06 Mar 10
Head to head: Was it genocide? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/europe/7042209.stm
Turkish anger at 'genocide' vote: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/8550928.stm
The White House vows to block the bill: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/8553013.stm
If you had been a member of Congress, how would you have voted? Why?
If you were the White House administration, what would you do now? Why?
06 Mar 10
Originally posted by FMFJust for the record let it be known I am staunchly against genocide.
Head to head: Was it genocide? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/europe/7042209.stm
Turkish anger at 'genocide' vote: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/8550928.stm
The White House vows to block the bill: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/8553013.stm
[b]If you had been a member of Congress, how would you have voted? Why?
If you were the White House administration, what would you do now? Why?
[/b]
06 Mar 10
1 edit
Originally posted by FMFIf I was in Congress, I would state clearly that I would abstain from voting on ANYTHING that doesn't actually change the law. These "resolutions" are a major waste of time.
Head to head: Was it genocide? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/europe/7042209.stm
Turkish anger at 'genocide' vote: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/8550928.stm
The White House vows to block the bill: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/8553013.stm
[b]If you had been a member of Congress, how would you have voted? Why?
If you were the White House administration, what would you do now? Why?
[/b]
If we're going to do something to "harm Turkish-US relations", it had better be due to enacting a law that actually does something to reduce the likelihood of genocide or help the victims of genocide.
I might allow an exception if the passage of a resolution was highly likely to lead to a beneficial change in actual policy. But these situations are very rare.
06 Mar 10
Originally posted by FMFToo open ended.
And the questions in the OP?
I would certainly have voted the way my folks back home wanted me too, just like they do now?
Or, Maybe, just maybe I would have been swayed by some back room deal?
hard to say, not living in that particular moment.
06 Mar 10
Originally posted by FMFIf I were a member of congress I would have voted yes, after all it was genocide.
Head to head: Was it genocide? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/europe/7042209.stm
Turkish anger at 'genocide' vote: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/8550928.stm
The White House vows to block the bill: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/8553013.stm
[b]If you had been a member of Congress, how would you have voted? Why?
If you were the White House administration, what would you do now? Why?
[/b]
If I were the white house admin. I would then try to distance myself from congress by stating something like "We have no control over what congress does, and we'd like to reassure turkey that they're an important ally and our relations shouldn't be damaged by this decision"
06 Mar 10
Originally posted by FMFI presume the US is going to call the attacks on Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki a genocide too then?
Head to head: Was it genocide? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/europe/7042209.stm
Turkish anger at 'genocide' vote: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/8550928.stm
The White House vows to block the bill: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/8553013.stm
[b]If you had been a member of Congress, how would you have voted? Why?
If you were the White House administration, what would you do now? Why?
[/b]
Not to mention the Israeli treatment of Palestinians.
At last, some good is coming from the US.
06 Mar 10
Originally posted by generalissimoIf another country refuses to acknowledge its perpetration of genocide, why should it not affect relations and why should such a country be entitled to 'reassurance'? Germany is "an important ally" too but if it were to, say, pass a policy position 'law' questioning whether the holocaust of the mid-20thC happened exactly as people say it did or whether it was really a 'genocide' as such, would you try to "distance" yourself from critics of the German position and say things like you "have no control over what congress does or thinks" in order that relations should not be damaged by their decision to condemn?
If I were a member of congress I would have voted yes, after all it was genocide.
If I were the white house admin. I would then try to distance myself from congress by stating something like "We have no control over what congress does, and we'd like to reassure turkey that they're an important ally and our relations shouldn't be damaged by this decision"
06 Mar 10
2 edits
Originally posted by shavixmirgen·o·cide [jen-uh-sahyd]
I presume the US is going to call the attacks on Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki a genocide too then?
Not to mention the Israeli treatment of Palestinians.
At last, some good is coming from the US.
–noun
the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.
The U.S. did not do this in the WAR w/Japan.
07 Mar 10
Originally posted by shavixmirThese alleged instances do not interest me so much.
I presume the US is going to call the attacks on Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki a genocide too then? Not to mention the Israeli treatment of Palestinians.
The ones I'd be more intrigued to hear from the U.S. on would be things like their aerial bombardment of Cambodia 40 years ago and what happened in the Belgian Congo 100 years ago.
The former seems to slip under the Condemnation Radar so often, depite perhaps costing 600,000 or more innocent lives in a fairly short space of time. Have these deaths been conveniently pinned on Pol Pot?
The latter may have had a death toll that exceeded what the Nazis did to the Jews. Does the West perceive genocide in Africa differently? I mean: what Turkey did to Armenians pales in the face of what Belgium did in Africa - and yet the timescale is similar.
07 Mar 10
Originally posted by utherpendragonActually, the international legal definition of genocide is found in Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.
gen·o·cide [jen-uh-sahyd]
–noun
the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.
Excerpt from the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of Genocide
"Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article III: The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
See here: http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/index.htm#text
So, in fact, a case CAN be made for the nuclear bombing of Japan. I however don't think it helps to envoke 'genocide' - not if more unequivocal and insisdious acts of genocide are to be tackled credibly - and so I am ambivalent about shavixmir's assertion.