Genocide

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic attempt to wipe out a particular human population or demographic. The deliberateness of the crime is essential to it being classified as genocide. Wanton killing, even if accompanied by racism, should not be considered genocide unless it is carried out with the express intent to wipe out the entire target group. And the systematic subjugation of an entire nation resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths should not be considered genocide either, unless that subjugation is accompanied by the express intent to exterminate the people of that nation.

I'm writing this because someone I love just facebook "liked" the mis-named International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq. I've known for a couple years that the U.S. military and contractors have done things that result in quite a few deaths - not just of people killed in the crossfire, but of people whose standard of living plummeted after crucial services suddenly evaporated. But though lots of civilians died, and though their deaths can probably be called deliberate (if you know that the death results from your action and you perform the action, the death is caused deliberately), I wouldn't call this genocide against the Iraqis. It was not accompanied by the intent to wipe out every single Iraqi.

Of course, The International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq is not trying to convince us that the U.S. actually intends to wipe out every single Iraqi. The wiping out that the writers of this initiative are decrying is the destruction of Iraq as a nation state.

The crime of genocide is the intended destruction, in whole or substantial part, of an enumerated group as such. Iraq has been intentionally destroyed as a state and nation.

Over one million dead, a fifth of the population exiled, and millions more injured, alongside total infrastructural collapse and an unprecedented promotion of corruption, sectarianism and death squads, constitutes destruction substantial enough to negate the possibility of Iraq functioning as a viable entity. This is and heralds genocide.

Yes, social structures were destroyed in the war and this destruction resulted in numerous deaths. But the unviability of the nation state is not the same as a deliberate attempt to wipe out all members of a targeted group.

I'm being vain, of course, because the term "genocide" is totally useless as far as human rights is concerned. It's as irrelevant as the broader umbrella term "hate crime". Whether the victims were targetted for being members of a particular group is irrelevant - what matters is that their rights were trampled. Killing 6 million Jews with the intent to wipe out all of European Jewry isn't any worse than killing 6 million persons of diverse racial backgrounds without the intent to wipe out any race.

That said, I do think the word genocide shouldn't be used by people who oppose the war in Iraq. Either it makes us peace-niks look like we're dishonest and manipulative about our words, or it makes us look like we don't know what we're talking about. The initiative would sound just as urgent if it were called "The International Initiative to Prosecute US War Crimes in Iraq".