Is the war in Iraq Genocide?

[stark6935]

Please don't flame me. I just was wondering if under the definition set forth by the UN is it? http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/p_genoci.htm

[arcadian]

1. Yes.

n/t

[rug]

2. Yes.

[polly7]

3. yes

[FtWayneBlue]

4. Yes. n/t

[Pastiche423]

5. Yes

[Selatius]

6. I don't believe it can be proved the US gov't was aiming to destroy an entire ethnic group.

The US government didn't kill Iraqis simply because they were Iraqis but because they actively resisted the presence of the US. During the Second World War, it was shown that, for example, Jews were targeted for extermination simply because of being Jews. The Rwandan Genocide is another example of a group of people being targeted for extermination for who they were.

However, it can be approached in an alternative route. The Nuremberg Indictments generally fall into 4 categories, for example:

1) Conspiracy to start aggressive war ("crimes against the peace")
2) Waging an aggressive war
3) War crimes (executing/torturing prisoners of war, denying them care, etc)
4) Crimes against humanity (executing/torturing civilians, targeting civilians/civilian infrastructure, etc.)

These were charges levied against high ranking officers and leaders of the 3rd Reich. Punishments ranged from jail time to the death penalty by hanging.

By my reckoning, members of the current government are guilty of some or even all of these charges.

You have a stronger case for prosecuting members of the US gov't for conspiring to commit crimes against the peace, which is considered the ultimate offense because all other offenses would follow from that.

[stark6935]

15. Here is the part I find to be the most damning

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 says all, or part of a national group... ie Iraqis. We are there for no reason, (maybe oil) but still we are allowed to kill who we want when we want there.

[Selatius]

17. The problem is the US is there under a UN mandate. The US isn't there with no legal cover.

The question that haunts me is how do I differentiate a killing as a happenstance of prosecuting a war vs. a killing because that person simply was a member of a particular group. Are all wars of occupation by definition genocide?

As an occupying power, the US would fall under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Failure to follow it would be considered a war crime.

In my mind, you could say the US is guilty of violating the 4th Geneva Convention. The definition of that is a lot more precise.

[stark6935]

7. I am wondering if any of you could give me

specific examples as to why it would be considered so? I have had an argument saying it is in fact genocide. Thank you.

[Idealism]

8. Let me break it down for you:

Morally, ethically, and unequivocally: Yes.

Ethnic cleansing is just such a nice sounding synonym, isn't it?

[roody]

9. Yes. It is not a war. It is an occupation.

[stark6935]

10. I was called an idiot for labeling it Genocide.

I believe when we invade a country, kill a million of their people, and for what reason? That is genocide. I understand that some of the people we killed were terrorists, but really how many of them were? Would we not defend our country if someone invaded?

[Idealism]

12. Explanations:

-When the number of civilian deaths outnumbers that of enemy soldiers, let alone 'terrorists', it is undeniably genocide.

-When the mere occupation in the region heightens religious extremists and encourages violence among two sects of society in said region, and that this violence leads itself to millions more deaths, it is undeniably genocide.

-When we have mercenaries-for-hire gutting entire cities in the beginning of said occupation, but fails to get reported because it is part of the unaccounted for 'shadow war'- guess what: its still genocide

[Swamp Rat]

11. Yes

[bdamomma]

13. yes it is.

we invaded that country.

[sam sarrha]

14. we re just facilitating people bent on their own genocidal convictions to begin with

[Idealism]

16. sorry sam, i dissagree

these people want to be left alone, to govern autonomously their own regions. they just want freedom of religion, for the most part, but yes there are some fringe clerics who spread the same kind of hate that Fox facilitates here. But think about this, there weren't over a million dead Shia or Sunni laying in the ruins of what used to be villages before we invaded.

[sam sarrha]

20. I meant that 'our being there' facilitates genocide.. neighborhoods in iraq were mixed before we got

i dont think genocide is inherent to Islam... but there is definitely a back door to several hells in the Koran. people can decide to "Intemperate" them out of their practice wishing they weren't there, but that doesn't eliminate them. we are not necessarily being actively genocidal, but a catalyst to genocide by creating power vacuums, and power pressures, simply because we are occupying Infidels. which justifies the worst behavior imaginable

our involvement in the South American Cone under Reagan/etc imposing dictators and Milton Friedman economics there, was declared Genocide by the UN.. this might also deserve that distinction.

it started out with megalomaniacs having access to the military, again, to impose their Episodic Machiavellian delusions of reality on 3rd world countries.. sort of a mass blood sacrifice to bring about their Utopia for the good of all those they are slaughtering

[stark6935]

18. nt

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1481604

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/seemslikeadream/255

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x39382

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1658272

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x395284

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2375891

[stark6935]

19. I believe

in the years to come. We will see that the war has a lot of genocide to it. When we declare a city of 350,000 a free fire zone that wreaks of eradication to me.

[stark6935]

21. Smells bad to me...

"Fallujah was declared a ‘free-fire zone' in November 2004 and we told the civilian population that they had to leave because the entire city was going to be deemed hostile territory," explains Zollie Goodman, a former U.S. Navy petty officer who served in Fallujah and doesn't know Nazario. "Some of them left. They carried TVs or food and sat outside the city and waited for the firefight to be over so they could go home."

But, Goodman said, "some of them didn't leave," leading to many innocent civilian casualties.

"We would just leave the dead Iraqis in the streets and they piled up," Goodman said. "It was disgusting. We ended up sighting in our weapons on these dead bodies. We'd been trained to keep our weapons 'on point.' You always want your weapon to be sighted in. So when we didn't have a target to shoot we sighted our weapons on dead people and dead animals. That happened a lot at the tail end of Operation Phantom Fury."



It's like telling the yard sale shoppers to get off your lawn in 5 seconds and shooting anyone who doesn't get off. Old people, mentally disabled people, children, whatever....