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by mikeash 4039 days ago
"Genocide is the systematic destruction of all or a significant part of a racial, ethnic, religious or national group." From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

There's no systematic destruction of any such group that I'm aware of. I won't deny that lots of middle-eastern civilians have been killed, but it's not any systematic attempt to eliminate them all, which means it's not genocide. (Especially since a large proportion of those deaths are caused by internal fighting which, while arguably the US's fault for going in without a plan for how to deal with existing tensions, is not what genocide looks like, at all.)
1 comments
shit_parade2 4039 days ago
Much of the middle East is chaos and death. Millions have fled their homes, museums and other priceless artifacts are destroyed or gone missing.

An entire generation is coming to age knowing only war. Sounds like systematic destruction of a significant racial, religious, and national group to me.

Iraq as a country is dust, so too Libya, Syria is also soon to follow. Sounds like genocide by your definition.

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mikeash 4039 days ago
Genocide is not "an entire generation is coming to age knowing only war." It's more like "an entire generation is murdered."

These disruptions do not threaten the continued existence of the Arab people or the Muslim faith. They do not threaten the continued existence of the shared culture. And they are not systematic i.e. done deliberately as part of a methodical plan to wipe out these groups.

And just to be clear, because I know people love to misinterpret this stuff whenever it's at all possible: the above is not in any way a defense of US actions in the middle east, but merely an argument that these actions fall into the broad category of "not genocide."

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shit_parade2 4039 days ago
Your definition includes nationality. Libya, Iraq, and Syria are essentially gone.

I was never claiming the US has committed genocide, I simply asked how many deaths do you need to define one. WWII killed 6 million Jews, were only about an order of magnitude away and our current war has now gone on longer with no end in sight.

EDIT: I'm using _your_ definition dude, I don't think it is genocide, yet, but by your definition it certainly is.

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mikeash 4039 days ago
Your question is based on false premises because genocide isn't about raw numbers. It's based on a number of other things which don't fit the situation in the middle east.

How can you say "I was never claiming the US has committed genocide" while simultaneously, just one sentence before, saying that these countries should qualify?

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