Valuing Genocide

I posted about this quite some time ago and I couldnt find the thread so heres a new one.

Genocide has been a characteristic of human nature for as long as history has been recorded. Ethnic cleansing has been common during wartime and other national emergencies in cultures and nations throughout the world. Why does the German genocide of Jews and others get so much attention?

Several nations committed genocides during and directly after the Second World War, those of the USSR and Communist China being far more costly in lives than that of Germany. Im not sure about the numbers on Japan. Looking back further in history, it is easy to identify many of the world's nations as culprits in game of ethnic cleansing. The Spanish in South America, the Turks in Armenia, and even the USA are all responsible for the planned destruction of other ethnic groups. The colonialism imposed on much of the world by Britain and France is not innocent of genocidal tendencies either, although certainly not to the extent seen in the 20th century. In fact, some of the first recorded episodes of genocide were committed by the Jews in the Old Testament.

So why does Germany get such a bad rap when other nations seem to be able to sweep such unpleasantries under the rug? I have some theories but I will wait to see the responses before I share them.

Also, I want to say now that I am not trying to be an apologist for Nazi Germany or the Holocaust. The deliberate and organized killing of the Jews and other minorities perpetrated by the Nazis was unjustifiable and simply evil. I am simply trying to understand why the German holocaust seems to be far more remembered than any others, even one's far larger.

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Originally Posted by PanzerJager

I am simply trying to understand why the German holocaust seems to be far more remembered than any others, even one's far larger.

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The answer is obvious in the U.S. there was a democrat in power at the time. If it had been otherwise we would have just been projecting W.A.S.P. Imperialism to mainland Europe. The German's army would be portrayed as glorious misunderstood freedom fighters pushed into that position by Allied global economic power. Not to mention that despite making remarks about the jews in his book, Hitler would be wearing a member's only jacket and given only harsh language by the U.N.

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Personally I would have entitled the topic "assessing genocide" instead of "valuing genocide" as at first glance it appears unsavory in its purpose.

The jewish lobby in America. :laugh4: I dunno. Its still new? The Americans played a large part in liberataing the jews? Not many Americans care about dark skinned muslims killing off dark skinned christinas in some obscure backwater part of the wrold however many Americans still have a connection with Germany (IIRC 50 million on the last census put "German only" as there ethnicity) and Jewish people (Allot of powerful people have been jewish you cant deny that, esp in the entertaniment buisness, how many Armenians can you name?) All in all I find it funny people get so attached to being "German" Every time wurstfest happens I get nuaseted when all these white trash country bumpkins stop being Americans and put on leederhoosen try to stuff nine inches down there thorat and run around speaking broken German. Your family came over in 1850 get a job. I swear between this and Fiesta Im surprised I havent burned the city donw.

Hitler was defeated and was dead. One can always villify someone in that situation.

The USSR and China were and are still powers who we need to be nice to, so we don't bring up facts that might upset them.

~:smoking:

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Originally Posted by PanzerJager

I am simply trying to understand why the German holocaust seems to be far more remembered than any others, even one's far larger.

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Probably because they basically took certain key concepts of modern civilization - bureaucracy, logistics, science etc. - and turned them into a well-oiled machine that killed people pretty much according to fairly precise timetables and quotas. Assembly-line mass murder, organized and planned and honed as a factory complex would be, and with a good part of the people involved in it tacitly ignoring what exactly the numbers in the papers and plans and tables actually meant.

Compared to that for example the Soviets' crude and haphazard death-by-neglect-or-bullet-in-the-head stuff just... seems so amateurish. Kid's play. Schoolyard bully meanness. It lacks the oppressive, chilling soullesness that the Holocaust downright radiates.

It's also partially a question of time invested. I doubt if there are many appalling massacres that can rival the sheer volume per unit of time measured the Germans achieved.

And it all was done to defenceless civilians whose only crime was to exist, complete with flatly gratuitious acts of ritualized dehumanization.

Kinda hard to match in sheer creepiness.

QFT there were efficent

The surviving film footage and documents help with the holocaust's standing. I'm sure that had we footage of medieval England telling jews to stand there in the tidal flats and wait for boats to come pick them up (of course they meant that high tide was on the way to drown them) we would find it equally creepy. The acts themselves are morally equal in each instance despite efficiency. But as stated, things like efficiency lead people to perceptions of being more cold blooded etc.

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Originally Posted by PanzerJager

Genocide has been a characteristic of human nature for as long as history has been recorded.

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Very true. When I'm trying to explain this to people who have no grasp of history, I call it the "Kill the men, rape the women and take the sheep" style of warfare. Probably the oldest way to wage war.

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Originally Posted by PanzerJager

Why does the German genocide of Jews and others get so much attention?

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Lots of reasons, some of which have been touched on already. I'll lay out a few of them:

• It was the first truly industrial genocide.
• The holocaust was conducted on an educated, literate, productive part of society (the Jews), as well as an educated, artistic, creative part of society (the gays).
• It was filmed, and the films were preserved.
• The Nazis had an uncanny sense of theatrics, which made everything they did more memorable.
• The Nazis had excellent fashion sense, which made everything they did more memorable.
• Since Germany lost the war, there was no strong push to hide/deny the crime. (Try mentioning the Rape of Nanking to a Japanese person, or the Armenian genocide to a Turk, and you'll see what I mean.)
• Unlike those killed/tortured by the Japanese, the majority of Nazi victims were white. To Westerners, this matters.
• The Nazis conducted their genocide with Germanic efficiency, which makes it more memorable. Death factories had never been seen before, and they kinda made an impression.

I could go on, but there's not much point. The Nazis became the poster boys for genocide, and whether or not that's fair, that's how it is. They ruined genocide and eugenics for everyone.

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Originally Posted by ShadeHonestus

Personally I would have entitled the topic "assessing genocide" instead of "valuing genocide" as at first glance it appears unsavory in its purpose.

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Considering PJ opened a thread a while back stating the case for Fascism in today's world, and considering I've seen him advocate the extermination of all Muslims, I'd have thought the current thread title is quite accurate to its intention. It's just another attempt to rehabilitate the Nazis, saying they couldn't have been that bad if we are more alike to them than we'd admit. Of course, it takes quite some twists of rhetoric, not to mention logic, to make them so supposedly akin to us.

I'm thinking the German genocide stands out because of its direct link to the ideology of the party in power. I believe other genocides were ultimately, well, more "practical" matters.

Some of it is undeniably because the Germans were the enemy of "#1". The U.S. also seems to adopt ideologies only in times of war (which is followed by relative ideological vacuum), so the Germans of that period have the honor of being colored to some extent, still to this day, in the light of the 1940's U.S. mindset.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

Very true. When I'm trying to explain this to people who have no grasp of history, I call it the "Kill the men, rape the women and take the sheep" style of warfare...

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It should be noted that the last two components of the trio above have been subject to a "mix and match" effect. :devilish:

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Originally Posted by Lemur

Lots of reasons, some of which have been touched on already. I'll lay out a few of them:

• It was the first truly industrial genocide.
• The holocaust was conducted on an educated, literate, productive part of society (the Jews), as well as an educated, artistic, creative part of society (the gays).

...

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I'd add, sadly that is was also conducted BY an educated, literate, productive part of society...further heightening the horrific quality of an already evil act. This was not a kultur barely stepping past tribalism and still caught in the throes of "vendetta" and the like. :shame:

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Originally Posted by Lemur

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I could go on, but there's not much point. The Nazis became the poster boys for genocide, and whether or not that's fair, that's how it is. They ruined genocide and eugenics for everyone.

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LOL .... first time anyone made me laugh during a discussion on mass murder.

The arguement that the Nazis weren't so bad because the Japs killed more people? Don't off-hand have any statistics on the Jap attrocities in China (etc), but as Lemur pointed out - they didn't build murder factories, or keep exacting records of their murders.

Justifying genocide? Please, don't.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

...as well as an educated, artistic, creative part of society (the gays).

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Given the homesexual roots of the Nazi party and dubious sexual orientation of Hitler himself does it not make this a gay on gay hate crime?

I have to agree its the planning and machine like nature of it. Read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning for some description of the camps. Dehumanizing was a science there. There were steps, it all made sense. Nanking was an explosion of revenge instinct from overworked soldiers. It was senseless and insane, random and pointless. It was emotional, so we can grasp it better. Everyone's lost control, not to that degree, but few of us have sat around planning how to damage someone.

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Originally Posted by ShadeHonestus

Given the homesexual roots of the Nazi party and dubious sexual orientation of Hitler himself does it not make this a gay on gay hate crime?

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I didn't even mention the gypsies, Russians, Poles, etc. The Nazis were a busy bunch.

As for the "homosexual roots" of Nazism, you'll have to clarify, 'cause all I was aware of was Rohm and the Brownshirts. And they got put paid in the night of the long knives. If I remember correctly, homosexuality was one of the justifications given for offing Rohm.

