Right Resolution, Wrong Genocide
It looks like House Resolution 106, “Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution,” is dead — for this session of Congress anyway. But, since it’s been around in one form or another since 1965, there’s no reason to think this is the end of the issue.
For the record, I believe the mass murder of the Armenians during and after 1915 to be genocide. It’s so well documented that to protest the label genocide is like, well, Holocaust denial. It happened, and if the Turks refuse to recognize it, I do and millions of others do.
That said, what is the U.S. government doing condemning Turkey for genocide when it has never considered its own genocidal actions? The near extermination of the aboriginal Indians is as obvious a case of genocide as exists, but for some reason it hasn’t made its way to Congress. But it hovers over the land, continuing to haunt us, but we don’t acknowledge it. As my grandmother used to say, “On others you can see a hair. On yourself you can’t see a horse.”
Although the massacres in Asia Minor took place about 90 years ago, an American campaign of genocide was launched in California some 68 years prior to that, in the wake of the discovery of gold, and continued for decades. California Indians were killed for the same reasons that Armenians were killed in Turkey, Bosnians were killed in Yugoslavia, and Zaghawa and Massaleit are being killed today in Darfur: to rid the land of one people and to repopulate it with another.
In a sense, the killing of the California Indians was closer to genocide than the more famous Trail of Tears. There, the ostensible reason for the wholesale deportation was resettlement, although death followed closely in its wake. In California, there was no pretense to anything else.
Have no doubt, it was planned genocide. In his inaugural address in 1849, California Governor-elect Peter Hardeman Burnett stated clearly and succinctly, “that a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected…”
Nor was it an empty threat. Dr. Edward Castillo, chair of the Native American Studies Department at the California’s Sonoma State University and himself a Cahuilla and Luiseño Indian, has written extensively on the California Indians. According to Castillo, following the discovery of gold, within a decade, as many as 100,000 of the 170,000 Indians living in California had died, “the majority from violence, the rest from disease and starvation.” Other historians say more died from deprivation than violence, but that’s like comparing the gassed and the starvation victims in Auschwitz. They were deliberately killed, period. And we can’t pretend it was anything other than genocide.
Yet by shying from the word genocide, we refuse to recognize the immensity of the crime. I wonder if the Resolution 106’s spear carriers, California representatives Tom Lantos and Nancy Pelosi, or, for that matter, California’s large and influential Armenian community, have even given much thought to the fact that they live on ground soaked in Indian blood. Right here, not Turkey.
Certainly it would be politically and economically inconvenient to accept full responsibility for the continuing genocide. But is it too much to ask for a non-binding resolution before trying to bull another condemnation of Turkey through Congress? I’ll bet it is.
Alec Dubro is a freelance writer in Washington D.C. dubro@bellatlantic.net
All true, but very odd that the article doesn’t even mention Iraq, which is the far more relevant way to point up the hypocrisy of the US Congress…
Great article and so sadly true. A mention of Iraq would have been good, but IMO does not detract from what was my first thought when the Armenian genocide/US/Turkey relations controvery began.
The United States of Everything has its roots in genocide, slavery, and war profiteering. Our empire continues to expand as Uncle Sam struts around the world wearing his IRON HEEL supplied by our military-industrial complex.
Hoa binh
Is Iraq “genocide”? It’s an atrocity, but call a spade a spade.
I think Iraq is and always has been genocide. At the beginning of the surge the U.S. stepped up air strikes, which always kill many innocent civilians. Of course, the corporate-owned, war-profiteering media syndicates (aka COWPMS) doesn’t write about this. Also, they avoid giving out numbers of the dead Iraqis; so we have only estimates. Combine the estimates of those dead and the hundreds of thousands displaced while the U.S. tries to steal its resource (oil), I think it is a genocide equal to what was done to the American Indians.
What about the US genocides in Latin America, Asia the Middle East and elsewhere?
Genocide is the USA’s middle name and usual modus operandi.
I always look to the Daily Show for the best insights into an important issue. And Aasif Mandvi (senior Armeniologist)does not disappoint.
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Daily_Show_US_ignores_atrocities_if_1012.html
With the word “genocide” being used so much that it has lost its power, it is good to see that the author uses it in the proper context. The attacks on some of the California tribes could indeed be called genocide, as the intent was to wipe out not only the power of the tribes but the individuals that made up those tribes. This was not the intent (although in some places the results were the same) with the dealings with the natives in most of the other areas of North and South America.
