Platitudes For The Dead

How Civility Fails Humanity 

(Massacre of Wounded Knee, 1890)

In the United States it is considered impolite to bring up the subject of genocide when discussing the expansion of the country from the 13 colonies to the 50 states. There are certain aspects of our history that we deem taboo when talking about or discussing in school. The mere mention of the Native American Genocide can end a conversation at a moments notice. In this aspect it is considered civil to overlook the suffering of an entire race of man. In this light it is impossible to recognize the deaths of millions of human beings that at the time the United States deemed "undesirables". 

Over the years the Native American has been cast as the "Noble Savage" that just happened to be here when the Europeans arrived. History books are ready and willing to discuss the brutal battles as along as the white man is portrayed as the underdog rising up to the challenge. We aren't meant to look at how disease, firearms, and religion were used to subjugate and ethnically cleanse entire states. That would be uncivil. 

This desire to whitewash history has plagued us for far too long. It has infected our society when it comes to dealing with anything unpleasant. Especially when the issue of genocide comes up. Genocide, after all, is the most uncivil issue history has to offer. 

For over 120 years the massacre that occurred at Wounded Knee has been described by historians as an epic battle. This tragic result of American genocidal policy has been portrayed as the last real battle against the uncivilized West. And it is in this caricature of history that we loose the reality of what actually happened at Wounded Knee. It is in this sterilized view, this polite and civil view, that we fail to issue blame to whom it is rightfully deserved and to recognize the dead and their plight. 

There was no battle at Wounded Knee. There was no struggle between militants. And the underdog in this fight had absolutely no chance to rise up and meet its opposition face to face. What happened at Wounded Knee was genocide. 

Civility dictates that we don't call it that however. Civility dictates that we remain polite and look at this tragedy "objectively". 

And that is where humanity fails. This is where the world fails to recognize just how far from reality we are when it comes to genocide. 

The same policies that led to Wounded Knee exist today in several countries across the globe. Burma has been engaged in this horrific crime against humanity for decades when dealing with the Rohingya people. Sudan has been embroiled in these same policies in Darfur for almost as long as I have been alive. And when looking at Syria one can draw the same parallels and show just how Assad's regime is embarking on the same path as the United States did when dealing with the Native Americans. 

In Indiana the Native Americans were effectively surrounded as the "Indian Territory" was engulfed by newly formed states... white only states. Starvation and the implementation of the factory system helped to diminish the numbers of Native Americans within the Indiana Territory. When native peoples refused to engage the white settlers the militia and United States military were called into to goad the Native Americans into conflict. Nearly every battle fought in Indiana against Native Americans was a direct result of United States policy of antagonizing the Native Americans and then attempting to annihilate the tribes that responded.

(The Only Things That Eat Well In The Sudan Are The Vultures)

For the Sudanese of Darfur this part of America's history has been playing out all around them. The government that the colonialist left them was flawed in regards to the peoples and the customs the new state embodied. When the Bashir decided to cease antagonizing the people of the Darfur region the slaughter began. Much like the Indiana Rangers, the Janjaweed carry out the genocidal ambitions of their ruler.

For those trapped in Darfur the reality of their situation is far from civil. Yet to talk about it back here in the United States is either at times impolite discussion or chic depending on who you are talking too. Ironically, no matter who you are talking with, the comparison of Darfur to the genocide of the Native Americans here in Indiana is always considered uncivil. 

The most direct comparison to genocide carried out by direct orders of the United States government to a genocide carried out by a foreign government would be the Armenian Genocide. 

(Deportations During the Armenian Genocide, 1915)

The United States had a direct link to the Armenian Genocide in the fact that our ambassador the the Ottoman Empire recorded the genocide as it took place and reported back to the United States as it occurred. Now at the time we had no word for the genocide. That term would be invented only after the Holocaust. But we did know that the Armenians were being killed off in a campaign to exterminate them as a whole. And yet our government at the time viewed this horrific tragedy as though it was not of concern to them or the United States and its people.

The irony of the situation was however unclear at the time when talking about the American public as a whole. Even though Americans in general were well educated about the Trail of Tears that followed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 they were ill informed when dealing with the Young Turks. The failure to make this link then could have come from many things. However the more relevant reason for the given period in American history would have obviously been that it was impolite to make such distinctions. 

One can only imagine how the public would have reacted if the New York Times had run a story comparing the declarations given by the Young Turks to the legal decree issued by the United States in 1830. Sure a decent amount of time had passed between 1830 and 1915. And sure the people alive for one genocidal deportation might not have been alive to see the Armenians' plight. But that wouldn't have made the effort to link the two any more less civil then than it is considered to be today. 

The facts behind the Trail of Tears and the forced death marches of the Armenians are the same. The goal of each government was the same. Both were genocidal efforts to destroy and or deport an entire ethnic group. And both were supported by government leaders and carried out by military thugs. 

Perhaps it is the perceived impoliteness of the subject that has hindered us from recognizing the Armenian Genocide for so long.