Hitler's sexuality? We're wandering far afield, and I'll leave such speculation to the legions of under-employed historians and conspiracy theorists.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

Hitler's sexuality? We're wandering far afield, and I'll leave such speculation to the legions of under-employed historians and conspiracy theorists.

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Well he was arrested for being a male prostitute and there is considerable consideration given (albeit speculation based on a number of loose facts) that his liquidation of the the brownshirts was for the purpose of clearing his sexual history. I usually don't swim in this kind of speculative excrement however I am leaning toward believing this, everything considered.

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Originally Posted by Watchman

killed people pretty much according to fairly precise timetables and quotas.

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Pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Stalin was more brutal, his quota of purging 28% of the bureaucracy in all regions and then later removing the head of the NKVD, Yagoda, because they were 4 years behind their quota of killing people is along the same line as "The Final Solution".

The only difference with Stalin's "Great Purges" and "the Terror", where he killed more than 20 million people (going on Historian Robert Conquest's estimates which modern historians now claim are an underestimate), and Hitler's genocide of 11 million people, (6 million Jews and 5 million ethnic minorities) is that Stalin was more indiscriminate. The fact that Hitler viciously pursued the murder of Jews and then the huge publicity the Holocaust received after the war really gave it the status it has now.

For me, it's the racial element of the Holocaust that marks it out from the red terrors of the twentieth century. Genocide is the killing of a population group defined in terms of nationality, religion or ethnicity. Most of the red terrors (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot) did not target such groups per se (perhaps Stalin's repression of Ukraine excepted). They targeted opponents (real or imagined) or social classes. Compared to other genocides proper, the Holocaust was just writ much larger and done with terrible efficiency by one of the supposedly most cultured and advanced nations on earth.

I'm not saying it is worse to target a group defined in terms of ethnicity than one defined in terms of social class or political affiliation. However, it is different. The Holocaust stands out because it is a clear example of the poisonous nature of racism. The lessons of Stalin or Mao are different and perhaps less simple (that revolutions devour their own children; that absolute power corrupts absolutely etc).

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Why does the German genocide of Jews and others get so much attention?

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So why does Germany get such a bad rap when other nations seem to be able to sweep such unpleasantries under the rug?

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[imagining PJ is a brand new challenger in Backroom]
Welcome !

Speaking of the first genocide which was made by Jews as in mentioned in Old Testament sounds reeeeeeasonable while the history falls unable trying to trace back on events happened only several centuries ago, let alone how you'd be able to convince people to some "historical" fact in a book which is found nonsense as a holy one to follow the discipline of, by large numbers.

Simply Germany would have covered it well if they had been able to make it as winners out of the war, assuming they were able to control most of the Europe, if not the whole. And that war concerned the whole world. The stage was alight indeed.

Also whom they had massacred were the Jews, excelled at commerce, which eventually turns them out to have deciding/effective ranks in the society they are living with. The wit for commerce comes from an analytic and quick thinking ability provided with good diplomatic skills. And same skills work out well for political areas as well. So Jews, yes, sticked their pain into our eyes more than it should have been. I'm simply bored of seeing a new Oscar'red-from-production Steven Spielberg movie about the Holocaust every year. Enough. Actually I'm avoiding anyone's art if one has the surname ending with "-berg". Obvious he has Jewish roots suffered the Holocaust, and as much obvious that I'll see something about Holocaust again. I can see their pain but it just irritates when you "taste" too much of something no matter what.
[/imagining PJ is a brand new challenger in Backroom]

or there's another option:

Germans suck at being perfect evils (if you'd be happy with that).

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Originally Posted by Pannonian

Considering PJ opened a thread a while back stating the case for Fascism in today's world, and considering I've seen him advocate the extermination of all Muslims, I'd have thought the current thread title is quite accurate to its intention. It's just another attempt to rehabilitate the Nazis, saying they couldn't have been that bad if we are more alike to them than we'd admit. Of course, it takes quite some twists of rhetoric, not to mention logic, to make them so supposedly akin to us.

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I can think of a specific answer to that, but I will keep it to myself.

In addition to the points made in posts above, which seem to me to be most of the answer, I would add one other observation. In a sense, the Nazis were indeed like us. For a civilised western European nation to carry out the holocaust is particularly shocking. (Yes, that comment is, I suppose, culturally imperialist or something. So sue me.) Obviously the Germans have the misfortune that we know for a fact that there was something in German culture c.1930-45 that made the holocaust possible, whereas for the rest of us its speculative, but that should not let the rest of us off the hook. They were still forcibly sterilizing people in Sweden in the 70's for heavens sake. The US was in effect an apartheid state. (My father in law was turned away from a hospital in the US in the early 60's because it was "whites only".) And so on. So there is a nasty "there but for the grace of god" element to it.

Also, although I do not buy into the "its horrible because they lost" point, there is a dreadful sense that they could have got away with it. The Nazi/racial ideology sort of makes sense, internally to itself anyway, if you know nothing better than the axioms it puts forward. No doubt that explains its perennial popularity, most recently in jihadi form. Had the war ended in 1941, had a new generation of children been raised in the party with no knowledge of liberal Germany, who knows? Holocaust day might have had a whole other meaning.

(It occurs to me that had the war ended in 1941 the holocaust as it actually happened may have taken some other form. as i am sure that form would have been almost equally unpleaseant it doesn't detract from the point, which is in any case more of a Monastery debate than the backroom).

Well the word "genocide" was invented to describe the Holocaust. Therefore it's only natural to equate the two.

And has been said, the Germans lost, and that counts for a lot.

I am coming in late to this discussion and dont have much to add to what has been said. I do however have a very unique perspective, my mother in law is german. She fled in 45 when the Russians invaded and she made her way toward the americans and by family connection in holland she got out and to the states.

She was 15 at the time of her departure and we have talked at length about Germany in the prewar and war era. The one piece that has been absent from the discussion that i see is the overwhelming guilt of the german people.

To give you the gist of her feelings, and most of us do understand this premise, hitler brought a fiercely nationalistic people back to nationalism. They all believed in him, truly, they bought in hook line and sinker. Now her story is that for her, she was told that the Jews were undesirables attempting to corrupt the new German nation (yadda yadda).

You see they had no reason not to believe Hitler, and then once at war and realizing the state they were in they were forced to believe him as there was little individuals could do, save risking thier own necks. Her brother was apart of the hitler youth, they regularly monitored thier town for jews and thier goings on.

She carries great shame over it, and she believes that the genocide in germany is most prevelant due to the true nature of the peoples shame and remorse. You see, she as a german dosent hide from it, dosent rebuttal the arguments and dosent attempt to gloss it over with time and conditions on the ground.

This attitude which she claims is now part of the German national identity contributes to the ability to keep the discussion alive. Again this is my two cents from a secondary source, but i feel its a valid point to make, that the peoples involved in this genocide arent expending thier energy attempting to justify it.

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Originally Posted by Vladimir

Well the word "genocide" was invented to describe the Holocaust. Therefore it's only natural to equate the two.

And has been said, the Germans lost, and that counts for a lot.

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In fairness the word was also coined in light of the Armenian genocide which preceded the Holocaust, at the time those were two of the biggest ethnic bloodlettings in modern history.

The massive scale of murder set against the greatest war in world history is probably the contributing factor as to why the Holocaust gets the most attention. A great tragedy set within the confines of a compelling drama is, I daresay, the kind of human theater few people can forget. Humanity in general loves bookmarking examples of extreme brilliance and brutality for posterity. And as Lemur pointed out, the details of the Holocaust were well documented by those who initiated it, this is simply unprecedented in the history of human conflict.

On a politically incorrect note the fact that Hollyweird, the center of gravity for the English speaking entertainment industry, was founded by and to this day run in large part by Jews allows for a periodic recycling of Holocaust themed projects. Obviously to the average Jewish-American this topic hits close to home so its easy to see why they would be more inclined to give it coverage. While this has a unfortunate tendency to push similar acts out of the spotlight a periodic reminder of what happened and the lessons learned is not necessarily a bad thing. But scapegoating Hollyweird also comes across as a weak excuse for sloth, there is nothing keeping European or independent filmmakers from giving the Armenian genocide the coverage it deserves.

The japanese rape on Nnaking and similar atrocities against China were far, far worse than the holocaust against the jews, in my opinion, but god forbid i say that in a college classroom or I'd get expelled. I'd rather be gassed than gang raped and turned into a sex slave but i guess thats not the PC way of looking at things now is it?

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Originally Posted by Major Robert Dump

The japanese rape on Nnaking and similar atrocities against China were far, far worse than the holocaust against the jews, in my opinion, but god forbid i say that in a college classroom or I'd get expelled. I'd rather be gassed than gang raped and turned into a sex slave but i guess thats not the PC way of looking at things now is it?