The U.S. should pass a resolution against this dark chapter of our past.
The word genocide and the League of Nations law did not come into existence until 1933. That said, the crime against the Armenians post WW1 was slaughter, not genocide. Ditto the Native Americans. Is this why the Turks and US refuse to recognize it as genocide?
But hey, the US is doing a good job in Iraq, eh? 1 million Iraqis slaughtered, another 4 million displaced. Another 5 million or so the and the Jews will no longer have the monopoly on the word holocaust.
I have long argued that America’s history is rooted in geoncide, slavery and war crimes. This country as it exists today should be abolished. For example, we have a war criminal as sitting president. If Jesus came back today, he would be burning the American flag (Meet-Jesus.com)
Yes, yes, yes! Not only should the US Congress condemn its own country’s genocide of the aboriginal peoples of the Americas, it should also condemn the breaking of treaty after treaty made with those people by the American people.
The existence of the State of Oklahome stands as glaring evidence of one of the most flagrant of these treaties violated. For the US Congress to criticize the Turks for their genocide of the Armenians without acknowledging their own facilitation of homegrown genocide is hypocrisy of the worst kind.
as long as we’re coming clean in outing our own domestic genocides, let’s not forget Vietnam and Cambodia, where we are directly to blame for perhaps 6 million deaths.
the slowly unfolding massive genocidal crime in Iraq, the vast quantities of radioactive dust spread thoroughout much of southern Iraq by partially depleted uranium munitions, vaporizing as they burn, will continue to maim and disfigure as well as kill for the entire future of this planet. here’s a war crime begging to be exposed and punished right now.
“California Indians were killed for the same reasons that Armenians were killed in Turkey, Bosnians were killed in Serbia, and Zaghawa and Massaleit are being killed today in Darfur: to rid the land of one people and to repopulate it with another.”
Canaanites were killed by Abraham’s people to rid the land of one people and to repopulate it with another. Canaanites, now called Palestinians, were and are currently being killed by Abraham’s descendants to rid the land of one people and to repopulate it with another, once again. Complicit is the United States which helps by massively funding and arming this genocide and gives public support and support in the UN to its continuance.
Note the word genocide is severely limited in the 1966 Random House definition. The more current and complete definition in Webster’s more closely reflects current usage and is applicable to the entire incursion of Europeans across the lands of the First Nations peoples. The word also applies to the firebombing of Tokyo, the nuclear annihilation of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the carpet bombing of villages in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, the material and CIA aid to genocide in countries like Guatemala - which Clinton apologized for, and now Iraq.
genocide: the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national or racial group.
-The Random House Dictionary of the English Language. Unabridged, 1966.
genocide: 1.: the use of deliberate systematic measures (as killing, bodily or mental injury, unlivable conditions, prevention of births) calculated to bring about the extermination of a racial, political, or cultural group or to destroy the language, religion, or culture of a group 2: one who advocates or practices genocide.
-from Webster’s Third New International Dictionary. Unabridged, 1986, the most used reference for definitions in US courts of law.
But none of this is new…..it is just a replay of what has gone on in history, over and over and over again. Why don’t we learn? Is it us? Not entirely, it is those who get elected into power, they are too often bereft of a conscience, or the courage to stand up for what is right, for the majority of its citizens, no matter what country, or empire, we keep repeating the same senario over and over again, whether it is Britain, China, Japan, Germany, U.S., Italy, Greece, etc, it is a pattern of self-destruction.
WTF, get real! Do you think things don’t exist until somebody sticks a label on them? On the other hand, Bligh, you are right on - the word “genocide” has been trivialized through its application by sloppy thinkers who cannot articulate what they are really trying to discuss and thus look for the most inflammatory term in their repertoire. I was stunned to read that someone of some authority (politically) in Ontario used the word genocide to describe the effects of funding cutbacks for ASL learning. The ignorance and lack of compassion involved in these cutbacks and the effects on the lives of the students are tragic, but this is not equivalent to deliberate extermination. (Similar is the trivialization of that now almost meaningless word, “awesome,” which should be used for that which genuinely inspires “awe:” the birth of a newborn, the grandeur and beauty of nature, love …… not hamburgers or some dimwit’s ritzy ring.) People trivialize in this way when that lack ability to comprehend or feel what it really is they think they are talking about. There have been and continue to be many real genocides, and the victims deserve at least not to have this term for the unspeakable hijacked by those who don’t really appreciate what it means.
