The question of moral validity has plagued societies for millennia. Unsurprisingly, this question afflicted Indonesia between 1965 and 1966. In the early days of October 1965, a group of conspirators took and killed six generals. The disagreement of whom caused this coup caused the killing of more than 80,000 (1,000,000 in some areas) people. This caused a social change from aristocrats to an Indonesian business class. For other peoples around the world, the view of this genocide was a victory over communism. While these killings were clearly morally deplorable, the result was an improved and restructured government; a victory for capitalism at the height of the Cold War.
Webster's Dictionary defines a coup as a sudden, violent, illegal taking
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The United States of America were split in their opinions over the killings. Some people did not care, as long as the people being killed were communists. Others could not understand the reason behind the United States’ condemnation of the Nazi’s but disregard for the killings in Indonesia. The UN also had mixed opinions. Originally the UN did not want to comment. Once Suharto returned Indonesia to the UN, Albania was the only member of the UN to protest. The USSR thought that the event was very tragic, so much so that they also called this very off-kilter racism and militarism. China believed that the killings embodied the wicked and devilish ideologies of the assassins (“Indonesia”).
These conditions were clearly morally deplorable, and the coup caused a change from aristocrats to an Indonesian business class, seen as a victory over communism at the climax of the Cold War. Seeing as similar killings happened right after Indonesia’s, one would think that the generals did not learn their lesson on moral validity. The inevitability of people being killed waters down the big question of moral validities by the minute. In the end, it all comes down to the point of view; depending on the point of view, any side’s moral values could be seen
Laws exist to protect life and property; however, they are only as effective as the forces that uphold them. War is a void that exists beyond the grasps of any law enforcing agency and It exemplifies humankind's most desperate situation. It is an ethical wilderness exempt from civilized practices. In all respects, war is a primitive extension of man. Caputo describes the ethical wilderness of Vietnam as a place "lacking restraints, sanctioned to kill, confronted by a hostile country and a relentless enemy, we sank into a brutish state." Without boundaries, there is only a biological moral c...
One of the darkest times in American history was the conflict with the natives. A “war” fought with lies and brute force, the eviction and genocide of Native Americans still remains one of the most controversial topics when the subject of morality comes up. Perhaps one of the most egregious events to come of this atrocity was the Sand Creek Massacre. On the morning of November 29th, 1864, under the command of Colonel John Chivington, 700 members of the Colorado Volunteer Cavalry raped, looted, and killed the members of a Cheyenne tribe (Brown 86-94). Hearing the story of Sand Creek, one of the most horrific acts in American History, begs the question: Who were the savages?
Throughout history mass murder has not been a problem to the same level and in the same sense as it is today. A related occurrence that is seen in history, which can be studied for its similar preparation and organization, is genocide. Genocide, an international crime, is a large-scale form of mass murder, in which many people are killed in a string of independent events because of prejudices or war (Reisman, 2008). Killing a large group of people takes a high level of organization. The logistics of how to do it, where to do it, where to dispose of the bodies, among other things must be examined before killing begins (Reisman, 2008). The only similarity to the 21st century version of mass murder is the predatory violence involving extensive planning and little to no emotion involved in the killing (Meloy et al., 2004). However aside from that it is difficult to compare the two events because genocide has many killers and can take place over extended periods of time. For example, during the Holocaust Nazi Germany systematically exterminated millions of Jew over a period of three years (Reisman, 2008). This trend is relevant due to the death of more than three p...
The biggest war the world has ever seen was World War II. What was one factor that led to such a quick escalation? Genocide. Over 45 million people were murdered during this tragic time. The question is: was it the allies responsibility to intervene? The answer: No. The Global Community has no responsibility to intervene in states committing genocide.
Genocide is the deliberate killing of all or part of a racial, ethnic, or religious group. Genocide is carried out through ruthless acts of violence, and oppression. There have been many acts of genocide documented throughout history. In this essay I will focus on the Armenian genocide, specifically how it was carried out and how the Ottoman Empire rationalized their actions.
... to eliminate any Western influences in order to create a utopian society, killed off million of influential scholars, philosophers and any educated people in the country. These Cambodians believed that this would benefit the rest of the country and would create a utopian for the future generations of Cambodians. Even though this was morally and ethically wrong to them it was right. So who is to say who was right or wrong if it is based off their beliefs?
War has always been an essential ingredient in the development of the human race. As a result of the battles fought in ancient times, up until modern warfare, millions of innocent lives have ended as a result of war crimes committed. In the article, “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience,” Herbert C. Kelman and V.Lee Hamilton shows examples of moral decisions taken by people involved with war-related murders. This article details one of the worse atrocities committed during the Vietnam War in 1968 by the U.S. military: the My Lai Massacre. Through this incident, the question that really calls for psychological analysis is why so many people are willing to formulate , participate in, and condone policies that call for the mass killings of defenseless civilians such as the atrocities committed during the My Lai massacre. What influences these soldiers by applying different psychological theories that have been developed on human behavior.