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:laugh4: You should have said that in my Chineese history class. You would have a lot of nodding heads. The lack of documentation (and the location) make it less understood (or cared about) but it was brutal.

Humanity's capability for inhumanity is, sadly, all too constantly reaffirmed.

:shame:

Some folks have even argued that Dhaugazvili's [sic?] mass murders were less evil (or at least less "genocidal") since he didn't single out any one group but was an "equal opportunity" butcher. :inquisitive: While likely correct, at least in a denotative sense, I really don't find that particularly comforting.

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

Humanity's capability for inhumanity is, sadly, all too constantly reaffirmed.

:shame:

Some folks have even argued that Dhaugazvili's [sic?] mass murders were less evil (or at least less "genocidal") since he didn't single out any one group but was an "equal opportunity" butcher. :inquisitive: While likely correct, at least in a denotative sense, I really don't find that particularly comforting.

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You mean Stalin? Stalin may have been an equal opportunity butcher but at least with Hitler you knew where you stood. Stalin's acute paranoia inspired massive purges were based on hunches drawn from the more 'imaginative' parts of his sociopathic mind. Stalin changed his views as to which individuals and/or groups who were loyal with alarming irregularity. What began as a deliberate and calculating tactic meant to keep his enemies (real or imagined) off balance early in his rise to power wound up becoming a veritable murder lottery. Stalin eventually did single out ethnic groups as his witness by his wild claims of a 'Jewish doctors' plot just prior to his death.

Genocide has been the probably least effective way of waging war throughout history, always resulting in more or less genocide or assimilation of the aggressor once he has finally been defeated. To be a ruthless conqueror makes it a necessity for neighbors who value their lives to form strong alliances against you. I can't think of a single genocidal civilization which hasn't been genocided back, ruthlessly assimilated or otherwise got more back of their own medicine than they gave in the first place. Even when they get clementia when defeated, they've lost so many healthy soldiers from fighting hordes of enemies, that they can't prevent their women from being taken by those who finally defeated them. Genocide removes the fools from populations: namely, those fools who think they'll gain anything from carrying out genocide. The guilty suffer more than the victims.

Example, ww2:
Allied side casualties: 50M, divided over populations of around 1,500M persons = 3%
Axis side casualties: 12M, divided over populations of around 150M persons = 8%
Because of uncertainties in the figures I've biased them towards the opposite of the point I'm making. Still, they support my point very clearly: if you as leader think you'll help your country by genocide you're wrong, and if you as voter are considering to support a genocidal maniac leader, think again.

The sad thing is how skilled genocidal maniacs are at hiding what they're doing, and hiding their itentions when they are to be elected, so that even non-fools end up giving them the crucial early support they need to succeed in their undertakings.

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

I can't think of a single genocidal civilization which hasn't been genocided back, ruthlessly assimilated or otherwise got more back of their own medicine than they gave in the first place.

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Hmm ... Japan in WW2?

I do not think that you can argue that they have been "genocided back" for what they did in China. Of course they also suffered tremendous losses among their own population, but would you say that this would not have happened without Nanking?

Nagasaki and Hiroshima - the A-bombs continued to cause problems with newborn babies for decades. Technically dropped by the US, but the US were allied to China. If the Japanese hadn't done Nanjing and similar, it's very likely the US policy to Japan wouldn't have been nearly as strict as it were, probably meaning Japan would never have deemed it necessary to attack Pearl Harbor to secure their oil supply, and the US may not have been drawn into war with Japan. Also would Australia, NZ and various others even have considered going to war with a Japan that hadn't carried out Nanjing, and therefore wasn't perceived a nearly as big threat as the Japan that DID carry out Nanjing?

Now technically one could say the A-bomb drops were atrocies in themselves, which they were, like the Dresden bombings, but they are predictable responses which one can expect after genociding, and then refusing to surrender, and not necessarily atrocities when put in their context according to some. Anything but clementia after surrender is however an atrocity even in the context IMO, since it sends dangerous signals.

Wars are determined by who puts the most effort into it, and has the most resources. If you genocide while on offense, you send a quite clear signal to all people that unless they ally with your enemies they're likely to get ruthlessly murdered for no reason too. The neutrals have little choice but to join the alliance against the at that time genocidal faction. Thus they get more resources, put in more effort, and have a stronger fighting morale. People are however less scared by guerillas who fight with ugly tricks in self-defense, but have shown to be peaceful before they were invaded, and as a result a conqueror seldom gets much more support for suppressing a guerilla fighting his unprovoked attack. One could believe with this that victory is inversely proportional to cruelty, but unfortunately that isn't true. Defeat is unfortunately often delayed, and in cases where the offense was minor, neutrals may never deem it necessary to crush the aggressor. In major atrocies, genocides and unprovoked conquests however, this pattern seems unbroken.

If leaders carry out genocides purely because they believe there's gain in it, hopefully such simple proofs of how self-destructive it is could prevent a lot of genocides. Most likely nobody who supported a genocide was thinking about a future when they had lost more than their victims.

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

Technically dropped by the US, but the US were allied to China. If the Japanese hadn't done Nanjing and similar, it's very likely the US policy to Japan wouldn't have been nearly as strict as it were, probably meaning Japan would never have deemed it necessary to attack Pearl Harbor to secure their oil supply, and the US may not have been drawn into war with Japan.

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A lot of assumptions that you are making here...

Other examples:
Germany and the Holocaust. How exactly would the situation have been different for Germany without the murder of e.g., 6 million Jews?
Dou you believe there would have been significantly less German casualties without this genocide? If yes - why?

How about Rwanda?
Again I do not think that the Hutu have been "genocided back" after the killing of the Tutsis

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Originally Posted by Lemur

Very true. When I'm trying to explain this to people who have no grasp of history, I call it the "Kill the men, rape the women and take the sheep" style of warfare. Probably the oldest way to wage war.

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Genocide of people does differ from genocide of culture. The former one use the "Kill the men, kill the women and kill the sheep just to be certain" style of warfare.

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Originally Posted by Major Robert Dump

The japanese rape on Nnaking and similar atrocities against China were far, far worse than the holocaust against the jews, in my opinion, but god forbid i say that in a college classroom or I'd get expelled. I'd rather be gassed than gang raped and turned into a sex slave but i guess thats not the PC way of looking at things now is it?

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On a induvidual level perhaps, but as a people... What is worse, killing 99,99% of the humanity or killing the last 0,01%? Death is somewhat permanent...

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

Genocide has been the probably least effective way of waging war throughout history, always resulting in more or less genocide or assimilation of the aggressor once he has finally been defeated.

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Strongly disagree; this only holds true if you look exclusively at the 20th and 21st centuries. Go any further back, and you'll see many, many examples of successful genocides. See the American/Indian wars, for starters.

The world is planted and ploughed with the bones of peoples who have been destroyed. The fact that we now consider genocide rude and uncivil is a sign of humanity's progress, much like the disappearance of slavery.

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Originally Posted by Ser Clegane

Germany and the Holocaust. How exactly would the situation have been different for Germany without the murder of e.g., 6 million Jews?

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For example if they hadn't delayed military supplies to the frontlines to prioritize transportation of Jews to concentration camps. The US also wouldn't have been so eager to join the war if there hadn't been a Holocaust.

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Originally Posted by Ser Clegane

How about Rwanda?
Again I do not think that the Hutu have been "genocided back" after the killing of the Tutsis

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The Tutsis invaded Rwanda and tried to impose their will on the Hutus. All attempts to liberate the country except through violence were prevented by the Tutsi-led government. This inevitably led to a wave of violence against the Tutsis, which during the first half actually was somewhat justified because of the repressed position of the Hutus, and as a result the Tutsis received no UN support. When the Hutus crossed the line and started an organized genocide, alliances were soon formed against them, and they were defeated and driven out of the country en masse. They ended up in Congo, where many are still today dying en masse. Those who returned had lost much of their land and rights to Tutsis. I'm sure some simple calculations will demonstrate that the Hutus have suffered more casualties in total by now.

Wiki:
"In 1990, the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) invaded Rwanda from Uganda."

"[In 1993] Over the next three months the military and Interahamwe militia groups killed about 1,000,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates in the Rwandan genocide. [...] Thousands of civilians were killed in the conflict.

"On July 4, 1994, the war ended as the RPF entered Kigali. Over 2 million Hutus fled the country, fearing Tutsi retribution and causing the Great Lakes refugee crisis. Most have since returned, but some remained in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including some militia members who later took part in the First Congo War and Second Congo War. After repeated unsuccessful appeals to the UN and the international community to deal with the security threat posed by the remnants of the defeated genocidal forces on its eastern border, in 1996 Rwanda invaded eastern Zaire in an effort to eliminate the Interahamwe groups operating there. This action, and a simultaneous one by Ugandan troops, contributed to the outbreak of the First Congo War and the eventual fall of longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko."