US congressional debate about Turkish history comes out of the blue as the north of Turkey’s southern neighbour is allocated to the Kurds.
0.7% of college students in California are Native Americans.
genocide=ethnic cleansing=murder=genocide
Doesn’t matter what you call it if you don’t stand up against it.
A “resolution” from a batch of bought and paid for political puppets in Washington isn’t going to revive one dead Armenian.
The United States is an extremely narcissistic country. We find it easy to recognize the violations of human rights in foreign countries(as long as it is politically-expedient). We find it easy to see ourselves as magnanimous with a foreign policy ethos of assertive decency. We intervene on behalf of freedom fighters, we give money to rebuild, etc…
It seems too difficult for us to start with simple honest declarations about ourselves: We’ve done wrong, too. Our culture is largely motivated by greed and conquest.
Just like the narcisstic person who can’t seem to accept any criticism or even objective feedback, we can’t build any authenic peer relationships with other countries.
@MrDuncan, @WTF
2.7 million … , not 1 million.
You seem to have missed out the 1.5 million Iraqis killed by the
sanctions. When you include this the death toll figure comes to 2.7
million. The sanctions were every bit as grevious and every bit as
much based on lies. I see not reason why it should not be included in
the talley. Whether you use the H word or the G word is very much up to
you. (I dare not, coz it attracts censorship on CD).
Here is a document, by the pentagon, delivered to the government in
January 22, 1991. It says that Iraq has plenty of water, but the water
is dirty and needs to be processed to make it potable. The document
goes on to predict that if the water treatment plants were destroyed, or
the power plants needed to operate the water treatment plants were
destroyed, that there would be widespread disease if not epidemics of
disease as a result.
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/declassdocs/dia/19950901/950901_511rept_91.html
The US government proceeded to destroy all Iraq’s water treatment plants
and power plants during gulf war 1. Then, for an entire decade they
used sanctions, based on lies, to deny Iraq the parts needed to repair
the water treatment plants and the power stations. Things that were
needed were declared dual use and denied.
The lack of food did not kill people so much as the lack of clean
water. The majority of patients in Iraq’s hospitals were stricken with
amoebic dysentery, gastroenteritis and other waterborne diseases. 1.5
million people died, 500,000 of them were children.
http://www.iraqwaterproject.com/docus/attack_water.htm
http://www.zmag.org/edwinthalliday.htm
http://www.casi.org.uk/guide/distribution.html
In the last 4 years, another 1.2 million have been killed, and another 4
million made into refugees.
I keep getting censored.
It is really 2.8 million for Iraq. The sanctions were also based on lies. This is what I wanted to say:-
http://web.aanet.com.au/webspace/BloodForOil/Postings/holoc.txt
The problem with recognizing one genocide is that it sets up a slippery slope - recognize one genocide and you have to recognize all the others!
If we recognize what the Turks did to the Armenians, and the U.S. settlers did to the first nation’s peoples,or that the Nazi’s actually killed more Russians than Jews, and what Trujillo in the Dominican Republic did to the Haitians, etc, then we have to call what the Israelis do to the Palestinians by it’s proper name, genocide.
And neither Tom Lantos (who calls himself Tel Aviv’s man in Washington) and Nancy Pelosi (largest recipient of AIPAC funds) would ever want to face that sad and onerous truth.
“Canaanites were killed by Abraham’s people to rid the land of one people and to repopulate it with another. Canaanites, now called Palestinians, were and are currently being killed … once again … the United States which helps by massively funding and arming this genocide…”
Modern Palestinians are no-more the direct-descendants of the Canaanites than modern-Israeli’s are of the original-Hebrews. Also, all the Crimes against modern-Era Palestinians cannot be summarized as “genocide”, when in 1946 their original-population was 7-800,000 and today they number more than 6-million (counting Palestinians and their off-spring in ‘refugee-camps’, both within-and-without Israel).
In no-way do I minimize the on-going and nefarious treatments of the ‘non-Jewish of Palestine’, but Genocide is incorrect…
BTW, I opined this elsewhere, and you may agree:
““One can be both a Zionist and an advocate for human rights, fairness and, indeed, Palestinian rights. Many Israelis and members of the Jewish diaspora are.”
I would say that the clear-majority “are” (something comments here rarely-reflect accurately).
And ‘No’, most Israeli’s are neither descendants from the original-tribes (who, long-ago, also conquered and drove-out the ‘natives’), nor are they ex-Holocaust/War victims — few, sadly, survived that genocide, and fewer-still remain.
