Is the U.S. committing genocide in Iraq?

Thanks to DU, the word "genocide" has utterly lost any sense of meaning. Apparently on DU "mass loss of life" = "genocide."

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

kinda depends on what you mean...

are you saying intentional genocide ?

cause i believe not...

but if u mean inadvertently our presence if causing genocide... then yes.

It is all horrible. I don't think it matters what it was or was not to the people who have been slaughtered.

TC

:cry:

on edit-- as someone notes elsewhere in this thread, slaughter is slaughter, and there is no justification for what the U.S. has done in Iraq, genocidal or not.

I think people on DU think that calling it "genocide" makes it worse. The U.S. is responsible for mass murder and ultimately hundreds of thousands of deaths - isn't that bad enough on its own? Just because it doesn't techinically meet the definition of genocide doesn't mean it's acceptable or somehow less heinous.

Edit: Apparently this post makes you a holocaust denier. :eyes:

;(

Genocide doesn't mean "a lot".

Spreading Depleted Uranium all over their country is a war crime, and genocide considering it will continue to kill and maim Iraqis for years to come.

the united states committed genocide the first time around in iraq...

i wish more people knew about the dangers of the dust and shrapnel from depleted uranium, but once again the countries ignorance and self indulgence stands in the way of truth.

i dare say if u said the phrase 'depleted uranium' to someone on the street theyd have no clue what you were talking about. "isnt that an element or something" ... i can already hear the reply

There's a YouTube video called "Beyond Treason" on the effects of depleted uranium posted in the Political Videos forum.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x58790

You could spread it around and help keep the thread bumped.

We have plenty of words to describe the situation in Iraq without blurring the meaning of an important concept...

According to the definition of genocide, the U.S. is not committing genocide. In that they are not:

http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/gendef.htm

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.

Although the massacre of Armenians by the Turks during World War I, the destruction of the intelligentsia and others by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia during 1975-1978, and the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s share some elements with the Nazi genocidal program, there are also important differences that call into question whether they meet the criteria specified by Article II of the UNCG.
==============================
Unless one wants to extrapolate that killing, serious bodily injury, etc to any group is genocide.

Under the definitions of genocide, Pol Pot and the murderers, didn't commit "genocide".

So, is the U.S. committing "genocide" in Iraq? No. Mass murder? Yes.

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy.” - Gandhi

The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/genocide

the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.

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

Genocide is distinguishable from all other crimes by the motivation behind it. Towards the end of the Second World War, when the full horror of the extermination and concentration camps became public knowledge, Winston Churchill stated that the world was being brought face to face with 'a crime that has no name.' History was of little use in finding a recognised word to fit the nature of the crime that Nazi Germany, a modern, industrialised state, had engaged in. There simply were no precedents in regard to either the nature or the degree of the crime. Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-born adviser to the United Staes War Ministry, saw that the world was being confronted with a totally unprecedented phenomena and that 'new conceptions require new terminology.' In his book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, published in 1944, he coined the word 'genocide', constructed, in contradiction to the accepted rules of etymology, from the Greek 'genos' (race or tribe) and the Latin suffix 'cide' (to kill). According to Lemkin, genocide signifies 'the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group' and implies the existence of a coordinated plan, aimed at total extermination, to be put into effect against individuals chosen as victims purely, simply and exclusively because they are members of the target group.

snip:
The term genocide has progressively lost its initial meaning and is becoming dangerously commonplace. In order to shock people and gain their attention to contemporary situations of violence or injustice by making comparisons with murder on the greatest scale known in this centyr, 'genocide' has been used as synonymous with massacre, oppression and repression, overlooking that what lies behind the image it evokes is the attempted annihilation of the entire Jewish race. Further trivialization has resulted from the over-use of the term 'Holocaust,' first popularised on a wide scale in the 1970s by the American television series with that title. The original context is of course religious and means, literally, 'a ritual sacrifice wholly consumed by fire.' The use of this term has a twofold effect, both mystifying and spectacular, which distorts and denies reality.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/rwanda/reports/dsetexhe.html

In answer to your question...no. While horrendous as it is, genocide it is not.

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. "

http://www.preventgenocide.org/genocide/officialtext.htm

I claim that we intended to destroy the group of people that constituted the nation of Iraq and did so using methods (a) (b) (c) defined in article II, and that those responsible have committed all the acts punishable under Article III.

but as horrible as it is, IMO, it's not genocide.

But that nincompoop might end up doing it by accident...

I think you would be on safer grounds if you asked it was "aggressive war" imho...

And that fits the definition of genocide.

"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. "

it seems to be deliberate and intentional to destroy Iraq in whatever means it takes, whether it is immediate slaughter, or the effects of DU for next generations, or the effects of 'structual adjustments' and corporatizing the country, eg. GM seeds.

I think some people have a problem with the word because the Means of genociding has certainly changed in the last few decades.

But that doesn't change how it's defined, does it?

:shrug:

Homocide hasn't changed much at all - usually the same old. gun, knife, strangulation, etc.

killing vast amounts of people certainly has changed.

Flip through this thread and see some very eloquent (and legally defined) definitions of genocide.

"Homocide hasn't changed much at all - usually the same old. gun, knife, strangulation, etc"

It doesn't make a difference how it's done - it's still homocide. Right? So, genocide as it has been defined is still genocide, regardless of the weapons used....and this isn't genocide.

sure smells like genocide to me.