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Originally Posted by Lemur

Strongly disagree; this only holds true if you look exclusively at the 20th and 21st centuries. Go any further back, and you'll see many, many examples of successful genocides. See the American/Indian wars, for starters.

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Yes, the Indians are of course one of the few exceptions. No rules are without exceptions.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

The world is planted and ploughed with the bones of peoples who have been destroyed. The fact that we now consider genocide rude and uncivil is a sign of humanity's progress, much like the disappearance of slavery.

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Or a sign of mankind finally recovering from the dark age of murder, slavery, war and genocide between 10,000 BC and 2007 AD.

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

Yes, the Indians are of course one of the few exceptions. No rules are without exceptions.

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Exception? Really? See the Spanish genocide of Native Americans. See the Canadian extermination of the Beothuk. See Australia's Black War. See King Leopold's genocide in the Congo. See the British policy of mass starvation in Ireland.

Heck, check out the Iliad while you're at it.

My dear Menelaus, why are you so chary of taking men's lives? Did the Trojans treat you as handsomely as that when they stayed in your house? No; we are not going to leave a single one of them alive, down to the babies in their mothers' wombs—not even they must live. The whole people must be wiped out of existence, and none be let to think of...

One might also wonder what the Carthaginians think of the idea that all genocides are promptly punished.

What's this talk about "exceptions"? Any serious examination of world history will tell you that mass murder and genocide are the oldest tools in the book. I am not arguing that genocide is justified in any way; I am arguing that it is one of the oldest human sins, and if the Nazis did nothing else, they made it unfashionable and unpalatable to a large part of humanity, which is a good thing.

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

Or a sign of mankind finally recovering from the dark age of murder, slavery, war and genocide between 10,000 BC and 2007 AD.

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War and murder are still with us, and it would be the brave futurologist who predicted when (if) they would disappear.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

Exception? Really? See the Spanish genocide of Native Americans. See the Canadian extermination of the Beothuk.

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This is the same genocide of Indians, which you're trying to list as several examples. Besides, this exception was caused by an advantage in firepower so extreme that it is unparallelled in the entire history. The same goes for your other examples. These are exceptions, caused by extraordinary circumstances. Then again, did King Leopold perform well in Africa in the long run?

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Originally Posted by Lemur

See the British policy of mass starvation in Ireland.

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I don't call a famine in a province a genocide, since it wasn't an active act of killing, but a passive act of not preventing deaths to natural causes. But even though it wasn't a genocide, it had severe consequences for Britain. Did the British control over Ireland increase or decrease after the potato famine? A hint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland#History

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Originally Posted by Lemur

Heck, check out the Iliad while you're at it.

My dear Menelaus, why are you so chary of taking men's lives? Did the Trojans treat you as handsomely as that when they stayed in your house? No; we are not going to leave a single one of them alive, down to the babies in their mothers' wombs—not even they must live. The whole people must be wiped out of existence, and none be let to think of...

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Maybe you should read the Oddysey then, in which the entire Greek army is lost in their retreat.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

One might also wonder what the Carthaginians think of the idea that all genocides are promptly punished.

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Well the Carthaginians had little justification to be angry with the romans over their sack of Carthage, after looking at what Carthage did in Iberia - the Iberians even considered the roman conquerors as liberators, making southern Iberia one of the more stable provinces in the later roman empire!

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Originally Posted by Lemur

What's this talk about "exceptions"? Any serious examination of wold history will tell you that mass murder and genocide are the oldest tools in the book. I am not arguing that genocide is justified in any way; I am arguing that it is one of the oldest human sins, and if the Nazis did nothing else, they made it unfashionable and unpalatable to a large part of humanity, which is a good thing.

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I too said it has been with us throughout history. My thesis is that it is often forgotten how severe political, military and economical problems for the guilty of genocides are very strongly connected to their prior acts of genocide.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

War and murder are still with us, and it would be the brave futurologist who predicted when (if) they would disappear.

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Indeed. I meant that it's not pure progress if we get to that point, since we've already been there once but left that point. The road doesn't lead straight towards improvement even from say 0 AD, but there is a jagged line.

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

For example if they hadn't delayed military supplies to the frontlines to prioritize transportation of Jews to concentration camps. The US also wouldn't have been so eager to join the war if there hadn't been a Holocaust.

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Do you believe additional supplies would have turned the tide - or would they only have slightly delayed the inevitable defeat?
I think it is pretty clear that the latter is true. And I think that you could argue that any delay of the defeat would rather have caused more casualties than less (especially among civilians).
Regarding the second - do you have anything to back up the assertion that the Holocaust was a main driver for the US to join the war against Germany (the country that actually declared the war - not the other way around)?

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The Tutsis invaded Rwanda and tried to impose their will on the Hutus. All attempts to liberate the country except through violence were prevented by the Tutsi-led government. This inevitably led to a wave of violence against the Tutsis, which during the first half actually was somewhat justified because of the repressed position of the Hutus, and as a result the Tutsis received no UN support. When the Hutus crossed the line and started an organized genocide, alliances were soon formed against them, and they were defeated and driven out of the country en masse. They ended up in Congo, where many are still today dying en masse. Those who returned had lost much of their land and rights to Tutsis. I'm sure some simple calculations will demonstrate that the Hutus have suffered more casualties in total by now.

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I doubt that - but be my guest.

One additional case:
The Herrero genocide at the beginning of the 20th century.

Reviewing all these cades I would rather argue that cases where the perpetrator had to face consequences for the genocide that were more dire than the original genocide (consequences that were caused by the genocide and not consequences of the war as such and would have happened on the same or similar scale without the genocide) are rather an exception than the rule.
The rule is rather that a war of aggression (with genocide or without) usually does not pay off in the end and that the "risk" of failure seems to increase with the scale of the war.

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

This is the same genocide of Indians, which you're trying to list as several examples. Besides, this exception was caused by an advantage in firepower so extreme that it is unparallelled in the entire history. The same goes for your other examples. These are exceptions, caused by extraordinary circumstances. Then again, did King Leopold perform well in Africa in the long run?

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The extermination of indigenous people happened on multiple continents, in multiple centuries. Sorry if listing a few examples seems like inflation to you. Africa alone can offer many, many examples of genocide, both pre- and post-colonial.

Why is disparity in military technology an "unparalleled" situation? How do you think tribes who used spears fared when they were overrun by tribes who used chariots?

King Leopold did just fine in the Congo, brought a lot of money back to Belgium. He acquired sole rights to it in 1885, and it didn't gain independence until 1960. Seventy-five years is a long wait for payback, especially when millions have died.

You can take or leave the potato famine; it's just one example among many.

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

Maybe you should read the Oddysey then, in which the entire Greek army is lost in the retreat.

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And the Greek city-states did just fine for centuries after the sacking and killing of Troy. Your point?

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

Well the Carthaginians had little justification to be angry with the romans over their sack of Carthage, after looking at what Carthage did in Iberia.

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So the sacking, salting and extermination of Carthage was just a karmic payback? For which the Romans didn't have to pay for centuries? I'm not at all clear on where you're going with this ...

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

My thesis is that it is often forgotten how severe political, military and economical problems for the guilty of genocides are very strongly connected to their prior acts of genocide.

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So your thesis is that payback for genocide is severe? And that people forget about the backlash? I don't know, really. There are just too many examples of societies that thrived for centuries after wiping out another people. It's facile to say, "Look, the Romans fell, so clearly they were paying for their genocides," 'cause the Roman empire lasted for centuries. That's some slow karma, there.

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Originally Posted by Ser Clegane

Do you believe additional supplies would have turned the tide - or would they only have slightly delayed the inevitable defeat?
I think it is pretty clear that the latter is true. And I think that you could argue that any delay of the defeat would rather have caused more casualties than less (especially among civilians).

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If the Germans hadn't carried out the Holocaust, the Blitz and the unrestricted uboat war, would they fear the consequences of surrender so much that they would keep on fighting for as long as they did? Moreover, would the British really care as much about continuing to pump in resources and lives of young men into the conflict if Germany had only been carried out a war of revenge against the actions of Napoleon I, Napoleon III and similar? After all, the French pre ww2 had the "drang nach osten" policy as well... There were additional factors however, that made hard British devotion to the war necessary: the Germans had made no secret of plans to create a "Grossmacht". The Holocaust and Blitz were the most crucial reasons why such strong opposition had to be mustered and the war had to be fought until unconditional surrender of the Germans, rather than a less extreme peace treaty being made in 1941 or so.

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Originally Posted by Ser Clegane

Regarding the second - do you have anything to back up the assertion that the Holocaust was a main driver for the US to join the war against Germany (the country that actually declared the war - not the other way around)?

