Lesser of Two Evils

An interesting question was posed on a thread I read the other day as to which was worse: genocide or civil war. It reminded me of the Taxi episode when Rev. Jim was filling out a cab license form and one of the other characters asked him, "narcotics or drug addiction?" Jim replies, "Wow. That's a tough choice."

Without knowing anything else, I would say that civil war is the lesser evil.

This is not to confuse genocide with politicide. If marxist terrorists are committing atrocities in the jungles, it is perfectly acceptable to rid the world of them - or at least rid the world of them for the time being. They will always return as a course of political evolution.

But when one group A does not harm any one from any other groups and is then identified by another group or groups for extinction, certainly group A should fight them. My problem is when group B does harm as a matter of policy other groups and then when the other groups fight them, they call it "genocide."

I was looking at the list from genocidewatch.org and thinking "these guys are way off of the mark." They have a very good process - not perfect but very good - for identifying what genocide is. Then they name several perpetrators of genocide who are not committing genocide. I ask, "Do they not even know what their own criteria is?" They even say the"stage" of the genocide but do not justify it.

They list Israel and Palestine as committing genocide against each other. While there are some in the governments of both, most notably the now very dead Arafat, who wanted nothing more than the complete annihilation of the other, they do not have an active policy (stage 7) of killing each other.

The worst example is that of Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds being genocidally massacred by the U.S. I can say with absolute certainty than no one is being given the order to kill Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds because they are Shittes, Sunnis, and Kurds. They also include "collaborators" on the list of those being killed. Here is a clue for GenocideWatch.org: If military men kill you because you are killing them, that is not genocide!

There ideas regarding how to stop it are a bit unrealistic, impractical, incomplete or all three. However, I am digressing from the point of this post.

Someone in the forum argued that using armed force in trying to stop a recognized government that is committing genocide is ineffectual and counter productive. That instead of stopping this government, it only angers them, furthers their atrocities, and others suffer as a result. It also allows for said government to tell the world that they are fighting rebels instead of committing genocide.

However, armed resistance is more likely (not guaranteed though) to get military aid to fight a murderous regime and unarmed resistance is likely to get an "Awww. We're so sorry." from the international community.

Liberals tend to equivocate what is evil and what is righteous. I am a fortunate one in that I know the difference between the them. In the case of the evil killing the righteous, I will help the righteous in their civil war any day.