Genocide is trying to intentionally wipe out an entire group. If America wanted to kill all Iraqi's our military could do that without ever setting foot in the country.

This does not take any of the responsibility for the deaths in Iraq off our shoulders. It just isn't "Genocide".

wmds and the spewing of lies. bush and all intended to kill a country. it's genocide.
It's not been so clear to me but just now, thanks to people arguing different.

Genocide would be intending to wipe every Iraqi or every kurd or every sunni or every shite off the face of the earth. Genocide is Darfur where Arab Muslims are trying to exterminate the non-arab Sudanese. Genocide is Rwanda where clearly the intention was to kill ALL the Tutsi down to the last child. Genocide was Germany trying to exterminate every Jew on the planet.

Yes Iraq is horrible and we should not be there. Yes Iraq is criminal and those responsible should be punished. But it is not Genocide. Genocide is a very specific term.

Now, "pacification", there's a word for ya. Oh, sure, it means killing every able-bodied potential opponent, but it sounds like spreading hearts and flowers.

but it makes our presence there sound a lot worse if we use the term.

No, America is not committing genocide in Iraq.

Seems that we're spreading misery and death indiscriminately across the spectrum of the Iraqi people.

You don't see us bombing Filipinos, Icelanders, or the Dutch.

what about Christian Iraqis? Are we bombing them? What about the Iraqi government? Hey, what about the Sunni and the Shiites? Don't they hate each other? Aren't they wanting to wipe each other out because of religion?

When someone's got their mind set, not much will change their mind.

Was that supposed to help your argument?

otherwise he committed rhetorical suicide.

But it's your coloring book so make the sky any color, and define legal terms any way you want.

At least according to international law.

Our military is not over there hunting down and slaughtering every single Iraqi man, woman, and child. THAT would be genocide. If you think that's what we're doing over there, you're a kook, plain and simple.

For crying out loud, our troops (believe it or not, like it or not) are taking extra precautions NOT to even HARM civilians (and don't think that citing incidents like Haditha will help your argument). The Iraq government and security forces are our freaking allies! Genocide would entail carpet bombing ALL of them. Unless "armed insurgent" is a legitimate race, the war in Iraq is not genocide.

It would serve you well to pick up an encyclopedia and stop cheapening actual historical instances of genocide with your bullshit.

By the actual legal definition, not by your made up one.

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. "

http://www.preventgenocide.org/genocide/officialtext.ht...

I claim that we intended to destroy the group of people that constituted the nation of Iraq and did so using methods (a) (b) (c) defined in article II, and that those responsible have committed all the acts punishable under Article III.

If the intention is instead, for example, to seize some disputed territory, that would not be genocide. I contend, as do others, that one of the objectives of the War Party in Iraq was in fact to destroy the Iraqi nation and people, and that is in fact genocide.

and Japanese in WWII. Sure killed more of them than Iraqis and killed them directly and intentionally, not "created the conditions under which" or "did not protect".

If it is genocide in Iraq, then maybe every war involves genocide, it you define it the right way.

In both cases while we eliminated the existing political regimes, we quickly re-established a functional national government rebuilt using the existing low level bureaucracy. We took control of and protected the physical infrastructure not destroyed by combat, and quickly rebuilt that which was. Nor did we set out in our occupation to create sectarian strife and destroy national identity, deliberately destabilizing the internal social order pitting one ethnic group against another. We certainly committed war crimes in Dresden, in Hiroshima, and in Nagasaki, but not genocide.

We destroyed Germany and Japan A LOT worse than we did Iraq. Our country's goal was never to destroy Iraq, just the Hussein regime. In the 40's, we were at war with the people of Germany and Japan and we INTENTIONALLY slaughtered tons of them. WWII will be genocide before the Iraq War ever will.

an entire race or ethnic group or some select segment of the population.

We never wanted to "wipe out" the Germans, or the Japanese. We wanted them to surrender and give up their imperialism.

Our intent now is not to wipe out the Iraqi people.

It seems the goalposts have shifted for some people. Genocide ain't what it used to be.

That is an odd statement as we spent the 12 years prior to the war destroying Iraq's infrastructure and causing an excess 2,000,000 deaths through our embargo, and then having eliminated the baath regime, proceeded to encourage and stand back and watch the further destruction of what was left of the physical infrastructure while disbanding the entire civil service, dismissing en masse the military, and proceeding to deliberately pit ethnic groups against each other. We, as has been amply documented, did everything we could think of to eradicate Iraq as a nation right at the start of our occupation. Had we merely wanted to eliminate the Hussein regime, that could have been accomplished, as has been recently re-confirmed, by simply allowing Hussein et al to depart into exile peacefully. That was never our goal. Our goal (still never publicly stated) has always been to balkanize and dominate mesopotamia and persia, to destory the nations of Iran, Iraq, and Syria, and in doing so use our permanent military occupation force to dominate the region and control its vast oil resources as we enter the peak oil crisis.

Our military conquest of Japan and Germany were certainly more destructive. But that is not what genocide is about. In this case, as per the legal definition I have posted here several times, it is about our efforts to eliminate Iraq as a nation, to end the national goup: 'Iraqis', and that policy fits the definition of the crime.

Am I joking? no I am not.

It's the complicity in the ethnic cleansing. It's the illegal invasion that allowed such ethnic cleansing to start in the first place -- and yes, such things WERE warned about before the invasion.

You summed it up well. We shouldn't allow complexity- and this isn't actualy all that complex- to dumb us down.

