TABLE OF CONTENTS ISSUE 3 SUMMER 2010

Quotable:

"Death itself is not fearsome... Only hatred and cruelty.  Only the human mind, that engineers such wholesale destruction.  They say that to destroy one life is to destroy an entire universe, yes? What is it then to destroy a universe? Death is nothing - but what is fearsome is to look into the eyes of a man who has no human feeling, and see yourself reflected there"

- - Lavigne, Michael (2007). Not Me. Random House Paperbacks. Original publication 2005.

Jacques Semelin's tenet is simple. Genocide has to do with identity fostered through fantasy, and the maintenance of a sense of identity via a sense of purity and security. The idea that political conflict has its basis in shared beliefs is not new. The notion that we kill en masse in order to maintain our collective unconscious fantasy is new - at least in genocide studies.

- - Baum, Steven R (2008). Review of Semelin, Jacques (2007). Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide. New York: Columbia University Press. Journal Hate Studies, 6, 137-139.

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A new eruption of genocidal violence in a far-away location to peoples we in the West hardly know. News Report with a Timeline and a GPN Editorial Blog Bulletin: Genocidal Massacres in Kyrgyztan - Two Muslim Nationalities GPN reports on the disastrous BP Oil Spill and raises the question whether "ecological genocide" or "ecocide" is an appropriate category News Report with a Timeline and a GPN Editorial Blog The British Petroleum Oil Spill…Ecocide? What Is It? What Is It Not? And So What? Two mosques in Pakistan of minority Muslim religion are attacked News Report with a GPN Editorial Blog Two Mosques in Pakistan of Minority Muslim Religion are Assaulted by Gunmen and Suicide Bombers in Coordinated Attacks An appreciation and memorial With examples from Richard Kloian's compilation of original New York Times reports of the ongoing Armenian Genocide Richard Kloian, Founder of Armenian Genocide Resource Center, Passes Away A very hard hitting critique of contemporary appeasement - must reading for those who worry about our contemporary world and know how wrong disbelief in the oncoming evil of a new Hitler/Stalin/Mao can be until it is too late to stop them Elihu Richter What If: Obama and Biden against Hitler, or... Chamberlain and Halifax against Ahmadinejad? A dramatically different analysis of genocide from the vantage point of population (the author's emphasis on population has been featured prominently in the Wall Street Journal) Gunnar Heinsohn Is International Terror Caused by the Creation of Israel? A disturbing and important overview of Islamic power by a member of the Dutch parliament Geert Wilders Wilders: "America, the Last Man Standing" An old Jewish proverb says, "A good person is subject to suffering, while the evil person gets a good deal": The current plight of a great judge Pioneering Spanish Judge Garzon Comes Under Serious Legal Fire because He Intended to Try Franco-era Crimes Spain goes after Chinese Persecution of Falun Gong Spanish Court Indicts Chinese Leaders for Persecution of Falun Gong A very moving exhibition (GPN editors were there after a Tel Aviv court overruled closing the exhibition under Chinese pressure) Tel Aviv University Falun Gong Exhibition Closes Down Under Pressure from the Chinese Government, but a Tel Aviv Court Overrules the Closure A survey introduction to laws in European countries against Holocaust denial Jacqueline Lechtholz-Zey The Laws Banning Holocaust Denial Incitement is often (not always) a key early warning indicator Article with Two Timelines: Rwanda Genocide Timeline and Darfur Genocide Timeline Includes an Appendix of Excerpts from School Textbooks and Media Elihu D Richter, with Yael Stein, Alex Barnea, and Marc Sherman Can We Prevent Genocide by Preventing Incitement? Part 1 Iranian-born journalist Bahari was tortured, threatened, and then freed (thanks to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) Iranian Journalist Sentenced to 13.5 Years Imprisonment Two personal stories from Darfuris Oral Histories from Darfur Vél d'Hiv - where the Jews were gathered by the French for the Nazis to be murdered Film Awakens France's Shame in the Holocaust Education to perpetrate genocide -- with vivid examples from the Palestinian classroom Includes video examples of Fatah and Hamas Indoctrination for Genocide Daphne Burdman Genocidal Indoctrination: Palestinian Indoctrination to Genocide A Muslim voice calling for Islamic faith without terrorism - a voice of hope for a better Islamic community living peacefully with others Kuwaiti Sheik Criticizes Scholars and Preacher who Entice Youth to Terrorism Major American Armenian organization stands together with the other non-Armenian victims of the Armenian genocide Armenian National Comittee of America Joins with Pontian Greeks, all Helenes, Assyrians, Syriacs and other Victims of Genocide by the Ottoman Empire "It's a shame they didn't finish you all off" - the contemporary Turkish version Video of Turkish Embassy Celebration on Genocide Anniversary Denial of a genocide also implies renewed threat - Erdogan does so openly Shut Up about Armenians or We'll Hurt Them Again Laughs are rare in the realm of genocide studies - a spoof that teaches us about Turkish denial Harut Sassounian A Great Hoax about a Turkish Ambassador Israel fights Holocaust denial but participates in denial of the Armenian Genocide Yair Auron Armenian Jews and Israelis - Remembering and Denial The tortuous legal process at work: Turkish denial versus truth U.S. Court of Appeals Hears Oral Arguments in Massachusetts on Armenian Genocide Denial Case A lecture given in Turkey about how denials of genocidal acts affect many countries. Did the locals get the message? A Casebook of Denials of Doing Harm to Others and Rewards to People and Nations Who Overcome Denial Israel Charny A major new research resource at the forthcoming Armenian Genocide Museum in Washington, D.C. Armenian Genocide Museum of America (AGMA) Opens Research Library The former British Ambassador to the U.K. David Miller, speaks out the truth of the Armenian Genocide. It will be recalled that the former U.S. ambassador to Armenia, John Evans spoke out while he was in office and promptly lost his job. Former British Ambassador Recognizes the Armenian Genocide Bangladesh's Hindu population is dying - a report from an area not often in Western consciousness of Islamist campaigns to get rid of Bangladesh Hindus Richard Benkin Bangladesh Ethnic Butchery & Genocidal Massacres "My son the martyr!" A life-renouncing prayer that one's son will die "Go Ahead, My Son and Become a "Great Shahid," says the Mother HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE REVIEW INFORMATION RESOURCES World Bulletin Board Genocide Study and Prevention New Initiatives in Genocide Studies and Prevention: Conferences and Seminars Developments in Genocide Scholarship and Research Around the World Featured Development: Developments in Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Argentina Programs and Courses on the Holocaust and Genocide Featured Program: Holocaust and Genocide Studies program offered at the University of Sydney in Australia, Department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies Organizations and Activities Dedicated to Genocide Awareness and Prevention Featured Organization: The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme Bibliography of Publications Memorials and Commemorative Ceremonies for Victims of Genocide THREAT Ahmadinejad Reports Aura of the "Hidden Imam" Enveloped Him in his Speech to the U.N. and Calls Upon Bush to Accept Islam For the Ahmadinejad Collection of Promises to Destroy Israel Iraqi Ayatollah Ahmad Al-Baghdadi Talks of America's Annihilation Iran, Arming for Armageddon Hitler Left Some Jews Alive so the World Could See Why He Killed the Rest Indicted USS Cole Bomber: "We will Strike the U.S. Homeland, Embassies and Warships" Jews Deserved the Holocaust U.S. Born Cleric Backs Killing of American Civilians NEWSPEAK A Canadian Professor Speaks in Defense of Ahmadinejad Suit for Denial of Serb Genocide B’nai Brith Canada Condemns UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for Publishing Blood Libel of Israeli Organ Harvesting in an Official UN Document Hamas Deputy Minister of Religion Says Jews are Bacteria, not Human Beings Tiananmen Square? Ask Any Tour Guide in China: Nothing Dramatic Ever Happened China Says it Will Keep Censoring the Internet

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EDITOR'S WELCOME TO ISSUE 3 SUMMER 2010 OF GPN GENOCIDE PREVENTION NOW

We welcome our readers.

And we thank the many who have written to express their appreciation for the meaningfulness of the first two issues of GPN, which have earned praise both as interesting reading and as filling an important function providing source materials for those concerned with genocide and its prevention.

