Genocide. ...Who Decides?
POSTED BY: USBrowncoat
UPDATED: Monday, August 21, 2006 00:46
VIEWED: 4119
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In the short time that I have been apart of this board, posters have brought up genocide often. I am 100% convinced that America and the Western civilized countries have the means to commit genocide, against Muslim nations, but do not want to. I am also 100% convinced that Muslim nations want to commit genocide against anyone non-Muslim, but do not have the means to do so. It is in their hateful language, their religion, and culture. I am trying to get an idea where my fellow posters stand on this issue. Give country, age, sex, and opinion.
USA, 32, Male
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Um.. if you mean who should commit it?
USA, between 15 and 21, and female
EDIT: Oh, sorry, just re-read it...
Genocide is bad. That's my opinion.
---
Go to http://richlabonte.net/tvvote/ and vote Firefly!
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Your age speaks volumes about your post. Don't just read headlines yang! Read the story. I gave my opinion on who would be willing to commit genocide, then asked posters of this thread to give their take.
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Quote:
Originally posted by USBrowncoat:
Your age speaks volumes about your post. Don't just read headlines yang! Read the story. I gave my opinion on who would be willing to commit genocide, then asked posters of this thread to give their take.
No doubt you'll win many friends and admirers with this post. You managed to insult her for her age, her literacy and her inability to follow directions. Well done!
________________________________________________________________________
I wish I had a magical wish-granting plank.
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Come again?
*edit*
I see what you are saying. When I made my second post she had not edited yet. But I do get a troll baiting vibe from you. Why would you jump into a thread and attack a post before posting one on the topic? I had this experience last night. Do not want another...Bye!
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Quote:
Originally posted by USBrowncoat:
In the short time that I have been apart of this board, posters have brought up genocide often. I am 100% convinced that America and the Western civilized countries have the means to commit genocide, against Muslim nations, but do not want to. I am also 100% convinced that Muslim nations want to commit genocide against anyone non-Muslim, but do not have the means to do so. It is in their hateful language, their religion, and culture. I am trying to get an idea where my fellow posters stand on this issue. Give country, age, sex, and opinion.
USA, 32, Male
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I have absolutely no doubt that America and other Western countries have the means to commit genocide. Although, I personally find it more curious as to why, when they have the means to prevent genocide, they too frequently stand passively by and let it happen anyway.
As for your thoughts on Muslims, I think you are oversimplifying things a little. Not all Muslims are extremist, radical, fundamentalist types. Not all Muslims are supporters of Al-Qaeda and other extremist elements. For that matter, I do not believe that all Muslims want to commit genocide against non-Muslims. There are millions of Muslims living in the Middle East, the U.S. and throughout other Western countries, and not all of them are preaching hate, beheading people, or blowing things up. The number of Muslims participating in such acts are relatively small compared to the number of Muslims worldwide.
If you look, you will find extremist elements in many religions. Just the other day, a fringe element of Buddhist monks began physically attacking other Buddhist monks at a peace ralley in Sri Lanka. And Buddhism is a religion grounded in the principle that "all life is sacred." And Christians, which I am guessing here that you are one, have committed heinous acts throughout history as well: The "Holy" Crusades, The Spanish Inquisition, The Salem Witch Trials and so on. And let us not forget that it was a Christian President who ordered the dropping of atmoic weapons on the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which makes this predominantly Christian country the only nation to have ever used atomic weapons on other human beings, let alone innocent civilians.
USA, 35, Male
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"The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation."
-Bertrand Russell
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Heya USB,
I like this li'l trend Dream started with making rules for posting in threads; in a very gentle way, if forces folks to post with a larger context than their three favorite talking points.
I don't think a lot of folks in the U.S. want to commit genocide on the Muslim world. What scares me, is that I can see our leaders accidently-on-purpose committing genocide by default. When we destroy a country's infrastructure without having the wherewithall to reconstruct things when we're done puting their people to the sword, we commit partial, de facto genocide. Subjectively, I can't see the inhabitants of most of Afganistan or major portions of Iraq seeing much of a difference between genocide and what we've done over there in the past few years.
Furthermore, when we bring our 21st Century A-game to countries that would still be medieval if it weren't for the arms we (and other big players) have sold them, we are committing a kind of massacre. When you round up a lot of unarmed people and mow them down with rifle fire, it's called a massacre; not because the unarmed people are wholely unable to fight back, but because they are so completely outclassed that they never have a chance. Most U.S. soldiers were no match in hand-to-hand combat with the Native Americans back when we killed them off, but rounding them up and gunning them down is still a massacre.
I see more and more, that that is the only kind of fight the U.S. will allow itself to get involved with.
Also, I've corresponded with muslims, mostly from Iran and a close friend of the family was an english teacher in Tehran under the Shaw and married an Iranian. Iranians, and other muslim cultures I presume, have a tradition of talking very tough, as tough as they possibly can, to show how fearless they are. This trash-talking and the actual policies of their governing elite aren't expected to match up. It has much more to do with the state of the male ego in muslim cultures and the importance of never showing fear. The culture in Iran is very traditional, very formal, compared to ours. You have to understand what's for real and what's for show.
Think of it like this. If you knew absolutely nothing about the WWF and you were to hear a couple of pro wrestlers trash-talking before a match, I think you'd be surprised that no one was killed once the fight was over--or even bloodied for that matter.
So, when Saddam did all that posturing and acted exactly as if he could have wiped American from the face of the Earth with a wave of his hand, any savvy observer of muslim culture could have guessed that the guy had nothin'. But we had a bunch of xenophobic boyscouts running things, so we took the man at his word.