In 1915, the Turkish government organized a massacre that targeted Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Rulers were Muslims who believed they had more sovereignty than the Christian Armenians. As a result, Armenians were viewed as infidels. The Ottoman Rulers raised higher taxes for Christians, which created less political rights for them. In order to turn others against the Armenians, the Ottoman Rulers believed that Christian Armenians were more loyal to the Christian government rather than to the Ottoman caliphate. Armenians were devastated by these comments and created their own protests. The Turkish officials invaded the Armenian villages and killed hundreds of thousands. In 1908, a new government, Young Turks, came into
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.
The Ottoman Empire once was an enormous however it began to decline throughout the years. Throughout the chaos of World War One, a Turkish nationalist group known as the young Turks wanted to bring back the vast empire by purifying their people of the Armenians which were a Christian minority group. This slowly gained momentum and more people began to agree that they had to cleanse their people. When they started treating the Armenians so badly was when Armin t. Wegner started taking pictures of what was going on. His pictures showed the truth of what was going on, however, the Turkish government tried covering them up. This didn't stop Wegner because he wanted to show everyone what was going on with the Armenians.
When 1937 arrived, Japanese soldiers raided China’s capital of Nanking and began to mass murder citizens. A sole leader of the Japanese Imperial Army was non-existent. There were many of people in power such as generals who allowed these behaviors to occur. Baron Koki Hirota, Foreign minister at the time, proceeded to do nothing while being well aware of the Japanese’s persecution of the Chinese. These unsympathetic murders of those who were thought to be Chinese soldiers as well as woman, children and elderly. This massacre lasted between the 1937 and 1938. Within this time 300,000 Chinese citizens were viciously killed. This genocide is called Rape of Nanking because of raping the woman before killing them. Most likely this group was selected because the second world war happened in Asia. This was significant because a country was able to kill half the population of another. I believe the reason of this Genocide was for Japan to take advantage of China while expand Japan. Most likely the Japanese wished to exterminate China’s entire population.
Sudan is the biggest nation in Africa and around six million people live in Darfur. The massacres in Darfur began in 2003 and still continue today. The genocide is let by equipped Arab soldiers (also known as the Janjaweed). The Janjaweed soldiers dismantled communities, corrupted the point of supply of water, killed, abused, and tormented innocent people. Millions of people in Darfur were left without homes and forty-eight thousand dead. Sudan has been in two civil wars since their freedom in 1956. There was then a fight for limited supplies and wanderers began to fight for land. This led to a war between North Sudan against South Sudan. In 1972, the first domestic war comes to a finish. Eleven years later the second, and deadliest, war begins. Over four millions were left without a home and over two million were killed in a span of twenty years. The government rejected any information of disturbance in Darfur. In 2005, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement ended the North versus the South fight. South Sudan gained more legislative control in the agreement. In 2009, Sudan president Omar Bashir was wanted for felonies against mankind and later wanted for genocide. Omar Bashir has fled to different countries where he has been protected.
There are several ethical issues surrounding the decision by the Hutu politicians to start the genocide. It is unfair and unethical for the Hutus to blame the entire Tutsi tribe for the president’s death. The Hutu politicians are so much driven by hatred that they fail to consider the innocent lives to be lost in the planned genocide. Instead, they organiz...
Genocide is the intentional killing of groups with the purpose of eliminating the existence of the group. The term "genocide" was created in 1944 to describe the systematic elimination of Jews under the Nazi regime. The word combines the Greek suffix, "geno-", meaning race, and "-cide", meaning "killing". According to Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, genocide refers to the following acts that are meant to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group by causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group (directly or through actions causing death), deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group (e.g. forced sterilization), or forcibly transferring children (persons under the age of 14 years) of the group to another group. Article III of the convention defines "genocide, the conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, attempt to commit genocide, and complicity in genocide" as punishable acts. The United Nations General Assembly adopted the he Genocide Convention on 9 December 1948, and the Convention was commenced on 12 January 1951. The Genocide Convention has been ratified by over 130 nations and over 70 nations have made provisions for the punishment of genocide in domestic criminal law. Article 6 of the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court includes the content of Article II of the Genocide Convention as a crime. (http://www.genocidewatch.org/genocide/whatisit.html)
An example would be the bombing of Hiroshima. The morality was good in a way that it prevented millions of lives being saved, but at the cost of thousand of Japanese people dying.