We also note with some excitement that participation in creating articles and stories for GPN and in submitting professional information is growing and includes scholars and professionals from many different parts of the world.

Readers of past issues will recall our announcing that we were publishing our "webmag" (web magazine) in a blog format (which some people point out is also a form of website) until we complete the construction of our fuller website. We think we are on the verge, and that Issue 4 Fall 2010 will already appear in the next web format.

Among our various anticipations – we too will be finding out what it's all about – are that what we intend as a "page" will fit on to a full screen which will not require scrolling on many computers, and when printed out will produce a nicely readable font for many eyes including those of older readers; also that it will be easier to separate out a GPN article or story for printing such as for use in academic settings as readings for researchers and students. We also expect that the website will provide a strong Search capacity for tracking content topics both in a given issue and in all past issues of GPN. At this time our staff are already entering the first three blog issues also into the new web format so that the Search functions will cover all materials from Issue 1 on.

In this issue we introduce for the first time three GPN Editorial Blogs and these deserve some explanation as to our 'Terms of Editorial Engagement.' In genocide studies you can forget about unanimity of opinions about just about anything—try for example defining any event as genocide, genocidal massacre, ethnic cleansing, crime against humanity, or human rights abuse, and stand back for the ricochets of disagreements. Basically, our policy is that everything we publish has the overall agreement of myself, Marc and Elihu to publish it but not at all necessarily our agreement about every statement made. In each case, the Editorial Blogs are signed by the person(s) who wrote them and they are the ones to whom you can protest with your disagreements. Titles of articles are written by the identified authors. The pre-headers or brief introductory blurbs in the Table of Contents are my responsibility as the Editor-in-Chief and are usually written by me without necessarily having secured the review of all editors.

Again our reminder to ourselves and to you our readers: Producing a webmag gets to be fun in its own right and we are having that, but the only real purpose of GPN is to create a tool that makes a real contribution to the knowledge and understanding of genocide and especially to its prevention.

Best wishes from all of us on the GPN Staff,
Israel
Israel W. Charny

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Bulletin: Genocidal Massacres in Kyrgyztan - Two Muslim Nationalities

News Report and GPN Editorial Blog

Kyrgyz are slaughtering Uzbeks -- Two Muslim Turkic-speaking peoples in Central Asia -- in Kyrgyztan, a Central European Country bordering on China, Tajikstan, and Uzbekistan; Tens of thousands of Uzbeks are fleeing to Uzbekistan.

As Issue 3 of GPN moves toward publication word reaches the western world of a new eruption of mass killing of civilians, driven along ethnic-national lines.

Reporters describe an eruption of “sudden, brutal violence” in which the KRYGZ MAJORITY are killing and wounding people from the UZBEK MINORITY. An International Red Cross spokeman said more than 700 people were killed in the one city of Osh and more than 3000 were in need of medical attention for wounds. In one report, over 70,000 people were reported to be fleeing the country as of June 14, 2010. Another report said 150,000 people. Uzbekistan announced it was closing its border to further refugees.

Western media began advancing possible interpretations of the facts of the genocidal killing including a mix of inter-ethnic persecution -- despite the fact that the two people are tied by no less than culture, language and religion; a classic divide between herders and farmers; a classic dynamic of commerce –including trading in opium - being predominantly in the hands of the one people (the victim Uzbeks); and including a political struggle of an ousted former president who is battling to return to power and is said to be hiring killers to execute the genocidal pogroms against the Uzbek who have supported the new president.

Excerpts from Press Reports

Krgyz mobs burned Uzbek villages and slaughtered their residents in the worst ethnic rioting this Central Asian nation has seen in 20 years, sending Uzbeks fleeing across the border into Uzbekistan. Most of the Uzbek refugees were elderly people, women and children, and many had gunshot wounds.

Fires set by rioters have destroyed most of Osh, the second-largest city in Kyrgyzstan. Triumphant crowds of Kyrgz men took control of Osh as the few Uzbeks still left in the city of 250,000 barricaded themselves in their neighborhoods. Fires continued to rage across Osh and shots were heard but police were nowhere to be seen.

The rioting has significant political overtones. Former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted in a bloody uprising in April and fled the country. Uzbeks have backed Kyrgyzstan's interim government, while many in Kyrgyz in the south support the toppled president.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said he was "alarmed by the scale of the clashes" and the mounting death toll and was discussing what aid the U.N. could send to help the fleeing refugees.

Who
Perpetrators:
Gangs of ethnic Kyrgyz young men from southern Kyrgyzstan, armed at first with metal rods and stones, and later with automatic rifles and shotguns.

Victims:
Men, women and children of Uzbek ethnic group, in the living in southern Kyrgyzstan - killed, wounded. Homes, businesses and property were plundered or burnt. There were many reports of violent groups reportedly committing gang rape. Thousands of refugees tried to escape to Uzbekistan - some were attacked on the way, and some died in stampede at border crossing.

Political figures:

• "Interim President Roza Otunbayeva - a political rival of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Leads government after uprising in April 2010.
• "Former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev - was ousted in an uprising in April 2010, and has fled the country. Negotiated potential closure of US airbase in Manas, Kyrgyzstan with Russian and US governments. Was accused of corruption, but was reelected in July 2009. Now residing in Belarus.
• "Former President Askar Akayev (1991-2005). Was elected (sole candidate) after independence of Kyrgyzstan in 1991, reelected (arguably) in 2000, and removed in 2005 by revolution. Was replaced by President Bakiyev. Currently lives in Moscow.

What, Where
The violence broke out just before midnight on Thursday 10 June, across Kyrgyzstan's southern market city of Osh. Gangs of Kyrgyz young men, armed with metal rods and stones attacked Uzbek homes and businesses, looting, burning and killing. Later, the rioters stole weapons from police stations and continued with the attacks with automatic rifles and shotguns. Throughout Saturday and Sunday, the violence spread from Osh to JalalAbad (70 kilometers from Osh) and the villages surrounding it.

As a response to the rioting, ethnic Uzbeks ambushed about 100 Kyrgz men on a road near Jlal-Abad and took them hostage. In the nearby village of Bazar-Kurgan, a mob of 400 Uzbeks overturned cars and killed a police captain. Armed Kyrgyz men assembled in the village to retaliate.

In the Osh and Jalal-Abad areas, people were trapped inside houses and basements, afraid to go out to get supplies, and afraid to collect bodies of people who had been killed, to identify and bury them. Some people were buried without being identified. Thousands of people fled from their homes. Most of these people are now in need of humanitarian aid, mostly water, food, clothes for their children, and shelter.

Several days after the violence began, Interim President Roza Otunbayeva sent an urgent request to Russia, asking that troops be deployed to stop the riots, but Russia refused. A Kyrgyz volunteer troop was organized and sent to the south, with an order to "shoot to kill" to stop the violence.

Context
Ethnic Uzbeks are the largest minority group (13-14.2 percent) in Kyrgyzstan, a multiethnic state of 5.1 million people, of whom ethnic Kyrgyz comprise 67.4 percent. Ethnic Uzbeks are concentrated in the southern regions of Osh and Jalal-Abad, in the fertile Fergana Valley region. Both groups are Muslim Sunnis, although there is slight difference between them, the Kyrgyz still relating to some traditional beliefs.

The current rioting has significant political context. A political uprising this April, a few weeks ago - in which demonstrators were shot with over 80 killed - removed former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev from power. He fled the country to Belarus. An interim government was set up, led by former prominent opposition figure and Foreign Minister Roza Otunbayeva.

Uzbeks have backed Kyrgyzstan's interim government, while many Kyrgyz in the south support the removed president. The new government, though unelected and made up of an uneasy alliance of political forces, quickly established control over the capital and the north of the country, but not in the south.

A wider, international, context revolves around the US airbase in Manas, near the capital Bishkek, a base used to support the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Kyrgyzstan hosts a Russian military base too. Formerly, the Russian government has pressured Bakiyev's government to shut the US base. In 2009, it offered a $2.1 Billion aid loan to Kyrgyzstan as incentive to shut the airbase. This was even accepted in a government vote. But in last-minute negotiations, former president Bakiyev reversed this decision and allowed the base to stay, more than tripling the rent collected from the US government from $17 Million to $ 60 Million a year. This move lost him Russian support. Russia was the first country to recognize Otunbayeva's government in April.

