Ethnic cleansing

[worker]

Considering the USA's avowed intent to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and elsewhere, have they such short memories? I wonder what the native American indians would have to say on the subject.

[archbishop]

That was then, this is now. Politics change. Who is right is always changing depending on your outlook

[Buffy]

Although others may disagree, I think that what happened with the Native Americans in the past was more the result of European settlers' desire to claim more land, than a desire to necessarily wipe out the entire Native American ethnicity. *Anyone* who had happened to be dwelling on the land in the central and western USA at that time would have likely been taken out, whether it was Spaniards, Frenchmen, etc. The motivation was different, though the effect was the same. It is surely a tragic chapter in US history, though what can we do in the present day, but concentrate on our present actions and think about the future? What do you propose, Worker? Any specific plans?

[Buffy]

But surely if the European settlers (most of which were English decendants, need I remind you?) were looking to carry out an "ethnic cleansing," they had the ability (manpower, tools, political power, etc.) to complete the job. If that's all they were trying to do, then why were any Native Americans left standing? The settlers could easily have taken out every last one, if that's what they'd wanted to do. However, that wasn't what they wanted to do. Anyway, what was Britain doing while all of this was going on in the USA? ...Not objecting-- that's for sure.

[Buffy]

Oops, that should have been "descendants". Also, Tartanwizard, what do you think Britain was trying to do in India, and every other colony it claimed? The US and the UK were/are equally as guilty.

[LeMarchand]

Whilst I would agree that it was a long time ago, and that the US has (in theory) come a long way since then, I do feel that the British and most other colonial empires tended to "rule" over their "subjects", some more harshly than others, and were trying to change their colonies into simulacra of their own countries (admittedly ones with cheap or slave labour). Someone with a better knowledge of history will probably correct me, but I can't remember an equivalent to the Americans deliberately handing out smallpox infected blankets to the Native Americans in an effort to wipe them out.

[Buffy]

Hi LeMarchand, I'll believe your last statement IF you can provide an exact source for me. What is your reference, my dear?

[LeMarchand]

Buffy: it was in 1762 http://www.fortworthgov.org/health/threats/bio_his
tory1.asp - alas, the Brits were still in charge then :-(. However, stick George Washington and Genocide into Google, and you'll find various pages that suggest that he would have been happy to continue the practise. At least Jefferson http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/327/74
09/261 tried to innoculate AGAINST the disease.

[worker]

I've read the answers with a great deal of interest. I think it just goes to show there's a great difference between a government's public and private face. I don't think the US has a great deal to be proud of, either in this matter or any other (the seperatist movement in the southern states, for example), neither do I think the Brits have either, nor the Spanish, French, Italians or . . .

[incitatus]

for a British equivalence to the smallpox thing- how about the opium wars? We needed a cash crop to fund india, without the tedious business of shipping anything home. so we forced the chinese to buy indian opium, addicting thousands if not millions of poor workers and collapsing the chinese economy. when the chinese protested we fought a war to maintain the flow of Her Majesties Opium. talk about a war on drugs.

[Buffy]

There is a difference between a nation's governmental policies and the actions of a few renegade military officers or individual soldiers carrying out personal vendettas (for slain comrades, or because of personal racist beliefs). It was only the latter type who purposely killed buffaloes, etc., perhaps out of spite. I don't think this was ever actually a policy encouraged by the U.S. government. So there was no "official policy of genocide", at least not on a governmental level....

This discussion is generating far more heat than light, so I am going to bow out now. It is giving me a headache!

[KEJ2000]

Speaking of nations that have shameful pasts, you've omitted Germany, where countless citizens actually supported the Nazi party, even after it became obvious that the Nazis were up to no good. Let us not forget, though, that everyone alive during that era is now dead (or soon will be), and we must not harbour grudges against innocent citizens of the present day. The past will never repeat itself in any of those countries.