Desperate upvote. People need to know this horror isn't limited to Liberia as well. Many other countries in Africa have or are facing similar horrors: Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and on and on.

His book should be required reading in every high school classroom, forever. When he says that the world pulled their troops out of Rwanda it is a gross understatement. Belgium, that was providing the bulk of the forces there not only pulled their forces out, but pressed charges against their returning officers from Rwanda for 'putting their men in harms way'. Belgium had lost 10 soldiers after all, so the Belgians were understandably angry and outraged by their country's tragic and unacceptable loss. Meanwhile 800,000 Rwandan's where being murdered by the same crew that killed the Belgian soldiers.

The lessons about geopolitical apathy to be learned from Dallaire's book are vitally important. Evil has many faces and he saw them all in Rwanda.

Thanks!>> ^RedSky:
promote

>> ^gwiz665:

People only have the rights we have agreed they have. See places like Rwanda, nazi germany, the US in the 30s for no natural rights for some people.
Natural rights are as fabricated as a corporation's rights, or the rights of a car to run well-oiled.

I cannot speak for the rest of the world, only the US's Constitution which makes rights natural (even if people don't follow that all the time) and something people don't give or take away from other people.

>> ^blankfist:
People have natural rights. Corporations are papers in a drawer in some government office. Sentient rights is science fiction.
Corporate rights should be science fiction.


People only have the rights we have agreed they have. See places like Rwanda, nazi germany, the US in the 30s for no natural rights for some people.

Natural rights are as fabricated as a corporation's rights, or the rights of a car to run well-oiled.

I'm just worried that without some sort of guiding body of law about how you sort the innocent from the guilty, and what sorts of consequences are appropriate for which kind of violation, it can easily wind up being just a handy casus belli to tell people whenever you feel like conquering some new territory.
I share your concern over that, but in practice that kind of system simply does not exist at an international level. The UN is supposed to be an attempt at it, but it is completely and utterly ineffectual in that capacity. Of all the wars and atrocities committed since the UN was founded, how many has it actually opposed by placing soldiers on the ground? In the absence of a good solution(an effective UN), we are left with the alternative of unilateral action against tyrants and atrocities, with all the enormous misgivings that come with that.

Maybe if there had been some sort of Holocaust-level sort of abuses going on I'd have been able to agree with it, but then if there had been, the UN probably would have gone along with it too, and it would've been the whole world working to stop it.
But when Saddam was committing Holocaust-level abuses, the UN did nothing(in part thanks to American vetos if I recall). When a million were killed in Rwanda not only did the UN do nothing, they actively withdrew all but 400 of the troops they already had in the country. Korea, Vietnam, East Timor, Cambodia, the whole of Africa and South America, all victims of horrific wars and atrocities that the UN could not or would not prevent or stop.

After the first gulf war, the sole thing that stopped Saddam from repeating his campaign against the Kurds was the unilateral, illegal act of war that was the American enforced no-fly zone over northern Iraq. Saddam's first campaign against the Kurds saw him execute an estimated 2-300 thousand people and destroy 90% of all Kurdish villages. Every single Kurd he could capture was placed in a concentration camp. The women, children and elderly were regularly beaten and malnourished to the point that virtually every last child under the age of 3 died. The men were, without exception, hauled off to pre-dug mass graves to be executed and buried by bulldozer. The concentration camps also had rape rooms, not for the amusement of the guards or humiliation of the prisoners, but with the goal of impregnating the Kurdish women with half arab children in order to breed the Kurdish people out of existence.

Saddam committed holocaust level atrocities and 'illegal' unilateral American intervention prevented him from repeating those acts a second time. In spite of the misgivings I have about unilateral wars, I support the Iraq war on the largest level, in spite of the many lies, mistakes and tragedies that came with it the alternatives were worse.



In reply to this comment by NetRunner:

While Saddam was monsterous, there's little room for debate there, his level of monstrocity was miniscule compared to what was happening in Africa. he gassed perhaps, at most, 10s of thousands, African warlords hacked millions to death


Saddam's war with Iran left more than 1 million dead. I don't know the numbers for Saddam's kills with chemical weapons, but Saddam killed a lot more people with conventional arms than with chemical weapons. In his Al-Anfal campaign alone estimates are as high as 2-3 hundred thousand killed, mostly people already taken prisoner shot execution style at pre-dug mass graves. That's nearly a quarter million for just one act of Saddam's brutality against the Kurds. Unknown numbers of countless others that were even suspected of opposing Saddam and their family members were killed as well. He killed 60 random members of his own party's leadership just to ensure that when he took power no-one within his party could oppose him. He was even less discriminate about killing anyone in a suspected position of opposition. I don't want to detract from the monstrosity of what has and is still happening in Africa, but Saddam's reign of terror was I think more difficult to rival than you describe. In Rwanda, probably the single worst genocide in Africa in my generations time saw a body count of around 800,000. By all counts worse than Saddam, but not by as much as I once believed.