It makes me crazy to think what the tiniest amount of unbiased inquiry into an alien culture could have done to save thousands and thousands of lives in the past 5 years and, no doubt, the years to come.
USA, 41, male
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Quote:
Originally posted by USBrowncoat:
In the short time that I have been apart of this board, posters have brought up genocide often. I am 100% convinced that America and the Western civilized countries have the means to commit genocide, against Muslim nations, but do not want to. I am also 100% convinced that Muslim nations want to commit genocide against anyone non-Muslim, but do not have the means to do so. It is in their hateful language, their religion, and culture. I am trying to get an idea where my fellow posters stand on this issue. Give country, age, sex, and opinion.
USA, 32, Male
Some of this is speculation, and my comments should not be viewed as a condemnation of the commission of genocide either by the Western or Eastern states.
I’m pretty sure that the US and most Western Nations don’t have any intent towards instituting a policy or a pattern of committing genocide. Committing genocide requires a degree of self-confidence that the West just doesn’t have anymore. Whether or not the West would commit ‘genocide by accident’ as HK said. I don’t know. I would hope not, but the West does, and has, started things that they wouldn’t finish, and sadly, that’s a possibility I can’t discount. The West has sold the Middle East weapons, which might have made a small war into a much bigger one, but the buyer had something to do with this, a lot more then the seller. These things aren’t really genocide, because there is no intent. It might be just as bad, but you can’t call it genocide. Come up with some other word. So having addressed that, the rest of my argument will deal exclusive with a threat of genocide and the Middle East.
In 1973, Syria and Egypt launched a surprise attack against Israel, which became known as the Yom Kippur War. The whole point of this war was to catch Israel off guard, with an enormous invasion and accomplish what Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon were never able to do in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1970, which was wipe Israel off the face of the map and probably kill every Jew in sight: genocide by definition. Needless to say, the Yom Kippur war, while successful in surprising the Israelis and inflicting heavy damage initially, ended the way the all the rest of the Middle Eastern Wars did, with Israel handing the Arabs their collective asses. That was the last time any Arab state entertained any realistic aspiration to commit genocide against Israel.
What would have happened if Israel hadn’t won those wars?
“This will be war of extermination…”
-- Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, 1948
“Our hatred is very strong. There is no sense in talking about peace with Israel. There is no even the smallest place for negotiations.”
-- Egyptian President Nasser, 1956
“The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united. … I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation.”
-- Syrian Defense Minister, Hafez Assad, 1967
I’m sure there are probably some good quotes from the 1973 war, but I don’t know any off the top of my head and I think this tells the story pretty well.
Since then both Jordan and Egypt have proclaimed Israel’s right to exist. Iraq never did, but that point is moot now. Lebanon is another story. South Lebanon became a terrorist haven in 1970 and remains a battle ground since then, but Lebanon, like Israel, itself wants peace. Syria is the only remaining Arab state that participated in the wars against Israel that has refused to seek a long term peace with Israel.
Syria is controled by Iran, and Iran is the only remaining player on the Muslim side that continues to seek a realistic aspiration for the destruction of Israel, and the only country (setting aside terrorist groups) that actually appear to want to commit genocide against Israel. Will they do it? That’s anyone’s guess, but given the track record of Arab states throwing themselves against the IDF in 4 consecutive wars (5 if you consider the War of Attrition), then one might be foolish to
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I get that you're struggling with hate directed at the US. But suicide bombers are rarely (not never, rarely) motivated by religion. (Several studies - I'll have to get the links later.) Instead they are trying to change a political, social, and /or economic situation from a position of weakness.
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And I have issues with the presumptions of original questions. ("If you determine the questions, you determine the answers.")
"I am 100% convinced that America and the Western civilized countries have the means to commit genocide" I agree with that part. But what does it take to commit genocide? It took a mere 100 days to kill a million Rwandans, mostly by machete. That's 10,000 a day. (Hitler would have been jealous.) So I disagree with the implication that the US is special somehow in its abilities.
"against Muslim nations" Muslim nations? Muslim people? Jihadists? Or merely people who happen to live in Muslim countries who want an end to US interference?
"but do not want to." US policy was to support a weaker Iraq against a stronger Iran so they might bleed each other to death. A majority of USers wanted to "bomb Afghanistan back into the stone age". The US has its own legacy of hatred. But presuming you're right - should there a 'negligent genocide' charge similar to 'negligent homicide'. The US didn't want to, didn't mean to, but somehow killed millions ... oops.
"I am also 100% convinced that Muslim nations" Same caveat as above: Muslim nations? Muslim people? Jihadists? Or merely people who happen to live in Muslim countries who want an end to US interference?
"want to commit genocide against anyone non-Muslim" There are a few religious extremists who do want this. There are also a lot of pissed-off people who might support religious extremists as a way of getting revenge.
"but do not have the means to do so." Again, what does it take to commit genocide? All the M.E. would have to do is turn off the oil spigot.
"It is in their hateful language, their religion, and (their)culture." This sounds seriously racist to me.
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Quote:
Originally posted by USBrowncoat:
In the short time that I have been apart of this board, posters have brought up genocide often. I am 100% convinced that America and the Western civilized countries have the means to commit genocide, against Muslim nations, but do not want to. I am also 100% convinced that Muslim nations want to commit genocide against anyone non-Muslim, but do not have the means to do so. It is in their hateful language, their religion, and culture. I am trying to get an idea where my fellow posters stand on this issue. Give country, age, sex, and opinion.
USA, 32, Male
USA, 27, Female.......You fucking asshole...eat me!
Chris eatsshitisall
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