The U.S., by invading Iraq is responsible for the ensuing ethnic cleaning and genocide, because we unleashed it. And you're right about the ample warnings of it coming to pass.

At the heart of genocide is the intention to eliminate a people and it is a crime against humanity... There are different levels of crime and one of the elements is motive...There is no motive to eliminate the Iraqi people... It's the difference bewteen first degree muder (premeditated murder) and second degree murder (voluntary manslaughter)... If Mr. X kills Mr. Y because he was paid to do it that's first degree murder...If Mr.X comes home and finds Mr. Y in bed with his wife and shoots him that's second degree murder or voluntary manslaughter...

The Iraqi people are suffering tremendously because of Bush*'s malfeasance which might rise to the level of "aggressive war" but it's not genocide; for lack of a motive...

If it were genocide, the civilian deaths would be even more than they are.

When Hitler tried to make Germany and the conquered nations judenrein he was practicing genocide...

When China invade Viet Nam in 1979 they were waging aggressive war...

When Milosevic was killing and intentionally relocating Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo to make the area free of Muslims he was practicing genocide...

If you want to accuse America of genocide you might be on safer intellectual grounds by pointing to the destruction of the America Indian...

Not by how I understand the definition of the word.

But between the days of sanctions and the wars, the loss of life for the Iraqi people has been beyond horrible. I forgot how many thousands of deaths--mostly children if I recall, resulted as the results of sanctions against the Iraqi government under Hussein. And then the waste of air in charge and the disgusting war profiteers called his administration create a war ensuring many, many more deaths and additions to human suffering.

As a matter of law it does though...

Have you?

It is about the intent behind the deaths. America is waging what I believe to be an illegal occupation of Iraq and plenty of war crimes have been committed. Genocide is not one of them.

We did however, open Pandora's box and released genocide into Iraq via Iraqi extremists. No, America isnot committing Genocide but they created a situation allowing Iraqis to commit genocide.

The number of people killed by either Americans or Iraqis is relatively small compared to the increased death rate caused by the destruction of the infrastructure (I think; I haven't actually checked this, but given that the Lancet claimed a total death toll of 650,000 it seems pretty certain).

It's less clear who to blame that on than it is with people who've actually been shot or blown up.

Probably "the Americans" is closer, though, given that the infrastructure was there until they invaded.

and then question whether it's genocide? Of course, it's genocide, and I can't imagine how anyone other than a racist would think otherwise.

:eyes:

A lot of people have died because of bush's war. It's horrific and unacceptable, but it is not genocide.

Murder, homicide, war, etc do not equal Genocide. Genocide is a very specific thing. America is not trying to kill off all Iraqi's. Trust me, if that were the goal, alot more would be death.

This does not mean we as Americans are not responsible for mass amounts of deaths in Iraq. It simply isn't genocide, no matter how much people like to throw around the word.

deaths are are acceptable? And I suggest you check upthread where I posted an OpEd about it, by Samantha Powers.

Here's my take: The U.S. invaded Iraq because of oil. In the pursuit of securing oil, bushco sought to remake the Middle East. Intentionally wiping out the Iraqis was not a goal, though the stunning disregard for the lives of Iraqis, is clearly damning in and of itself. Bombings and battles such as Fallujah have killed many. I see that as murder engendered by an aggressive and illegal war.

Having invaded, the U.S. totally shredded the prevailing social order, and unleashed ethnic cleansing and genocide. The U.S. is clearly responsible for this taking place.

That hardly makes me a racist. And it's fucking iudicrous to call Samantha Powers a racist.

By the way, I'm not calling anyone in particular a racist. But that is my best guess for why 1 million lives lost could be viewed as anything but genocide.

You are entitled to your opinion, but not your own facts, and you can't have a different "opinion" than the dictionary about what genocide means. It doesn't really matter if "according to you" mass murder is the same thing as genocide - both the dictionary definition and international law disagrees, so I'd say that's pretty concrete evidence that your opinion is wrong.

Not knowing anything about anybody here, you make that call based on an over-simplification on your part of a highly complex issue.

Wow. there's a terrific future waiting for you with the GOP, thattaway....

She implied that the poster implied that anybody who disagreed with him was racist...

Sounds like a strawman argument but she didn't call anybody racist...

My problem is my desire to use words precisely...

the comment. She was pretty clearly calling people who don't label U.S. actions as genocide, racists.

" Numbers don't lie. Why is it acceptable to kill 1million Iraqis and then question whether it's genocide? Of course, it's genocide, and I can't imagine how anyone other than a racist would think otherwise. "

-Truth Hurts A Lot


"Okay, so we're racists now .A lot of people have died because of bush's war. It's horrific and unacceptable, but it is not genocide. "

-cytanite


The logical inference is that cytanite is saying Truth Hurts A Lot is implying or inferring that those who refuse to label our actions in Iraq as genocide are racists, hence the comment, "Okay, so we're all racists now."

I hold you in very high regard because of your embrace of logic and truth , which to me trumps everything... I ask that you look at the two quotes again...

I don't see how a person can logically infer otherwise...

eom

It's just my opinion... at the end of the day.

who don't agree with you are racists. And you might try more fully reading some of DSB's posts.

But genocide has certain elements , the most salient one being the desire to eliminate a people...There's no evidence Bush* wants to eliminate the Iraqi people...

Another element of genocide is forced relocation...There's no evidence Bush* is intentionally relocating the Iraqi people...