If we are to use "level of evil" as a reason to attack a foreign nation, we should do it in order, based on levels of evil, not because he tried to kill someone's daddy.

I agree that would be ideal, but I don't believe we always have the luxury. In the end, the nation as a whole is most interested in it's own best interests, and other considerations are all a distant second. Since I do believe that Iraq is better off for Saddam's removal, I am willing to settle for a mere convergence of American self-interest and Iraqi self-interest. Even if Bush only went in because of his daddy, or more likely to make Cheney some extra cash, I still support the action of removing Saddam from power and believe that was a massive change for the better. I believe that given the alternative between the American invasion and another 10 years of Saddam's rule, the nation of Iraq is immeasurably better off than it otherwise would be today. In other words, I support the war even though I may have entirely different reasons than the American leadership or public for doing so. I support the war even if there are a dozen other places I wish that America would have chosen instead, I still consider Saddam a good choice for removal too.


What I mean is, the most important factor we should consider when making forign policy is what effect that policy will have, both for them and us.

And that I agree with completely. I just consider that in Iraq the actions that Saddam took are much more important than American foreign policy towards him over that time. Whether America supported, ignored or actively opposed him earlier the shear magnitude of the violence and evil Saddam continually used is what should guide the current decision.

thanks man!
i have meant to watch ghosts of rwanda for a long time,and i never even heard of mullahs and the military.
ill give them a watch.
and i love galloway and hitchens sparring.the one you posted was a classic.

Here are a few videos I would consider must sees for anyone wanting to better understand the world we are in, and the terrible choices every foreign policy maker is faced with. I suppose this would be my own, current, top 5.

Between the Mullahs and the Military:
Pakistani born journalist Ziauddin Sardar returns to his country in 2007 and reports on the state of the nation and speaks to many influential people in the country and travels to some of the most unstable and dangerous parts of it. If you care about the war in Afghanistan, you really must watch this film to appreciate it's significance.

Inside North Korea:
The sift version of this is currently dead, I'll change both links if/when it comes back.
National Geographic manages to get a film crew into the country as aides to a surgeon that was allowed to work in the country for a short time. The commentary might seem over the top to some, bordering on propaganda. As you watch the documentary you will start to realize that it isn't hyperbole and the situation in North Korea is simply so awful there are hardly words to describe it.

George Galloway and Christopher Hitchens debate Iraq:
This isn't a documentary of course, it is instead a debate between two of Britain's best debaters. They are also both people who have visited and spent time in Iraq under Saddam and seen what it was like. Galloway was even able to personally meet with Saddam in the mid 1990's. I'm not sure if this is more informative or entertaining, but it's worth your time for both reasons all on their own.

Al-Anfal Campaign:
This video accounts victim testimony's from one of the worst genocides of our time. As the Iran-Iraq war ended Saddam set out to exterminate the Kurdish population in Northern Iraq, this video provides a brief glimpse of that tragedy.

Ghosts of Rwanda:
This is the single most important video I would recommend for anyone convinced that the world would be better with zero American intervention. The absolutely horrific account of what happened in Rwanda while the entire world agreed on non-intervention is vitally important to be remembered. Be warned, it is extremely difficult to watch some of this. It is like watching a recounting of the most brutal slasher/horror film ever produced, but where the 800,000 victims were real live human beings in our own world.

Or don't tax it at all and you still save money on pigs and prisons. But this isn't the damn point - prohibition is a human rights issue, any other discussion is an insulting diversion. "Hey, stop murdering Tutsis! Their tax-francs could really contribute to Rwanda's public services!"

Begging and bribing your masters to give you a little freedom back demeans the dignity of the human race. I'd like to see a commercial more along the lines of: "Fuck you pig. Legalise today or we'll burn your eyes out, rape your wife and kill your children. Isn't it time?"

Rugged like rwanda, don't wind up far or get chopped up
Quick to rush the spot like baby urine get mopped up
Tags that spray your hall with rap aerosol
Organized graffiti lectures in can control
Or level with the devil racing uptown first to fort apache
I'm much too much for any demon style to master me
From the thought's next bridge to the hell's gate, lyrically detonating
Sparking m-80's and bottle rockets it's a nigga chaser
Downtown graffiti deface a heroin debaser
Open up your eyes and clean out your nature
Wide open like the grand canyon
Emcees couldn't hang if they was lynched by the grand dragon
Searching for my style like job-corps
Coming home on work release shoplifting at the rap store
But sabotaging me ain't easy
I'm crooked like nathan wick starring as cochese
With a big baseball bat you get robbed like deniro
A sandwich still ain't nothing but a hero
Just a small sample of the abstract
When the rhyme gets crazy hot and lyrics don't know how to act
Whether shooting joints or wax
I go all out and attack crabs and herbs that's crazy wack
We all can't be pimps, and we all can't rap
You got to get your dollars on cause it's on like that
Here's what I want you to do
Niggas with the green axe and burgundy forerunner, inhuman like blade runner
When I'm rhyming all summer just listen to the drummer
Transistor blister feedback freak the impeders
Funk flow we expose frequencies in sequence
Napalm gets dropped long range like fiber optics
Check the rhyme activity your skills is microscopic
Peace to my crew and my nigga el-p
Who's here to spark it causing all these crabs to flee

