Bangkok Red Shirt Killings - Genocide?

[Guest fountainhall]

There is a rather strange letter in today

[Rogie]

Sorry to take a non-intellectual approach to this, but the UN can get stuffed as far as I am concerned.

 

I am somewhat confused about the difference between genocide and civil war. Perhaps civil war is restricted to one or more factions within a country at war with each other, whereas genocide tends to be one faction initiating a killing spree against a weaker and possibly defenceless section of the population. Arguing about the reasons or justification (if any) for genocide in order to make it fit an arbitrary definition is daft IMO. I don't think I would use the term genocide to describe the bombings in WW2. I know that's a bit shocking of me to say this, but in a 'World War' it's every man (used deliberately so as to exclude women and children) for himself, running the spectrum from conscientious objector to madman.

[Bob]

And under the terms of this definition, surely at least some of the killing in the Vietnam War was essentially genocide

[kokopelli]

 

Come to think of it, I suppose my using ant spray out on the patio this afternoon was genocide too?

 

No that was Insecticide!

 

Acts of war - whether the US bombing of North Vietnam, the Allies' bombing of Germany, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, or the like - are hardly acts of genocide. At least not under any accepted definition of the term.(quote)

 

I don't agree with all that you mention above. The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor was an act of war directed specifically at a military target. The allied bombing of military and transportation targets in Germany were also acts of war. But the firebombing of cities in Germany and Japan and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were crimes against humanity as was the German bombing of cities in England. Not sure if they would be considered genocide or not although the use of nuclear weapons against the Japanese smacks of it.

[Rogie]

The Armenian massacre / genocide is in the news once again:

 

Here is a good BBC article on the subject:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk...europe-16352745

 

The mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I remains a highly sensitive issue.

 

Turkey has resisted widespread calls for it to recognise the 1915-16 killings as genocide, while historians continue to argue about the events. At the time there were numerous reports of Turkish atrocities committed against the Armenians.

 

There is general agreement that hundreds of thousands of Armenians died when the Ottoman Turks deported them en masse from eastern Anatolia to the Syrian desert and elsewhere in 1915-16. They were killed or died from starvation or disease.The total number of Armenian dead is disputed. Armenians say 1.5 million died. The Republic of Turkey estimates the total to be 300,000.

 

According to the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), the death toll was "more than a million".

 

In a letter to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2005 the IAGS said "we want to underscore that it is not just Armenians who are affirming the Armenian Genocide but it is the overwhelming opinion of scholars who study genocide".

The International Association of Genocide Scholars I know nothing about but with the French government toying with the idea of making it an offence to deny it took place it'd be a brave neutral person who sided with the Turks on this.

 

In 2006, Turkey condemned a French parliamentary vote which would make it a crime to deny that Armenians had suffered genocide. The bill did not become law - but Turkey suspended military ties.

 

In December 2011 some MPs in France's ruling centre-right party, the UMP, revived the bill and it was adopted again, despite Turkish government outrage. It still requires a vote by the upper house, the Senate, to become law.

 

[Bob]

But the firebombing of cities in Germany and Japan and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were crimes against humanity as was the German bombing of cities in England. Not sure if they would be considered genocide or not although the use of nuclear weapons against the Japanese smacks of it.

 

I can agree that the Allied bombing of civilian centers and the like - where war actions are mainly directed at civilians - would come within the notion of crimes against humanity or, more simply, war crimes. We (the allies) did it and there's no denying it. We from the west too often overlook things like that or justify it from the point of view that the Germans did it first; regardless, it was neither self-defense or justified in my view.

[Guest]

People have some strange & outdated moral ideas. For example, what is the significant moral difference between killing conscripted troops and bombing cities?

 

Killing men and women is the same, favouring women is an outdated sexist attitude. Women want equality in society & serve in the armed forces in many countries. Equality should work both ways, otherwise it is nothing but a sham.

 

Most of the soldiers in WW2 were conscripted on all sides, so why should civilians be favoured?

 

The killing of children is the one area where bombing of cities does get a little worse.