Another element is the removal of children from their parent to inculcate them in another culture...There's no evidence Bush* is intentionally doing that...

It's messed up beyond comprehension but calling it what it is not doesn't help the debate...

we read the wonderful line, "No man can judge his own case." In regard to genocide, it may be that no country can judge its own policy, especially when it is on-going. However, we can certainly see that the level of violence and the number of deaths that the Bush-Cheney war is causing is immoral and unjust, and we must demand our leaders stop this insane policy. Then, we can accept that others will be in a position to judge if it was genocide.

by crossing it with the "is rape terrorism?" question. We could have the mother of all flamewars.

It's a massacre of that I'm sure. However, I don't think they invaded and subsuquently occupied Iraq with the intention of destroying the majority of the Iraqi people.

I don't believe that means there's any real concern over the ones who have lost their lives due to this invasion. The massacre of the people and the destruction of their country was all necessary in the eyes of those in power. All brought on by the Iraqi resistance to the U.S. occupation.

I could be wrong, but that is what I think that history will expose. That they realized the amount of Iraqi deaths they were causing and simply reasoned them away.

The hell that has been forced on the people of Iraq should be criminal. If it's not, it surely is at the least morally reprehensible.

which is what this is all about. If you wipe out an entire country's population then the oil fields stop running and no profit is to be had. The world also wouldn't allow the US to simply occupy the land and take over the infrastructure if the population was wiped out. So it's in the US interest to keep a working government there and a functioning oil industry no matter what the cost of lives, be it Iraqi citizens or US soldiers.

The Iraqi oil workers union is putting up a fight and I'm sure they could all be replaced with low-wage refugees from some other killing field.

by the legal definition as I posted earlier what we are doing is genocide.

Just asserting it isn't enough. And find experts in law/genocide who agree with you.

I can tell you right now that Samantha Powers doesn't think that the U.S. is committing genocide in Iraq- althought she's harshly critical of both the invasion and occupation and advocates getting out now. And she does believe that ethnic cleansing and genocide is ongoing and that the U.S. enabled it by invading.

It's not like we did it on accident.

And then there's the ethnic scapegoating.

evidence? experts? Oh, never mind.

Are you going to deny the 1.2 million dead too?

than you have to be. I don't know whether it's 800,000 or 1.4 million.
But you've already had it explained to you, that the tragic number of dead is not res ipsa loqiter when it comes to asserting the U.S. has committed genocide.
.

Answer: HELL No!

And ethnic cleansing certainly happened not too long ago in Europe. No doubt the scale wasn't as tragic and it wasn't made possible by a war of aggression, but it certainly happened.

The initial occupation regime deliberately encouraged the destruction of essential infrastructure, government offices, etc. ensuring that the nation of Iraq would collapse and become wholly dependent on the occupation authorities. Since then we have done everything we could think of to make sure that ethnic differences were enhanced, playing sunni against shia against kurd, while at the same time laying siege to entire cities, deploying banned weapons against urban populations, causing casualties that now number over 1,000,000 in a nation of 26,000,000, encouraging the ethnic cleansing of vast sections of Baghdad, and creating a massive refugee crisis. All of this after 12 years of a brutal economic embargo that resulted in a prior estimated 2,000,000 excess deaths.

but you need experts to help you wrap your head around the enormity of what we are doing. Fair enough:

"Juan Mendez, Kofi Annan's special advisor on the prevention of genocide, told TIME that the targeting of minorities based solely on religion in Iraq, the extent of the violence there, the lack of central control, and the fact that Iraq has already experienced genocide, "constitute warning signs that we take very seriously." He stressed that those warning signs can be present in conflicts and never rise to the level of genocide, but that his office is watching the situation closely. If the situation in Iraq did deteriorate, Mendez said, "I would not hesitate to request armed troops to protect people" but, he added, it would have to be in a "different configuration" than what is there now.

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.""

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

Google is available to you too I think.

Mendez back up your argument? Nor does callous neglect at the very beginning of the occupation, re looting, provide evidence of genocide committed by the U.S. Again the U.S. created the environment for ethnic cleansing and genocide by waging an illegal war of agression, but that isn't the same thing as saying that the U.S. is committing genocide. And I'm not claiming that what the U.S. has done, and continues to do in Iraq, isn't every bit as grave a travesty as genocide.

Too bad you don't understand the experts you quote, who are saying roughly the same thing as Powers.

"Again the U.S. created the environment for ethnic cleansing and genocide by waging an illegal war of agression, but that isn't the same thing as saying that the U.S. is committing genocide."

You're saying there's genocide in Iraq but it's the Iraqis who are the ones doing it?

Savory Jesus on the pommel horse!

on? The bodies turning up execution style? The testimony of thousands of Iraqis? The kidnappings of Iraqis? The car bombs in marketplaces and Mosques? Oh don't tell me, it's the American forces doing all that and paying off the thousands of Iraqis to falsely accuse other Iraqis.

And lest you try and twist my words again, having already accused me of being a genocide denier on a par with Ahmadinejad (who you now conveniently call a Holocaust denier, where previously you argued to the contrary), let me state clearly that I consider the bombing by Americans to be a war crime, as well as the entire war of aggression.

Sling some omore idiot bullshit. Let's see what you got.

Google it.

a bit more thoroughly than googling "special operations". And having done so, I didn't find compelling evidence that the U.S. has conducted ethnic cleansing.