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The German and Japanese philosophy in the war was one of attacking first before being attacked. They wouldn't have declared war on the US unless they wanted an excuse for launching a quick series of early strikes. Hitler also hoped to receive Japenese support for dealing with the British in India, because the British had refused to make peace because of the Holocaust, Blitz and German "grossmacht" plans which made it necessary to fight to the end rather than making a peace with Germany that would allow Germany to build up industries and economy to begin a new war against the British, this time with enough resources to defeat them. While this might seem like a long chain of assumptions, I think it's quite clear how it ties everything together. Simplify the entire model by just assume that amount of neutrals that will join the war against you is proportional to how much atrocies you commit, and the amount of effort put into the war by the opposition is proportional to number of atrocies as well.

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Originally Posted by Ser Clegane

The rule is [...] that a war of aggression (with genocide or without) usually does not pay off in the end and that the "risk" of failure seems to increase with the scale of the war.

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I think this rule applies as well, of course with a small number of exceptions as always.

@Legio. The Hutu genocide of Tutsi's was partly a revenge act of the Tutsi genocide of the Hutu's in the 1970's. Genociders often reap what they've sown, yes, this much is true.

However, I think that maybe with the exception of a few Pacific Islands, New Guinea highlands, and scattered tribes, all other peoples everywhere live where they do now because of a genocide of previous inhabitants. The America's are but a recent, well-documented case. The main difference with the rest of the world is that there is only one wave of mass extinction and migration. The Franks are not the original inhabitants of France, not the Romans either, nor the Celts, nor the Basque-related peoples, nor the Cro Magnons, not the Neandertals either probably. It's the same everywhere else.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

So your thesis is that payback for genocide is severe? And that people forget about the backlash? I don't know, really. There are just too many examples of societies that thrived for centuries after wiping out another people. It's facile to say, "Look, the Romans fell, so clearly they were paying for their genocides," 'cause the Roman empire lasted for centuries. That's some slow karma, there.

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Well again the romans are an example of extreme military superiority - a set of legions and auxilia which in total numbered 500,000 men with proper difficult to pierce armor against poor weapons from smaller, separated tribes conquered one at a time. And I oppose to your view on the roman empire case being an exception. Surely it fell after centuries, but over that period many more romans than non-romans got slaughtered per population size. The romans elected the strongest of their population to man the legions, these got killed en masse. Other people did the same, but while suffering more casualties in total, suffered fewer per population size. The roman empire also caused a dramatic change in world politics outside the empire - smaller tribes which had previously had no reason to ally did so. Out of smaller Germanic tribes, the Franks and Allemanni were formed, for instance. No doubt the romans suffered more in the end. Taking long or not, it doesn't matter. Their presence in the gene pool is reduced drastically as a punishment for their acts, and that is enough. It should be good enough motivation to avoid carrying out acts of genocide or supporting them. However, for some it is not, and so the cycle repeats itself over and over again.

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Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat

@Legio. The Hutu genocide of Tutsi's was partly a revenge act of the Tutsi genocide of the Hutu's in the 1970's. Genociders often reap what they've sown, yes, this much is true.

However, I think that maybe with the exception of a few Pacific Islands, New Guinea highlands, and scattered tribes, all other peoples everywhere live where they do now because of a genocide of previous inhabitants. The America's are but a recent, well-documented case. The main difference with the rest of the world is that there is only one wave of mass extinction and migration. The Franks are not the original inhabitants of France, not the Romans either, nor the Celts, nor the Basque-related peoples, nor the Cro Magnons, not the Neandertals either probably. It's the same everywhere else.

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Good post, but I don't fully agree to the latter half. In most cases a conquest has led to the conquered becoming a part of the people, not that they've all been massacred. Ancient propaganda is often exaggerated when it describes genocides, for instance. The "genocide" of South American indians is also vastly exaggerated, as the majority of casualties was caused by Europeans bringing diseases against which the local population had little to no immunological resistance. Figures of murder of locals may be vastly exaggerated, and in fact the number of people with Indian descent currently present in South America may very well be the descendants of a very large percentage of the population that didn't die to disease.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_legend
Also try to guess why the Spanish colonists had so much support for defeating the Incas and others - genocide by human sacrifice!

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

And I oppose to your view on the roman empire case being an exception.

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I'm sorry, I'm not clear on where I said they were an exception. To what?

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

Surely it fell after centuries, but over that period many more romans than non-romans got slaughtered per population size.

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What are you basing this numerical argument on?

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

The romans elected the strongest of their population to man the legions, these got killed en masse. Other people did the same, but while suffering more casualties in total, suffered fewer per population size.

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The Romans "elected" people to the legions? I'm not aware of any such practice in the Republic or the Empire. There's always room for me to be wrong, however.

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

Their presence in the gene pool is reduced drastically as a punishment for their acts, and that is enough.

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Your theory of genocidal payback rests on natural selection? That's new.

Legio, I'm not arguing to argue, and I'm not being contrary for kicks — I really don't get your theory. What parts of it I think I understand are at odds with history.

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

The Tutsis invaded Rwanda and tried to impose their will on the Hutus. All attempts to liberate the country except through violence were prevented by the Tutsi-led government. This inevitably led to a wave of violence against the Tutsis, which during the first half actually was somewhat justified because of the repressed position of the Hutus, and as a result the Tutsis received no UN support. When the Hutus crossed the line and started an organized genocide, alliances were soon formed against them, and they were defeated and driven out of the country en masse. They ended up in Congo, where many are still today dying en masse. Those who returned had lost much of their land and rights to Tutsis. I'm sure some simple calculations will demonstrate that the Hutus have suffered more casualties in total by now.

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Bold added.

There's some seriously wrong history there. It is true Rwanda was invaded by the RPF, who were exiled Tutsi. But conversely the Rwandan government was Hutu-led, not Tutsi-led. There were peacetalks between the RPF and the government, so there was the possibility of a non-violent solution. The assasination of the Rwanda President coming home from the peacetalks was either the spark or the signal for the genocide to start. It was not inevitable, but planned and coordinated from the centre by the Hutu extremists, using their militia, local radio stations and local government. It was organised from the start - one of the first moves was to kill the UN peacekeepers guarding the moderate Prime Minister. It was not justified because the Hutus were, far from being oppressed, the majority group in Rwanda and the ones who had held power ever since independence. No way the Hutus suffered more than the Tutsis. Whatever, its failings, the RPF has ruled Rwanda without mass killings since the genocide. Many Hutus were taken by the Intrahamwe (Hutu extremists) into Congo after 1994, but that flight in many ways was analogous to a mass kidnapping and most soon returned with the closure of the main refugee camps (as the RPF sponsored the overthrow of Mobutu).

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

In most cases a conquest has led to the conquered becoming a part of the people, not that they've all been massacred.

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Genocide is the attempt to destroy a given group 'as such.' Assimilating survivors into the conquering people is often a part of destroying the previous culture, and is an element of genocide, not a counterexample to it.

I very much agree with the second half of Louis' post that genocides have been a major element of much of human history, and I think the perpetrators have more often than not gotten off much better than their victims.

Also, responding to Lemur's first several examples by saying those are all just the one Native American genocide is overlooking the tremendous diversity of Native American tribes, the great number of different individual groups perpetrating genocide against Native Americans, and the vast geography and timeframe involved. While it's possible to consider all such killings part of one large genocide, it's also reasonable to consider it a huge collection of genocides practiced on the same continent.

Ajax

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Originally Posted by ajaxfetish

Genocide is the attempt to destroy a given group 'as such.' Assimilating survivors into the conquering people is often a part of destroying the previous culture, and is an element of genocide, not a counterexample to it.

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The "official" line:

"any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group"

Borrowed from wiki...gd them being the No. 1 result on almost all google searches.

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Originally Posted by ajaxfetish

I very much agree with the second half of Louis' post that genocides have been a major element of much of human history, and I think the perpetrators have more often than not gotten off much better than their victims.

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The concept of total war, waging war against opposing citizenry and their ability to make war is of itself a genocidal concept.

[edit] Just look at the civilian casualties of WW2. They are not under the definition of genocide how? Not to mention that as people talk about the cold efficiency of the Nazi's giving it prominence, one would be hard pressed to tell me that the mass death of citizenry in WW2 was not as equally cold and efficient, if not more so. However, I do see the advent of the Nazi's crimes in part due to people's identifying with the victims. The figurative concept of the long walk to the gallows as opposed to being within an act of war is particularly horrifying.

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Originally Posted by ajaxfetish

Also, responding to Lemur's first several examples by saying those are all just the one Native American genocide is overlooking the tremendous diversity of Native American tribes, the great number of different individual groups perpetrating genocide against Native Americans, and the vast geography and time frame involved. While it's possible to consider all such killings part of one large genocide, it's also reasonable to consider it a huge collection of genocides practiced on the same continent.

