They said "Never Again!" . . . but they lied

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by SpencerH
Consider the examples of Cuba and NK.

Neither of which are unpopular regimes. On the contrary, both enjoy considerable support from their people, especially NK, where the fanatical devotion to their dictator is a religious experience.

[GePap]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
A statement that applies to so many countries as to be laughably meaningless. Unless of course you'd care to spearhead the invasion into China or North Korea.

Genocide is a specific crime-different from general repression of people seen as current political enemies.

A campaing to wipe out a specific group of people is genocide, with the categories set out- "political enemies" not one of them.

Hence all the toher regimes here mentioned have diddly to do with genocide-and again, international law states all members of the UN have to intervene in the case of genocide. The previous genocide to rwanda that the world did nothing about was in Cambodia under the Khmer Rougue.

If we decided to label Saddam's campaign against the Kurds as genocide, feel free to ask Mssrs. Reagan and Bush senior why they did squat. By 2003 Saddam was NOT "committing genocide", which again, is different from old fashioned despotism.

So lets stop the annoying, and more importantly, INCORRECT, comparisons, OK?

[Last Conformist]

EST: According to Rummel's figures, WWII cost about 30 million combat dead (that includes civilians killed in battle, but not ones killed in strategic bombing), while the Nazis various genocides and mass murders killed about 20 million (incl artificial famines in East Europe), and the Soviets 13 million. Add millions more by the Japanese and various Chinese factions

That is, what Rummel calls 'democide' (genocide + mass murder by government) killed more people than fighting did during the bloodiest war in human history. Look at the 20th century as a whole, and democide is much greater killer than war.

Couple of relevant links:

http://www.freedomsnest.com/rummel_totals.html

http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/rummel/20th.htm

[GePap]

Oh God, that dmeocide crap!

Whatever. Genocide has a definition-though of course, sadly it is not iron clad, so people can ***** and get out of it. And when something is defined as Genocide, the world is supposed to act.

And Rwanda most definitelly was Genocide-which made the games to avoid that definition disgusting.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by johncmcleod


Iran, Nicaragua, Indonesia.

I'm not familiar with the Nicaraguan case, and have my doubts that foreing pressure was instrumental in the fall of the Suharto regime.

What really surprises me, however, is seeing Iran on the list. The Shah regime wasn't isolated, and the Islamic regime has as yet not fallen. Just what are you refering to?

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by GePap
Oh God, that dmeocide crap!

Would you please expand in this remark?

[East Street Trader]

Categorisiing those who die while a war rages has no relevance to my point, Last Conformist. Whether a person dies in combat or dies when war sweeps over his home or from the disease which war brings in its wake they are still all dead.

The numbers who died in the second world war on the eastern front alone were huge.

And as weapons grow ever more powerful the number of deaths goes up exponentially. The deaths in a major war fought to-day do not bear thinking about. Assuming any life survives at all.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Last Conformist


Would you please expand in this remark?

This term has no standing. Fine, people are free to use it, but the fact is the law divides these types of killings-

Democide is like syaing all murder 1st degree, murder 2nd degree, manslaughter 1st degree, 2nd degree and any other distinct level fo killing are all the same, blah, blah, blah. Well, there are distinctions, even if most people don't care for them, and it is the distinctions that lead to policy.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov

Neither of which are unpopular regimes. On the contrary, both enjoy considerable support from their people, especially NK, where the fanatical devotion to their dictator is a religious experience.

Its pretty hard to judge the popularity of totalitarian regimes. Saddam Hussein took 99.9% of the vote. We do have continuous evidence though that people want to leave Cuba bad enough that they are willing to risk their lives to do so. As for NK, I doubt that the hundreds of thousands of people in the concentrations camps support the government. As for the rest - who knows?

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
Categorisiing those who die while a war rages has no relevance to my point, Last Conformist. Whether a person dies in combat or dies when war sweeps over his home or from the disease which war brings in its wake they are still all dead.

Then you have to millions and millions of people who died of high age to the death toll of WWII.

I, however, disagree. If we're to appraise the benefits of eliminating war, we must have some idea how many of the deaths would have occured without the war.

Following Rummel again, the Soviets killed 9 million '36-'40, 13 million '41-'45, and 16 million '46-'53. It does seem like a reasonable assumption that the death toll for the middle period would not have been extremely much lower without the Great Patriotic War.

And as weapons grow ever more powerful the number of deaths goes up exponentially. The deaths in a major war fought to-day do not bear thinking about. Assuming any life survives at all.

I assume you're talking about nuclear war. That could indeed swiftly make the death toll of all wars, democides and homicides of the 20th century seem insignificant. However, avoiding nuclear war is not necessarily incompatible with using non-nuclear war as a tool for stopping genocide or mass murder. That war is the killer with the greatest capacity for causing death is not the same as it being the killer likely to take the highest toll.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by GePap
So lets stop the annoying, and more importantly, INCORRECT, comparisons, OK?

Why not? If we are talking about invading countries who pose little or no threat to us over such BS reasons, why should we not carry it out to the logical conclusion esp when we have a long running genocide going on a few countries above Rawanda that no one seems intent on invading the territory to stop.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by GePap


This term has no standing. Fine, people are free to use it, but the fact is the law divides these types of killings-

Democide is like syaing all murder 1st degree, murder 2nd degree, manslaughter 1st degree, 2nd degree and any other distinct level fo killing are all the same, blah, blah, blah. Well, there are distinctions, even if most people don't care for them, and it is the distinctions that lead to policy.

If it were the distinctions that led to policy, Rwanda would have been invaded, and Iraq not.

The point of my post was that governmental killings not directly related to war cost more lives during the last century than did actual war, which ought to cast some doubt on the proposition that war is the greatest threat to human life. Do you disagree with that?

[Datajack Franit]

I see, according to the UN you cannot invade a country whatever the reason may be, oil, weapons of mass distruction, people dying

But you can invade and bomb Serbia because someone said 300,000 albanians were killed, although only 600 were

The United Nations

[GePap]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Why not? If we are talking about invading countries who pose little or no threat to us over such BS reasons, why should we not carry it out to the logical conclusion esp when we have a long running genocide going on a few countries above Rawanda that no one seems intent on invading the territory to stop.

"BS" reasons?

Are you having problems understanding?

The US signed the UN Charter and has agreed to abide by UN rules. One of these rules is that all members MUST act to stop genocide. Genocide has a specific definition-not all killing is genocide-just like shooting you would not be regicide, cause you are not a king. To be commiting genocide, you intent must be to wipe out a "people", with this defined as certain possible categories (killing all Buddhists in X state would be genocide, killing all members of X political party, not).

What went on in Rwanda was demonstrably a genocide-textbook case in fact. BUt the world community found ways to ignore its responsibility, which is the second great outrage of Rwanda, after the killing itself.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
If it were the distinctions that led to policy, Rwanda would have been invaded, and Iraq not.

That crimes happen does not mean the law is meaingless.

The point of my post was that governmental killings not directly related to war cost more lives during the last century than did actual war, which ought to cast some doubt on the proposition that war is the greatest threat to human life. Do you disagree with that?

The rwanda killing was not war related. The government of rwanda used the ongoing war as a excuse for a planned, premaditated campaing of mass killing-they distributed weapons, they told the killers were to go find victims-this is plain and simple genocide.