toshmann:

kobojunkie
if we go by your argument we can then say that the guy who killed his schoolmates at the virginia tech(killed 32 students) has committed genocied? b/c they were civilians. of course genocide is about numbers. haba megida.
davidylan
just don't go there. don't bring out the issue of the igbos and the fed govt b/c some words are better left unsaid, so let's just continue to debate what we are debating.
thank you

I have NO IDEA HOW YOU ARRIVED AT IT BEING SAME AS THE GUY WHO KILLED HIS CLASS MATES IN VIRGINIA,  HOW  

gen·o·cide (jn-sd)
n.
The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.

How do you apply this to that ?? HOW ?


The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց Ցեղասպանութիւն ("Hayoc' c'ejaspanut'iwn", Turkish: Ermeni Soykırımı) — also known as the Armenian Holocaust, Great Calamity (Մեծ Եղեռն "Mec Ejer'n" ) or the Armenian Massacre — was the forcible deportation and massacre[1] of hundreds of thousands to over 1.5 million Armenians during the government of the Young Turks from 1915 to 1917 in the Ottoman Empire.[2]

How do you compare this to that you mentioned above there ?? HOW

@ tosh

you are free to classify those events as you wish, but that would serve no true purpose

if not I can go and say that you (as a scouser) wanting to marry muki ( a gunner) is a War Crime and you should be tied to a pole and shot!

now seriously, the intent to exterminate is the issue here. I think you need to read that article in the Times to understand, they killed men, sold off women and children, violated, threw off cliffs, gathered able bodied men together and shot them! for no crime, no war, nothing! simply because they were Armenian. The leader was often heard saying 'the loss of the Armenian race is no great thing, they will be forgotten'. You cannot in any way compare that to what the West may have done to slaves or even to the American Indians. Though they killed and caused a lot of harm, their intent was not to exterminate due to the racial origin of those people

The reason you may be called a Bush hater ( which I fervently admit I belonged to, but renounced, since Christ says don't hate ) is due to the slant that Denex tried to give to the story in the first instance, only to be confounded that Bush is actually NOT in support of this, and that its the Congress pursuing this action.

@ david

some of the atrocities committed by the FG could be regarded as genocide - poisoning food supplies, and using starvation to kill off the population. but like Tosh said, that is a matter for another day

debosky:

@ david

some of the atrocities committed by the FG could be regarded as genocide - poisoning food supplies, and using starvation to kill off the population. but like Tosh said, that is a matter for another day

I qualify all that as war tactics. Iran sent over a million unarmed men to their deaths during the Iran-Iraq war, would that qualify as a genocide against Saddam Hussein?

deboski
1. i'm not a scouser. i live in cardiff, not liverpool.
2. muky is mine. for life
3. i'm not debating the turkish issue, that was genocide

but i do believe that it is preposterous to think that so much people could be killed and yet the word genocide is not mentioned. the americans knew that the bombs will destroy so much in terms of life and property yet they dropped it "to end the war". they even debated dropping it in kyoto (not sure now, somewhere held as a holy place by the japs) but decided to drop them in hiroshima. they knew it will kill lots of civilians and it did kill. why wont it be genocide ? b/c it is war? that's not fair at all. not fair.

davidylan:

I qualify all that as war tactics. Iran sent over a million unarmed men to their deaths during the Iran-Iraq war, would that qualify as a genocide against Saddam Hussein?

Glad you mentioned that as well. We are talking young boys sent out by Iran to blow up mines cause Iran wanted to win the war at all cost. Yet, not a mention of the word Genocide, why?? cause it was not even though it was evil.

killing lots of people is relative, killing 80,000 to save the lives of millions cannot be regarded as genocide, but as a painful sacrifice.

the point is, it achieved the aim. If 2 million Russians died during the period they were involved, can you imagine the number of Chinese, Korean and others that fell victim to the Japanese? If that war continued, it would have taken more that 10 times the lives those bombs took.

I'm not glad or happy that those people died, but I realise it was important for that senseless war to end. That is completely different from setting out purely on a course to eliminate the people of a certain racial origin.

War is a nasty thing my friend, no one is discounting that, but equating it to genocide is wrong

PS - you are a bloody scouser, whether you live in the 'pool or not, supporting those skanky reds makes you one

@ david

The Iranians killed themselves in furtherance of their aims, no one set a target to exterminate them, no one can call that genocide.

The Nigerian govt on the other hand regarded starving a people to death as a 'legitimate war tactic'?? That qualifies as genocide in my book, and reports from that time from the Red Cross and others would corroborate that.

@david and koju
at that point those iranians ceased to be called civilians. wether they were armed or not they were "soldiers" at war.

Has anybody ever categorized the decimination of Africans 300-400 years for slave trade as genocide?

I understand the Jewish genocide, Armenian genocide, maybe we should really go back a bit further in history.

deboski
i score ya argument 80%
i agree with u on most points except what you call "painful sacrifice". perhaps if Hitler were alive today he would have also made a case of painful sacrifice in the holocaust. what do you think? that argument sounds like the guys at nuremberg saying we were following orders. ponder.

@naijaking
america is a great nation whose foundations were laid by the genocide of a race and enslavement of another.

and debosky i'm not a scouser and we'll finish you guys soon

toshmann:

@david and koju
at that point those iranians ceased to be called civilians. wether they were armed or not they were "soldiers" at war.

