Modernity and Twentieth Century Holocausts: Empire-Building and Mass Murder

James Petras, Axis of Logic .

..From our review of 20th and 21st century Holocausts, it is clear that great crimes against humanity for the most part do not lead to justice. On the contrary, the historical legacy is one of impunity and most likely recidivism. The record is clear: US impunity after the Korean holocaust led to the holocausts in Indochina, Central America and Iraq. The early Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1947-1950 led to new wars of conquest, land dispossession, settler occupation, ghettoization and progression toward a 'final solution’ of total expulsion. Turkish-Armenian genocide denial encouraged the ethnic cleansing of Kurds throughout Anatolia. These crimes against humanity are not merely artifacts of psychopathic rulers, or derivatives from authoritarian traditions, because, as we have shown, there are competing traditions, diverse 'national psychologies’ and countervailing ideologies.What brings to the foreground holocaust behavior, the trigger and motor force, are imperialist drives for domestic cohesion and foreign conquest. It is precisely because imperial powers exercise the holocaust imperative that they are largely unpunished, and, in most cases, their crimes remain unrecognized to this very day...

continua / continued