A Rhetorical Crime: Genocide in the Geopolitical Discourse of the Cold War (Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights)

The Genocide Convention was drafted by the United Nations in the late 1940s, as a response to the horrors of the Second World War. But was the Genocide Convention truly effective at achieving its humanitarian aims, or did it merely exacerbate the divisive rhetoric of Cold War geopolitics? __A Rhetorical Crime__ shows how genocide morphed from a legal concept into a political discourse used in propaganda battles between the United States and the Soviet Union. Over the course of the Cold War era, nearly eighty countries were accused of genocide, and yet there were few real-time interventions to stop the atrocities committed by genocidal regimes like the Cambodian Khmer Rouge. Renowned genocide scholar Anton Weiss-Wendt employs a unique comparative approach, analyzing the statements of Soviet and American politicians, historians, and legal scholars in order to deduce why their moral posturing far exceeded their humanitarian action. Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Page Contents Foreword Abbreviations Introduction Chapter 1: Soviet Scholars of International Law as Foot Soldiers in the Cold War Chapter 2: Trial by Word: The Gulag Condemned Chapter 3: Soviet Satellites Shift Allegiances: Hungary, Yugoslavia Chapter 4: The Struggle for Influence in Postcolonial Africa and the Middle East: Algeria, Congo, Nigeria, Iraq Chapter 5: Southeast Asia and the Rise of Communist China: Tibet, Bangladesh, Cambodia Chapter 6: (Soviet) Piggy in the Middle: American Liberal Left versus Radical Right on US Ratification of the Genocide Convention Chapter 7: Moscow Taps the New Left: The Vietnam Antiwar Movement, Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement Chapter 8: Soviet-Turkish Relations and Socialist Armenia Chapter 9: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Chapter 10: An Uncertain End to the Cold War and the Reactivation of the Genocide Treaty Conclusion Afterword: Genocide Rhetoric and a New Cold War Appendix A Appendix B Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index About the Author The Genocide Convention was drafted by the United Nations in the late 1940s, as a response to the horrors of the Second World War. But was the Genocide Convention truly effective at achieving its humanitarian aims, or did it merely exacerbate the divisive rhetoric of Cold War geopolitics? A Rhetorical Crime shows how genocide morphed from a legal concept into a political discourse used in propaganda battles between the United States and the Soviet Union. Over the course of the Cold War era, nearly eighty countries were accused of genocide, and yet there were few real-time interventions to stop the atrocities committed by genocidal regimes like the Cambodian Khmer Rouge. Renowned genocide scholar Anton Weiss-Wendt employs a unique comparative approach, analyzing the statements of Soviet and American politicians, historians, and legal scholars in order to deduce why their moral posturing far exceeded their humanitarian action. -- Provided by publisher A Rhetorical Crime shows how, over the course of the Cold War era, genocide morphed from a legal concept into a political discourse used in international propaganda battles. Through a unique comparative analysis of U.S. and Soviet statements on genocide, Weiss-Wendt investigates why their moral posturing far exceeded their humanitarian action.