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The following article appeared in countercurrents.org.
One must be very careful before reaching genocide conclusions, and to verify
whether the facts are correct, because "genocide" has become a
politicized weapon in the hands of those with agendas. For example, an
aggressor nation can today levy the charge of "genocide" in order to
use it as a pretext for an invasion. In addition, it is to the benefit of too
many genocide scholars to falsely pin the genocide label, either because of
their obsessive dogma, or because genocide has become their bread-and-butter.
The facts and claims can easily be manipulated, and the honorable truth-seeker
must always retain a healthy skepticism, and to dig beneath the surface, in
order to discern the truth. (In short, just because someone "tells"
us something does not mean we should stupidly accept it, because emotions
and/or dishonesty are running high, particularly regarding the worst crime
against humanity.)
We all must be scrupulous, and look very closely, before we conclude that a
conflict meets the terms of the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention. For example, a
line from below reads, "Even traditional self-defense — let alone
preemptive self-defense, a deceptive name for aggression — cannot be invoked
to justify or excuse the crime of genocide.” Is that true? It is absolutely
true. Yet the flaw in that statement (applied generally, and not necessarily
to the Afghan case) is that dishonest parties who wish others to accept their
false genocide conclusion can now say self-defense is no excuse in any event.
But we know from the Ottoman example that it would not be true. (The Ottomans
were attacked on all sides by superior nations with the intent to practically
wipe the Ottoman Empire off the face of the map, a real life-and-death
situation. The Armenians of the Ottoman Empire treacherously joined the enemy.
The Ottoman government had the right and the duty to defend themselves,
as any other nation (this is inarguable, and even the occasional
Armenian historian has agreed,
in regards to the Ottomans), and temporarily resettled the Armenians, where
some things went wrong, out of the control of the bankrupt Sick Man. Resettlement
is not genocide, and yet unscrupulous and unthinking parties have made a
"genocide" out of it anyway, for reasons of political gain and
prejudice.) In other words, first the genocide needs to be determined as an
absolute fact, and then we can see whether claims of "self-defense"
are phony or not. (For example, as when the Armenians always claim
"self-defense," even though the Armenians have almost always fired
the first shot.) To put it another way, even if there is justification for
self-defense, nothing can justify genocide; but first the genocide must be
impartially and honestly established.
The claims below could well be true and certainly sound convincing. Once
verified, one other thing becomes clearer, and it boils down to what Noam
Chomsky wrote: "U.S. crimes are off the agenda." The
hypocritical and dishonest genocide industry has not made an issue of the
Afghan case, assuming it qualifies as genocide, along with so many other
historical examples where certain nations get a pass, and where certain
peoples are not deemed worthy enough to be deemed as genocide victims.
Thanks to Stephen.
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Top US Lawyer And UNICEF Data Reveal Afghan Genocide
By Dr Gideon Polya
08 February, 2008
Countercurrents.org
The United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 with the ostensible excuse of the
Afghan Government’s “protection” of the asserted Al Qaeda culprits of the 9/11
atrocity that killed 3,000 people. In the light of as many as 6.6 million post-invasion
excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan as of February 2008 (see below), it is important to
consider the major problems with this Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite version of events as
summarized below:
1. The US has a long history of “questionable” excuses for war e.g. the explosion of
the Maine (the Spanish-American War), the sinking of the US arms-carrying Lusitania (entry
into World War 1), the Pearl Harbor attack with now recognized US foreknowledge (entry
into World War 2), North Koreans provoked into invading their own country (the Korean
War), the fictitious Gulf of Tonkin incident (the Vietnam War; recently similarly but
unsuccessfully attempted in the Persian Gulf as an “excuse” to attack Iran) and the
extraordinary 1,000 post-9/11 lies told by Bush Administration figures, most notoriously
about non-existent Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (the Iraq War; post-invasion excess
deaths now about 1.5-2 million).
2. The US supported and funded Al Qaeda and the Taliban from the late 1970s to the early
1990s associated with its anti-Soviet policies (see William Blum’s “Rogue State”).
3. Oil- and hegemony-related plans for the invasion of Afghanistan were all ready to go
before 9/11.
