this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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Can we please stop overusing the word genocide
Sorry, you're right. In the absence of specific genocidal intent, the US and UK are only guilty of crimes against humanity, the crime of aggression, and various sundry war crimes.
Yes, correct. Now Saddam Hussein on the other hand..
Edit: oh you're one of the hexbear people, jesus you people are insufferable
I agree with you and you resort to whataboutism in response. Somehow I'm the insufferable one?
Yikes.
Literally justifying the Iraq war while acting like we're the assholes here, right
Saddam Hussein didn't literally genocide kurdish people? Not saying that justifies a country halfway across the world to brutally occupy them, but it's not like that didn't happen.
He did. He was also supported by the CIA during his times as a torturer of communists and as a dictator launching gas attacks.
You're agreeing with my comment and have 10 upvotes but mine has 2? Curious
It's because you've been a petulant, condescending little fancylad while
your watering down of the term genocide and accusing the people with actual documentation on their side of doing what you're doing. To paraphrase someone else, you guys have your Wrong and Smug sliders completely maxed out, to the point where you (not you personally, at least yet) quickly get solipsistic and start dehumaizing people with different opinions as bots as soon as the notion that your views are obviously correct, good and widespread is even slightly challenged.
That’s because you refuse to acknowledge the US’ role in genocides in the Middle East, then bring up Saddam’s genocide as if he was the sole architect
Holy fucking shit.
After hand wringing the word in context of the US killing millions of people.
And we're insufferable.
In the former instance there was an actual concerted effort to specifically murder people of a certain minority. In the latter there was a misguided attempt to squash an insurgency and build a new government at all costs. This is documented history and I can only assume you've been drooling on some communist furry subs for the past decade and just left adolescence. You can't just change word's definitions for your own childish deranged goals.
whoopsies i did yet another imperialism killing millions in the process
golly we are so misguided why does this keep happening to all of our totally genuine attempts at peacekeeping
The fucking nerve of you to invoke the idea of 'documented history' when you're as ignorant as a fucking toddler about that very history is absolutely fucking infuriating. And for someone who puts so much goddamned effort into your affectation of intelligence you have absolutely no fucking critical thinking. The US, this hapless buffoon of a country. Accidentally murdering several million people over the course of three decades. Whoopsie! I deleted the only pharmaceutical factory in the region. D'oh! I bombed a baby food factory and all the civilian power and water infrastructure! How does this keep happening??
And the fucking chauvinism. It's genocide when our enemy uses chemical weapons during wartime in an area with a lot of insurgent fighting (compare us killing another several million people in Vietnam with our own chemical weapons for the exact same reasons except deliberately targeting their food supply but that's not considered a genocide somehow). They killed about 3k people but they did it with animal bloodlust. But we're good. We killed A THOUSAND TIMES THAT MANY PEOPLE but with good intentions. Promise.
People like you are mathematical proof that the west needs to be fucking destroyed.
Honestly writing off America's involvement in the Iraq war as just "misguided" has me fucking FUMING.
You see the double standard you're using here, right? Awful things done by natos geopolitical enemies are genocides, war crimes,... Yet when nato does it it's at most a misguided atempt at doing the right thing?
Awwww poor Bush and his administration, just poor misguided rubes with no ill intent at all. :(
Not saying that
Then why did you use the word misguided
Yes, but that is not a valid reason to justify the war because an autonomous Kurdish zone had already been set up after the Anfal in 1992. The only way Iraqi troops got in there is when the KDP invited them in during the Kurdish Civil War from 1994-7. Then once that was mediated and the KRG was split into two the Iraqi Army was no longer allowed in. The only real change 2003 brought was the legalising and formal institutionalisation of the KRG such that foreign capital was more willing to invest in it (encouraged, in fact, as the US tried to rebuild Iraq to stabilise things) and it had a big shiny "legal" sticker on it. The realities on the ground didn't change though, especially as the constitutional articles surrounding referendums on Kirkuk and other disputed areas never came to fruition.
So by 2003 the Kurdish Question in Iraq had not been solved, but it had certainly been pacified in intensity, because a de facto independent KRG already existed!
I get what you're saying, though. Yes, Saddam was an abhorrent and awful leader who was a genocidaire. However, the war was still an illegal catastrophe based on falsehoods that made things drastically worse for the Iraqi people. It is unjustifiable even when you take Saddam's terrible-ness into account.
I don't think the war was justified.
Yeah killing millions of people was totally worth getting one man!
Now let's bomb Washington DC to rubble and kill your family so we can get to Bush, the even bigger war criminal.
Did I say I think we should have invaded Iraq and Afghanistan?
Nah you just pearl clutched when we called Western Powers bad names.
I'm loosely in favor of restricting the use of the word genocide to when it's definitionally appropriate myself, but that's in the context of effective communication and clarity. So long as "genocide" is going to be used exclusively to refer to US State Department desginated enemies only, then it's perfectly reasonable to liken the US/France/UK's horrific foreign interventions genocide as well. Western interventions, both formal and clandestine, have killed many more than anyone else those imperialist fucks have accused of the word, so in the interest of showing just how absurd their usage is yes, we should and can call Western powers genocidal too.
I mean I do agree with you (as a genocide studies scholar in training, God willing!), but I think your view of the US as just a clumsy, misguided oaf doing the wrong thing for the right reasons is not accurate. It was never the case that the US tried to build a democratic government and failed-from the very start the US instilled Bremer (that idiot) as a dictator; he openly restricted freedom of the press, freedom of speech and association, and had people critical of the CPA arrested. Then afterwards the US tried to interfere in the elections to support Allawi but failed miserably. The CIA and the US embassy has always had a huge role in the picking of Iraqi Prime Ministers and other ministers and has never stopped quashing Iraqi self-determination and democratic will. Just look at what they supported Maliki through!
Thank you for your well informed comment, the whole thing was indeed a clusterfuck and you know more than me. What are you doing on that godforsaken instance?
I am a socialist and it is nice to be among socialists, put simply. I disagree with plenty of them on many issues but honestly I have not found people rude or mean to me-indeed, even less so than on liberal forums e.g., reddit. Plus there is an energetic solidarity and support for marginalised ppl (I am disabled + poor + mentally ill) that you do not get in most communities because I feel they understand more so the structural roots behind these marginalisations (since they are socialists!).
Post shit get hit. We welcome informed folks, well meaning curious questions, and fellow travelers with open arms. Sanctimonious liberals get the hog.
Also you: https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/1081955
Monday: china is fascist
Tuesday: china is communist
Wednesday: china is communist in name only
Thursday: china is corporatist
Friday: china is state capitalist
Saturday: china is just authoritarian
Sunday: china is just totalitarian
Yes this is me, thank you for advertising my accurate comment. China is indeed targeting and concentrating minorities into camps. Words have meanings.
Does not seem like words have meanings. All the nuance in your tank is reserved for the constant America-led warmongering in the middle east with a death toll in millions, many more displaced, and known torture sites like Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and god known how many more black sites. Meanwhile the Uyghur are unequivocally being genocided despite ZERO CONFIRMED CASUALTIES four years into the news cycle. So your litmus test for genocide seems to be
despite the emphasis on words having meaning.
astral_avacado said elsewhere that the Iraq Invasion was just "misguided" so its definitely a case of
with how they decide what is and isn't a genocide.
Calling that genocide is holocaust denial.
Stop hiding behind pathetic labels, you are in bed with fascists.
The UN disagrees with you
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/2022-08-31/22-08-31-final-assesment.pdf
lets call it unsolicited special underage child pregnancy operation