Iraq is a clear-cut case of genocide. [View All]

http://www.counterpunch.org/model05212008.html

Consciousness of Guilt
Genocide in Iraq?
By DAVID MODEL

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According to the 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, such as:

a) Killing members of the group;
b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm;
c) Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or part;
d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Complicity in genocide must embody:

Intentional participation;
Knowledge of the genocidal intent of the perpetrators;
Organizing, planning, supplying arms, training intelligence, or direct military support.

...

Restricting the bombing to only military targets was not part of the U.S. war plan whereas targets included hospitals, electric utilities, schools, factories, water treatment plants, irrigation systems, food storage facilities and community health centres. Over 200,000 people died, the majority of whom were civilians.

In 2003, George Bush Junior inflicted further atrocities on the devastated people of Iraq and on a country virtually bombed back into pre-industrial times by another so-called war. As of today, Iraq has suffered a further one million casualties and four million refugees.

Whether or not the administrations of Bush Senior, Clinton, and Bush Junior intended to commit genocide in Iraq is irrelevant because the consequences of the bombings and sanctions could have been predicted by any reasonable person. The actions of these administrations clearly resulted in mass killing, serious bodily and mental harm, and the infliction of conditions calculated to bring about Iraq’s physical destruction in whole or in part. Iraq is a clear-cut case of genocide.

The carnage resulting from this genocide clearly exposes the disparity between the professed principles of American foreign policy and its manifest practice. This hypocrisy betrays the indifference of American leaders to basic democratic principles and to respect for both domestic and international law.