, they all  lie about the nature 
>of the system that has produced U.S. power and  affluence. They all invoke 
>mythical notions of the fundamental  decency of the United States. And 
>because of that, they all are part  of the problem.
>
>Here's a gentle corrective: People can be decent, and many in the  United 
>States -- just as everywhere in the world -- are incredibly  decent, but no 
>imperial nation-state has ever had any fundamental  decency. The rich First 
>World nations of this world got rich through  violence and theft. That 
>doesn't mean there's nothing positive about  the U.S. system, but is simply 
>a reminder that if we start with a  lie, we end up telling lots of lies and 
>doing lots of damage.
>
>So, let's tell the truth, not only about our political opponents but  about 
>our alleged allies. Let's tell the truth about the so-called  "human 
>rights" president, Jimmy Carter, a man who has accomplished  some good 
>things since leaving office and lately has been brave in  standing up to 
>critics who denounce him for telling part of the truth  about the 
>Israel/Palestine conflict (the part that ignores his own  contributions 
>while in office to the entrenchment of Israeli power  and control, and 
>hence to contemporary policy failures).
>
>But Jimmy Carter as president -- the person he was when he held power  -- 
>was a person who backed the brutal rule of the Shah of Iran and,  after the 
>Iranian people has overthrown that dictatorship, allowed  the shah to come 
>to the United States. Carter continued to support  and arm the military 
>dictatorship of Indonesia through the worst of  the genocidal atrocities in 
>its illegal occupation of East Timor. Not  exactly human-rights kinds of 
>policies.
>
>Nor was a concern for human rights in evidence in Carter's policy  toward 
>El Salvador. By coincidence, yesterday (February 17) was the  27th 
>anniversary of a letter that Archbishop Oscar Romero wrote to  Carter, 
>pleading with him to support human rights by ending U.S.  funding and arms 
>transfers to the authoritarian government of El  Salvador. Romero wrote to 
>Carter that "instead of favoring greater  justice and peace in El Salvador, 
>your government's contribution will  undoubtedly sharpen the injustice and 
>the repression inflicted on the  organized people, whose struggle has often 
>been for respect for their  most basic human rights." Carter's response was 
>to continue support  for the brutal military dictatorship that put guns in 
>the hands of  death squads, including one that would assassinate Romero a 
>month later.
>
>And then there is the famous "Carter Doctrine" proclaimed in his 1980  
>State of the Union address, in which he made "absolutely clear" his  
>position on the oil-rich region: "An attempt by any outside force to  gain 
>control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an  assault on the 
>vital interests of the United States of America, and  such an assault will 
>be repelled by any means necessary, including  military force."
>
>In other words: Control over the flow of Middle East oil must remain  in 
>U.S. hands. Hmm, does that seem familiar? There was, of course, no  outside 
>force attempting to gain control of the region. But plenty of  forces 
>within the region -- then and now -- have wanted to break  decades of U.S. 
>domination, and those forces have been the real  targets of the doctrine of 
>Carter, and every other post-WWII  president before and since. While the 
>primary responsibility for the  mess we have created in Iraq should be laid 
>on the doorstep of Bush  and the neocons, there's a lot of responsibility 
>left to go around.
>
>Let me be clear one more time: I am not saying that there is no  difference 
>between Paul Wellstone, Lloyd Doggett, Jimmy Carter on one  hand, and 
>George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell on the other.  There is, and 
>sometimes those differences make a difference.
>
>But ask yourself: Are the victims of these bipartisan policies around  the 
>world likely to be so concerned about the differences? When Lloyd  Doggett 
>and many other Democrats in Congress were supporting  Clinton's sanctions 
>policy -- fully aware that children in Iraq were  dying by the thousands 
>due to a lack of clean water, medical  supplies, and adequate nutrition -- 
>should we have expected those  children to be grateful that the Democrats 
>had a better record on the  minimum wage? When Jimmy Carter shipped weapons 
>for death squads in  El Salvador, should the campesinos murdered with those 
>weapons have  been grateful that Carter wasn't as reactionary as the Reagan 
>gang  that would come next?
>
>Yes, Paul Wellstone was in many ways an inspirational progressive  figure 
>at a time of right-wing backlash, and he often was politically  courageous. 
