Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utcsrgv.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!dave
From: dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: war in the americas
Message-ID: <1830@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-Jul-83 17:12:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.1830
Posted: Mon Jul 25 17:12:50 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 25-Jul-83 21:24:37 EDT
References: <2224@teklabs.UUCP>
Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto
Lines: 26


	From: kenb@teklabs.UUCP
	Does anyone care to comment on current U.S. policy of genocide
	against practicing Christians and Christian leaders in 
	Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador ?

I don't know much about current U.S. policy, but I take strong exception
to the abuse and demeaning of the word "genocide".
	The term is thrown about wildly whenever people want to describe
a group that is somehow being oppressed. There are VERY FEW instances of
genocide which can legitimately be called that.
	The destruction of European Jewry under the Nazis can be called
genocide. So too, if one believes the Armenian version of history, can the
Turkish massacre of Armenians, and probably events in Cambodia.
	Whatever the U.S. is doing in Central America, I hardly think it
is actively murdering all the people who belong to a group simply because
they belong to the group. Is the U.S. killing *all* Christians in Guatemala,
Nicaragua and El Salvador?
	Now maybe people think this belongs in net.nlang, but the misuse
of language to conjure up inappropriate images is a political issue.
Israel is a prime target, often being accused of "genocide" and causing
a "holocaust" for actions in Lebanon which nowhere near approached those
terms.

Dave Sherman
Toronto