When the ethnic riots broke out, interim leader Roza Otunbayeva turned to the Russian President, requesting that Russia send troops to stop the fighting in Kyrgyzstan. The Russian government refused to send troops immediately, but a spokeswoman for President Dmitri Medvedev said that no decision would be made until Russia consulted with other members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a regional security alliance of former Soviet republics. Russia did send 300 troops, to protect its own military base, in the north, away from the riots.

Pakistan and Germany sent aid to the troubled regions, and China was expected to send food and medical supplies.

Sources:
Kramer, Andrew E. Ellen (June 15, 2010). Improbable enemies in a spasm of violence: Uzbeks and Kyrgyz share close ties but fighting has flared in the past. International Herald Tribune.

Schwirtz Michael, and Barry, Ellen (June 15, 2010). Political undertones infect violence in Kyrgyzstan. International Herald Tribune.

EurasiaNet.org (June 15, 2010). Uzbekistan closing border; estimated 150,000 refugees in Uzbekistan; violence continues. http://www.eurasianet.org/node/61302

Associated Press (June 13, 2010). Mobs slaughter Uzbeks and burn towns in Kyrgyzstan.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/06/13/world/asia/AP-AS-Kyrgyzstan-Unrest.html?emc=eta1

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GPN Editorial Blog:

Who knows?

Who cares?

We westerners can barely read or pronounce the names. Most of us have no idea where these countries lie except as we finally get the notion that these countries are on the western side of a country that does concern us more and more, China, but we still have little to no sense of who these peoples and nations are. And given that they are also Muslims, our more natural ‘white man Judeo-Christian’ sensitivities are not immediately mobilized.

Actually the West does care somewhat because the US has a base supporting NATO operations and the Russians have military facilities in the country.

But in principle no one of US gives a --- real enough concern that, even following the Holocaust, and Cambodia, and Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and more, there is no international machinery in place to respond IMMEDIATELY and AUTOMATICALLY to reports of mass killings—genocide—of civilians.

The idea of a standing international machinery that would respond the way we want neighborhood police forces to respond to reports of murder and attempted murder is so removed from the realm of human civilization’s political possibility that it feels juvenile and sophomoric to raise such a conception.

So genocide in our world is an event of mass killing of civilians about which, in the best scenario, months will pass of gathering alleged information, and months more for arriving at a consensual definition by major governments and for other parts of the weak international system that genocide is taking place, and months more before powerful enough players may decide, if they will, and if there are still more victims waiting to be killed, to intervene.

Why wasn’t Auschwitz bombed by the US or the British?

How many years did the UN Human Rights Commission (then in its better days of not yet being coopted to represent Muslim countries’ agenda for bashing Israel and the US) take to study the genocide in Cambodia and reluctantly come to the conclusion that an “autogenocide” was taking place?

How unknowing, impotent and sabotaging was our world, and some of our otherwise great leaders (like US President Bill Clinton and UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan) when it came to expanding U.N. resources for stopping the genocidal rampage in Rwanda?

This is also an appropriate context in which to remember that Cambodia and Rwanda, among others, prove that genocidal killing does not need obvious existing dividing lines between religions or nations, but that our primitive human thinking can easily come up with definition of US-THEM; dehumanize THEM and attribute to them bestial destructive potential and intentions towards US and our way of life; and then power-mad leaders light the matches, and another genocide is under way. And it can move to killing millions of people rapidly!

Is it really naïve and juvenile to raise the question of developing an “International Peace Army” or a “World Rapid Response Force”?

After all, that is obviously what will happen after the next great disaster of Genocide by a Weapon of Mass Destruction – especially if the victim people(s) belong to the then ‘white folk’ elites of our human civilization.

What should be done?
Right now, Kyrgyzstan is at a critical tipping point.

Genocide results from human choice and bystander inaction. We are now at a tipping point. The conflict could erupt into a genocidal civil war with spillover into neighboring countries, as happened in Darfur and Rwanda. Right now, we recommend implementation of Security Council Resolution 1674, the Responsibility to Protect, which specifies that there is an international responsibility to protect vulnerable populations from genocidal threats, when sovereign states are no longer able or willing to do so. To implement this recommendation, we recommend that the Russian Federation and the US, both of which have sizeable military bases in Kyrgyzstan, join immediately form a Rapid Deployment Force to restore quiet, order and safety and protect vulnerable populations from massacre, rape, expulsion, and plundering. Whatever their political differences, both, as Great Powers, have not only an opportunity, but a responsibility.

The ultimate responsibility for the genocidal massacres rests with the perpetrators. But should the violence continue, Russia and the US will stand accountable as passive bystanders who stood by and did nothing-as happened with the UN Forces in Rwanda, who were ordered to not interfere when the mass killing started there. The choice rests with the leaders of both Great Powers to move, and to do so rapidly.

Israel W. Charny with research on timelines and policy recommendations for preventive intervention based on Responsibility to Protect by Yael Stein and Elihu D. Richter of the GPN Genocide Situation Room.

Please click here to view the Timeline for Krygyztan

Please click here for a fully referenced pdf version of this article

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The British Petroleum Oil Spill…Ecocide? What Is It? What Is It Not? And So What?

News Report with a Timeline and a GPN Editorial Blog

The British Petroleum (BP) Oil Spill from a rig in the Gulf of Mexico on April 22 is now considered to be the worst environmental disaster in US history, with massive ecotoxic effects on sea life and human habitat. So far (see Timeline) there have been 11 deaths, (during the explosion itself) and episodes of illness from exposures to toxics among oil workers, but information on health impacts among others is so far not available. The long term destructive impacts to the economies of shore communities with millions of people supported by fishing and tourism have been massive. Also, the suspension of all other offshore oil drilling has left thousands unemployed. The sluggish response of both BP and the US government reportedly resulted in delays in measures to stop spread of the oil around the tip of Florida, and up the Atlantic Coast, and via the Gulf Stream perhaps even to European shores. For example, the Federal Government reportedly did not accept an offer of the Dutch Government to send skimmers at the very outset of the disaster. Presently more than 60,000 barrels of oil are escaping daily.

The following sequence appears to emerge:

First, the Bush administration released all regulatory measures on oil drilling. The results of the oil drilling by BP happened to fall on the Obama Administration. But one must go back and see what regulatory measures were in place when the license was issued. EU regulations for deep sea drilling were not in place and this allowed for the consequences.

Second, there is a need to ascertain if BP covered up, from the very beginning, by the data they supplied to the government and the information they distributed to the public. From Congressional testimony, BP, among all the oil multinationals, has a uniquely poor record of safety violations in many of its operations. It cut many corners and took dangerous short cuts to save money in drilling and operating the rig which burst. A culture of shortcuts took precedence over a culture of safety.

Third, the Obama administration was caught with a situation that it has been unable to handle because the technological knowhow for drilling and capping the well, is now in the hands of industry. The US government no longer has the manpower to even understand what needs to be done to stop the leak. Furthermore, according to the San Francisco Examiner, the Minerals Management Service, driven by a strongly ideological commitment to green energy sources such as wind and solar power, chose to stress "renewables" while de-emphasizing the tough and dirty work of managing the nation's existing offshore oil wells.

At the time of writing, President Obama has announced the establishment of a 20 billion dollar fund to set up by British Petroleum to cover emergency compensation, risk abatement, and emergency cleanup in the short term future. The definitive solution is supposed to be a substitute rig for oil extraction, thereby reducing the hydrostatic pressure in the burst rig.

Several years ago, several of us posed the question Should ecocide be defined as a crime against humanity? We examined the case for regarding toxic negligence resulting in toxic health risks from contamination or depletion of air, food and water as a crime against humanity, (“ecocide”), especially in marginalized communities. Since the presentation of this paper, there have been other disasters which environmentalists considered to be examples of ecologic crimes against humanity, a term currently lacking formal legal definition and recognition. An advocacy group has called for International Criminal Court prosecution of individuals for Crime Against Peace. This latter definition is much broader and less restrictive. This group defines Ecocide as the extensive destruction, damage to or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished.