>But if we ignore the ways that politicians -- even the  best of them -- can 
>come to accept the illusions of the powerful that  so often lead to 
>pathological delusions and disastrous policies, how  can a 
>peace-and-justice movement hope to hold power accountable?
>
>I'm not arguing for a holier-than-thou purism on all doctrine at all  
>times; we have to be strategic in offering support to politicians  with 
>whom we inevitably will have some disagreements. Instead, I'm  arguing for 
>an honest assessment of politicians, and of ourselves. If  we are willing 
>to excuse so quickly the pro-imperial policies of our  so-called 
>progressive leaders, might that be in part because we  haven't broken with 
>the imperial mindset ourselves?
>
>As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan crumble under the weight of this  
>imperial madness, we owe it to the people there not only to critique  the 
>policies of the psychotically self-righteous madmen of the Bush  
>administration, and not only to point out that the current Democratic  
>leadership is too timid in its opposition to these wars. We owe it to  
>Iraqis and Afghans -- and to all the people living in places that our  
>empire targets -- to critique the allegedly more humane and liberal  face 
>of empire.
>
>If we look in the mirror, whose face is that?
>
>
>   [Remarks to the fourth "Last Sunday" community gathering in Austin,  TX, 
>February 18, 2007. http://thirdcoastactivist.org/lastsunday.html ]
>
>   Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas  at 
>Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource  Center 
>http://thirdcoastactivist.org . His latest book is Getting  Off: 
>Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007).  Jensen is 
>also the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism,  and White 
>Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim  Our Humanity 
>(both from City Lights Books); and Writing Dissent:  Taking Radical Ideas 
>from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang).  He can be reached at 
>rjensen at uts.cc.utexas.edu and his articles can  be found online at 
>http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/index.html.
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 2
>Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 20:17:44 -0800 (PST)
>From: Chuck Minne <mincam2 at yahoo.com>
>Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: IL Annual Mtg Township Statute-they vote
>	Wednesday at 2pm- URGENT!Call Now!!
>To: peace-discuss at lists.groogroo.com
>Message-ID: <889584.31110.qm at web36913.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>
>
>DAWN Glen Ellyn <DAWN_198 at msn.com> wrote:  From: "DAWN Glen Ellyn" 
><DAWN_198 at msn.com>
>Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 17:05:14 -0600
>Subject:  IL Annual Mtg Township Statute-they vote Wednesday at 2pm-
>URGENT!Call Now!!
>
>
>Thanks to all who wondered whether it would be possible to go back to 
>townships at the annual meetings and " try again" to get an Iraq war 
>question on the ballot. Our legal sources tell us that the Illinois 
>Township statute as of now is unchanged- no limits currently exist that 
>would prevent another try to get an Iraq war question on the ballot. But 
>they vote tomorrow ( Wednesday) on proposed legislation!
>PLEASE CALL Linda Chapa La Via 217-558-1002 and ask her NOT to limit the 
>power of the electors at local township meetings- stop HB1607 in its 
>tracks.
>
>The Local Govt. Committee meets ( Chapa La Via is Chair of the Local Govt. 
>Committee )at 2pm Wednesday at the Stratton building in Springfield. If 
>they vote to pass this it goes to the Senate.
>
>As you know, last year many Illinois Townships and municipalities were able 
>to add an advisory question about the Iraq war to their local ballot. As 
>you know, although the current Illinois statute 60 ILCS 1/30-205( see 
>below) allows for one day per year where " the power is in the hands of the 
>people", in many townships this effort was met with hostility and blatant 
>obstructionism by township officials and their cronies.
>
>We have heard Rep. Harry Ramey ( IL Dist. 55 ) has proposed HB 1607, which 
>would severely curtail the power of citizens ( electors) at the annual 
>township meeting. This seems to be in direct response to the success of our 
>efforts met last year, and apparently the township powers-that-be want to 
>eliminate any further grassroots activism. Here is the current law:
>
>" According to Township statute 60 ILCS 1/30-205, the agenda can be amended 
>with a 3/5 majority. It reads: By a vote of the majority of electors 
>present at a town meeting, the electors may authorize that an advisory 
>question of public policy be placed on the ballot at the next regularly 
>scheduled in the township. The township board shall certify the question to 
>the proper election officials, who shall submit the question in accordance 
>with the general election law. ( 60 ILCS 1/30-205) "
>
>Here is the link to the page the bill is on. It is HB1607
>
>www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocTypeID=HB&DocNum=1607&GAID=9&SessionID=51&LegID=30414
>
>This is a link to the members of the local government committee ( Call 
>them, too!)
