By Kit O'Connell
August 22, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "Mint Press" - It
may never be possible to know the true death toll of the modern Western
wars on the Middle East, but that figure could be 4 million or higher.
Since the vast majority of those killed were of Arab descent, and mostly
Muslim, when would it be fair to accuse the United States and its
allies of genocide?
A March report by Physicians for Social Responsibility calculates the body count of the Iraq War at around 1.3 million, and possibly as many as 2 million. However, the numbers of those killed in Middle Eastern wars could be much higher. In April, investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed argued that the actual death toll could reach as high as 4 million if
one includes not just those killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
but also the victims of the sanctions against Iraq, which left about
1.7 million more dead, half of them children, according to figures from
the United Nations.
Raphael Lemkin and the definition of genocide
The
term “genocide” did not exist prior to 1943, when it was coined by a
Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin. Lemkin created the word by
combining the Greek root “geno,” which means people or tribe, with
“-cide,” derived from the Latin word for killing.
The
Nuremberg trials, in which top Nazi officials were prosecuted for
crimes against humanity, began in 1945 and were based around Lemkin’s
idea of genocide. By the following year, it was becoming international
law, according to United to End Genocide:
“In
1946, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution that
‘affirmed’ that genocide was a crime under international law, but did
not provide a legal definition of the crime.”
With
support from representatives of the U.S., Lemkin presented the first
draft of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide to
the United Nations. The General Assembly adopted the convention in 1948,
although it would take three more years for enough countries to sign
the convention, allowing it to be ratified.
According to this convention, genocide is defined as:
“…any
of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in
part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, such as:
- (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.”
Under
the convention, genocide is not merely defined as a deliberate act of
killing, but can include a broad range of other harmful activities:
“Deliberately
inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy a group includes
the deliberate deprivation of resources needed for the group’s physical
survival, such as clean water, food, clothing, shelter or medical
services. Deprivation of the means to sustain life can be imposed
through confiscation of harvests, blockade of foodstuffs, detention in
camps, forcible relocation or expulsion into deserts.”
It
can also include forced sterilization, forced abortion, prevention of
marriage or the transfer of children out of their families. In 2008, the
U.N. expanded the definition to acknowledge that “rape and other forms
of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or
a constitutive act with respect to genocide.”
A Middle Eastern genocide
A
key phrase in the convention on genocide is “acts committed with intent
to destroy.” While the facts back up a massive death toll in Arab and
Muslim lives, it might be more difficult to argue that the actions were
carried out with the deliberate intent to destroy “a national, ethnic,
racial or religious group.”
The
authors of the convention were aware, however, that few of those who
commit genocide are so bold as to put their policies in writing as
brazenly as the Nazis did. Yet, as Genocide Watch noted
in 2002: “Intent can be proven directly from statements or orders. But
more often, it must be inferred from a systematic pattern of coordinated
acts.”
In
the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush employed a
curious and controversial choice of words in one of his first speeches.
He alarmed some by referencing historic, religious conflicts, as The Wall Street Journal staff writers Peter Waldman and Hugh Pope noted:
“President
Bush vowed … to ‘rid the world of evil-doers,’ then cautioned: ‘This
crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while.’
Crusade?
In strict usage, the word describes the Christian military expeditions a
millennium ago to capture the Holy Land from Muslims. But in much of
the Islamic world, where history and religion suffuse daily life in ways
unfathomable to most Americans, it is shorthand for something else: a
cultural and economic Western invasion that, Muslims fear, could
subjugate them and desecrate Islam.”
In
the wars that followed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. not only
killed millions, but systematically destroyed the infrastructure
necessary for healthy, prosperous life in those countries, then used rebuilding efforts as opportunities for profit,
rather than to benefit the occupied populations. To further add to the
genocidal pattern of behavior, there is ample evidence of torture and persistent rumors of sexual assault from the aftermath of Iraq’s fall. It appears likely the U.S. has contributed to further destabilization and death in the region by supporting the rise of the self-declared Islamic State of Iraq and Syria by arming rebel groups on all sides of the conflict.
After
9/11, the U.S. declared a global “War on Terror,” ensuring an endless
cycle of destabilization and wars in the Middle East in the process. The
vast majority of the victims of these wars, and of ISIS, are Muslims.
And, as extremist terrorists created by the unrest increase tensions
with their attacks on the West, some Americans are embracing Bush’s
controversial language of religious warfare, calling for Muslims to be placed in camps or even openly calling for genocide.
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