The notion that destruction of populations and their health and habitat from intentional or reckless ecotoxic damage is a crime against humanity is relatively new. It is also a term subject to abuse, misuse and overuse---a danger inherent in the more inclusive definition . When Lemkin invented the term “genocide,” these problems were present, but had not reached today’s dimensions. Israel Charny proposed recognition of ecological crimes against humanity in an address at a Lemkin Symposium at the Yale University Law School in 1991. Others have picked up on the idea.

There is a need to recognize that there are large and fundamental gradations in levels of human activities leading to ecocide, in terms of intent, willful ignorance or wanton neglect. The term, to be useful, requires careful inclusion and exclusion criteria and definitions of gradients of severity in terms of degree of intent, negligence and damage.

Saddam Hussein’s deliberate destruction of the marshlands in Iraq was a case study in intentional ecocide. A multinational oil company collaborating with the Sudanese government was prosecuted for in driving out civilians from lands destined for drilling. In both cases, the perpetrators have been held liable under international law for crimes against humanity. Other cases involved multi-generational effects on health and fertility from effluents to air, land and water contaminated as a result of negligent recovery and waste control processes, cyanide dumping from goldmines, and health effects of effluents from hydropower plants on native populations, and governmental promotion of the export of chrysotile asbestos. But it can be argued that disasters with ecocidal consequences can occur without any evil intent, willful neglect or wanton abuse.

Is the Gulf Stream disaster a crime against humanity, and should the officers of BP - the company which built and operates the oil rig, be held accountable for a criminal act? Or is this episode one example of the case for applying traditional legal measures in torts and criminal negligence?

The Gulf Oil rig disaster did not involve intent to cause harm to human populations or habitat. But more and more information suggests there were cover-ups and wanton neglect producing a disastrous catastrophe. The occurrence, scale, and persistence of the disaster was the result of an array of failures in both industry and government before, during, and in the aftermath of the disaster going back many years.

It is an axiom of disaster prevention that industrial disasters, even when rare, are not random, and there are usually sentinel prodromal warning signs indicating potential for increased risk. In short, industrial disasters with ecocidal consequences are predictable, and therefore preventable - an axiom demonstrated over and over again since the Seveso and Bhopal disasters.

So the burden of proof will be on those who believe there was no cause effect relationship between the disaster and the prior prolonged wanton neglect, As more and more evidence emerges, it is hard to claim that the rig burst occurred as a consequence of an unforeseen collapse of the rig.

Here are just a few of the questions prompted by this disaster and lessons from past industrial disasters.

• Were there potentially dangerous warning signs of trouble and, if there were, why were they overlooked? What lessons can be learnt about these warning signs?

• If the safety record of British Petroleum compared to other multinational oil companies in drilling in land and in sea was uniquely poor, why was there no emergency intervention to stop its operations until the faults were corrected?

• How rigorous was its emergency disaster response plan? Is it true that the company lacked a back up contingency plan for immediate rapid drilling of a new rig, capping or other mitigating measures? And what was the quality of governmental review and examination of these plans?

But all these questions are not of immediate concern right now. They are dwarfed by the need to implement an emergency response program to expedite sealing the source, to carry out risk abatement and to deliver compensation. It is imperative to mobilize all the resources of Federal and State governments, the populations of the Gulf region, and the entire international oil and shipping industry, as well as other countries with resources and expertise in skimming, recovery and decontamination. The response requires wartime footing and the use of the fullest emergency powers to stop the continued release of tens of thousands of barrels of oil per day and drift to imperiled shorelines.

The long term question remains: What will be the risks from offshore drilling for oil compared to alternative energy supplies for a nation ever thirstier for more and cheaper energy?

For genocide scholars, the BP disaster reawakens beginning discussion and proposals to define "ecological genocide."

--Yael Stein, Alex Barnea, Elihu D Richter

Sources:
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/bp+oil+spill+timeline+of+events/3674127

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10317817.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10290238.stm

http://beforeitsnews.com/news/50/386/Timeline_of_Events_in_BP_Oil_Spill:_Day_by_Day,_April_20_to_May_26.html

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05/bp-gulf-oil-spill-timeline.php

The following sites among others contain an ongoing discussion of the disaster.
www.llm.uoregon.edu
www.enr.uoregon.edu/
and http://www.law.berkeley.edu/library/dynamic/disasters/category.php?id=14

Please click here for a fully referenced pdf version of this article

Please click here for an earlier paper on ecocide at the Collegium Ramazzini

Please click here for Timeline of BP Oil Spill

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Two Mosques in Pakistan of Minority Muslim Religion are Assaulted by Gunmen and Suicide Bombers in Coordinated Attacks

News Report with a GPN Editorial Blog

Two Mosques in Pakistan are Assaulted by Gunmen and Suicide Bombers
Gunmen and suicide bombers stormed two mosques belonging to a minority sect of Ahmadi believers during Friday prayer in Lahore, seizing hostages. The attack killed at least 70 worshipers and wounded 78, the city coordinating officer said. Ahmadi believers, a Muslim religion, is severely discriminated against under Pakistani law. Pakistan does not recognize the Ahmadi sect as part of Islam. At one mosque, dozens of men survived by hiding in the basement. The attacks, which took place within minutes of each other at the mosques are located a few kilometers apart.

Source: Perlez, Jane and Gillani, Waqar (May 28, 2010). Dozens die as 2 mosques in Pakistan are attacked. Global NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/asia/29pstan.html?ref=islam

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GPN Editorial Blog

On Contemporary Genocidal Terrorism against Two Muslim Mosques and on Man's Instincts for both Genocidal Killing and Goodness
The above story of suicide bombings in a way is nothing more than another of the endless reports coming out of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq; not long ago from Sri Lanka and Israel; periodically from the U.S. although many Americans do not realize that there were reports that 9/11 was a part of a grand series of coordinated multiple suicide bombing attacks; the UK, Moscow; Indonesia, and many other places. It was such endless suicide bombings on which I reported in my 2007 book, Fighting Suicide Bombing: A Worldwide Campaign for Life.

So why bother to report the present story if nothing is really new? We think for several reasons:

1. Periodically we need to stop to look at suicide bombing as the new methodology of transnational genocidal terrorism - one which has the greatest threat potential to the future of our puny civilization if and when the devouts will use Weapons of Mass Destruction – as many security agencies and many novelists very much and terrifyingly predict.

2. This is a story of the evolving methodology and skill of genocidal terrorists in coordinated attacks that combine gunmen and suicide bombers.

3. This story illustrates a point made so clearly by German scholar, Gunnar Heinsohn elsewhere in this issue: the overwhelming majority of Muslims are killed by Muslims.

4. For a long time now, attacks take place "anywhere" - one favorite site is places of worship like mosques, others are even hospitals and medical clinics, and of course schools, and there are always markets, public places, transportation vehicles on land, in the air and on the seas. Geneva Conventions regarding warfare against civilians? Our modern world has regressed and there are no conventions.

5. The Muslims who were attacked belong to a minority sect, the Ahmadi, who ‘only’ number some two million people. They are bitterly hated, disparaged and persecuted by establishment Muslims. The point is that if we go around the globe we can list hundreds of religions, sects, ethnicities, tribes, nationalities, language groups and more who are earmarked for being dehumanized in their surroundings as worthless, inferior, disgusting and diseased, even as they are also identified as a supreme danger to the continued existence of the community and people among whom they live.

In my work with Chanan Rappaport on the development of a Genocide Early Warning System, we identified this couplet of dehumanization and attribution of power to destroy and exterminate as the single most frequent and virulent synergy of dynamics which bring about and enable genocide to occur. I call this "universal antisemitism," in the larger sense that what is notoriously regarded as antisemitism against the Jews - today often disguised as or concealed within otherwise possibly legitimate critiques of Israel -- is in fact a special manifestation of a worldwide disease that, in my judgment, is built into human biology and nature: a need to hold another and others responsible for, or to make them the victims of, our wrongness, errors, limitations, moral failures, weaknesses and the oncoming death of our lives.

My sense is that this is the instinctual substrate of genocide and a major reason why so many beautiful human efforts to improve our human condition and society nonetheless fail so grandly. Predictably with weapons of mass destruction and a large population, the number of human beings who will die of genocide in the 21st century will be greater than the awful number Rummel gives for the 20th century.