Check it and I inflict it quattro nine fifty lungs misty
Color me maxmillian cause I'm that crazy robot
Teetering on the edge of outer space
Spitting buckshots till black holes surround me, you found me
As far as I'm concerned I've got your ashes in an urn
Big up, the temperamental hold none barred kid
What's your confunction? tracks is type dusty
Drinking water out the well of life and i'ma piss it back rusty
Flesh and phonics, you're God damned right
I'm on 'em like aeorta pacemakers hooked up to clappers
Clap off (*clap clap*) welcome to my free-form jubilee, look at me
The witness to the shit you wanna be
Dba lyrical p known as a simp and I'm a sycophant
Feeding on fats passed and dipped
In and out of my invisible state
Forerunner rep tyrannical
Wrecks like tecs bust mechanical
Rusty goner weasel painting beats on an easel
Shoot a head up, what bitch you're boxing shadows
Look out my way you pull your breath out to battle
Breaking your double helix, and now the shit is single
Not mono, I burn the needle out your vinyl
El-p the third gunner on the grassy knoll
Stroll, keep the seventh seal of heaven in my pocket
You're faggot like sprockets, motherfuck the houston rockets
I'm so sick of recycled metaphors
Bet but I'd fuck laura ingalls only when she's done with her chores
Got rappers tip toeing on a highway to heaven
Got manners like bruce banner when he's stressed
I'm sick of your corny beats and your crowd-involved hooks
Cause I'm a thinker
Evil anus letting off stinkers

Bj eight steps to perfection
The sum of each part forms an octagon
Let rhyme styles get sparked

Ep eight stpes to perfection
The sum of each part forms an octagon
Where rhyme styles get sparked

The holy terror, last moves you never won't win
Playing taps on a violin
You can never comprehend the rhyme origin
I rate one like a chinese, jamaicin like a chin
Hot rocking corduroy, ballys that's so fitted
Niggas came and assed out my tracks and left 'em shitted
Fuck the movement, lubricate the smooth shit
Just to letcha know, never do I use it
Strictly the blueprint for the ghetto music in my cipher
Shorty the sniper jeep like cherokee
When I take aim handling wall to wall emcees
Mr. madman attract lyrics like magnets
They fuck up speaking cavernous when I'm stabbing it
Like the juice, then go bronco busting loose
That's my word, you couldn't shoot or try to compute the math
To kick any type sport like the vandal
I manhandle, emcees get murdered like tennessa
Or trapped in the bedroom with the texas chain saw
Massacre one two three you're taking and tell 'em
Eastwick underground new york be the dwelling
I keep telling 'em the state of the mind be the mentals
If you murder up in the ghetto you murder in a temple

Tags for this video have been changed from 'adam curtis, charlie brooker, newswipe' to 'adam curtis, charlie brooker, newswipe, 2009, biafra, ethiopia, msf, cold war, rwanda' - edited by Eklek

David Schwimmer makes me want to blend puppies with cyanide and feed it to homeless children in Rwanda...

Nazis aren't communists; in fact, I think they persecuted communists. But, I'm with you otherwise, volum.

Why does white pride=nazi. That's like a black person taking pride in the Rwanda genocide.

If the question you were responding to, "how do you reconcile your support for invasive government with Gandhi's ahimsa, or total non-violence?" were on a test, what grade would you give your answer?

^Farhad2000:
My stance on interventionism (both hard and soft) is intellectually based as it has not been proven to have been applied in any conflict so far bar some UN peace keeping operations which forced conflicting parties to negotiate, something that has been said could have prevented the Rwandan genocide had the UN presented a large military preseence and excuted its mandate of nullifying combative arms and forced the application of the peace accords both sides agreed to before the presidents death, more on this can be read in L.Gen Romeo Dallire's "Shake Hands With The Devil" an account of his command of UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda at the time. Instead we saw the international world sit back and watch a genocide of unimaginable proportions occur, both France and the US had forces it could have deployed.
I have stated that American intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan has been a disaster for this argument for the next 100 years. But its silly to question someones opinion on it, I think its an interesting proposition while at the same time acknowledging that it's most probably impossible to execute on a international scale without interfering on national sovereignty, as much as the Iraq war has created problems no one can really state that it would have been better to simply let Saddam stay in power and hope things get better for Iraqis by doing nothing.



If you take away ahimsa from Gandhi you are left with almost nothing - it was the most unique philosophical trait about him. If you disagree with ahimsa, why are you pretending that you and him are on similar wavelengths?