4. No Afghans were involved in the 9/11 attack according to the “official 9/11 story”
of the egregiously dishonest Bush Administration.
5. Even the right-wing, neo-Bush-ite Democrat Al Gore in his recent book “The Assault on
Reason” (Chapter 6, National Insecurity, pp178-179) condemns the Bush Administration for
effective passive complicity in the 9/11 atrocity i.e. they let it happen, just as a
fore-warned US Administration permitted the Pearl Harbor attack to happen in 1941: “Their
behaviour, in my opinion, was reckless, but the explanation for it lies in hubris, not in
some bizarre conspiracy theory …These affirmative and repeated refusals to listen to
clear warnings [prior to 9/11] constitute behaviour that goes beyond simple negligence. At
a minimum, it represents a reckless disregard for the safety of the American people.”
6. However, further to point #5, the extremely eminent former 7-year President of Italy,
law professor, senator for life and long-term Western intelligence intimate Francesco
Cossiga recently (November 2007) told one of Italy's top newspapers that (a) the US CIA
and Israeli Mossad committed the 9/11 outrage in order to further US and Zionist aims and
that (b) major Western intelligence agencies are well aware of this (for details and
documentation see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18569/26/ ).
As of February 2008, analysis of UNICEF data (see UNICEF statistics on Occupied
Afghanistan: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/afghanistan_statistics.html ) allows the
following estimate of 3.3-6.6 million post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths,
deaths that should not have happened) in Occupied Afghanistan:
1. annual under-5 infant deaths 370,000.
2. post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 2.3 million (90% avoidable).
3. post-invasion avoidable under-5 infant deaths 2.1 million.
4. post-invasion non-violent excess deaths 3.2 million (2.3 million /0.7 = 3.3 million;
for impoverished, worst case Third world countries the under-5 infant deaths are about 0.7
of total non-violent excess deaths (see A Layperson’s Guide to counting Iraq deaths:
http://mwcnews.net/content/view/5872/26/ ).
5. post-invasion violent deaths about 3.3 million (assuming roughly 1 violent death for
every non-violent avoidable death i.e. roughly as in US-occupied Occupied Iraq where the
ratio of violent deaths to non-violent excess deaths is 0.8-1.2 million to 0.7-0.8
million; see Continued Australian and US Coalition war crimes in Occupied Iraq:
http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/2008/01/rudd-australia-report-card-1-continued.html
). 6. upper estimate of non-violent plus violent post-invasion excess deaths 3.3 million +
3.3 million = 6.6 million excess deaths.
For detailed documentation of the above see “Australian complicity in continuing Afghan
genocide”: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/ . A major cause of the carnage
is revealed by WHO (see: http://www.who.int/en/ ) — the “total annual per capita
medical expenditure” permitted by the Occupiers in Occupied Afghanistan is a mere $19
— as compared to as compared to $2,560 (the UK), $3,123 (Australia) and $6,096 (the US).
This is in gross contravention of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to
the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (see:
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ) which unequivocally demands that the Occupier
must provide life-sustaining food and medical requisites to its Conquered Subjects “to
the fullest extent of the means available to it”. Compounding this is the appalling
reality of 4 million Afghan refugees.
What is happening in Afghanistan is an Afghan Holocaust. One sees that post-invasion
under-5 infant deaths in Occupied Afghanistan (2.3 million) vastly exceeds the number of
Jewish children murdered by the Nazis in World War 2 (1.5 million). The upper estimate of
post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan (6.6 million
out of an average 2001-2008 Afghan population of about 25 million) exceeds the number of
Jews murdered by the Nazis in World War 2 ( 5.6 million out of 8.2 million Jews in
German-occupied Europe in the period 1941-1945) (see: Gilbert, M. (1969), Jewish History
Atlas (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London) and Gilbert, M. (1982), Atlas of the Holocaust
(Michael Joseph, London)).
Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see:
http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ) states “In the present
Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in
whole or in part, a national, ethnic, 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.”
From the data summarized above, it is apparent that the Afghan Holocaust is also an Afghan
Genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention.
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Outstanding US Law academic Professor Ali Khan of the Washburn University School of
Law, Topeka, Kansas has also described what is going on in Afghanistan as genocide
i.e. an Afghan Genocide (see “NATO Genocide in Afghanistan”:
http://mwcnews.net/content/view/19831/42/ ).