Nonetheless, I add that the fact that projecting our weaknesses and inevitable deaths is instinctually built in to us does not mean human beings cannot overcome this loop quite creatively and successfully – owing also to other wonderful instinctual resources that are also built into our human nature of savoring life, fighting to stay alive, joy in nurturing other lives, and qualities of empathy, compassion, caring, love and justice.

So the above recent case history of contemporary genocidal murder needs for us not only to say 'tsk, tsk' but to fight back for life.

-- Israel W. Charny


Please click here for a fully referenced pdf version of this article.

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Richard Kloian, Founder of Armenian Genocide Resource Center, Passes Away

With examples from Richard Kloian's compilation of original New York Times reports of the ongoing Armenian Genocide

SAN FRANCISCO—Richard Kloian, who established and directed the Armenian Genocide Resource Center, was laid to rest today in the presence of family and friends, at Rolling Hills Memorial Park in El Sobrante, California.

Richard was 73. He passed away on May 1 after a massive stroke. At the funeral services, Roxanne Makasdjian, the chairperson of the Bay Area Armenian National Committee (ANC), spoke about Richard Kloian’s major contribution to the work of organizations pursuing recognition of the Armenian Genocide, to the field of genocide studies, and to the general public’s understanding of the Armenian Genocide.

Raffi Momjian, the director of the Genocide Education Project, for which Kloian acted as advisor, read a few of the many comments sent by scholars expressing their remembrances about Richard. Israel Charny, the executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, wrote, “I consider him a GIANT on behalf of Armenian Genocide recognition and memory. His devotion to his work in enabling education and memory about the Armenian Genocide was immense.”

Dennis Papazian, professor emeritus and founding director of the Armenian Research Center at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, wrote, “He was a man dedicated to the truth and willing to gather the evidence for all to see. He was a true gentleman, and hated no one. His only desire was to educate and enlighten. He believed that enlightened people would do the right thing. He had a positive outlook. He is irreplaceable."

Raffi Momjian wrote "Richard has selflessly dedicated his whole life to seeking out and disseminating the truth about the Armenian Genocide. We all owe so much to Richard and feel obligated to continue his important work."

Harut Sassounian, publisher of the California Courier and president of the United Armenian Fund wrote, "It is with great sorrow that I learned of the untimely passing away of a dear friend, great patriot and tireless fighter against Turkish denialism. I wonder who will continue his good work? How many Richard Kloians do we have in this world? I am afraid, very few, if any. May the Good Lord bless his soul and console his heart-broken family and friends everywhere."

Richard Kloian and the Armenian Genocide Resource Center (AGRC) which he founded and directed are best known for the book-length compilation of The Armenian Genocide: News Accounts from the American Press, 1915-1922, a landmark collection of articles reproduced from the New York Times and other sources that were painstakingly compiled from microfilm in the years before digitization and the Internet made historic newspaper stories widely accessible.

Many times Richard Kloian's book proved a decisive tool in winning over political leaders and public institutions to recognize the Armenian Genocide. What could be more persuasive evidence than then current New York Times reports of the genocide day after day as the Armenian holocaust was taking place! Originally published in 1980 and 1981 as Armenian Genocide: First 20th Century Holocaust, subsequent editions through 2007 were expanded to cover the Hamidian massacres of the 1890's and the Adana massacre of 1909.

The Armenian Reporter describe Richard as "an amateur in the highest sense of the word, Richard devoted himself to public education about this crime against humanity, drawing on the social acumen and networking experiences of a rich and varied life. The Detroit native, born March 7, 1937, studied science in high school and English and French in college, also developing interests in astronomy, photography, and music. A retail manager during the work week and an accomplished Latin percussionist on the weekends, he was playing at the Puerto Rican Club in Detroit when he met his future wife Antonia, a beautician and former nun to whom he was married more than 40 years."

Richard did not have higher academic degrees, but he was recognized as an outstanding leader of the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. For those who knew him and his work and respected and loved him, his work was seminal and far-reaching. Under his direction, in addition to the best-selling book of news accounts, AGRC compiled hundreds of articles from scholarly journals and published a large number of booklets and readers. Particularly outstanding, the AGRC compiled, edited, produced, and distributed a 400-page resource manual of maps, web sites, photographs, news reports, primary-source documents, scholarly articles on the Genocide and its denial, and U.S. state-level curricula that mandated teaching about the Armenian Genocide.

Richard Kloian also maintained a warm active relationship with many non-Armenian leaders in genocide studies, and saw himself and his work seeking a better world not only for his beloved people but for all peoples.

Please click here for several examples of Richard Kloain's compilations of New York Times articles reporting the Armenian Genocide as it was taking place as they appear in The Armenian Genocide: News Accounts from the Armenian Press, 1915-1922.



The following is a transcript of the funeral service remarks by Roxanne Makasdjian, Chair, By Area Armenian National Committee (ANC):

It’s hard for me to accept that I’m standing here this morning, to say goodbye to Richard. Richard was someone who you never wanted to believe would not be here one day. He was so much younger than his years, and he had such endless energy. Although on many occasions I wondered how his work would be carried on after him, I didn’t really think this time would come.

I met Richard almost immediately after I began volunteering for the Armenian National Committee when I moved here in the 1980’s. He had just published his book, The Armenian Genocide: News Accounts from the American Press, 1915-1922. This was truly a landmark publication because the collection of these New York Times and other articles was not only a useful reference book for researchers, but for groups like the ANC, it was then and still is the perfect public information tool to make the case for recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Richard had done it all by himself, spending endless hours at UC Berkeley, going through pages and pages of newspaper microfilm.

When we initiated a committee to help teachers include the Armenian Genocide in their coursework, all roads led to Richard Kloian, who had been a key resource for teachers for years. Getting to know him, I soon realized that he had an unstoppable passion and talent for bringing documentation about the Armenian Genocide to the broad public. I began getting a stream of emails from him, with the most interesting articles, reports, first-hand accounts. Sometimes, it came so fast and furiously, I had to stick them in a folder I called “stuff from Richard” until I could make time to film them all properly.

Richard once told me how this passion of his first bloomed. It was when his father died in 1976. Richard discovered his father’s diary, which told a harrowing tale of genocide survival. It was then that Richard’s life work turned irreversibly to the Armenian Genocide. His new interest filled his evenings after work. Soon, his mission became a full-time volunteer effort, bringing to light this “forgotten history.”

By 1997, he had established the Armenian Genocide Resource Center (AGRC). Through the AGRC, Richard has single-handedly collected a vast amount of documentation on the Armenian Genocide, helped get long-lost memoirs and documents published, and has developed many useful materials for helping locate and acquire historical and current works. He also found films about the Armenian Genocide from around the world and got permission to reproduce them for the general public. As many of you know, one of his most recent labors of love was restoring and editing the only surviving segment of the 1919 silent Hollywood film, “Ravished Armenia.”

Richard’s perseverance and drive were incomparable. His work was an everyday act of courage because each day, by himself, and without any compensation, he fought the powerful forces of “forgetting.” Not only did his work fight historical revisionism, it served to enlighten educators and politicians alike who encounter Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide regularly. His work has helped broaden the discussion of genocide studies because so many non-Armenians sought out his materials and his vast knowledge of historical resources.

But to characterize Richard only in terms of his contributions to Armenian Genocide education would not give the true picture. Born and raised in Detroit, Mich., one of five brothers, Richard, whose Armenian name was Diran, was an extraordinary Renaissance man. He had an avid interest in science, in music, in photography. He was an active member of the Astronomical Society in Detroit, where he organized public events and where he built his first deep space telescope with Dr. Donaldson Craig of Wayne State University. He studied French and comparative literature, and as an accomplished photographer, he was among the first in Detroit to capture on film the early phases of growth that revolutionized the Detroit skyline. And as a professional musician, he played in Detroit’s Latin and jazz orchestras. I’m told it was while playing music that he met his wife of 42 years, Antonia, and we all owe such a debt of gratitude that Antonia gave Richard the space to pursue his passion and give so much to the world.

The list of his accomplishments is so impressive, yet what I keep thinking about is Richard’s sweet and gentle demeanor, his genuine kindness, and his pleasing smile. Thank you, Richard, for brightening and enriching our lives, for teaching us, for showing us the way.

