What is genocide?
Genocide has taken on many forms throughout history. It does not mean killing every single member of an ethnic group--just killing in such large numbers that the group is neutralized and powerless and can be exploited.
The Nazis therefore did not kill all the Jews. They kept those who were useful for their purposes. They also did not intend to kill all the Russians – just most of them-- with the remainder as slaves. The Roma had to go completely because they had no usefulness.
In the 19th century, however, there were no “genocides” just mass killings – as there had always been throughout history.
When the Church wiped out the Cathars, for example. The Papacy had its own notion of spiritual empire.
(The Cathars) …largely regarded men and women as equals, and had no doctrinal objection to contraception, euthanasia or suicide. In some respects the Cathar and Catholic Churches were polar opposites. For example the Cathar Church taught that all non-procreative sex was better than any procreative sex. The Catholic Church taught - as it still teaches - exactly the opposite. Both positions produced interesting results. Following their tenet, Catholics concluded that masturbation was a far greater sin than rape (as mediaeval penitentials confirm).
"Kill them all. God will know his own"
What's in a name?
The term genocide was coined with the Nazi Holocaust in mind. But the basic concept is the same.
“generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation…It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups.
Raphael Lemkin. Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Washington, D.C., 1944)
“Coordinated plan”?
"Coordination" just means people working together towards a certain goal, which is the "plan", which is not necessarily a single, overarching. logically organised strategy.
Using this definition, the US has been one of the most genocidal of nations. Take the case of the Native Americans. A majority of the population were killed. The survivors were relegated to "reservations"-- and their cultures and traditions erased. But there was no coordinated plan – no single organized strategy.
Black people are another example. As slaves, they had economic value. After abolition, they could not be bought and sold – only exploited. That's when the real killing started. They had to be kept powerless and incapable of challenging that exploitation, developing their own culture and identity. They were kept in poverty and died in large numbers from disease.
Black people still die.
The average lifespan of a black male is about six years less than a white person. Black people were—and are— expendable and dispensable. That's not the result of hatred for white prejudice – it's the system.
Hate does not cause genocide
The popular notion is that genocide is caused by “hate”—which like “love” is a word bandied about without anybody really understanding what it is.
But human beings do not naturally hate or like to kill other human beings. Hatred is a tool people are taught to use—usually in grade school—but also from the media and culture — a learned behavior. No, you can't get rid of hatred – your society needs it.
The real cause of genocide lies in the lust for power and the greed of powerful people.
In the case of the US, after World War II, America dreamt of a global empire—which meant more money and power for the people who ran the country. American oligarchs planned to devastate the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons and take its resources, which had also been Hitler's primary plan and the driver for his special and peculiar notion of technocratic genocide.
The Soviets, however, managed to create their own nuclear weapons; so the US moved on to Korea and Vietnam, the Iran-Iraq proxy war, the war on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and others. “We are the world” right?
Upwards of 20 million people died.
You might say this was serial genocide. If the Holocaust was technocratic—camps and gas and accountants keeping numbers—US wars were technological—the killing, more indiscriminate.
We don’t do body counts. (Gen. Tommy Franks)
America's wars on the world may not have been genocide in the narrow sense of the Holocaust. But they were genocide in a wider sense—just as horrifying—for to kill all these people the US had to create generations of Little Eichmanns. So it is that the US government and academia became dominated by apologists for the murder of innocents. Thousands of Little Himmlers and Goebbels. A nation with an infrastructure of Deceit.
Which means that since 1945, almost every US president has been a monster—even though none has had a mustache.
That certainly applies to Joseph Biden. But not just him.
US Congress: ‘We Stand With Genocide’ Consortium News
12 / 31 2023
Once upon a time, our rulers could control the media so that everyone got the same "narrative"— one story—and one story only. But they can't do that today because of digital media – hence the need to maintain orthodoxy by trying to cancel dissenting opinions.
"Trying to" is the operative expression.
It is hard to erase images of dead and dying children from the mind—not in the Middle East, at least. There, things are heating up. If this were a poker game, the US just has too many “tells”. And the peoples in the region read them too well.