As I said, the entire enterprise on the part of the U.S. is, in my opinion, a war crime, but evidence of genocide? Not so much.

of the Iraq War."

Special ops troops seemingly have been everywhere in Iraq. They were there months before the war and are still there nearly a year later. Green Berets waged the famous "hearts and minds" campaigns with locals in the north and south while garnering valuable intelligence.

Rangers searched towns for arms caches, SEALs cleared mines from rivers and harbors and Air Force combat controllers parachuted into hostile territory to call in air strikes. In Baghdad, super-secret Delta teams and CIA operatives hunted Hussein regime officials.

The mission to capture Saddam himself, called Operation Red Dawn, was planned and carried out by Task Force 121--a team of CIA paramilitary forces and "black," or unacknowledged, special ops troops--and about 600 GIs from the 1st Bde., 4th Inf. Div.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0LIY/is_5_91/ai_113304758

Read and learn.

you're making. Literally nothing.

It's your thread.

expert on international law and genocide. We're all playing possum.

Where have I heard that before.

or get ANY MSM generated info, to claim that the U.N. and experts like Powers are on a par with CNN, is beyond silly.

There are no links in your OP.

How to stop genocide in Iraq

Offering the carrot of U.S. withdrawal may be the best way to end ethnic cleansing in Iraq.
By Samantha Power, SAMANTHA POWER, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning " 'A Problem From Hell': America and the Age of Genocide."
March 5, 2007
THOSE WHO SUPPORT remaining in Iraq increasingly can be heard invoking the specter of genocide as grounds for staying. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned that, if U.S. troops leave, "You'll see a bloodletting in Baghdad that makes Srebrenica look like a Sunday school picnic."

Some defenders of President Bush's approach, having backed the Iraq war from the start, have now settled on genocide warnings after each of their original justifications for being in Iraq — weapons of mass destruction, terrorism prevention, energy diversification, regional stabilization and democracy promotion — has crumbled one by one.

Other proponents of remaining in Iraq are not, in fact, looking to redeem their own faulty judgment. They are genuinely frightened that, as ferocious as the civil war there has become, a U.S. withdrawal could unleash an all-out slaughter. With increasing numbers of civilian corpses piling up every day, they have reason to worry.

Although critics of withdrawal do a masterful job of painting a grim picture of the apocalypse that awaits, they offer no account of how U.S. forces in Iraq will do more than preserve a status quo that is already deteriorating into wholesale ethnic cleansing. Although more than 115,000 U.S. troops have been in Iraq for the last four years, about 3.8 million Iraqis have fled their homes and at least 50,000 Iraqis are fleeing each month. It would be nice to think the surge of troops to Baghdad would help to staunch the flow. But with only one-third of the new troops on duty at any given time in a city of 6 million people, they will have no more success deterring the militias intent on carving out homogeneous Shiite or Sunni neighborhoods than U.S. forces have had to date. About 74% of Shiites polled and 91% of Sunnis — the people who have the most to fear from genocide — would like to see U.S. forces gone by the end of the year.


<snip>

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

Did you happen to read the article?

first you claim that there is no ethnic cleansing in Iraq; that it's all American forces blowing up marketplaces and mosques and committing other atrocities. Then you seem to agree with Powers that Iraqis are committing the ethnic cleansing. You do realize that's what she's saying, right?

Yes, ethnic cleansing, or genocide, or systematic mass murder targeted at specific Iraqi populations -- whatever you want to call it -- is being conducted, and yes, by US forces. That's been manifestly obvious for years.

Any questions?

Not only that but every week or so some loose lipped officer comes out and says so.

at all. What's expressed by that officer is regret that civilians were/are killed. I'd argue that it demonstrates callous indifference, but that's not the same thing.

the U.S. is committing genocide.

Works for me just fine.

They have the firepower to kill most Iraqi's in a very little time. Why are they taking so long, and prolonging their own casualties?

suicide.

and I can't find a single CREDIBLE expert who does think that. So evidently there's a shitload of doubt about it. The U.S. created the environment for ethnic cleansing and genocide. And that's what many expert observers say.

YOUR WORDS


Then the U.S. is responsible for genocide in Iraq

throughout this thread. Responsible for is different from committed.

or you make shit up to fit your own pre-conceived world view. I prefer the former.

What possible motive would an Iraqi "suicide bomber" have for blowing up a freaking marketplace? Those bombs are planted by US forces during those little inspections we've gotten so fond of. Ditto all that "sectarian violence" -- pure horseshit for the CNN crowd.

Iraqis have testified to it repeatedly. You really know shit about the ethnic tensions and hatreds that have erupted.

And who is responsible for that?

committed. That doesn't make it any less terrible. Just different terrible. I don't know how to make it any simpler. If you don't get it, you just don't.

I understand exactly what is going on here and in Iraq

Genocide has a narrow specific definition, which what is going on in Iraq doesn't match. I'd call it mass murder. This does not mean that it is in any way any better or less horrific, just different.

Apples and oranges are both fruit, apples are apples, oranges are oranges, I like both for different reasons.
Genocide and mass murder are both terrible things. Genocide is genocide, mass murder mass murder, both are horrific.

which makes it genocide.

Or which specific ethnic population is the USA intending to destroy? Is the USA's purpose intending to destroy a group, or is that just what's happening? Intent matters when seeking to apply the specific definition of genocide.

Doesn't mean it is not as horrific, if the specific word can't be applied though.