Well, at this point I will accept that you just want to argue that everything you point to should be deemed genocide cause you want it to be then. I hope the nations and people's involved know of this, you might want to inform them . I choose to move on back to the main topic at this point and focus on the main issue based on what is already established please.Thanks for engaging me as long as you did.

the issue here is that democracy in the usa is so matured that no matter what the ruling party does, the oposition will do their best to run them down with valued points.
the democrats in establishing this genocide issue, do know that turkey is an american allied in the war in iraq so this action will not go down well with turkey and they will either reduce their committments in iraq of withdraw it automatically and thereby create another loophole in the bush's administration.
so the political maturity will always have things to prove in their interests both domestically and externally.
on the other hand, truth can be buried for million years but will surely wake up one day.
individual cases usa can be reverted after 50 years what more cases of countries no time is too late to establish the truth.

chidichris:

the issue here is that democracy in the usa is so matured that no matter what the ruling party does, the oposition will do their best to run them down with valued points.
the democrats in establishing this genocide issue, do know that turkey is an american allied in the war in iraq so this action will not go down well with turkey and they will either reduce their committments in iraq of withdraw it automatically and thereby create another loophole in the bush's administration.
so the political maturity will always have things to prove in their interests both domestically and externally.
on the other hand, truth can be buried for million years but will surely wake up one day.
individual cases usa can be reverted after 50 years what more cases of countries no time is too late to establish the truth.

Are you saying that causing an Ally in the war to back out this way and maybe go back in to fight the kurds during this war is politically mature?? The Democrats have already hit the Administration over and over, I don't see how this is a politically mature move when we are in fact speaking of even american lives that may be lost here. If Turkey backs away from supporting the USA, and they then go after the kurds, that would further increase the problem in the area, problems the next administration would have to inherit and may not even be able to quell at that point. We are speaking of a seriously volatile region here and a war already going on in the area. I do not see how this move can be deemed politically mature at all, I do not. They could have waited a couple more years to do all this. Why now?? Why not 10 years ago or 10 years later?? They already waited over 90 years already. Why now

i'm not an american but living in the UK, one cant really be sedparated from american politics, the democrats are a set of confused entities whose only unifying factor is bushophobia. and with what they are doing, they fail to realise that history may judge bush to be right and then the dems will be a disgrace.

anyway, if they dont take their time, i see a clinton-obama crack tearing the dems apart and paving the way for the ex mayor of new york to continue another painful 4yrs of republican foreign policy

@Kobojunkie
Political maturity does not equate political altruism. The responsibility of American politicians is to their American constituents, not to the volatile region in the middle east.

It smacks of Political opportunism as well but so did the initial push into Iraq which pleased his Religio-conservative supporters.

ocho cinco:

@Kobojunkie
Political maturity does not equate political altruism. The responsibility of American politicians is to their American constituents, not to the volatile region in the middle east.

It smacks of Political opportunism as well but so did the initial push into Iraq which pleased his Religio-conservative supporters.

I asked if putting the lives of the American soliders out there in even worse situation can be tagged politically mature.

the move is going to work against US and middle east interests and only make the dems look a lil bit confrontationally acceptable to their supporters

@Kobojunkie

Well Democrats wouldn't see it that way.

From their own point of view, the more deplorable the situation, the greater the pressure on
the President to start a massive withdrawal, saving lives that would otherwise be lost the longer the
impasse went on.

ocho cinco:

It smacks of Political opportunism as well but so did the initial push into Iraq which pleased his Religio-conservative supporters.

The suggestion that Bush's invasion of Iraq was political opportunism is risible.Polls done prior to the invasion all show that Bush's support fell amongst the Christian Right when the invasion was being mooted.There was no opportunity to be exploited amongst Evangelical Christians who are traditionally isolationist.Evangelical support for the war is based on their support for Bush not vice versa.

toshmann:

the move is going to work against US and middle east interests and only make the dems look a little bit confrontationally acceptable to their supporters

Dems are not in charge of foreign policy so they can afford to annoy who they want.During the Clinton Presidency,this measure would not have gained the support of Democrats even when they controlled Congress.

It has been said- history is written by the victors.

if japan had won the war - rest assured dropping the bomb would have been officially classified as genocide.

in much the same way, if africa was a world superpower today, slavery etal would also be classified as genocide.

If native americans were to somehow become a thriving nation state, we would start to hear calls for repatriation.

The armenians did not win but it has been called genocide from way back. Happens to be the case with the jews and hitler, the sudanese government and the refugees. I don't see how that applies to this case.

oyb:

It has been said- history is written by the victors.

if japan had won the war - rest assured dropping the bomb would have been officially classified as genocide.

in much the same way, if africa was a world superpower today, slavery etal would also be classified as genocide.

If native americans were to somehow become a thriving nation state, we would start to hear calls for repatriation.

spot on bro

Kobojunkie:

The armenians did not win but it has been called genocide from way back. Happens to be the case with the jews and hitler, the sudanese government and the refugees. I don't see how that applies to this case.

the victors(US)are their friends

if hitler won the 2nd world war, the germans woulda written the history, we may have heard a different thing about the holocaust.
if africa were the super power, colonialism would have been given a different more implicating image than the one it has now.
any leading force will always find a perfect excuse to justify it's action(s)