The key legal verdict of Professor Khan is as follows: “The Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (entered into force, 1951) is
binding on all states including the 26 member states of NATO. The Genocide
Convention is jus cogens, the law from which no derogation is allowed. It provides
no exceptions for any nation or any organization of nations, such as the United
Nations or NATO, to commit genocide. Nor does the Convention allow any exceptions to
genocide "whether committed in time of peace or in time of war." Even
traditional self-defense - let alone preemptive self-defense, a deceptive name for
aggression — cannot be invoked to justify or excuse the crime of genocide.”
Professor Khan proceeds to analyse the campaign of extermination of the Indigenous
Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan in relation to International law. He states that in
relation to Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention “In murdering the Taliban,
NATO armed forces systematically practice on a continual basis the crime of genocide
that consists of three constituent elements - act, intent to destroy, and religious
group.” His detailed analysis can be succinctly summarized as follows:
1. “The Genocidal Act” is prohibited as defined in the Genocide Convention as
“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” — but is
is clearly occurring on a huge scale as indicated by the above data.
2. “The Genocidal Intent” is expressed in the Genocide Convention as “intent
to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”-
but is clearly present in the statements of the NATO leaders. The “Intent” is
also apparent from the sustained, resolute conduct of this horrendously bloody war
for over 6 years.
3. “The Genocidal targeting of a Religious Group” is clearly prohibited by the
Genocide Convention by “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in
part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” — but is clearly being
carried out with the accompaniment of immense Islamophobic propaganda in the West.
Professor Khan concludes: “It may, therefore, be safely concluded that NATO combat
troops and NATO commanders are engaged in murdering the Taliban, a protected group
under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to physically and mentally
destroy the group in whole or in part. This is the crime of genocide.”
As an agnostic humanist I certainly don’t care for the Taliban beliefs — but
what agnostic humanists (such as myself) or people of other philosophic persuasions
think about the religious beliefs and interpretations of the Taliban is beside the
point from the perspective of the UN Genocide Convention.
And while I strongly object to human rights violations by the Taliban (especially in
relation to women and application of their extreme interpretations of Sharia Law)
one has to objectively give credit to the Taliban for (a) bringing Peace through
victory in the middle 1990s and (b) for destroying 95% of the Afghan opium
production in 2001 (as well of course banning the vastly more deadly use of alcohol
and for prohibiting Afghan Government employees from the even more deadly practice
of smoking tobacco in 1997). Smoking, alcohol and illicit drugs kill about 7 million
people annually, the breakdown being 5 million (tobacco), 1.8 million (alcohol) and
0.2 million (from illicit drugs, about half opiate drug-related).
It can be estimated that 0.6 million people have died world-wide due to opiates in
the last 6 years, about 0.5 million of these deaths being due to US Alliance
restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 5% of world market
share (2001) to 93% (2007) (see UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, World Drug
Report 2007: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/world_drug_report.html ).
The 0.5 million global US-NATO-linked opiate drug-related deaths plus 6.6 million
post-invasion Afghan excess deaths bring an upper estimate of the carnage due to the
US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan to 7.1 million deaths. If we include
excess deaths associated with UK-US actions against Iraq in the period 1990-2008
(about 4 million) then the gruesome carnage of the Bush I plus Bush II Asian Wars
now totals about 11 million excess deaths (and this ignores the impact of the Bush
Wars through oil price rises and other factors on Third World avoidable deaths).
Occupied Afghanistan is the New Auschwitz of the US and its complicit allies
(including former Axis countries Germany and Japan who have on US instigation joined
the US-NATO Afghan Genocide) (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/7616/26/ ).
Those Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite politicians, military and Mainstream media
executives complicit in the Afghan Genocide should be arraigned before the
International Criminal Court (see: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/ ).
In his 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (see:
http://www.countercurrents.org/arts-pinter081205.htm ), UK playwright Harold Pinter
urged the arraignment of Bush and Blair before the International Criminal Court for
war crimes and stated “How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to
be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than
enough, I would have thought.”
Eleven million? More than enough, I would have thought.
Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most
recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant
Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London,
2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”
(G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and
http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).
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