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I've actually been following this thread and nodding in agreement with much of what Lemur has said and he has stated it well. Its on this point of the Native Americans that I differ and ajax states it well. Not to mention that the number one killer was disease and the spread of disease was not an intentional genocidal act, with exceptions. Those exceptions being genocidal acts which get granted credit for the entity of disease's sum total. One must also look at native American concepts of conflicts and warfare to truly place some of the acts of genocide in proper context, those being the numerous instances performed on other Native Americans.

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

If the Germans hadn't carried out the Holocaust, the Blitz and the unrestricted uboat war, would they fear the consequences of surrender so much that they would keep on fighting for as long as they did? Moreover, would the British really care as much about continuing to pump in resources and lives of young men into the conflict if Germany had only been carried out a war of revenge against the actions of Napoleon I, Napoleon III and similar? After all, the French pre ww2 had the "drang nach osten" policy as well... There were additional factors however, that made hard British devotion to the war necessary: the Germans had made no secret of plans to create a "Grossmacht". The Holocaust and Blitz were the most crucial reasons why such strong opposition had to be mustered and the war had to be fought until unconditional surrender of the Germans, rather than a less extreme peace treaty being made in 1941 or so.


The German and Japanese philosophy in the war was one of attacking first before being attacked. They wouldn't have declared war on the US unless they wanted an excuse for launching a quick series of early strikes. Hitler also hoped to receive Japenese support for dealing with the British in India, because the British had refused to make peace because of the Holocaust, Blitz and German "grossmacht" plans which made it necessary to fight to the end rather than making a peace with Germany that would allow Germany to build up industries and economy to begin a new war against the British, this time with enough resources to defeat them. While this might seem like a long chain of assumptions, I think it's quite clear how it ties everything together. Simplify the entire model by just assume that amount of neutrals that will join the war against you is proportional to how much atrocies you commit, and the amount of effort put into the war by the opposition is proportional to number of atrocies as well.


I think this rule applies as well, of course with a small number of exceptions as always.

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Now you are adding a lot of additional stuff into the mix - "Blitzkrieg", "Großmacht"-plans - all things I completely agree with.
But please let's stick to your original assertion (the one that I doubt):
That it was the Holocaust (and not just the war of aggression as such) that led to a backlash of even higher casualties among the Germans and that was a main driver for the allies to get involved in the war.

It seems that you are trying to back up your assertions by just making additional claims and assumptions and mixing other issues into your reasoning.
Please note that I do not consider myself to be an "expert" in WW2 history and am certainly open to receiving a lesson in this field - but this lesson should be based on some facts and not claims.

I can't help the feeling that you made up a theory based rather on gut feeling and then - after a number of cases that do not support the theory have been pointed out - try to make the facts somehow fit the theory instead of the other way around and/or declare "special circumstances" for the most obvious "exceptions" (e.g. military superiority - would that mean that genocide only really works if you are stronger than your opponents? Not really an eye-opener, is it?)

I think you are making a mistake if you are trying to approach genocide from the "logical" side (i.e. the perpetrator does not benefit from it) - it's (unfortunately) just not as simple as that.

Difficult to predict exactly where the line is drawn, i.e. what needed to not happen to make a difference. I'm merely making a very rough assessment of the potential outcome with none of these things, comparing it with what happened with all of them. Exactly what would be the result of something in between I think is very difficult to predict, it requires more complex models. In short however, there is a quite strong correlation between increased unprovoked atrocities and bad end results for the one who does that.

The main idea is that atrocities strengthens the fighting spirit of the opponents and makes neutrals more tempted to join the opponent's side. More often than not, with the end result that the one who committed the atrocity is overwhelmed by superior force. This obviously fails in the cases where the one who is guilty of the atrocity has extremely superior forces before this occurs, to the point that no alliances can be formed against the aggressor in the nearest future (i.e. Native Americans and some colonialism examples). That doesn't exclude the possibility of a counter-atrocity occuring one or a few centuries afterwards, especially if the problem and reppression still remains by that time.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

What are you basing this numerical argument on?

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This is common sense. Say one group contains 10K people, and it wages war with 10 groups with each 10K people. It slaughters and genocides many of these groups, say kills 1K people in each. In each conflict it suffers 300 casualties (such casualty ratios are uncommonly good compared to historical examples). In total the reppressive group suffers 3K casualties over the period, compared to 1K per the same amount of people in the other groups. Basically you need to have excessive, impossible, unrealistic kill-loss ratios to lose less than your opponents if you have many opponents. You can do this calculation more exactly by looking at population sizes and calculate their respective casualties compared to the roman ones.

i don't consider Hitler's genocide against the jews/gypsies/gays/communists to be worse than any other, quite the opposite, i consider what stalin did to be worse directly in proportion to the increased body-count.

my guess at why it is perceived to be terrible beyond all else:
> it was so targeted. yes, i'm sure others were just as targeted, but this was in an age of film and perpetrated by our mortal enemies.
> it was so mechanical and automated as a process. this makes it seem all the more inhuman for its german 'efficiency'.
> agreed with Watchman below. the germans were supposed to be a civilised and thoroughly modern nation, and certainly not a bunch of hairy arsed natives running around with panga's.
> jewish efficiency. i have always admired the effectiveness of jewish culture, their immense ability to be capable to whatever degree is necessary to achieve their aims. there is little doubt in my mind that at least part of the explanation for the persistence of the horror as perceived by people now is the result of jewish lobbying, both formal and informal, which has kept the holocaust at the forefront of the public mind.*









* in no way do i consider this improper or a bad thing. jewish culture (by which i mean the people), had suffered a terrible ravaging once again, more terrible than any that had gone before, but now they had the chance to create a sovereign nation where this fate could not be imposed upon them again. however this new nation was created, unwanted and despised, in the midst of what would become a clash of civilizations, from a rag-tag bunch of disparate refugees, weak and few in number. they needed every advantage they could get, and courted every ally they could by whatever means could be achieved to bring advantage to what is a totally improbable success story. i would have done the same.

Personally, I figure the Nazis get the attention quite simply because they very much demonstrated modern industrial civilization gone wrong, how the techniques deeply integrated to Western societies can with frighteningly little modification be employed for industrial mass murder.

A kind of dark mirror, which is remembered so that people do not forget why the restraints of sanity and ethics are a vital companion to technical competence.

Side note: I understand the German military was quite adamantly opposed to the whole death-camp thing, on the purely practical grounds that it seemed pure lunacy to them to tie up so much industrial resources and transportation capacity direly needed for the war effort for the sake of such rather pointless project that produced nothing of value. A fair few other agencies were similarly opposed on pragmatic cost-efficiancy grounds.

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

The main idea is that atrocities strengthens the fighting spirit of the opponents ...

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I think there's a lot of truth in that. I am not sure the Holocaust against the Jews had a marked affect on the war with Germany. However, there was a definitely lagged effect, with the determination never to let it happened to them again being a major factor behind the Jews fighting like tigers to establish and defend Israel. Moreover, Germany definitely suffered from its harsh treatment of Russian prisoners of war and occupied parts of the USSR. The early mass surrenders of the Red Army soon stopped when it was realised how bad the survival chances of Russian POWs were. It is also argued that the brutal German occupation alienated non-Russians and other subject people who were no lovers of Stalin.

The Rwanda example is also a case of genocide encouraging opponents (the RPF) to fight harder. An RPF battalion was in Kigali and held out under siege. The main force cut their way through to the capital all the faster because they knew every day lost meant thousands more innocents were butchered.

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...and makes neutrals more tempted to join the opponent's side.

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I am less sure of that point. I doubt it mattered much in WW2 (or with Israel). In Rwanda, the genociders targeted the neutrals (the UN blue berets) to terrorise them into withdrawing. France only increased its intervention when it was clear those committing genocide were losing and even then it came perilously close to protecting them.

'Well again the romans are an example of extreme military superiority - a set of legions and auxilia which in total numbered 500,000 men with proper difficult to pierce armor against poor weapons from smaller, separated tribes conquered one at a time.'

Which time period are you looking at? You'll find that their enemies normally had decent weapons and armour too, and when they didn't, it was normally due to Roman oppression or aggression earlier.

'And I oppose to your view on the roman empire case being an exception. Surely it fell after centuries, but over that period many more romans than non-romans got slaughtered per population size.'

This seems unlikely. You also neglect that those killed of the populations of those other people are too dead to breed, and many of the survivors no longer have property, a high standard of life, or often liberty. Numbers of deaths over the entire history of the empire/republic may well be higher than for their enemies, but that was generally because their enemies ceased to exist as independent peoples in the long term.

'The romans elected the strongest of their population to man the legions, these got killed en masse. Other people did the same, but while suffering more casualties in total, suffered fewer per population size. The roman empire also caused a dramatic change in world politics outside the empire - smaller tribes which had previously had no reason to ally did so. Out of smaller Germanic tribes, the Franks and Allemanni were formed, for instance. No doubt the romans suffered more in the end.'

