Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Subject: Re: Robert Fisk
>
>
>
> >On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, Carrol Cox wrote:
> >
> >> It takes something far more than killing a few thousand people to
> >> constitute a crime against humanity. Let's maintain some chastity of
> >> language.
> >>
> >> Carrol
>
>
> I'm wondering if underlying Carrol's definition is the restriction
> that only imperial powers can commit CAHs. That true Carrol?
>
> Doug
>
Oh for Chrissakes!! Some sense of proportion please! Suhorto's Indonesia wiping out a big chunk of of the East Timorese population -- now that was a "crime against humanity". The attempted annihilation of Jewish and Roma people, the (still ongoing) extermination/enslavement of certain indegineous peoples in latin america, ongoing Turkish atrocities against Kurds, US carpet-bombing of south S.E Asia etc. etc. etc, -- all of them, 'crimes against humanity'. "Crimes againt humanity" refer to the 'highest' crimes supposedly possible under international law -- to the attempt to wipe out populations, ethnic or cultural grps or the systematic murder or annihlation of civilian populations over an extended range or period of time. 9/11 was an atrocity. You could probably argue that it was a 'war crime' -- but by no damn possible stretch of the imagination could you claim it to be a "crime against humanity". Porn is not 'rape' nor abortion 'genocide'.
Now I appreciate how traumatic this all must have been for the American/western psyche -- after all to see an American city come under such a devastating attack for the first time, and at the hands of the wogs no less, must have been traumatic enough to make even a hardened US leftist lose his/her sense of proportion -- But please! 9/11 was an atrocious barbaric massacre but that doesnt rank it in the highest category of all possible of crimes under international law -- regardless of the American identity of the slain!
-Pradeep
Perhaps a good idea where a lot of the shock and incomprehension behind so much of the bizarre hyperbole as of late can be gotten from this portion of the Radio- Belgrade Chomsky interview:
"The world will never be the same after 11.09.01". Do you think so?
Chomsky: The horrendous terrorist attacks on Tuesday are something quite new in world affairs, not in their scale and character, but in the target. For the US, this is the first time since the War of 1812 that its national territory has been under attack, even threat. It's colonies have been attacked, but not the national territory itself. During these years the US virtually exterminated the indigenous population, conquered half of Mexico, intervened violently in the surrounding region, conquered Hawaii and the Philippines (killing hundreds of thousands of Filipinos), and in the past half century particularly, extended its resort to force throughout much of the world. The number of victims is colossal.
For the first time, the guns have been directed the other way. The same is true, even more dramatically, of Europe. Europe has suffered murderous destruction, but from internal wars, meanwhile conquering much of the world with extreme brutality. It has not been under attack by its victims outside, with rare exceptions (the IRA in England, for example). It is therefore natural that NATO should rally to the support of the US; hundreds of years of imperial violence have an enormous impact on the intellectual and moral culture.
It is correct to say that this is a novel event in world history, not because of the scale of the atrocity -- regrettably -- but because of the target. How the West chooses to react is a matter of supreme importance. If the rich and powerful choose to keep to their traditions of hundreds of years and resort to extreme violence, they will contribute to the escalation of a cycle of violence, in a familiar dynamic, with long-term consequences that could be awesome. Of course, that is by no means inevitable. An aroused public within the more free and democratic societies can direct policies towards a much more humane and honorable course.