Considering the 1-Trillion+ U.S.-’support’ for the even-now only 5-million-strong Jewish-State (not to mention the Reparations from Germans and others, and massive funding/donations from the ‘Diaspora’), it’s surprising that no-one considered, in 1946, just paying the under-one-million Palestinians there to leave — with more than ’shirts on their back’, that-is. That would have saved a lot of suffering/heartbreak since…
In fact, it seems to me that it would _still_ be cheaper/better to make appropriate-Reparations to today’s 6+ million Palestinians (in Israel and in horrid ‘refugee-camps’, elsewhere) than to continue fight these ‘Wars’ for needful “Israeli-Security”, and the continuation of all the costly/inhumane ‘repressions of natives’ with all the other crimes associated with denying Muslims their “Twin-State” — promised them after WW-II. Really, how much ‘per head’ would have to be shelled-out to make a Palestinian then actually ‘welcomed’ elsewhere in the ME, and as a valued ‘full citizen’ (or welcomed in the US, for that-matter)? I would bet that about two-years worth of the always-massive American ‘aid’ to this wealthiest-per-capita ME-country would cover it ‘nicely’…if matched by Israel herself, and then properly-invested/Trust-Funded/Administered (with perhaps that-much-again to reimburse the few actual/remaining ‘owners of anything’ within Israel). The US, just in Iraq, has shelled-out more than another-Trillion — and bought NO ’security’ for Israel (or itself) in the process.
How’s that for a “Peace Plan”?
imotomar,
I believe that progressives already label past acts of genocide and mass murder appropriately, and yet that makes little difference to the corporate oligarchy’s puppets in Washington. The Republican puppets, who long ago gave up any pretense of possessing a scintilla of humanity or integrity, could pass a resolution declaring that black is white or up is down without hesitation (a small boy hurling a pebble could be deemed “a terroristic act” while a tank running over a group of children would be “self-defense”). And the Democratic puppets, who are more fascists-in-training, are really not all that far behind, though the slim hope for human survival could lie within that small difference.
However, it is too easy for us to hurl insults at earlier generations who did not possess our knowledge or wealth or ability to communicate ideas to large numbers of people. There is no reason not to believe that future generations, if they exist, will conclude that the apathy and learned helplessness of the current generation, in knowing about Bush/Cheney war crimes and not acting forcefully to stop them, was as reprehensible as any actions of our forebears.
Braithwa842 got it right above at 10-29, 12:24 p.m.
As for the definition of genocide, this is easy to find in the 1948 Genocide Convention:
“Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/gendef.htm
The intent to destroy is easy to see in the statements of Bush. For example, he said:
“The war against this enemy is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century, and the calling of our generation.”
He wants to rid the world of “evildoers.”
And Admiral Mullen, head of the Joint Chiefs sees evil in Muslims too:
“The enemy now is basically evil and fundamentally hates everything we are — the democratic principles for which we stand … This war is going to go on for a long time. It’s a generational war.”
The US crimes against Iraq from 1992 to present are genocide. See Braithwa842’s numbers. The reflect extrapolations of the Lancet study, UNICEF’s study of the sanctions, and other recent studies.
Thanks Braithwa842.
Hi MeAlsoToo - I think you make some very good points, especially your comments about reparations, which I think Palestinians are entitled to.
However, I stand by my use of the word genocide to describe Israeli war-crimes agains the Palestinian people, as these acts include cutting off power supplies, water, bulldozing and razing arable land and crops, and seizing humanitarian food and medical supplies.
It’s a sad commentary on the future of humans when the victims of one genocide become the perpetrators of another genocide.
And Kivals - I think you had some excellent points, too, especially about the puppets in DC.
The point I was trying to make, but probably needed to expand upon is that as much as I think that the Armenian Genocide needs to be recognized,its supporters are craven opportunists. I doubt that Nancy Pelosi or Tom Lantos would ever sponsor a resolution condeming the Indonesian campaign of genocide agains the East Timorese. However, California has a large Armenian population (think William Saroyan, among other prominent California Armenians), and this resolution was a way of trying to garner political support from a constituency that is typically not Democratic leaning.