No. There were plenty of nations, not 'smaller tribes' at the time they started. The Celts also selected their best men. Thanks to the attrition of the Roman war machine and their own civil war, they almost all died.

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they didn't build murder factories, or keep exacting records of their murders.

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Sure they did. And they performed all kinds of medical experiments on people as well. Whats the difference anyway how they killed them? The Germans , Russians and Japanese were all equally horrific. You cant pick a good guy among them.

Heres a question of been thinking of asking for quite sometime and this thread seems a good place to ask it. If you knew that exterminating a certain race would garuntee world peace would you be in favor of it?

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

on of been thinking of asking for quite sometime and this thread seems a good place to ask it. If you knew that exterminating a certain race would garuntee world peace would you be in favor of it?

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would that be the human race ? :laugh4:

Seriously: no.

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would that be the human race ?

Seriously: no.

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Well lets put it in more practical and easy to understand terms. Lets use the Palestinian - Israeli conflict for example. Ill give you a choice . You can exterminate either one of them and garuntee world peace forever. Now your telling me you wouldnt choose either? Maybe i can find some other peoples somewhere you dont care for :laugh4:

How about the Iranians or Iraqis? How about all religous people? All conservatives? :)

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

Heres a question of been thinking of asking for quite sometime and this thread seems a good place to ask it. If you knew that exterminating a certain race would garuntee world peace would you be in favor of it?

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I can't find any moral justification to exterminate an entire 'race', so I'd be against it. Mostly because I'm too rational to believe it would ever have effect, the survivors would still have a reason to hate each other's guts and I don't believe in condemning innocents.

The Romans committed genocide often enough.
They completely wiped out Carthage as a nation, destroying the city, navy, army, culture, everything.
They also committed genocides in Iberia, Gaul, Italy (Alba Longa if I remember correctly), Asia Minor, Middle East. It's just that it was so common that it wasn't recorded as a horrible event, just a way to win.

Genocide hasn't really come to the fore because there was a de-humanization element by the victors, so that when the Americans wiped out American-Indians, it was destroying a savage killer, not a human being.

I would say that genocide should not be permitted, ever.

I would like to say that the Holocaust wasn't a major reason for U.S. involvement. It was not widely known, and had it been known, there were people who supported the idea. Eugenics and breeding a superior race, before there was a concept of genetics or DNA.

I think that in modern society, genocide should not be allowed or tolerated.

I would also like to ask about the Armenian genocide. I'm sorry to the Turks here, but why isn't there anything about it, when it did occur?

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I can't find any moral justification to exterminate an entire 'race', so I'd be against it. Mostly because I'm too rational to believe it would ever have effect, the survivors would still have a reason to hate each other's guts and I don't believe in condemning innocents.

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Its a hypothetical. What if you knew beyond any doubt that it would bring world peace forever? How many would be too many to sacrifice? Isnt this what many people are willing to sacrifice their lifes for anyway? If you knew that your death would bring world peace would you volunteer to die?

What if one peoples or ideaology is responsible for most of the troubles in the world? Wouldnt it be good to eliminate it? Isnt that what we did to the Nazis? Isnt that what were trying to do to communism?

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Originally Posted by Marshal Murat

I would also like to ask about the Armenian genocide. I'm sorry to the Turks here, but why isn't there anything about it, when it did occur?

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Teh Wiki seems to have a fair bit... with the usual reservations on Wiki articles, natch.

Took me a minute or so to find, too. Not exactly under a rock, and I bet the local libraries would yield a whole lot more if I bothered looking.

I suggest squirrels as a race to exterminate for worldpeace.:idea2:

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

Isnt that what we did to the Nazis? Isnt that what were trying to do to communism?

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Wiping out an ideology or a political entity is a damn lot different from wiping out a nation.
:dizzy2:

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Originally Posted by Orb

'Well again the romans are an example of extreme military superiority - a set of legions and auxilia which in total numbered 500,000 men with proper difficult to pierce armor against poor weapons from smaller, separated tribes conquered one at a time.'

Which time period are you looking at? You'll find that their enemies normally had decent weapons and armour too, and when they didn't, it was normally due to Roman oppression or aggression earlier.

'And I oppose to your view on the roman empire case being an exception. Surely it fell after centuries, but over that period many more romans than non-romans got slaughtered per population size.'

This seems unlikely. You also neglect that those killed of the populations of those other people are too dead to breed, and many of the survivors no longer have property, a high standard of life, or often liberty. Numbers of deaths over the entire history of the empire/republic may well be higher than for their enemies, but that was generally because their enemies ceased to exist as independent peoples in the long term.

'The romans elected the strongest of their population to man the legions, these got killed en masse. Other people did the same, but while suffering more casualties in total, suffered fewer per population size. The roman empire also caused a dramatic change in world politics outside the empire - smaller tribes which had previously had no reason to ally did so. Out of smaller Germanic tribes, the Franks and Allemanni were formed, for instance. No doubt the romans suffered more in the end.'

No. There were plenty of nations, not 'smaller tribes' at the time they started. The Celts also selected their best men. Thanks to the attrition of the Roman war machine and their own civil war, they almost all died.

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That's what Caesar's prppaganda "De bello gallico" says. I don't consider it a very reliable source for figures. He even claims to have killed a million Gauls in the Gallic wars, which is an unreasonably high percentage of world population at that time (http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldhis.html). Moreoever, don't you think the organization of smaller tribes into larger to fight the romans would have occured quite fast if the romans would have carried out a true genocide each time they conquered an area? Surely terror may have been used to lure out armies avoiding engagement and such, but the ancient figures are as little trustworthy as figures can be - limited plundering is not the same as a genocide. If terror had really been nearly as large scale as the ancient sources imply, then we would damned sure have seen every little child and woman that could walk cut spears to fight the romans. Surely Caesar used terror in his plans, but not nearly to the amount that sources such as "De Bello Gallico" implies, and he hardly had much benefit from it. Even though Caesar's terror was limited, it was enough for the germanic peoples, who had previously been very little united, to unite and massacre the romans in the Teutoburg forest, and the proceed to continually kill roman soldiers along the border. The constant fights on the roman borders led to massive losses of roman lives. The romans also found that they couldn't hold the provinces under roman culture, without allowing the provincial culture to affect rome to a great degree, and let high offices eventually end up in the hands of non-romans. So there was never any total assimilation. In fact, many regions today have several pre-roman rituals and traditions preserved. This couldn't have occured if roman terror had been nearly as bad as in "de bello gallico". I don't know what the DNA guys say either, but my guess is that they'll also find that total destruction of entire peoples as described in some less than reliable ancient sources are vastly exaggerated descriptions of conquests resulting in either integration of the conquered, or their movement to another area.

Again I appeal to common sense: if you have many enemies, say 10, you need to kill 10 times as many of them as you lose yourself, in order to not lose more than them. However, if you can get such good loss ratios, you have certainly no need to use terror to win the war, so if you in such a situation still end up using genocide, you'll send a clear signal to all other countries that you're an absolute maniac that must be dealth with as soon as possible. All neutrals with any desire to live, and any intelligence, will immediately either join an alliance against you, or wait for a time when they can do so. Would you not? Or would you be among those who fall for propaganda such as: "this genocide is an exception, it will never strike you, because YOU are our friend, whereas the current victims are EVIL, UNUSUAL DANGEROUS people" that is so common among people who use genocide?

If you look at sources after the ancient period, the figures are more reliable. They support my model. I'm quite sure that any calculations for the ancient period, with serious figures, will yield the same result. If you have good sources, we could perform a similar calculation to the one I made above, and find out more precisely.

I do understand that it's easy, when looking at history at first glance, to think genocide gives any gains. It's probably cold rationality combined with this incorrect assumption that is the main cause of genocide in history, even though genocides are so harmful for those who carry them out. I've demonstrated here that genocide doesn't give gains, and that more often than not the guilty end up suffering more in the end as a result of their crimes. Hopefully this be clear enough to future potential massmurderers, and more importantly their potential supporters, so that genocides can be prevented at an earlier stage. No dictator can come to power without important initial support to settle in his position. I'm surprised by the eagerness of so many in this thread to show that genocide would come with any gains for the perpetrator. IMO, if you truly believe genocide is rationally beneficial, you must either be a supporter of genocide, or an irrationalist.

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Originally Posted by Marshal Murat

The Romans committed genocide often enough.
They completely wiped out Carthage as a nation, destroying the city, navy, army, culture, everything.
They also committed genocides in Iberia, Gaul, Italy (Alba Longa if I remember correctly), Asia Minor, Middle East. It's just that it was so common that it wasn't recorded as a horrible event, just a way to win.