Excerpt from the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of Genocide

"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. "

It is a crime to plan or incite genocide, even before killing starts, and to aid or abet genocide: Criminal acts include conspiracy, direct and public incitement, attempts to commit genocide, and complicity in genocide.

Punishable Acts The following are genocidal acts when committed as part of a policy to destroy a group’s existence:

Killing members of the group includes direct killing and actions causing death.

Causing serious bodily or mental harm includes inflicting trauma on members of the group through widespread torture, rape, sexual violence, forced or coerced use of drugs, and mutilation.

Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy a group includes the deliberate deprivation of resources needed for the group’s physical survival, such as clean water, food, clothing, shelter or medical services. Deprivation of the means to sustain life can be imposed through confiscation of harvests, blockade of foodstuffs, detention in camps, forcible relocation or expulsion into deserts.

Prevention of births includes involuntary sterilization, forced abortion, prohibition of marriage, and long-term separation of men and women intended to prevent procreation.

Forcible transfer of children may be imposed by direct force or by fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or other methods of coercion. The Convention on the Rights of the Child defines children as persons under the age of 18 years.

Genocidal acts need not kill or cause the death of members of a group. Causing serious bodily or mental harm, prevention of births and transfer of children are acts of genocide when committed as part of a policy to destroy a group’s existence.

The law protects four groups - national, ethnical, racial or religious groups.

A national group means a set of individuals whose identity is defined by a common country of nationality or national origin.

An ethnical group is a set of individuals whose identity is defined by common cultural traditions, language or heritage.

A racial group means a set of individuals whose identity is defined by physical characteristics.

A religious group is a set of individuals whose identity is defined by common religious creeds, beliefs, doctrines, practices, or rituals.

Key Terms

The crime of genocide has two elements: intent and action. “Intentional” means purposeful. Intent can be proven directly from statements or orders. But more often, it must be inferred from a systematic pattern of coordinated acts.

Intent is different from motive. Whatever may be the motive for the crime (land expropriation, national security, territorrial integrity, etc.), if the perpetrators commit acts intended to destroy a group, even part of a group, it is genocide.

The phrase "in whole or in part" is important. Perpetrators need not intend to destroy the entire group. Destruction of only part of a group (such as its educated members, or members living in one region) is also genocide. Most authorities require intent to destroy a substantial number of group members – mass murder. But an individual criminal may be guilty of genocide even if he kills only one person, so long as he knew he was participating in a larger plan to destroy the group.

in the course of taking over a country for its oil may not fit that definition. Better people than any of us here have argued all over the world about the definition in incidents. Sometimes it fits, other times it doesn't. Intention is the issue. Why is it the issue. And that is not understood at this time. I wish I were to live long enough to see 200-2008 covered in history books, but don't know if I'll make it.

then when I post the definition it becomes "a long and disputed definition"

So even if you dispute the definition, wouldn't you agree that according to the UN what we are doing there is Genocide.

(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;

I don't think anyone can argue that we haven't done that.

(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.

I don't think anyone can argue that we haven't done that yet either.

You posted the specific genocide definition. I am clarifying, and agreeing, that applying it has been disputed since sometimes, many times, whether or not something falls within this definition or not is unclear, disputed. According to everything I've read, and it has been a fair bit, "intention" is usually the issue. Otherwise "killing members of a group" can be applied too widely.

If a police officer shoots a woman, whe is a member of a group of women. If he does it to another, has he committed genocide? If the intention is to bring about the destruction of the group (your words above which I'm assuming comes from the UN thingy defining genocide, too lazy to look it up and double check here), then it can fall within the definition of genocide. If it is just a misogynistic jerk, then no.

What the USA is doing in Iraq is bad, very bad. Very very bad. But, looking at the language for defining genocide, I'm still watching to see intent proved. Edited to add, show me the intent is to kill the Iraqi people, not to control them and the oil, and I may change my mind.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5899465606048819131&q=killing+iraqis&total=865&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1


Also consider that Cheney knew exactly what would happen if we went in 13 years ago.http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1724548370876617758&q=cheney+94&total=19&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
I think knowing what was going to happen and choosing to do it anyway clearly shows intent.

I think you are confused here. I am not saying that everyone that has gotten killed in Iraq got killed by accident. Of course not. Of course military meant to kill a bunch. Rather like my example upthread to you about the cop killing a woman, on purpose. It is the greater intent. Is that the reason for the mission (god I hate those words, "the mission", still never been given a decent explanation of why we are there). Atrocities happen in wars, in occupations, but it doesn't make them genocide. It can. But atrocities are atrocious nevertheless regardless of "genocide" or mass murder. Let's look at mass murderers. They intend to kill their victims, who are part of a group of some sort. Are they committing genocide?

Irregardless (regardless?) of the definition, we should not be occupying Iraq. Atrocities happen during wars and occupations and this is a really big reason to never do such a thing because of all the bs nasty crap that happens.

State-icide. (I can't think of a Latin word for "state" or "country" in the sense of a political/geographical terrestial entity with defined borders, otherwise I would have attempted a more graceful neologism.)

What we have committed is the murder of an entire state, an entire once-sovereign country. It's not precisely "genocide", although it is a close corollary.

Anyway, I had to vote "other". It may not be "genocide" per se; however, an element of genocide definitely resides within the over-arching crime of "state-icide".

sw

"Patricide" from the Latin "patria" meaning nation or country... however, the notion of the state as a "father" or "fatherland" is evident in the similarity to "pater", from which the word patricide, meaning the killing of one's father, comes from.