---

Israel Charny, Editor-in-chief of GPN Genocide Prevention Now and Executive Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem wrote Richard's wife Toni, as follows:

I am so sorry! I have the warmest feelings for Richard and so deeply regret his illness and passing. Professionally, I consider him a GIANT on behalf of Armenian Genocide recognition and memory. His devotion to his work in enabling education and memory about the Armenian Genocide was immense. His contribution was one of the most significant, including of course the yeoman job he did in compiling the New York Times articles at the time of the Genocide, but also the excellent compilation of a wide range of resource materials that he provided.

Personally-professionally I have known few other Armenian Genocide professionals who had such a clear understanding of the significance of the genocides of other people along with the Armenian Genocide. And in Richard's case it extended to a profound interest and understanding of the nature of us all as human beings, which I valued so highly. Richard and I had a standing series of joking comments -- in all seriousness of course -- about how we were both aliens sent from planets out there down here to Earth to try, vainly, to convey to human beings the holiness of life.

I appreciated him, respected him and loved him.

---

The Resource Guide on the Armenian Genocide can be found at any of the following locations:

American National Committee America http://www.anca.org/endthegagrule/pdfs/ArmenianGenocide_StudentResources.pdf

University of Minnesota http://www.chgs.umn.edu/educational/armenian/

Armenian Genocide Resource Library for Teachers of the Genocide Education Project http://www.teachgenocide.com

---

Sources include personal statements as identified and the following published accounts:

Asbarez (May 11,2010). Founder of Armenian Genocide Resource Center, Richard Kloian, laid to rest. http://asbarez.com/?s=kloian&x=0&y=0

Armeniapedia.org (last modified on May 12, 2010). Richard Kloian (1937-2010). Copyright by Raffi Momjian. http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Richard_Kloian

Matossian, Lou Ann (Wednesday May 05, 2010 ). Richard Kloian, 73, pioneering Armenian Genocide educator, passes away. Armenia Reporter. http://www.reporter.am/index.cfm?objectid=B77B3250-5870-11DF-B0670003FF3452C2

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What If: Obama and Biden against Hitler, or….Chamberlain and Halifax against Ahmadinejad?

Elihu Richter

The parallels to the run-up to WWII are striking. During this period, Hitler bullied and bluffed as the world cringed. Suppose Obama and Biden had been in power in the US at the time. What would they have done?

As Ahmadinejad struts into the UN Non-Proliferation Treaty meeting, Obama and his Administration continue to dither. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards are racing towards nuclear capacity and ever more potent missile delivery systems, stepping up their genocidal incitement and support for terror proxies, and suppressing dissidents. Obama's clenched fist has withered into a limp wrist.

The parallels to the run-up to WWII are striking. During this period, Hitler bullied and bluffed as the world cringed. There was the Anschuss of Austria in March 1938, the Munich Agreement in Sept 1938, and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on Aug 23 1939, one week before Hitler invaded Poland and Chamberlain’s UK declared war.

Let’s do a little counterfactual history to examine the roles of yesterday’s appeasers and today’s engagers. Then the actors were Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, who were pitted against Hitler and his Axis. Today they are Barack Obama and Joseph BIden, his all influential Vice President, and formerly the powerful chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Today's Hitler wannabe is Ahmadinejad, along with his Axis of Genocide and Genocidal Terror.

Fact and counterfact
Counterfactual history is the academic buzz term for playing “what if."

The idea is to simulate how the big players in past crises would act in current crises, or conversely, to simulate how players in current crises would have -- or should have --acted in past crises. Because we know the results of decisions in past crises, we can make some educated guesses about the results of such decisions in similar crises today. Counterfactual history implies there are lessons from yesterday's then and there to today’s here and now ---, and vice versa. As a medical doctor with history as a hobby, I think it would be interesting if historians were to diagnose prognose, prescribe, make house calls, and tell us when our leaders could be sued for malpractice.

Hitler and Ahmadinejad:
Both Hitler and Ahmadinejad mobilized hate language to dehumanize, demonize and delegitimize. A copy of Mein Kampf in Iranian is the centerpiece of the show window in the bookstore alongside the entrance of Iran's Foreign Ministry, but Ahmadinejad's explicit calls for destruction of Israel surpass Hitler's euphemisms. Hitler annexed Austria, forged alliances with Italy and Japan, and then signed the notorious non-aggression pact with Russia, while discreetly supporting indigenous Nazi front movements in Norway, the Netherlands and France. Ahmadinejad’s diplomats have shrewdly built an axis of genocidal and genocidal terror, which now includes Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, with Venezuela as a possible enabler, protector and accomplices, and they are drawing Turkey into Iran's orbit. Ahamadinejad, like Hitler, disarms appeasers and doubters, by making eloquent and moving peace speeches every now and then--while intimidating the world.

In the meantime, the clock on Iran is ticking. (Today the two big US players are Barack Obama and Joe Biden, now as powerful as Cheney was in Bush Jr's first term.)

Obama and Chamberlain
Google gives more than 600,000 hits for the phrase “Obama and Chamberlain.” Obama sees himself as a mediator healing the rift between clashing civilizations---Christian and Muslim; Chamberlain saw himself as saving the world from war. Like Chamberlain, he has been socially progressive, humane and enlightened, but does not support groups subject to conquest, (Tibet), and projects a low profile towards human rights abuses of repressive regimes (the state orchestrated political starvation campaigns in North Korea and the repression of the Falun Gong in China, and the protestors of a stolen election in Iran). Some historians say he appeased to buy time for a weak England to get ready. He has backed away from supporting dissidents in Iran---e.g., his famously closing the New Haven Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. I would not be surprised to discover that he sees himself as a future Secretary General of the UN, as the Grand Conciliator.

Obama’s administration has even turned a blind eye to Iran’s support, equipping and training of groups attacking civilians and US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. This prolonged dithering in response to loss of American lives goes far beyond Chamberlain’s appeasement, which abruptly came to an end on Sept 1 1939, when Nazi Germany attacked Poland, a faraway place for Brits. Chamberlain then declared war on Germany--to honor the UK's treaty with Poland. Would Obama have done so, had he been the UK’s Prime Minister, and if so how long it would have taken him to decide?

We have forgotten Chamberlain's progressive domestic policies, but remember his appeasement and its disastrous consequences. But Chamberlain was a faster learner than Obama has been until now. Right after returning from Munich, he ordered increases in the British defense budget, manufacture of aircraft and heavy weaponry, and distribution of gas masks to the population for the war he knew was coming. And after all, he went to war immediately in response to Hitler's invasion of Poland. This was the very war which appeasement sought to avoid, but in fact brought on. By contrast, Obama's dithering has bought time for an originally weak Iran to raise the ante against the U.S.



Biden and Halifax
Many know about Chamberlain, but few remember Lord Halifax, his Foreign Secretary, and perhaps the strongest proponent of appeasement. Halifax was a pillar of British society and a deacon in the Anglican Church. After replacing Anthony Eden, who resigned in February 1938 in protest against Chamberlain’s appeasement, he supported the Munich Agreement with Hitler to destroy Czechoslovakia. Halifax also meddled in French politics, toppling Leon Blum, who had his doubts about appeasement. Daladier, Blum’s replacement, was a more compliant type, who went along with Chamberlain's Munich deal.. During the 5 days of Dunkirk, when Hitler was sending out generous peace feelers, Halifax wanted to take England out of the war.

Just before Dunkirk, after backbenchers led a rebellion to force Chamberlain to resign, there was a touch-and-go period in which Halifax could have become Prime Minister instead of Churchill. Had he been the man, one shudders to think what would have happened to Europe, and Western Civilization. Thanks to Churchill, all the rest is history.

Is Joseph Biden today’s Lord Halifax as it were? A liberal Democrat on domestic issues when in the Senate, as the powerful Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, he voted against sanctions against Iran. Most notably, he blocked the Senate from considering a 2007 House of Representatives Resolution calling upon the US Government to use the tools of international law to indict Ahmadinejad for his incitement to genocide, support for terror, and illegal development of nuclear weapons. He has called for dividing up Iraq, which would have turned over its western side to Syria and its eastern side to Iran. Biden is said to be the Iranian Mullah’s favorite senator. He has been silent on their brutal repression of dissidents.

