The brutality by NAZI German against USSR prisoners of

The Nazis did it on a scale that had never been seen before but I don't think there is anything unique about the attempt to wipe out another people.

There was a lot of propaganda about how the Jews were secretly taking over the world which isn't all that different from the rumors that the Armenians were helping the Turks. I don't recognize any important distinction there.

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But that was not the motivation of the Holocaust. The motivation of the Holocaust was simply the destruction of World Jewery. In fact, the Armenians were not helping the Turks, they were helping the enemies of the Turks by expediting the flow of ammunition and other war material to them, and feeding spying on the Turks, and giving information to the Russians. The Armenians did that because they were also waging a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire to establish an independent Armenia. The motivation of Turkey was not simply the destruction of Armenians, but partly to stop the Armenians from giving aid and comfort to Turkey's enemies, and partly to avenge themselves against the Armenians for aiding Turkey's enemies. This, of course, is completely different from the Holocaust. The Jews of Germany were one of the most loyal and assimilated of all the alien population in Germany, if not the most. They had fought loyally for Germany in World War I, and were awarded many medals for valor. The destruction of the German Jews (and the Jews in the rest of Europe) was exclusively motivated by racism. This never happened before, nor (so far as I know) since.

i should not have to add that I am not, of course, excusing what the Turk did to the Armenians. But in these days of political correctness, I suppose I had better do so.

What about tracts like the Protocols of Zion. Hogwash of course but I am sure many Nazis believed the Jews were really conspiring against the goyum and seeking to corrupt them.

But the Armenians did do something. The Jews didn't. And the Protocols were caused by racism. They were not the cause of racism. You are mixing up the cause with the effect. "The fallacy of false cause".

What did the Native Americans do?

The Nazis saw the Jews as impeding their expansion...the Jewish Problem impeded the expansion of Nazi power and Nazi philosophy hence The Final Solution. Germany didn't have anywhere to expand to so it turned in on itself and found the Other within and proceeded to remove them to make more room for the Aryan people expand and prosper. While at the same time expanding outward by invading neighboring countries. Jews impeded the purity of the German people. The pursuit of this purity at the cost of the Jews is really not so different from the expansion of the Europeans into America at the cost of the Native Americans.

They thought that the Jews of Europe were impeding their expansion? Where did you find that information? In fact, as I pointed out, the German Jews were, up to the Nazi era, enthusiastic supporters of German political goals. I hope you are not just arguing for the sake of argument. Notice, to say that the Jews "impeded" the purity of the German people is already to inject racism into the motives. It is not exactly PC to think that the Holocaust was unique. But all the evidence is that it was.

Screwed over endless of times, how was it at Little Big Horn?

Not sure Little Big Horn's a good example of Native Americans being screwed over. The Native Americans triumphed at Little Big Horn.

Not that I don't get your general gist - I don't think the Holocaust was the world's only genocide either - I think the genocide of the Tasmanians is modern history's only complete genocide, and genocides in Rwanda are certainly deserving of the name.

But Little Big Horn was a victory for the Native Americans nevertheless.

The systematically slaughter of a particular people, race or tribe and that is called genocide regardless of what other motivating factors there may be...if the deciding factor as to who lives and who dies is racial then it is genocide.



But why do you think the Jewish genocide happened? What caused the Nazis and all those little Germans that just followed orders to turn on the Jews? Just a whim? Bad science? Bad philosophy?

But the Armenians did do something. The Jews didn't. And the Protocols were caused by racism. They were not the cause of racism. You are mixing up the cause with the effect. "The fallacy of false cause".

Are you kidding me Ken, that you would convict all the Armenians who did not have even their own government; men, women and children for the actions of a few??? You know the Jews could be convicted by the same standard which is unfair, and totally criminal....

Strawman.............

Seems to me that insisting on the uniqueness of the Jewish genocide on the grounds that they were killed for being who they were is wrong..

Not really, he's suggesting the Armenians were scapegoated because of the putative actions of a few Armenians.

Which does compare (in terms of cause and effect if not scale) with the Jewish Holocaust.

Seems to me that insisting on the uniqueness of the Jewish genocide on the grounds that they were killed for being who they were is wrong. In terms of scale it was massive, and in terms of the industrial process behind it the most chillingly robotic, but even you say you "don't know" about the tit-for-tat genocides committed by the Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda, and your insistence that there was a justification of sorts for the persecution of Armenians seems ridiculous, really.

Unless you actually do think it was justified.

In which case Fido's query is fair enough.

Either arms smuggling was a weak justification for wholesale slaughter or it wasn't.

If it was, it compares to the weak justifications for wholesale slaughter of the Jews, even if those justifications were rooted in myth rather than reality.

How is it wrong if it is true? Why would the insistence on the truth of a proposition be wrong? Racism was uniquely the motive for the attempt at the extermination of the Jews. It was not the motive for the attempt to kill the Armenians, nor American Indians, and so on. Is that true or not is the issue.

Yes it is.

I think racism certainly was the case in the Armenian genocide, people were abused as a folk on the basis of some very weak justification.

The American Indians I would tentatively agree with you - they were exploited awfully, and I think racism certainly played a part - but I think it stops short of genocide (for admittedly somewhat arbitrary reasons). The selling of smallpox infected blankets was a genocidal act though, I think.

Tutsis and Hutus, I can't see how it was anything but prejudice based on perceptions of what they meant "as a people", likewise with the destruction of the Tasmanians. They were regarded as Untermenshen or poisonous people by those who massacred them just as vehemently as the Nazis regarded the Jews or the Gypsies.

Unless "they are very technologically naive" is a justification for slaughter.

All these people were subjected to massacres, or wholly wiped out in the case of the Tasmanians, because they were perceived to be "the other".