{"id":1368,"date":"2007-03-02T07:11:54","date_gmt":"2007-03-02T12:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/talk-about-scorched-earth\/"},"modified":"2007-03-02T07:13:10","modified_gmt":"2007-03-02T12:13:10","slug":"talk-about-scorched-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/talk-about-scorched-earth","title":{"rendered":"Talk about scorched earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brendan O’Neill attacks genocide vogue<\/a>. I think he’s had some previous articles where he’s examined the guerrilla warfare and insurgencies that lead to the conditions that the west labels as genocide, and how that fighting gets ignored in favor of a clear-cut recasting of murderers and victims.<\/p>\n

\n

In international relations genocide has become a political weapon, an all-purpose rallying cry used by various actors to gain moral authority and boost their own standing. Anyone with a cursory understanding of history should know that the bloody wars of the past 10 to 15 years — in Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Darfur — are not unprecedented or exceptional. Certainly none of them can be compared to the Nazi genocide against the Jews, which involved the industrialised slaughter, often in factories built for the purpose, of six million men, women and children. Rather, the labelling of today\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s brutal civil wars as \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00cb\u0153genocides\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 by Western observers, courts and commentators is a desperate search for a new moral crusade, and it has given rise to a new moral divide between the West and the rest, between the civilised and enlightened governments of America and Europe and those dark parts of the world where genocides occur.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I have a big problem with laws that make “holocaust denial” illegal, because I think those play right into the hands of the denying set, showing how they’re oppressed by the government, which doesn’t want their viewpoint getting out. It’s a free speech issue, so I wouldn’t expect Europe to be out in front on that.<\/p>\n

This article also made me think of the “Everyone has AIDS!” musical number from Team America<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brendan O’Neill attacks genocide vogue. I think he’s had some previous articles where he’s examined the guerrilla warfare and insurgencies that lead to the conditions that the west labels as genocide, and how that fighting gets ignored in favor of a clear-cut recasting of murderers and victims. In international relations genocide has become a political … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Talk about scorched earth”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-explicit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-m4","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":440,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/is-it-genocide-yet","url_meta":{"origin":1368,"position":0},"title":"Is it genocide yet?","author":"Gil","date":"January 31, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Nope, not yet. Just ask the UN.Oh, wait: my bad! That link was about how Kofi Annan's son was actually involved in negotiating a deal to sell 2 million barrels of oil in the UN's oil-for-food scam.HERE'S the link about how the UN has determined that there's no genocide occurring\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":590,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/more-intervention","url_meta":{"origin":1368,"position":1},"title":"MORE intervention?","author":"Gil","date":"July 20, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Looks like the U.S. hegemon is forcing its way into ANOTHER Muslim country! No blood for oil! Regime change begins at home! Visualize whirled peas!Oh, wait. It's a story about how the Air Force is helping bring Rwandan AU troops into Darfur to help stop the genocide being conducted there\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sudan"","block_context":{"text":"Sudan","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sudan"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":215,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/it-depends-on-your-definition-of-genocide","url_meta":{"origin":1368,"position":2},"title":"It depends on your definition of ‘genocide’","author":"Gil","date":"April 1, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"New documents show that the Clinton administration knew about the massacres in Rwanda much earlier than it officially claimed to, and hid its collective head in the sand to avoid getting involved in another Somalia.Plus, here's a piece on the UN's stonewalling of the plane crash that helped instigate the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":373,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm","url_meta":{"origin":1368,"position":3},"title":"Lame and obtuseRomeo Dallaire is\u2026","author":"Gil","date":"September 3, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Lame and obtuseRomeo Dallaire is pissed at the international (lack of) response to the genocide in Darfur:\"I am just disgusted with the lame and obtuse responses coming from Canada and the Western world.\"Why should you care what he thinks? Because Romeo Dallaire was the commander of UNAMIR during the Rwanda\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":583,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/more-sudan","url_meta":{"origin":1368,"position":4},"title":"More Sudan","author":"Gil","date":"July 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Nicholas Kristof of the NYTimes is insanely pissed off at the media for ignoring the genocide in Darfur:When I've asked television correspondents about this lapse, they've noted that visas to Sudan are difficult to get and that reporting in Darfur is expensive and dangerous. True, but TV crews could at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sudan"","block_context":{"text":"Sudan","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sudan"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":294,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/no-genocide-for-oil-you-french-motherfers","url_meta":{"origin":1368,"position":5},"title":"No Genocide for Oil, you French Motherf***ers!","author":"Gil","date":"July 12, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in May, I wrote my Representative about the Congressional resolution on the Sudanese genocide. He wrote back this weekend (see below). There've been some developments, but no serious results yet. Several Congressmen are calling for the U.S. to label this a genocide, which would automatically trigger intervention by a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sudan"","block_context":{"text":"Sudan","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sudan"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}