“However, I stand by my use of the word genocide to describe Israeli war-crimes agains the Palestinian people…”
Had the Israeli’s intended genocide, there would be far-fewer than current Palestinian-numbers (which are nearly ten-times greater than was true just-before the Founding of Israel). It’s perfectly-obvious, to me, that their intent was to drive-out, subjugate, then use the remaining Muslims as basically ‘cheap/slave-labor’ (although the influx of poor/Russian-Jews in late-80’s eliminated even that-usefulness for them to Israel). Today, their intent is to marginalize them further (if even possible?) and absolutely contain lesser-numbers of them in walled-in/prison-like areas — profiting, eventually, from inserted ‘wage-slave’ industries to further exploit them. This is not ‘genocide’ — but it’s obviously appalling and criminal. And has been murderous in its implementation…
23 MeAlsoToo wrote:
“Modern Palestinians are no-more the direct-descendants of the Canaanites than modern-Israeli’s are of the original-Hebrews.”
COMMENT:
I didn’t say the people in the area now known as Palestine were direct descendants of the people who lived in the area thousands of years ago.
Most of the people in the area called Palestine may or may not be the direct descendants of the Biblical Canaanites and most of the people in the area called Iraq may or may not be the direct descendants of the Biblical era Mesopotamians. Although those many blue-eyed, even red-haired and freckled modern Jews who have included my spouse and many friends, suggest many centuries of blood dilution in Europe, the majority of the people that call themselves Jews have at least some blood descendancy from the Biblical Abrahamic Jews, but even if they don’t, they are connected to the Abrahamic people by religion. However, the European Jews that invaded Canaan/Palestine and stole the land have no more connection or right to that land than I have of any right to land in England from whence some of my ancestors came.
Perhaps wide spread DNA tests could be used to determine percentages, but all this is irrelevant to the main point: People who are identified as Jews in the Torah invaded the area called Canaan and slaughtered many of the people living there to take their land. Then, in the twentieth century people who self-identified as Jews invaded the same land, now known by a different name, slaughtered many of the people living there to take their land.
Technically the peoples living in the area called Canaan consisted of several different tribes but all people living in the area of Canaan were, and are, properly known as Canaanites, just as the various French, English, and First Nation peoples living in the area known as Canada are all called Canadians.
There is no moral justification for Biblical Jews to slaughter people to steal their land, no moral justification for modern Jews to slaughter people to steal their land, as there is no moral justification for the people that call themselves “Americans” to have slaughtered the Western Hemispheres “First Nations” peoples to steal their land.
23 MeAlsoToo wrote:
“Also, all the Crimes against modern-Era Palestinians cannot be summarized as “genocide”, when in 1946 their original-population was 7-800,000 and today they number more than 6-million (counting Palestinians and their off-spring in ‘refugee-camps’, both within-and-without Israel).”
COMMENT:
You seem to believe that current numbers do not indicate genocide. If the First Nation peoples in the US managed to increase their population today, would that mean that there was never any genocide? Hardly. But mere slaughter in quantity is not what genocide means.
A close reading of the definition of genocide in Merriam Webster International III applied to the ancient and modern invasions of the Canaan/Palestinian lands indicates the correct use of the word. Add to the preceding the destruction of infrastructure that has occured and the continued intent such as the latest news from Israel that they intended to turn off the electricity and shut off the fuel to Gaza , which would additionally meet the UN definition of genocide, although that has been put off “for now.”
Furthermore, Resolution 260 (III) A of the UN General Assembly of 9 December 1948, Article 2 : “…genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy…in part, a national…group….”
“In part,” please note. The actions of the conquerers who tore out a piece of land for the nation they call Israel was initially to destroy the inhabitants of the land of Canaan/Palestine at least “in part” as a national group, and the actions against Palestinian governance through creating “unlivable conditions…[is] calculated to bring about the extermination of a…political…group”
““One can be both a Zionist and an advocate for human rights, fairness and, indeed, Palestinian rights. Many Israelis and members of the Jewish diaspora are.”
There are indeed Jews in the US who are very much advocates for human rights, fairness and Palestinian rights, which googling will reveal. And Haaretz regularly reports Israelis who agree.
However, one cannot be a “Zionist” for “Palestinian rights” in-as-much as Zionism is defined as “a world-wide Jewish movement for the establishment in Palestine of a national homeland for the Jews.” [Random House]
Add to this the fact that the Torah claims that God promised the Jews the lands between the great river to the West (the Nile), and to the East (the Euphrates). If this is what a Zionist believes, and many (most?) do, then they really can’t be advocates for Palestinian rights, Egyptian rights, Iraqi rights, Jordanian rights and perhaps two three other countries rights, depending on how far north and south that Nile to Euphrates swath might be.