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I'm pretty sure you're confusing massacres and terror tactics for genocide here. Those aren't the same thing; the latter is a specific attempt to entirely extinguish an entire populace, not mere bloodbath for the Hell of it or so all the potential enemies can see what happens if you're messed with.

Damn, but has that term undergone an inflation...

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Wiping out an ideology or a political entity is a damn lot different from wiping out a nation.

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What if the whole nation follows this ideaology? Besides whats the difference?

:inquisitive:
Are you for real ?

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

That's what Caesar's prppaganda "De bello gallico" says. I don't consider it a very reliable source for figures. He even claims to have killed a million Gauls in the Gallic wars, which is unreasonable considering that world population at that time was estimated to less than 1 million :laugh4: (http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldhis.html).

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The source your are citing gives a range of 170 - 400 million for the year 1 AD.

Gawain, I might be wrong, but "wiping out" communism is not quite the same as wiping out communists. I wasn't quite aware that the latter was the goal of the United States.

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Originally Posted by Marshal Murat

I would also like to ask about the Armenian genocide. I'm sorry to the Turks here, but why isn't there anything about it, when it did occur?

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This is another good example of genocide not paying off. This genocide, and the silencing of it rather than an apologetic and regretful official attitude to it, is probably the main reason Turkey isn't having any chance to be part of EU in the nearest future. As long as Turkish officials don't teach about it in Turkish schools, apologize for it publicly, try to repair the damage by paying damages to Armenians with just claims for it, and create memorial monuments over the dead Armenians, very few people I know would support Turkey entering the EU, even if a clear majority of the Turkish people may be against the Armenian genocide today. The government and country officials not vehemently apologizing for it is IMO the same as the current administration saying it doesn't exclude the possibility of repeating similar actions.

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Originally Posted by Watchman

I'm pretty sure you're confusing massacres and terror tactics for genocide here. Those aren't the same thing; the latter is a specific attempt to entirely extinguish an entire populace, not mere bloodbath for the Hell of it or so all the potential enemies can see what happens if you're messed with.

Damn, but has that term undergone an inflation...

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Agreed. Limited terror has been a common strategy to lure out an army that avoids combat into battle. It surely has its similarities, but it's drastically differences in consequences and what is necessary to do in response to it.

The usual purpose, I understand, was to simply terrify enemies into submission. A pretty common technique actually, and somewhat perversely may actually well more often than not spared human lives. Goes as follows: Ming the Merciless ruthlessly sacks Stubbornly Resisting Enemy Town A and has the inhabitants massacred. When his army then arrives before Now Very Scared Enemy Town B he tells the inhabitants they will be spared but for some provisions for his army and monetary "contributions" to his glorious war effort, if they but surrender peacefully. If they give him trouble, he'll do a rerun of Town A here.

Unless the defenders of Town B are damn confident in their ability to withstand the siege, guess what they're wont to choose sooner or later (most "rules of war" stipulated that fortresses that capitulated before being taken by storm received lenient terms; there's sound military and political logic behind this) ?

Naturally, reneging on such terms is conversely a brilliant way to ensure desperate defenders will fight to the last, since they'll figure themselves dead anyway...

Variations of the theme have considerable strategic value by deciding battles without fighting.

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Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix

Agreed. Limited terror has been a common strategy to lure out an army that avoids combat into battle. It surely has its similarities, but it's drastically differences in consequences and what is necessary to do in response to it.

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You're confusing it with the standard devastation of enemy territory to supply your own army, damage the foe's economic base and incite him to fight rather than watch quietly when you burn his fields so he starves next winter.

Which is what most warfare throughtout history mainly consisted of, really.

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Gawain, I might be wrong, but "wiping out" communism is not quite the same as wiping out communists. I wasn't quite aware that the latter was the goal of the United States.

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My point is that if a certain group of individuals could be designated as the cause of evil in the world would you favor their genocide be it that they all believe in the same ideology or nation. Millions would have to die in either case. Personaly I dont care if it would take 20 million of the finest people on earth to have to die to achieve such a goal. Why should it always be the youngsters?

May I humbly suggest you stop defiling my computer screen with that garbage ?

I also want to pose the question, "where does this hypothetical certainty of their death bringing about eternal world peace come from - a burning shrubbery ?"

To return to the original question, Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer lists six things that he feels make the event unprecedented (he doesn't say unique because he feels that it would be possible for such a thing to happen again, but it is different from anything that came before) in human history.

First, genocides usually take place on frontiers, away from the central lands of the perpetrators, while 'the Holocaust took place in the center of what was probably the most advanced civilization of the twentieth century.'

The second and third reasons are very similar, and have to do with the universal nature of the Holocaust. Second, the Nazis targeted all those they identified as Jews among them, not just part of the group. Third, Jews were to be exterminated wherever the Germans were in control, which was eventually supposed to be the entire world. All Jews must die, everywhere in the world. 'Never before had there been a universally-conceived genocide.'

Fourth, the annihilation of the Jews was purely ideological, with no rational social or political basis. It flew in the face of reason, providing no pragmatic benefit to Germany and costing it a lot of manpower and resources.

Fifth, it was built on the Nazi brand of racism, a revolutionary concept 'to establish a new world order based on a hierarchy of races,' while previous genocides had more traditional roots and causes.

Sixth, and this one seems a bit of a stretch to me, he claims that 'the Nazis wanted to destroy the civilization from which they came, [including] liberalism, conservatism, socialism, democracy, and pacifism,' and with Athens and Rome both fallen, the Jews were 'the last remnant of the roots of European civilization.'

For what it's worth. (from the paper "On the Holocaust and Other Genocides," available from the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies)

Ajax

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I also want to pose the question, "where does this hypothetical certainty of their death bringing about eternal world peace come from - a burning shrubbery ?"

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Why the flying spagehitti monster of course. :laugh4:

Let me try to make it easier. Would you consider wiping out all the radical Islamics as genocide?

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Would you consider wiping out all the radical Islamics as genocide?

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wouldn't that just radicalise all of Islam and just about all of the world:dizzy2:

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genocide
1944, apparently coined by Polish-born U.S. jurist Raphael Lemkin in his work "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe" [p.19], in reference to Nazi extermination of Jews, lit. "killing a tribe," from Gk. genos "race, kind" (see genus) + -cide, from L. -cidere "kill," comb. form of caedere "to cut, kill" (see concise). The proper formation would be *genticide.

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From Online Etymology Dictionary. And "genus" is

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(pl. genera), 1551 as a term of logic (biological sense dates from 1608), from L. genus (gen. generis) "race, stock, kind," cognate with Gk. genos "race, kind," and gonos "birth, offspring, stock," from PIE base *gen-/*gon-/*gn- "produce, beget, be born" (cf. Skt. janati "begets, bears," janah "race," jatah "born;" Avestan zizanenti "they bear;" Gk. gignesthai "to become, happen;" L. gignere "to beget," gnasci "to be born," genius "procreative divinity, inborn tutelary spirit, innate quality," ingenium "inborn character," germen "shoot, bud, embryo, germ;" Lith. gentis "kinsmen;" Goth. kuni "race;" O.E. cennan "beget, create;" O.H.G. kind "child;" O.Ir. ro-genar "I was born;" Welsh geni "to be born").

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...so, no. It would be a most heinous violent persecution and mass murder of an ill-defined group of people based on their beliefs, however.

And feel free to try to define "radical" in this context with any degree of operative usefulness. Wears a beard ? :dizzy2:

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

Why the flying spagehitti monster of course. :laugh4:

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Right. Now, kids, what do we call people who encourage the extermination of entire populaces on the basis that some crackpot supernatural entity told them so ? Yes, you with the cap. Dangerous religious fanatics and general basket cases ? Right you are, sit down.

It bites both ways, you know.

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wouldn't that just radicalise all of Islam and just about all of the world

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No as if they radicalised they would be dead.:laugh4:

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Right. Now, kids, what do we call people who encourage the extermination of entire populaces on the basis that some crackpot supernatural entity told them so ? Yes, you with the cap. Dangerous religious fanatics and general basket cases ? Right you are, sit down.

It bites both ways, you know.

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It seems sarcasm is lost on you. Lighten up a bit.

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And feel free to try to define "radical" in this context with any degree of operative usefulness. Wears a beard ?

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One who believes that killing the unbeliever is all fine and well man woman or child.

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

It seems sarcasm is lost on you. Lighten up a bit.

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What sarcasm ? My question was in no way rhetorical, and I rather fail to see how you could give an answer that did not ultimately amount to as much.

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One who believes that killing the unbeliever is all fine and well man woman or child.

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Right. And how would you propose to identify those merry fellows once they catch up with the program ?

Plus these days they're mainly occupied with their own "heretics" anyway.

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No as if they radicalised they would be dead.

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So you would have to kill them all just in case they radicaslised .:dizzy2:
Are you free-basing again Gawain ?