Genocide My opinion

Genocide is the mass killing of a large population conducted by another population. It is more complicated than that sentence though. Genocide is varied in each instance that it has been carried out. Genocide can be a means of asserting dominance over a rival nation or ethnic group, it can be a political maneuver or genocide can be conducted to cleanse out an ethnic or religious group.
Genocide can be the result of a war, in ancient times many wars ended with enslavement or mass killing of the loosing group. In these ancient wars it was often seen as an assertion of power to be able to obliterate rival cities/countries from history. There are many cases in which a military group will commit an act of genocide with the hope that it will pacify a larger population of the same ethnic group. This can be seen with Persia burning Athens with the hopes of the rest of Greece submitting, or the Jewish people destroying all of Jericho and Ai leading to neighboring powers in Canaan allying themselves with the Israelites instead of facing the same brutality. Historically there is a precedence for brutality to the vanquished being used as a political maneuver. These acts were genocide by our standards but to the ancient civilization while atrocious were not always considered negative. In some cases such as the Iliad the sacking and destruction of Troy is considered a great victory by the Greeks, similarly the Jewish Conquest of Canaan is a point of Israeli pride. This establishes a precedence of respect for the perpetrators of genocide, they are conquering hero’s not homicidal maniacs.
An important facet of genocide that must be faced is there is a political value in committing such a violent act. Genocide no longer would bring about respec...

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... distressingly effective means by which a government deals with complex issues.
The truth about genocide is each situation is unique, the motivations, mindsets and values can all change from example to example. One thing remains the same, genocide is always a deliberate action that results in the death of many people. Whether a genocide is meant to be a statement of power, a political scheme, or a means of cleansing a nation of people whom someone has deemed unfit to live there, genocide remains unto this day an almost natural reaction by which people solve complex issues. The importance of studying genocide is that understanding the motivations, no matter how deplorable, that lead to genocidal actions is the only way by which we can begin to present new less atrocious ways of handling these complex social issues to the depraved individuals who orchestrate genocide.