 

However, when participating in a war that was started by the other side, it is clearly preferable to bomb cities rather than kill thousands of your own conscripted troops engaging the Japanese in land battles. The US made the correct decisions in 1945.

[kokopelli]

People have some strange & outdated moral ideas. For example, what is the significant moral difference between killing conscripted troops and bombing cities?

 

There is a difference. Destruction of military targets and killing of combatants can lead to victory or defeat but the wanton killing of civilians and destruction of cities does not. In WWII it was the Allied bombing of military targets and specifically transportation facilities that crippled the German war machine. Likewise the US submarine warfare against Japanese shipping was a major factor in bringing the war to the Japanese homeland. Fire bombing and atomic bombing of cities was literally "overkill".

 

Killing 50,000 civilians in an instant as was done in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is morally reprehensible.

[Guest]

Killing 50,000 civilians in an instant as was done in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is morally reprehensible.

I disagree.

 

What is the moral difference between adult civilians and adult civilians who have been forcibly conscripted from civilian life into the military? I see none.

 

Killing 50,000 civilians is much better than the war dragging on for another couple of years, with more than 50,000 deaths on each side. The US did exactly the right thing to protect it's citizens, it's allies and the interests of occupied countries.

 

Incidentally, Hiroshima was a city with considerable military significance.

[Guest fountainhall]

Destruction of military targets and killing of combatants can lead to victory or defeat but the wanton killing of civilians and destruction of cities does not . . . Killing 50,000 civilians in an instant as was done in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is morally reprehensible.

Much as I want to agree, I'm with z909. I fully accept there is a huge moral problem here. The US powers-that-be claimed the dropping of the two atomic bombs was, ironically, to reduce casualties on both sides. After all, not only had Japan declared it would fight to the last man, more importantly the concept of surrender was anathema both to its military commanders and most of the Japanese people. Further, the death toll in excess of 100,000 civilians in the Tokyo fire-bombings of March 9/10 1945 had not changed the country’s resolve one iota.

 

I believe in those circumstances, the murder - for that is what it was - of 130,000+ (which is a more exact figure than 50,000+) was for the greater good of saving US losses in the region of 100,000+ and, let us never forget, Japanese losses of even 1,000,000+. Who knows? Can such actions therefore be termed genocide or war crimes – or merely acts of war? Despite the killing of masses of civilians, I am now not so sure.

 

As Bob points out, the Germans, British, the Russians and the US all committed gross crimes against civilians in World War II. I do not know the detail of the Geneva Convention, but when one country makes war on another, as in the case of Japan with the US, or enters a war as a result of a bilateral treaty, as in the case of the UK with Germany, the object surely is to win, and to win in the fastest possible time with the least possible destruction to life and property of your own citizens. Destroying the enemy's command, communications and transportation links are vital in wartime. If these happen to be located in civilian areas, you really have little choice: surely they have to be obliterated? With today's 'smart' bombs, perhaps targets can be selected with much more precision. But demoralising a population is, and has always been, part and parcel of warfare in almost any age.

 

Within wars, though, there definitely have been instances of genocide. I mentioned Srebrenica – the rounding up of 8,000 Muslim men and boys to be slaughtered. To that can be added the murder by the Russians of 22,000 Polish officers and civilians at Katyn - and many other instances. Wiping out of entire villages in various wars just because, it had been alleged, one citizen was, say, a traitor. These surely are also acts of genocide.

[Bob]

Within wars, though, there definitely have been instances of genocide. I mentioned Srebrenica

[Guest snapshot]

Some deaths were caused by negligence and such but for the most part, protesters were killed because they individually or as a group, failed to obey lawful directives and then threatened the lives of bystanders and soldiers who were forced to defend themselves.

 

Ridiculous use of the term "genocide" and using the term in this instance lessens the gravity of the word which is used for events of far greater tragedy.

[Guest thaiworthy]

Ridiculous use of the term "genocide" and using the term in this instance lessens the gravity of the word which is used for events of far greater tragedy.

 

"Ridiculous" is a matter of opinion, however I would tend to agree with this, but apparently the usage is easily debatable and open to interpretation.

 

Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide