Freies Politikforum für Demokraten und Anarchisten

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

...It was not a surprise that the small Iraqi minority found itself a target for fanatical Islamic State (IS) militants, who had reportedly carried out unspeakable crimes against Yazidis, driving them to Dohuk, Irbil and other northern Iraqi regions. According to UN and other groups, 40,000 Yazidi had been stranded on Mount Sinjar, awaiting imminent “genocide” if the US and other powers didn’t take action to save them .
The rest of the story was spun from that point on, as the Yazidis - whose very existence was rarely acknowledged in most international media - became a rally cry for US-western intervention in Iraq. The logic for intervention that preceded the latest US bombing campaign of IS targets, which started in mid-June, is similar to what took place in Libya over three years ago. Early 2011, imminent “genocide” awaiting Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi at the hands of Muammar Gaddafi was the rally cry that mobilised western powers to a war that wrought wanton killings and destruction in Libya............
.............When US special forces arrived to the top of Mount Sinjar, they realized that the Yazidis had either been rescued by Kurdish militias, or were already living there. They found less than 5,000 Yazidis there, half of them refugees. The mountain is revered in local legend, as the final resting place of Noah’s ark. It was also the final resting place for the Yazidi genocide story. The finding hardly received much coverage in the media, which used the original claim to create fervour in anticipation for Western intervention in Iraq.
We all know how the first intervention worked out. Not that IS’ brutal tactics in eastern, northern and central Iraq should be tolerated. But a true act of genocide had already taken place in Iraq for nearly two decades, starting with the US war in 1990-91, a decade-long embargo and a most destructive war and occupation starting in 2003. Not once did a major newspaper editorial in the US bestow the term “genocide” on the killing and maiming of millions of Iraqis. In fact, the IS campaign is actually part of a larger Sunni rebellion in Iraq, in response to the US war and Shite-led government oppression over the course of years. That context is hardly relevant in the selective reporting on the current violence in Iraq..........
........The French are also keen on fighting IS. After all, France was one of the two main parties in the Asia Minor (Sykes-Picot) Agreement in 1916, which divided Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire between France and Britain. Major wars and upheavals didn’t alter the old colonial borders imposed on the Arabs since then, as much as the IS, whose numbers are being artfully overstated from 10 thousand up to 31 thousand, according to the CIA. Francois Hollande flew to Baghdad in a reported show of support for Iraq’s new government. In actuality, he was there, ahead of a Paris conference on Iraq, to show a united western front, and that the Obama administration was not alone in this war. France, of course, has its own calculations in Syria and Lebanon, and will find the right moment to cease in its support of the US war.......
.........That same media has also cleverly devalued and branded conflicts, and acts of genocide in ways consistent with US foreign policy agendas. While the Yazidis were purportedly stranded on mount Sinjar, Israel was carrying out a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Over 2,150 were killed, mostly civilians, hundreds of them children, and over 11,000 wounded, the vast majority of whom were civilians. Not an alleged 40,000 but a confirmed 520,000 thousand were on the run, and along with the rest of Gaza’s 1.8 million, were entrapped in an open-air prison with no escape. But that was not an act of genocide either, as far as the US-western governments and media were concerned. Worse, they actively defended, and, especially in the case of the US, UK, France and Italy, armed and funded the Israeli aggression. Just as the Israeli army was running out of badly needed ammunition to carry out its war crimes, the US was quick to ship more weapons to Israel. Thanks to US aid and backing, the Gaza genocide was finalised to perfection.

Experience has taught us that not all “acts of genocide” are created equal: Some are fabricated, and others are exaggerated. Some are useful to start wars, and others, no matter how atrocious, are not worth mentioning. Some acts of genocide are branded as wars to liberate, free and democratize. In that case, body count is not important. Other acts of genocide are to be encouraged, defended and financed.

But as far as the US involvement in the Middle East is concerned, the only real genocide is the one that serves the interests of the west, by offering an opportunity for military intervention, followed by political and strategic meddling to re-arrange the region. .........

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/convenient-genocide-another-failed-war-re-arrange-middle-east-607734008