Genocide in Syria

[K-II]

I know there have been atrocities carried out by their government, in the past but I'm not familiar with any atrocities the Syrian government had carried out shortly before the protesting. No inconsistencies at all.

Sometimes people get pushed around a lot before they snap and hack their tormentors apart with a machete. Why on earth would you expect some sort of clear back-and-forth between involved parties? It's not exactly tennis.

 

[yakherder]

Sometimes people get pushed around a lot before they snap and hack their tormentors apart with a machete. Why on earth would you expect some sort of clear back-and-forth between involved parties? It's not exactly tennis.

When it happened in China after WW2 it was along the lines of invading the house of every wealthy person and killing them, hence the reason many of them fled to Taiwan. Social inequality is like a bomb just waiting for someone hit the button, at which point it doesn't matter whose fault it is anymore. People can go from accepting their situation to raving murderous lunatics in very short times under the right conditions. That's also why governments get nervous and overreact when protests get out of hand. They know history, and the know it's a thin line between emotionally charged crowd and violent revolution.

 

[Second Summer]

Unless there is some detail left out here, I don't think genocide is really applicable.

Well, I'm now reading that tens of thousands of civilians are being abducted from their homes at night, never to be seen again. I don't know what the number has to be before it fits the definition of genocide, but that sounds pretty bad by any standards.

Human rights groups working in Syria say at least 28,000 people have disappeared after being abducted by soldiers or militia.

They say they have the names of 18,000 people missing since anti-government protests began 18 months ago and know of another 10,000 cases.

Syria crisis: 28,000 disappeared, say rights groups

I suspect there is a reluctance in the West to use the term "genocide" in this case because then we might feel compelled to take military action, something we don't want to do in Syria, for various reasons.