How and why did the "state" become identified with the "father"? I would presume from the earliest human societal structures of clan and tribe, wherein blood ties defined group membership.

Yet the concept of a "state" as a political/geographical terrestial entity with defined borders is a far more recent construct than the concept of a "nation", which arises out of collective sense of identity through language, culture and shared beliefs and traditions.

I think that's why Latin can't offer us a more precise term, the relatively modern concept of "states" (as opposed to "nations") postdates the end of Latin as a living language.

sw

Iraq in truth is at least two, maybe three different nations forced to live together based on definitions of "statehood" imposed by a foreign entity. I don't really like Joe Biden but I think his idea of partitioning Iraq back into three national mini-states (or are they still functioning as one unified Iraq, but a tripartite system of government? I can't recall) is very astute and would solve a lot of problems.

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

Is Iraq Headed for Genocide?
Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2006 By MASSIMO CALABRESI/WASHINGTON Article ToolsPrintEmailSphereAddThisRSS President George W. Bush has continued to reject assertions that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war. But in the wake of his meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Amman, Jordan, to discuss the country's continuing sectarian violence, some human rights experts are worrying about a different, worse fate for Iraq: genocide.


Juan Mendez, Kofi Annan's special advisor on the prevention of genocide, told TIME that the targeting of minorities based solely on religion in Iraq, the extent of the violence there, the lack of central control, and the fact that Iraq has already experienced genocide, "constitute warning signs that we take very seriously." He stressed that those warning signs can be present in conflicts and never rise to the level of genocide, but that his office is watching the situation closely. If the situation in Iraq did deteriorate, Mendez said, "I would not hesitate to request armed troops to protect people" but, he added, it would have to be in a "different configuration" than what is there now.

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."

Though the term conjures up thoughts of enormous numbers of civilian dead, the quantity of victims is not the warning sign experts look for when considering the danger of genocide. Samantha Power, a professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, says with Shi'ite and Sunni sub-groups already identifying and killing victims solely on the basis of their religious identity, "genocidal intent" is already present in Iraq. "When you drive up to a checkpoint and you're stopped and somebody pulls out your ID and determines whether you're a Sunni or a Shiite and takes you away and kills you because of that, there is a genocidal mentality afoot." The question, Power says, is how broadly that mentality will spread. Iraq has already seen one genocide in recent decades: Saddam Hussein stands accused of attempting to exterminate Kurds, the third largest group in the country.

While Power and Stanton both see a mounting danger of widespread genocide in Iraq, there is certainly not consensus on the threat. Other human rights organizations, like the Committee on Conscience at the U.S. Holocaust Museum and the International Crisis Group, do not see the conditions for genocide developing. Human Rights Watch, which is particularly restrictive in what it calls genocide, says it believes Iraq is not headed in that direction. Joost Hiltermann, who covers Iraq for the International Crisis Group, says that the biggest impediment to full-blown genocide is the fact that there are divisions between Shi'ite factions, which prevent them from uniting in a nationwide persecution of Sunnis

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/113005.html

Bush in Iraq, Slouching Toward Genocide

Bush in Iraq, Slouching Toward Genocide
By Robert Parry
December 1, 2005


Despite pretty words about democracy and freedom, George W. Bush’s “victory” plan in Iraq is starting to look increasingly like an invitation to genocide, the systematic destruction of the Sunni minority for resisting its U.S.-induced transformation from the nation’s ruling elite into second-class citizenship.

The Sunnis, an Islamic sect that makes up about 35 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people, are being confronted with a stark choice, either accept subordination to the less-educated Shiite majority or face the devastation of Sunni neighborhoods, the imprisonment of many Sunni males and the deaths of large numbers of the Sunni population.

In referring to this possibility, many in Washington object to the word “genocide” – which is defined in international law as the destruction of “in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” – but already there are troubling signs that Iraq’s incipient civil war could slide into something close to that.

Retaliating against Sunni bombings and other attacks on Shiite targets over the past two years, Iraq’s Shiite-controlled security forces have begun rounding up, torturing and executing Sunni men.

“Hundreds of accounts of killings and abductions have emerged in recent weeks, most of them brought forward by Sunni civilians, who claim that their relatives have been taken away by Iraqi men in uniform without warrant or explanation,” New York Times correspondent Dexter Filkins reported from Baghdad.

“Some Sunni males have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills,” Filkins wrote. “Many have simply vanished.”

In November, a secret bunker – where Sunni captives were mistreated and apparently tortured – was discovered in an Interior Ministry building in Baghdad. The Shiite-dominated government has denied responsibility for the abuses and the murders.

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

Iraq: The Genocide Option

By Edward Herman

It was claimed early in 2005 that the United States was considering resort to what has been called the "Salvadoran Option" in Iraq, in which, as had been done in El Salvador in the 1980s, U.S. Special Forces would train paramilitary squads to hunt down and assassinate rebel leaders and their supporters. <1> A year earlier, it was reported that a sizable fund had been appropriated for the creation of an exile-based paramilitary unit for Iraq, and that the money would more broadly "support U.S. efforts to create a lethal, and revengeful Iraqi security force." It was expected that this would lead to "a wave of extrajudicial killings" of armed rebels, but also of "nationalists, other opponents of the U.S. occupation and thousands of civilian Baathists." <2>

The rise of the death rate in Iraq, and the evidence of large-scale assassinations and slaughters frequently carried out by uniformed men, suggests that the Salvadoran option was put in place and that it has done its work well even if failing to bring victory to the Shiite leaders and militias and their sponsors.