What would Chamberlain and Halifax have done to confront the Iranian threat? They probably would have appeased. What would Obama and Biden have done against the Nazi threat had they been in charge of the UK? They might have engaged, endorsed the Munich agreement, and wobbled on the UK treaty to join Poland when Germany attacked it. Would Biden, had he been in the US Senate in the dark days of the Battle of Britain, have advised FDR, to go along with Joe Kennedy to abandon the UK?

Joe Biden’s influence may be one reason why President Obama’s clenched fist has withered into a limp wrist. JB Kelley has used the term “preemptive cringe” to describe “engagement.” In fairness to Chamberlain and Halifax, some historians say their appeasement during the mid 1930’s right up to Sept 1939 and even after, was based on a realistic perception of the UK’s military weakness and unpreparedness and the need to buy time.

Furthermore, the world then lacked a coherent body of historical experience on the furious evil energy which drives modern megalomaniac totalitarian genocidal regimes. The tools of international law to counter genocidal threats did not exist yet. There was no UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, or a body of cases in criminal international aw, Universal Jurisdiction, or a Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court specifying that incitement to genocide is a crime against humanity.

Today, Obama and Biden would expected to know what happens when such regimes are appeased, a.k.a. engaged. Yet the two have been distinguished by their failure so far to make use of the tools of international law against genocide and its incitement. The world developed these tools precisely to prevent such threats. There can be no more compelling case for applying these tools than Iran's incitement to genocide, its support of genocidal terror and its suppression of human rights. Since incitement to genocide leads to genocide, Obama and Biden's indifference to the dehumanizing hate language of Ahmadinejad and his associates means they have become complicit bystanders.

I suggest that the foregoing counterfactual comparisons suggest a harsh counterintuitive conclusion: Obama and Biden deserve lower ratings than Chamberlain and Halifax.



What if: The bit players
Others have bit roles in this exercise in What If's. William Shirer, in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich writes about how Geoffrey Dawson, the editor in chief of the London Times, killed reports from his correspondent in Berlin on the Nazi brutality inside Germany. He was protecting Chamberlain’s appeasement policies. I was reminded of Dawson’s role by the postures of the editors of the NY Times in US and Haaretz in Israel, both the Daily Bibles of the liberal classes. Recall the NY Times Roger Cohen’s description of the vibrancy of Islamic democracy in his pre-election reports on Iran just before the regime's brutal crackdown on dissidents. David Landau, the former editor of Haaretz, suppressed reports of the investigation of Sharon’s corruption so as to not to jeopardize the withdrawal from Gaza. He remains notorious for telling Condoleeza Rice that Israel needed to be raped for its own good.

Let’s get back to Anthony Eden, who quit in protest against Chamberlain’s appeasement. Is Robert Gates trying to play Obama’s Eden? As John Bolton has pointed out on Fox News, Gates’ leaked memo to Obama warning that the US government has no Iran policy is the classic Washington DC CYA maneuver for paving the way for a resignation.

Is there a Churchill in the House?
Churchill towers over all, but only in hindsight. In real time, he was regarded by his peers as a failed military strategist after the Dardanelles disaster in World War I. A political opportunist who ditched the Liberals for the Conservatives, he had been on the outs for some 20 years, having the reputation of a brilliant, witty, boozing loose cannon. A non-apologetic imperialist, he was hated by Indians for calling Gandhi a dirty little Indian. An opponent of the socialists, he was hated by trade unionists for crushing the strike of coal workers. But he instinctively sized up Hitler as a monster of apocalyptic evil.



As the genocide scholar Robert Melson has written, had Churchill been Prime Minister in 1938, he might have’ gone to war to protect Czechoslovakia, and perhaps would have toppled Hitler. But thousands of British soldiers would have been killed. He would have been hauled before a Parliamentary Commission of Investigation, and hounded out of office. Opponents would have said he had no business pursuing a reckless military adventure so far away from home.

Suppose Obama and Biden had been in power in the US at the time. Would they have distanced themselves from Churchill? There were plenty of reasons to do so. The US had not recovered from the effects of the Depression’s second hit in 1937. Anti-Semitism was endemic. The US population was isolationist. Would Obama and Biden have orchestrated some backchannel moves to topple Churchill, perhaps with the help of Joe Kennedy. I infer this “what if" scenario” from their failure to counter Iranian terror raids in Iraq, Syrian support for terror, their lukewarm support for the dissidents in Iran, their shutting off of funding for the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, and the cold reception for the Dalai Lama. Add to this list the appeasement of Syria as well as Iran, the wobbliness on North Korea, and their attempts to bludgeon Netanyahu and destabilize his government.

Today’s Joe Kennedy could be Martin Indyk. And John Bolton may be today’s John Kennedy, who later wrote the book, Why England Slept.

Back then, the air was thick with appeasement, Now it is thick with engagement. But appeasement produced a chain reaction, ending with the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, after Stalin panicked, and felt that the Western allies would do nothing if Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. Churchill would have thundered against the dangers of the United States pandering to the enemies of freedom and democracy and dumping its friends.

I thank Professors Israel Charny and Elliot Berry, Gregory Stanton and Jacob Neusner and Dr. Yael Stein, Richard Hellman and David Bedein for encouragement, criticisms' and feedback, and Dr. Joel Fishman and Professor Richard Landes for incisive editorial comments.

Professor Elihu D Richter MD MPH, an environmental epidemiologist, is Editor and Director of the GPN World Genocide Situation Room and Associate Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem. He is also Head of the Genocide Prevention Program at Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine and former head of the Unit of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. He has published and lectured on the use of public health models for the prediction and prevention of genocide.

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Is International Terror Caused by the Creation of Israel?

by Gunnar Heinsohn

“Terrorism will not be defeated without peace […] between Israel and Palestine. Here it is that the poison is incubated.” Tony Blair, 17 July 2003, to U.S. Congress.

Tony Blair is no Mel Gibson or Osama Bin Laden. He is no mortal enemy of the Jews of Israel. Yet, since his assumption is so deeply ingrained in the mind of mankind one has to look for a method to test it. Is there a factor in our multicausal explanations of the conflict not yet appropriately tested? That appears to be highly improbable. Yet, what about the extremely old fashioned way of counting superfluous sons? Can a body count shed light on the validity of Tony Blair's view?

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Conflicts 1949-2010 with at least 10,000 Fatalities.
Nations with Muslim majorities - all of them with youth bulges at the time of slaughter (in bold letters)