>
>www.ilga.gov/house/committees/members.asp?CommitteeID=401&GA=95
>
>
>
>
>
>
>          NOTICE: George W. Bush has issued Executive Orders allowing the 
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>Message: 3
>Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 22:41:12 -0600
>From: "Cody Bralts-Steindl" <codybralts at gmail.com>
>Subject: [Peace-discuss] Anybody going to Washington D.C?
>To: Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>Message-ID:
>	<540ad9ac0703062041u6e4a30a7t72a64ac3501f1d29 at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>Hey all,
>
>I was wondering if any AWARE people will be going to the protest in
>Washington next Saturday.
>
>The reason being that I cannot go unless someone over the age of 18 from
>aware goes with me. Even though Shara E, and Jenny G will be going also.
>I'm only 14 however. : [
>
>Just wondering!
>
>In solidarity,
>
>Cody Bralts
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>
>Message: 4
>Date: Tue,  6 Mar 2007 22:45:46 -0600 (CST)
>From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] The Politics of Naming:	Genocide, Civil
>	War,	Insurgency
>To: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>Message-ID: <20070306224546.ALX47448 at expms1.cites.uiuc.edu>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
>
>David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com> wrote
>>   Mahmood Mamdani, author of the excellent Good
>>   Muslim, Bad Muslim
>>      http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n05/mamd01_.html
>>      [...]   It seems that genocide has become a label to be
>>   stuck on your worst enemy, a perverse version of the
>>   Nobel Prize, part of a rhetorical arsenal that helps
>>   you vilify your adversaries while ensuring impunity
>>   for your allies ... Darfur can be neatly
>>   integrated into the War on Terror, for Darfur gives
>>   the Warriors on Terror a valuable asset with which
>>   to demonise an enemy: a genocide perpetrated by
>>   Arabs. This was the ... most valuable
>>   advantage that Save Darfur gained from
>>   depoliticising the conflict. The more thoroughly
>>   Darfur was integrated into the War on Terror, the
>>   more the depoliticised violence in Darfur acquired a
>>   racial description, as a genocide of ‘Arabs’
>>   killing ‘Africans’. Racial difference
>>   purportedly constituted the motive force behind the
>>   mass killings...
>
>[From the British blog "Spiked," a discussion of the uses of  genocide: 
>"...the French decision at the end of last year to make it a crime in 
>France to deny the Armenian genocide [is followed by a proposal to *make it 
>a crime* in the EU] to question whether Rwanda, Srebrenica and Darfur are 
>genocides, too." --CGE]
>       Thursday 1 March 2007
>    Pimp My Genocide
>    The prostitution of the G-word for cynical political ends
>    has given rise to a grisly new international gameshow.
>    Brendan O’Neill
>
>Genocide, it seems, is everywhere. You cannot open a newspaper or switch on 
>the box these days without coming across the G-word.
>
>Accusations of genocide fly back and forth in international relations. This 
>week the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague cleared Serbia 
>of direct responsibility for genocide in the Bosnian civil war in the 
>mid-Nineties, though it chastised Belgrade for failing to prevent the 
>massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995. The International 
>Criminal Court, also in The Hague, indicted two Sudanese officials for 
>‘crimes against humanity’ in relation to the conflict in Darfur.
>
>Last week, a United Nations official said the spread of the Darfurian 
>conflict into eastern Chad means that ‘Chad faces genocide’, too. 
>‘We are seeing elements that closely resemble what we saw in Rwanda in 
>the genocide in 1994’, said the head of the UN refugee agency (1). 