(Rohingya Dead After Arakan Pogroms, Burma 2012)

In many genocides the dead are often justified by the fact that they decided to fight back. In Armenia the Turks to this day make that assertion that the Armenian Genocide was simply a product of war. To the Serbs the Bosnian Genocide was not actually a genocide against the Bosnians but rather a direct result of the Bosnians committing genocide against the Serbs. Yet in both cases those who try to justify the deaths of their victims we as a world community know who is lying. 

When looking back at battles such as "Custer's Last Stand"... aka Little Big Horn... Americans often view the fight in much the same way as Serbians look at Srebrenica. The perversion of history through a slanted view of it helps the the victor rationalize the deaths of their vanquished. It allows the conscience of a nation to come to terms with a war in which the ends somehow were meant to justify the means.

For the Rakhine people in Burma this perversion of history is well under way. Leaders that the West looks up to, such as Suu Kyi and Thein Sein, are allowed to twist the facts of what they are doing in the Arakan to make history lineup in their own shadows. It is only when outsiders call them out on their policies of ethnic cleansing that this perversion of history becomes "impolite". 

As for the Rohingya, the West along with the United States is already viewing them in much the same way as we view the Native Americans today. "Nobel Savages" somehow translates into "the world's most persecuted people" in this modern age. We don't allow ourselves to call someone the "vanguards of the old world" and yet we allow them to be killed off by the new world. After all, it would be uncivil for us to view the Rohingya in any other light. 

And it is this exact flaw in our society that hinders us from taking action. It is the paralyzing fear that if we address genocide as it occurs today we might have to face the sins of our own past. We don't allow ourselves to be honest when talking about genocide because guilt still lingers where it should have been wiped away. 

We will never be able to attack genocide in the way it deserves until we are able as a society to accept our own dabblings in it. We must first come to terms with the sins of our fathers and those who came before us. We must accept history for what it is. For if we can not we will never learn from what it has been trying so desperately to teach us.

From Where Even Demons Flee

"I Will Live and Die in Syria"
(Part of The Darkness Visible series)

(Wounded Boy in Syria Seeks Comfort... Protection) 

It has been said many times that war is a kind of hell on Earth. In Syria the flames of Sheol lick the living as the torment of life in perpetual war seems far more contemptuous than that of death itself. This is a living death that knows not the religious affiliation nor political views of its victims. It does not target one over the other. This death is a tormentor without conscience. It attacks without mercy. It afflicts without pity. 

Under Assad the war has dragged on as new weapons make their way onto the battlefield. There is now evidence that the Syrian army has been using "cluster bombs" against its own people. These ammunition violates the laws that govern war amongst civilized nations. They are used to inundate an area and overwhelm an enemy. More importantly, they can't be targeted at one building or a small tactical area. They scatter to the wind and hit whomever happens to be near by. This is why they are so devastating when used in neighborhoods and small towns and villages.

(Cluster Bombs Found in Assad's Arsenal)

In Syria these cluster bombs appear to be used just before the appearance of Shabiha (thugs who are loyal to Assad for a price). Much like the Sudanese style of war, Assad is softening up the targets before allowing his Shabiha to enter in and kill whoever is left. In Darfur it is the Janjaweed who ride in and finish off the survivors. In Syria the Shabiha fulfill this cowardly act. 

(FSA Street Fighting Casualty)

In other attacks the cluster bombs have been targeted at schools and hospitals where Assad imagines the Free Syrian Army may be operating. In many cases the schools are occupied by refugees who have fled their homes in bombed out neighborhoods. It is in these schools that the Free Syrian Army often offer medical attention to the victims of Assad's indiscriminate campaign of bomb first and ask questions later.

Where the attacks fail Assad does not back down or deploy aid to the area. Instead the people he says he represents are left without power or water as winter approaches. No medicine or food is allowed to enter areas where Assad's forces are engaged. In this aspect Assad asserts that all those in his gun sights are guilty. Instead of targeting simply the rebels, Assad puts women and children under the daily anguish of siege warfare. 

(FSA Rebel Helping Woman Through "Sniper Alley")

For those who find themselves alive after the first wave of aerial bombardment the fight to survive is simply beginning. Survivors of what happens next have reported that within minutes of the bombs dropping the artillery opens up. These heavy weapons are often stationed in neighboring villages or neighborhoods. They are kept hidden near homes, mosque, and refugee shelters so as to keep the Free Syrian Army from returning fire. This very act of "hugging" civilian targets is also forbidden by the Geneva Convention. It is considered a war crime. 

When the target has been blasted by both the air and land those left alive are still struggling to remain so. In almost every case of Assad's blitz the barrage is followed by Syrian Army and Iranian snipers. These silent killers set up shop where their sights can be targeted down long open pathways. The result is that a street or becomes a "Sniper Alley". This was used by the Serbians in Bosnia to drive the death toll up as the Serbs killed off the "Muslim threat". 

(The Most Common Victims of the Shabiha) 

As the attack comes to its climax the Free Syrian Army braces for the arrival of the Shabiha. The Syrian Army will often give a short burst of artillery or send in Russian built helicopters to keep the target under control as the thugs ride in. These killers have often gone door to door looking for victims. They are said to be after the rebels alone and yet the Shabiha actions point to their real motivation. 