Iran deploys warship to Red Sea amid soaring tensions
Al Jazeera
01/ 01 2024
This warship of course will relay targeting information to the Houthis to launch attacks on shipping-- and defense information in the event that the Americans or the Brits launch missile strikes on the bases.
The US and the Brits support terrorist attacks by Ukraine on Russia in this way, why not Iran? What goes around comes around.
In any case, the Houthis don't have to actually sink a ship for their strategy to be effective.
Maersk will continue to pause all Red Sea shipments
Reuters
02 2024
Maersk will not lose money, pausing Red Sea shipments. That will just be an excuse to inflate costs, adding to their already healthy margin. This is not good news. however, for the fundamental economies of Europe and the United States—which need a breather. Something had to be done.
Israel is pulling thousands of troops from Gaza in a possible precursor to a scaled-back offensive
AP News
2/ 01, 2024
That "scaled-back offensive" is unlikely to ever happen now—although there is much talk about the Israeli plan of sending the Gazans to the Congo or some place in Africa. You may recall that Hitler wanted to dump the Jews in Africa too. Didn't work. That led to Auschwitz—the precursor to Gaza City.
BUT….!
The US and the Israelis are losing everywhere – in Gaza, in the Red Sea, against Hezbollah, and certainly in the court of world opinion. You might also say both countries are losing against themselves. The center will not hold.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned
(The Second Coming— William Butler Yeats)
Lowering the intensity of the conflict is supposed to buy breathing space for a final push but instead it communicates the fundamental weakness of the West. You can expect Iran, the Houthis, Hezbollah, and militant groups in Iraq and Syria to up the ante. Ansar Allah As already announced the training of 20,000 battle tested Houthi reservists to fight the Israelis in Gaza – or perhaps in Lebanon. If the ICJ finds against Israel—as should be the case, things will get worse.
And not just for Israel.
How then can the US prate about being a defender of international law? The Emperor has no clothes and its junk dangles in the wind. It is not a good look, especially in an election year.
Hindustan Times
2/ 02 2024
There are fears of escalation after a Hamas deputy was killed
SBS News
01/ 03 2024
Things will get hotter. As you saw my last article, the US and Israel are very good at doubling down on stupidity—just as dumb as assassinating Mousavi was.
While pretending to look rational and de-escalate, they escalate with assassination strikes. These are signs of desperation – not unlike Zelensky's ordering of terrorist attacks on Belgorod, with help from the UK and the US.
Does the US have a right to exist?
Soon we must question not only the right of Israel to exist, but the right of the US and the UK to exist.
Does a nation that conducts wars against humanity itself have a right to exist, even if it does so with the compliance and complicity of its population? Those were questions raised about Germany and Japan after World War II. And the answer was simply that they could not exist as they had previously.
Soon the US will have an election. Assuming Genocide Joe doesn't have a stroke, or is not assassinated by Mossad, Trump will be the next president.
This is the guy who let John Bolton out of his cage. As I argued in 2020, there is fundamentally no difference between the Democrats and Republicans – and certainly not between Biden and Trump-- it is just a matter of style.
The Neocons, Biden, Trump….
Ultimately, the fault does not lie with them—it lies with the American people.
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For anyone who can see it, the grand illusion of democracy is also unraveling. This great American magic trick is fast approaching its crescendo.
I like your conclusion: "the fault lies with the American people." This seems to me to be partly correct, in that Americans are convinced that they belong to an exceptional nation, that they are a unique (and obviously superior) people in the history of the world. Even among those who are critical of their country, there is still this reflex of superiority. Don't tell Scott Ritter, for example, that the USMC isn't the greatest army in history: he sees red.
But it's not just the American people who should be blamed for this, because it's also a question of the total collapse of the democratic system, a total collapse in the entire American sphere (i.e. the NATO zone). In the end, the people have no right to speak. In a sham election, they have a choice between the plague and the cholera. Between interchangeable candidates put before them by the plutocracy, which shares power and thus holds on to it according to apparently democratic rules.