 1  40,000,000 Red China, 1949-76 (outright killing, manmade famine, Gulag, Muslim Uighurs)
 2  10,000,000 Late Stalinism, 1950-53; Post-Stalinism, to 1987 (mostly Gulag), more than 100.000 Muslims in Chechnya
 3  5,800,000 Zaire (Congo-Kinshasa): 1967-68; 1977-78; 1992-95; 1998-today
 4  4,000,000 Ethiopia, 1962-92: Communists, artificial hunger, genocides
 5  2,800,000 Korean war, 1950-53
 6  2,200,000 Sudan, 1955-72; 1983-2006 (civil wars, genocides); Dafur to today
 7  1,870,000 Cambodia: Khmer Rouge 1975-79; civil war 1978-91
 8  1,800,000 Vietnam War, 1954-75 (more than 90% Vietnamese, Allies)
 9  1,800,000 Afghanistan: Soviet and internecine killings, Taliban 1980-2001
 10 1,250,000 West Pakistan massacres in East Pakistan (Bangladesh 1971)
11  1,100,000 Nigeria, 1966-79 (Biafra); 1993-today
12  1,100,000 Mozambique, 1964-70 (30,000) + after retreat of Portugal 1976-92
13  1,000,000 Iran-Iraq-War, 1980-88
14  900,000 Rwanda genocide, 1994
15  875,000 Algeria: war with France 1954-62 (675,000); Islamists/Government 1991-2006 (200,000)
16  850,000 Uganda, 1971-79; 1981-85; 1994-today
17  650,000 Indonesia: Marxists 1965-66 (450,000); East Timor, Papua, Aceh etc, 1969-today (200,000)
18  580,000 Angola: war against Portugal 1961-72 (80,000); after Portugal’s retreat (1972-2002)
19  500,000 Brazil against its Indians, up to 1999
20  430,000 Vietnam, after the war ended in 1975 (own people; boat refugees)
21  400,000 France in Indochina, 1945-54
22  400,000 Burundi, 1959-today (Tutsi/Hutu)
23  400,000 Somalia, 1991-today
24  400,000 North Korea up to 2006 (own people)
25  300,000 Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, 1980s-1990s
26  300,000 Iraq, 1970-2003 (Saddam against minorities)
27  240,000 Columbia, 1946-58; 1964-today
28  200,000 Yugoslavia, Tito regime, 1944-80
29  200,000 Guatemala, 1960-96
30  190,000 Laos, 1975-90
31  175,000 Serbia>Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, 1991-1999
32  150,000 Romania, 1949-99 (own people)
33  150,000 Liberia, 1989-97
34  140,000 Chechnya, 1994-today in independence war against Russia
35  150,000 Lebanon civil war, 1975-90
36 140,000 Kuwait War, 1990-91 (Arabs from Iraq and Kuwait, Allies)
37  130,000 Philippines: 1946-54 (10,000); 1972-today (Muslim Marxists, 120,000)
38  130,000 Burma/Myanmar, 1948-today
39 100,000 North Yemen, 1962-70
40  100,000 Sierra Leone, 1991-today
41  100,000 Albania, 1945-91 (own people)
42  80,000 Iran, 1978-79 (revolution)
43  75,000 Iraq, 2003-today (domestic)
44  75,000 El Salvador, 1975-92
45  70,000 Eritrea/Ethiopia, 1998-2000
46  68,000 Sri Lanka 1997-today
47  60,000 Zimbabwe, 1966-79; 1980-today
48  60,000 Nicaragua, 1972-91 (Marxists/natives etc,)
49  54,000 Arab wars against Israel, 1948-today (excluding the Israel-Palestine conflict; see 69) 44.000 Arabs; 10.000 Israelis
50  50,000 Communist North Vietnam, 1954-75 (own people)
51  50,000 Tajikistan, 1992-96 (secularists against Islamists)
52  50,000 Equatorial Guinea, 1969-79
53  50,000 Peru, 1980-2000
54  50,000 Guinea, 1958-84
55  40,000 Chad, 1982-90
56  30,000 Bulgaria, 1948-89 (own people)
57  30,000 Rhodesia, 1972-79
58  30,000 Argentina, 1976-83 (own people)
59  27,000 Hungary, 1948-89 (own people)
60  26,000 Kashmir independence, 1989-today
61  25,000 Jordan government vs. Palestinians, 1970-71 (Black September)
62  22,000 Poland, 1948-89 (own people)
63  20,000 Syria, 1982 (against Islamists in Hama)
64  20,000 Chinese-Vietnamese war, 1979
65  18,000 Congo Republic, 1997-99
66  19,000 Morocco: war against France, 1953-56 (3,000), Western Sahara, 1975-today (16,000)
67  15,000? "Tens of thousands of casualties and displaced" (Le Monde, 06-10-09). Yemen government against Huthi rebels.
68  14,000 Nigeria 2000 - 2010 (Muslims, Christians)
69  13,500 Israel-Palestinian conflict 1947-87 (5,000); 1987-91 (2,000); 2000-2010 (6,200: 80% Arabs, 20% Jews)
70  10,000 South Yemen, 1986 (civil war)

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If conflict number 69 out of 70 conflicts with at least 10,000 casualties since 1950 is ranked as number 1 in need of an urgent solution to save the world, causes other than noble concerns for suffering may be at work. Since the Jews of Israel belong to the most persecuted ethnic and religious group in history, the mismatch between facts and their worldwide perception may force us to ask, again, if an anti-Jewish bias blurs the perception.

Around 11,000,000 Muslims suffered death by violence between 1948 and 2009. Of these, some 54,000, i.e., 0.5 percent or 1 out of 200 Muslims who were killed violently since 1948 died within the more than 60 years of fighting against Israel (1948-2010).

In other words, more than 90 percent of the 11 million Muslims perished in violence, since the creation of Israel, died in Muslim-on-Muslim violence.

A conflict would probably exist in Palestine as it does in territories with similar cases. Yet there are similar cases without bloodshed, e.g., Russian settlers in Latvia, as there are similar cases with bloodshed, e.g. Moroccan settlers in Western Sahara or Arab Iraqi settlers in Kurdish Iraq. There must be factor at work that can easily drive the Palestinian way of conflict resolution into a mortal mode.

The mortal mode can persist because well meant western aid – where nearly every newborn is provided for as a refugee – enabled Palestine to defeat Israel demographically. Gaza jumped from 200,000-240,000 inhabitants in 1950 to more than 1.6 million in 2010. In 2006, there were 640.000 Jewish boys under 15 against 1,120,000 Arab boys under 15 (West-Bank, Gaza Strip and Israeli Arabs combined). The last cohort with a Jewish majority – 30 to 44 years with 540,000 against 410,000 Arabs – has passed fighting age.

The death toll in the Israel-Palestine conflict remained low over six decades (1948-2009) because only one side tries to kill at random, whereas the Israeli side most of the time tries to defend itself with surgical strikes or targeted killing.

One could even say that the major factor for low Muslim casualties vis à vis Israel - as opposed to conflicts in which Muslims kill Muslims at random - is due to one side of the conflict not being Muslim.

Thus, it may be a good fortune for Palestinian Arabs that most of the time they must not turn against their own to consume their youth bulges but can turn the rage of their angry young men against Jews.

Yet, the battle of Lebanon against the Palestinian town of Nahr el Bared (May to September 2007) with a total of nearly 500 dead, or the internecine slaughter between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza since 2006 (more than 300 casualties) may give a hint of what may happen if hatred can no longer be executed against Jews. When Israel, in December 2008, tried to end the missile attacks from Gaza the strip suffered 1,385 casualties. Those are considerable losses. Yet, if Israel had pounded Gaza the way Lebanon has pounded Nahr el Bared killing 273 Islamists out of a population of 30,000, Gaza – with a population fifty times larger – would have lost 13,650. If Israel had smashed Gaza like Syria flattened the old city of Hama where, in February 1982, some 30.000 of its 300.000 inhabitants were killed to annihilate the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood – “the single deadliest act by any Arab government against its own people” (Wright 2008, 243) – there would have been a loss of 150.000 in Gaza.

Yet, the battles of Nahr el Bared in Lebanon (May to September 2007) with more than 500 dead, or the intenecine slaughter between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza since 2006 (around 500 casualties) may give a hint of what may happen if hatred can no longer be executed against Jews.

Sources:

Brzezinski, Z., Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the Twenty-first Century, 1993.

Courtois, S., ed., Le Livre Noir du Communism, 1997.

Heinsohn, G., Lexikon der Völkermorde, 1999. Heinsohn, G., Söhne und Weltmacht, 2006, 8th ed.

Rummel. R., Death by Government, 1994.

Small, M., Singer, J.D., Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars 1816-1980, 1982.

White, M. Please click here for Death Tolls for the Major Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century (2003).

Wright, R., Dreams and Shadows : The Future of the Middle East, Penguin, 2008

*Gunnar Heinsohn (born 1943 in Gdynia/Poland; "summa cum laude" doctorates 1974 in sociology and 1982 in economics), serves, since 1993 as speaker of the Raphael-Lemkin-Institut at the University of Bremen, Europe's first institute devoted to comparative genocide research where he authored the first encyclopedia of genocide (Lexikon der Völkermorde; 1998; 1999, 2nd ed.), as well as an outline for an international body to monitor genocidal developments globally (Völkermordfrühwarnung / Genocide Watch, 2000 [1998]).

His study “Sons and World Power: Terror in the Rise and Fall of Nation (Söhne und Weltmacht; Zürich 2003; with 10th impression in 2008 a scholarly bestseller; Dutch, Japanese, and Polish editions in 2008) tries to illuminate the role of youth bulges in mega-killings of past, present, and future.

From 2005 to 2009, he gave lectures on the subject of youth bulges and violence to many German and international institutions He has published on the subject in the major newspapers and magazines of the German language area as well as in the Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune, Le Monde, the Financial Times, the Weekly Standard, NRC-Handelsbald (Amsterdam), etc.

Together with Philippe Bourcier de Carbon (Paris), he was the only expert from continental Europe consulted for the study, The Graying of the Great Powers by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS; Washington DC 2008).

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