However, along with the Salvadoran option the U.S. military had also stepped up its own activities in one of a series of "surges," among them the assault on Fallujah in November 2004, and using the Fallujah model, with the application of massive firepower in Sunni-dominated areas, much of it from the air, moving from town to town, in an effort to kill Sunni resistance fighters and render their home bases unusable. Because of the lavish use of firepower and limited concern with Iraqi civilian casualties, this process is very costly to civilians in the area of attack. Civilians also suffer from the fact that the invading troops not only don't speak their language, but become extra hostile as they suffer casualties from a resistance that lives among the local population. This results in greater ruthlessness and increasing numbers of cases of literal direct mass murder as in Haditha. <3>

This is reminiscent of U.S. policy during the Vietnam war, where torture and multiple Haditha-type massacres, enormous firepower, napalm, B-52 bombing raids, and chemical warfare applied to jungles and peasant farms, ravaged the country, leaving much of it a wasteland, killing several million civilians, and leaving a heritage of traumatized, injured and chemically damaged people as well.

It is important to understand that the most violent warfare, including My Lai and its many many look-alikes, as well as the use of napalm and dioxin-based herbicides, was applied in the southern part of the country, which the United States was allegedly "protecting" from an invasion from the north. The methods of warfare themselves demonstrated that the alleged protection and "saving" was a lie, but it should be recognized that the reason these horrors could be applied more lavishly in the south rather than the north is that the south was controlled by the U.S. occupation and its puppet government, so that, unlike North Vietnam, the terrible violence wrought against the southern peasantry could be relatively hidden and kept from public and international scrutiny.

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_25218.shtml


US Genocide in Iraq
By Dr Ian Douglas
Sep 9, 2007, 18:32




Forthcoming in Christian Sherrer, Comparative Genocide Studies, Hiroshima Peace Institute, 2007. (Pdf version available )

With the cooperation of Hana Al Bayaty and Abdul Ilah Albayaty


Abstract:



The United States has committed and sponsored the crime of genocide in Iraq. Outlining the legal meaning of genocide and following Jean-Paul Sartre’s analysis of the nature of colonial war, this paper asserts that on the basis of patterns of purposive action a case for intentional genocide can and should be made under the provisions of the Genocide Convention. While the United States has destroyed the state of Iraq, contaminating its environment and creating conditions of mass societal trauma, including the killing of 2,500,000 over 17 years, it has failed and cannot succeed to destroy the nation of Iraq. Being the lynchpin of US attempts to pursue empire by military means, it is the duty of all who struggle for justice to oppose the US genocide wrought on Iraq, move to ensure the prosecution of all those responsible and complicit, and stand firm in solidarity with the Iraqi people and its legal and legitimate resistance.





1. Summary

2. Introduction

3. Definitions

a) What is genocide?

b) What is intent?

4. Beyond law

a) The genocidal logic of neo-colonial war

b) Genocide by occupation

5. The destruction of the Iraqi state and national identity

a) The strategic context for genocide

i. Asserting US geopolitical, global hegemony

ii. US policy aimed to break Arab unity

iii. The US national emergency and corporate interests

iv. A unified strategy of genocide

b) Implementing genocide in Iraq

i. Destroying Iraq physically and permanently

ii. Substituting the Iraqi state and nation

iii. Resistance to genocide

6. Interpreting genocide in Iraq

7. Conclusion

8. Appendix



Does anyone believe there is

another way to steal a country?

— Eduardo Galeano





1. Summary

— The United States has committed and sponsored the crime of genocide in Iraq.

— Responsibility for genocide rests on specific intent and given or probable consequences of actions. The 2003 US invasion of Iraq was the culmination and intensification of a consistent US policy, spanning over 17 years, of destroying Iraq as a national and state entity.

— The United States attempted and succeeded to destroy the state of Iraq, but has failed and cannot succeed in its attempt to destroy the nation of Iraq.

— The Iraqi people have the legal right to resist occupation, colonialism and genocide by all available means, including armed struggle.

— The national popular resistance in Iraq is combating genocide directly where international law as a preventative and protective mechanism has failed.

— In defence of civilisation, people the world over should rise up in support of the national liberation struggle of the Iraqi people.

— In defence of international law, jurists and law associations should work to bring the charge of genocide against the United States, its leaders and its allies.

— The world must criminalise all forms of war. Defensive wars would not be necessary in the absence of wars of aggression.

http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog/2007/09/iraq-genocide-silence-is-complicity.htm

Finally and most importantly, the results of a new ORB poll have been released last Friday. This study suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age).

The results of this ORB poll are consistent with the results of a study published last year in the British medical journal the Lancet. That study – ignored and discredited by Washington and London and their propaganda spread in many Western mainstream media - estimated 655,000 excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war.

There are now three serious scientific studies on mortality in invaded and occupied Iraq showing the ugly truth that too many actors have been successfully working to hide. That ugly truth has a name: GENOCIDE.

Taking note of the fact that nearly 2 million German civilians died during the war.

We were fighting the German Armed Forces. The Germans killed far more people than we did. They were committing genocide. Bush has acted like a Nazi in that he has destroyed another nations army, invaded and occupied their land, and continues to kill innocent civilians. I do not blame our solders I blame their fascist leader.