The term "genocide" is not like the term "H2O," so it's not possible to firm it up. It's one of those essentially contested terms -- like racism -- whose varied usage necessarily reflects contradictory class and other social interests.
What we can do is to challenge those who use the term to apply it consistently, rather than applying it to only large-scale deaths that Washington chooses to condemn and refusing to apply it to deaths that Washington's or its proxies' actions have caused. E.g., those who think Darfur is a genocide ought to apply it to Iraq, too; and those who don't think Iraq is a genocide ought not to apply it to Darfur, much less Chechnya.
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>