Genocide in Iraq and Sudan Re: [lbo-talk] MPug Rats Out Yoshie ToCooper

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 5/4/06, Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote:
> Yoshie writes:
>
> > If 200,000 dead constitute a genocide, no matter how they died,
> > surely
> > the US war in Iraq is a genocide: "the Coalition forces could be
> > responsible for as many as 200,000 Iraqi civilian deaths or more"
> > (Les
> > Roberts, "Do Iraqi Civilian Casualties Matter?" AlterNet. Posted
> > February 8, 2006, <http://www.alternet.org/story/31508/>).
> >
> > The application of the term "genocide" appears to be completely
> > dependent on politics.
>
> No, I think it's dependent on whether you're working from a valid
> definition of it.
>
> There's no definition that I'm aware of that would come anywhere near
> make it "surely" that the deaths in Iraq were "genocide" since a
> precondition is the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
> ethnic, racial, or religious group.  You're welcome to correct me on
> this one.

I agree with you, but is there any evidence that the Sudanese
government surely intended to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, as opposed to killing a
lot of people and creating conditions that cause deaths of a lot of
people in the course of a counter-insurgency campaign?  If not,
genocides in Iraq and Sudan are comparable -- no, actually, the
situation is worse in Iraq (no one can hope to broker peace in Iraq).

To my knowledge, there is no consensus outside the USA that the civil
war in Sudan has led to a government-organized genocide, and even in
the USA, it may not be agreed upon by American Arabs and Muslims.

--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>