Valuing Genocide

[Ser Clegane]

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.

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

[Ironside]

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.

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.

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?

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...

[Lemur]

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.

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.

[Rodion Romanovich]

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

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.

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

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."

[Rodion Romanovich]

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.

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

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.

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

[Lemur]

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

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.

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

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

[Rodion Romanovich]

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

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?

See the British policy of mass starvation in Ireland.

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

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...

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

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

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

[Ser Clegane]

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.

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)?

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.

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.

[Lemur]

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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 ...

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.

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.

[Rodion Romanovich]

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).

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.

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)?

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.

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.

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

[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.

[Rodion Romanovich]

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.

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.

[Rodion Romanovich]

@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.

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!

[Lemur]

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

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

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

What are you basing this numerical argument on?

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 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.

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

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.

[econ21]

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.

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).

[ajaxfetish]

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

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

[ShadeHonestus]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Ser Clegane]

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.

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.

[Rodion Romanovich]

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.

What are you basing this numerical argument on?

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.

[JR-]

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.

[Watchman]

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.

[econ21]

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

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.

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

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.

[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.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

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

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?

[doc_bean]

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?

would that be the human race ?

Seriously: no.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

would that be the human race ?

Seriously: no.

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

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

[Conradus]

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?

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.

[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.

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?

[Gawain of Orkeny]

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.

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?

[Watchman]

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?

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.