>Meanwhile, to the concern and fury of Turkish officials, the US Congress is 
>set to debate a resolution that will recognise Turkey’s killings of a 
>million Armenians from 1915 to 1918 as an ‘organised genocide’ 
>(2). This follows the French decision at the end of last year to make it a 
>crime in France to deny the Armenian genocide.
>
>On the domestic front, too, genocide-talk is widespread. Germany, current 
>holder of the European Union’s rotating presidency, is proposing a 
>Europe-wide ban on Holocaust denial and all other forms of genocide denial. 
>This would make a crime of ‘publicly condoning, denying or grossly 
>trivialising…crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war 
>crimes [as defined in the Statute of the International Criminal 
>Court].’ (3) In some European countries it is already against the law 
>to deny that the Nazis sought to exterminate the Jews. Under the proposed 
>new legislation it would also be against the law to question whether 
>Rwanda, Srebrenica and Darfur are genocides, too.
>
>Why is genocide all the rage, whether it’s uncovering new ones in 
>Africa and Eastern Europe, or rapping the knuckles of those who would dare 
>to deny such genocides here at home?
>
>Contrary to the shrill proclamations of international courts and Western 
>officials and journalists, new genocides are not occurring across the 
>world. Rather, today’s genocide-mongering in international affairs 
>– and its flipside: the hunt for genocide-deniers at home – shows 
>that accusations of genocide have become a cynical political tool. 
>Genocide-mongering is a new mode of politics, and it’s being used by 
>some to draw a dividing line between the West and the Third World and to 
>enforce a new and censorious moral consensus on the homefront. Anyone who 
>cares about democracy and free speech should deny the claims of the 
>genocide-mongers.
>
>In international relations genocide has become a political weapon, an 
>all-purpose rallying cry used by various actors to gain moral authority and 
>boost their own standing. Anyone with a cursory understanding of history 
>should know that the bloody wars of the past 10 to 15 years – in 
>Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Darfur – are not unprecedented or exceptional. 
>Certainly none of them can be compared to the Nazi genocide against the 
>Jews, which involved the industrialised slaughter, often in factories built 
>for the purpose, of six million men, women and children. Rather, the 
>labelling of today’s brutal civil wars as ‘genocides’ by 
>Western observers, courts and commentators is a desperate search for a new 
>moral crusade, and it has given rise to a new moral divide between the West 
>and the rest, between the civilised and enlightened governments of America 
>and Europe and those dark parts of the world where genocides occur.
>
>In some circles, ‘genocide’ has become code for Third World 
>savagery. What do the headline genocides (or ‘celebrity 
>genocides’, perhaps) of the past two weeks have in common? All of them 
>– the Serbs’ genocide in Bosnia, the Sudanese genocide in Darfur, 
>the Turks’ genocide of Armenians – were committed by apparently 
>strange and exotic nations ‘over there’. Strip away the 
>legal-speak about which conflicts can be defined as genocides and which 
>cannot, and it seems clear that genocide has become a PC codeword for wog 
>violence – whether the genocidal wogs are the blacks of Sudan, the 
>brown-skinned, not-quite-European people of Turkey, or the Serbs, white 
>niggers of the post-Cold War world.
>
>Consider how easily the genocide tag is attached to conflicts in Africa. 
>Virtually every recent major African war has been labelled a genocide by 
>outside observers. The Rwandan war of 1994 is now widely recognised as a 
>genocide; many refer to the ongoing violence in Uganda as a genocide. In 
>2004 then US secretary of state Colin Powell declared, on the basis of a 
>report by an American/British fact-finding expedition to Darfur: ‘We 
>conclude that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government 
>of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility.’ (4) (The UN, however, 
>has not described Darfur as genocide.) Even smaller-scale African wars are 
>discussed as potential genocides. So the spread of instability from Darfur 
>into eastern Chad has led to UN handwringing about ‘genocide in 
>Chad’. During the conflict in Liberia in 2003, commentators warned 
>that ‘Liberia could be plunged into a Rwanda-style genocide’ (5).