Killing off entire families and specifically targeting children the Shabiha loot the homes of their victims and take anything they view as valuable. In doing so the Shabiha are showing the West that Assad's money is running out and instead of offering a set pay scale the Nero of Damascus is paying off his militia just as Bashar in the Sudan does. Like the Janjaweed, the Shabiha are extracting their pay from the very people Assad is attempting to repress. 

The end result of the cluster bomb thus is that the original goal of Assad's war against the Sunni is achieved. The rebels are subjected to total war and the Sunni majority is subjugated by the Alawi Shia in power. It does not matter to Assad that the people he is killing are his own countrymen. It doesn't bother Assad's wife that almost a third of all the deaths in this war have been children (under the age of 18). 

Both sides are becoming desperate.

(FSA Executing Surrendered Syrian Soldiers)

The Free Syrian Army has begun openly shooting Syrian soldiers who surrender or attempt to defect form Assad's ranks. In the past the Free Syrian Army had welcomed Syrian soldiers who wanted to leave Assad. Now, with the war approaching 2 long years, the FSA seems unwilling to accept surrender. What had begun as a war of annihilation against the people of Syria is now a war of attrition. Either Assad's forces will perish or leave Syria or the Free Syrian Army will be killed off entirely. 

This is hell. No better word can describe it.

Slow Death

Starvation As A Weapon
(Part of The Darkness Visible series) 

As President Obama talked about how he has helped the United States image around the world last night it became obvious that American foreign policy did not include Sudan. President Obama had brought up in the debate his supposed success in Libya (where Gaddafi was engaged in questionable actions during a spontaneous uprising against him), Obama brought up his actions in Egypt (amounting to a speech that was delivered far to late and nobody but the West listened to), and Obama talked about Syria (as though he had not called Assad a "reformer" only to later say that Assad needed to leave). It is obvious now that Obama has payed little attention to the suffering of people across the globe that he did not think would benefit his own regime in Washington. Obama failed to mention that Assad was a genocidal dictator who was using his version of Islam to justify the murdering of Sunni Muslims. Obama failed to bring up how he might stop the genocide in Burma as the Rohingya suffer under Buddhist extremist. But more importantly, Obama failed to look just south of Egypt and address the genocide in Sudan.

For nearly a decade the people of Sudan have been suffering under genocidal government that has used ethnic tensions and religion to target its victims. In the beginning the Sudanese government used bullets and bombs to clear out their victims' villages. Then the Sudanese government employed the janjaweed to carry out more extensive attacks on civilian targets. Now the Sudanese government is known to have used and still be using starvation and disease to kill off civilians. All of this has been at the command of Omar al-Bashir.

For 81.5% of the Sudanese in South Kordofan there is only one bare bone ration of food a day. 14.9% of children in this region of Sudan are determined to be critically malnourished. And only a 1/3 of the farmers' lands in this region can actually be harvested due to frequent attacks by the Sudanese military and janjaweed militias. So why did Obama fail to mention this year old war crime and the use of starvation as a weapon?

In Darfur the attacks continue as Omar al-Bashir works to kill off the last of the non-Arab Sudanese who are trapped in this region. Trees are becoming rarer and rarer as planes continue to drop bombs on any place people might hide. The devils on horseback continue to rape, pillage, and slaughter all they come across. So why did Obama continue to fail to live up to his rhetoric about "atrocity and genocide prevention"?

In the Nuba Mountains the Sudanese government has decided to use massive air strikes to clear villages and force the Nuba people out of the area. The region in which the mountains set happens to be mineral rich and oil rich. The Arabic groups in control of the Sudanese government consider the non-arabized Africans to be less than human. For this reason the term genocide is the only word appropriate for the massacres. And yet the West seems content to look the other way.

One reason appears to be the Chinese investment in this region and others in the Horn of Africa. As China has been on the rise so too has its investments in other areas of the world. It has led China to invest in Burma as the Myanmar government has engaged in genocide. So to has China decided to go after Sudanese oil as it funds the genocide of Sudanese civilians. All the while China has been buying up the debt of Western governments. This give China the upper hand in any attempt by the West to stop or prevent genocide and crimes against humanity.

In Syria the Chinese are one of the largest supporters that Assad still has left. They have taken every action they could identify that would scare or force the West to back down. This is how China has behaved when engaging the West when the issue of Omar al-Bashir's crimes comes up. It has been China that has prevented the the ICC court from fulfilling its interest in arresting Bashir (they did however issue a warrant).

In Europe the use of starvation as a tool of war can best be illustrated by Russia. During Stalin's attempts to crush his imaginary foes the Communist in the Kremlin came up with the idea to starve our the Ukrainians. This forced famine caused the death of an estimated 7.5 million to 10 million Ukrainians. It became known as the Holodomor (the combination of holod - hunger, and mor - plague).

In the Sudan this new Holodomor is being caused in much the same way. A crazed leader is once again attempting to crush his foes. And once again the genocidal maniac is using starvation to win through attrition. Yet despite it similarity to a very European tragedy and the Western vow of "never again"... the world is doing nothing once again.