>
>The discussion of every war in Africa as a genocide or potential genocide 
>shows that today’s genocide-mongering bears little relation to what is 
>happening in conflict zones on the ground. There are great differences, not 
>least in scale, between the wars in Rwanda, Darfur and Liberia; each of 
>these conflicts has been driven by complex local grievances, very often 
>exacerbated by Western intervention. That Western declarations of 
>‘genocide!’ are most often made in relation to Africa suggests 
>that behind today’s genocide-mongering there lurks some nasty 
>chauvinistic sentiments. At a time when it is unfashionable to talk about 
>‘the dark continent’ or ‘savage Africans’, the more 
>acceptable ‘genocide’ tag gives the impression that Africa is 
>peculiarly and sickly violent, and that it needs to be saved from itself by 
>more enlightened forces from elsewhere. Importantly, if the UN judges that 
>a genocide is occurring, then that can be used to justify military 
>intervention into said genocide zone.
>
>Hardly anyone talks openly about a global divide between the savage Third 
>World and the enlightened West anymore. Yet today’s genocide-mongering 
>has nurtured a new, apparently acceptable divide between the 
>genocide-executers over there, and the genocide-saviours at home. This new 
>global faultline over genocide is formalised in the international court 
>system. In the Nineties, setting up tribunals to try war criminals or 
>genocidaires became an important part of the West’s attempts to 
>rehabilitate its moral authority around the globe. In 1993, the UN Security 
>Council set up an international tribunal to try those accused of war crimes 
>in the Former Yugoslavia. In 1997 the international war crimes tribunal for 
>Rwanda got under way; there is also one for Sierra Leone. As Kirsten 
>Sellars argues in The Rise and Rise of Human Rights, for all the claims of 
>‘international justice’, these tribunals are in reality 
>‘political weapons’ wielded by the West – attempts to imbue 
>the post-Cold War West with a sense of moral purpose by contrasting it 
>favourably with the barbarians in Eastern Europe and Africa (6).
>
>The opportunistic transformation of ‘genocide’ into a weapon on 
>the international stage can be seen most clearly in recent debates about 
>Turkey. The Turkish state’s genocide against the Armenians in the 
>First World War is surely debated more today than at any other time in 
>history. That is because the Armenian genocide has been latched on to by 
>certain governments that want to lecture and harangue the current Turkish 
>regime.
>
>Last year France passed its bizarre law outlawing denial of the Armenian 
>genocide. This was a deeply cynical move motivated by EU protectionism on 
>the part of the French. France is keen to keep Turkey at arm’s length 
>from joining the EU, viewing the American ally in the East as a threat to 
>its authoritative position within Europe. And what better way to cast 
>doubts on Turkey’s fitness to join the apparently modern EU than to 
>turn its refusal to accept that the massacre of Armenians 90 years ago was 
>a genocide into a big political issue? At the same time, Democrat members 
>of US Congress are attempting to dent the Bush administration’s 
>prestige and standing in the Middle East by lending their support to a 
>resolution that will label the Turkish killings of Armenians a genocide. 
>This has forced Bush to defend the ‘deniers’ of Turkey, and given 
>rise to the bizarre spectacle of a six-person Turkish parliamentary 
>delegation arriving in Washington to try to convince members of Congress 
>that the Armenian massacres were not a genocide (7). Again, movers and 
>shakers play politics with genocide, using the G-word to try to hit their 
>opponents where it hurts.
>
>At a time when the West making claims to global moral authority on the 
>basis of enlightenment or democracy has become distinctly unfashionable, 
>the new fashion for genocide-mongering seems to have turned 
>‘genocide’ into the one remaining moral absolute, which has 
>allowed today’s pretty visionless West to assert at least some 
>authority over the Third World.
>
>This reorientation of global affairs around the G-word has had a real and 
>disastrous impact on peace and politics. When ‘genocide’ becomes 
>the language of international relations, effectively a bargaining chip 
>between states, then it can lead to a grisly competition over who is the 
>biggest victim of genocide and who thus most deserves the pity and 
>patronage of the international community. The state of Bosnia brought the 
>charges of genocide against the state of Serbia at the ICJ, and is bitterly 
>disappointed that Serbia was cleared. Here it appears that Bosnia, every 
>Western liberals’ favourite victim state, feels the need to continue 
>playing the genocide card, to prostrate itself before international courts, 
>in order to store up its legitimacy and win the continued backing of 
>America and the EU. One American commentator has written about 
>‘strategic victimhood in Sudan’, where Darfurian rebel groups 
>exploit the ‘victims of genocide’ status awarded to them by 
>Western observers in order to get a better deal: ‘The rebels, much 
>weaker than the government, would logically have sued for peace long ago. 
>Because of the [Western] Save Darfur movement, however, the rebels believe 
>that the longer they provoke genocidal reaction, the more the West will 
>pressure Sudan to hand them control of the region.’ (8)
>
>The logic of today’s politics of genocide is that it suits certain 
>states and groups to play up to being victims of genocide. That is one sure 
>way to guarantee the sympathy and possibly even the backing of the West. 
>This has nurtured a grotesque new international gameshow – what we 
>might call ‘Pimp My Genocide’ – where groups strategically 
>play the genocide card in order to attract the attentions of the 
>genocide-obsessed international community. The new genocide-mongering means 
>that certain states are demonised as ‘evil’ (Sudan, Serbia) while 
>others must constantly play the pathetic victim (Bosnia, Darfurian groups). 
>This is unlikely to nurture anything like peace, or a progressive, grown-up 
>international politics.
>
>Rather than challenge the new politics of genocide, the critics of Western 
>military intervention play precisely the same game – sometimes in even 
>more shrill tones than their opponents. Anti-war activists claim that 
>‘the real genocide’ – a ‘Nazi-style genocide’ 
>– is being committed by American and British forces in Iraq. Others 
>counter the official presentation of the Bosnian civil war as a Serb 
>genocide against Muslims by arguing that the Bosnian Serbs, especially 
>those forcibly expelled from Krajina, were the real ‘victims of 
>genocide’ (9). Critics of Israel accuse it of carrying out a genocide 
>against Palestinians (while supporters of Israel describe Hamas’s and 
>Hezbollah’s occasional dustbin-lid bombs as ‘genocidal 
>violence’) (10). This does nothing to challenge the hysteria of 
>today’s genocide-mongering, but rather indulges and further inflames 
>it. Genocide-talk seems to have become the only game in town.
>
>The flipside of genocide-mongering is the hunting of genocide-deniers. New 
>European proposals to clamp down on the denial of any genocide represent a 
>serious assault on free speech and historical debate. Will those who 
>challenge Western military interventions overseas to prevent a 
>‘genocide’ be arrested as deniers? What about historians who 
>question the idea that the Turks’ killings of Armenians were a 
>genocide? Will their books be banned? On the homefront, too, genocide is 
>being turned into a moral absolute, through which a new moral consensus, 
>covering good and evil, right and wrong, what you can and cannot say and 
>think, might be enforced across society (11).
>
>If you don’t accept the new global genocide divide, or the right of 
>the EU authorities to outline what is an acceptable and unacceptable 
>opinion about war and history, then step forth – and let us deny.
>
>Brendan O’Neill is editor of spiked. Visit his personal website here.
>
>(1) Chad violence could erupt into genocide, UN warns, ABC News, 16 
>February 2007
>
>(2) Turkey Intensifies Counter-Attack Against Genocide Claims, Turkish 
>Weekly, 1 March 2007
>
>(3) See ‘Genocide denial laws will shut down debate’, by Brendan 
>O’Neill
>
>(4) Powell declares genocide in Sudan, BBC News, 9 September 2004
>
>(5) Liberia: Fears of genocide, Mail and Guardian, July 2003
>
>(6) The Rise and Rise of Human Rights, Kirsten Sellars, Sutton Publishing, 
>2002
>
>(7) Turkey Intensifies Counter-Attack Against Genocide Claims, Turkish 
>Weekly, 1 March 2007
>
>(8) See Darfur: damned by pity, by Brendan O’Neill
>
>(9) Exploiting genocide, Brendan O’Neill, Spectator, 21 January 2006
>
>(10) Mr Bolton gets a UN flea in his ear, Melanie Phillips, 24 January 2006
>
>(11) See ‘Genocide denial laws will shut down debate’, by Brendan 
>O’Neill
>
>reprinted from: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2907/
>
>
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>End of Peace-discuss Digest, Vol 38, Issue 14
>*********************************************
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