07-04-2004 05:05									#1
	They said "Never Again!" . . . but they lied Remove this text

Tomorrow, April 7, 2004, is the tenth anniversery of beginning of the Ruandan genocide. For 100 days, the world stood watching as Hutus slaughtered 800,000 of their neighbors, the Tutsis. The world refused to help.

The UN soldiers were told not to get invovled, but they did. Unarmed UN soldiers declared buildings under their protection, and the people inside survived. A Senegalese UN capitain snuck Tutsis to safty before he was killed by motor shrapnel. The UN commander still has nightmares. The U.S. offered to send a tank brigade, but it would have taken three months to arive. The Belgians fled when ten of them were beaten to death (a number calculated by the Hutus to drive the Westerners out, and it worked).

We said never again, but we did nothing but watched when it happened again.

	07-04-2004 05:06									#2
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Why would something like this be justification for an invasion?

	07-04-2004 05:08									#3
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If this isn't, nothing is.

	07-04-2004 05:09									#4
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There are quite a few places that we should be invading if gross human rights violations justify an unprovoked attack.

	07-04-2004 05:12									#5
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Indeed. But very few where major genocides are ongoing.

	07-04-2004 05:13									#6
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Why should that be the determining factor?

	07-04-2004 05:16									#7
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Must be nice to have the luxury of playing both sides of a coin on things.

	07-04-2004 05:17									#8
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Me or che?

	07-04-2004 05:21									#9
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quote: Originally posted by DinoDoc Why should that be the determining factor?

I'm not saying it should. I'm pointing out that there's a difference between a genocide and "mere" gross violations of human rights.

An unprovoked invasion would, in my view, be justified if it can be reasonably assumed to save alot more lives than it will take. But that's for 'nother thread.

	07-04-2004 05:23									#10
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Why? These issues seem to be exactly what this thread is about.

	07-04-2004 05:25									#11
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DD is right. That is what this is about. Why did we do nothing? And worse, we used it to justify an attack on a country were it was not occuring.

	07-04-2004 05:28									#12
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara If this isn't, nothing is.

Do they have oil?

	07-04-2004 05:36									#13
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara If this isn't, nothing is.

So you would have supported an invasion of Iraq made under a pretense of ending Saddam's murder and brutality?

	07-04-2004 05:41									#14
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Why "we" did nothing in Rwanda? Unwillingness to expose our boys in the line of fire*, the strategic unimportantness of the region, the Rwandan regime having unlikely friends in influential places, the fact that international politics are alot about realpolitik and not alot about humanistic ideals.

* This is pretty rich coming from someone who's country has very limited abilities to place troops anywhere, but you get the point.

	07-04-2004 05:45									#15
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Is there genocide in Rwanda occurring on right now?

quote: So you would have supported an invasion of Iraq made under a pretense of ending Saddam's murder and brutality?

Out of all of the brutal leaders of the world we could choose to take out, we just had to pick the one that would cost billions of dollars to remove, cost thousands of lives, destroy the country's infrastructure, completely alienate us from the rest of the world, and disrupt what was the best possible scenario for that country. With Iraq's socio-economic and ethnic problems, not to mention the fact that most of the population doesn't want democracy or know how to run one, I doubt a democracy could work.

If you want to spread democracy throughout the world, the best way to do it would be first to remove the dictators of countries that could support a democracy. But you wouldn't do it the US way and twist everything for your own interests. The thing to do is to cut off the dictator from any support and put pressure on him. If this is done any unpopular regime will fall.

	07-04-2004 05:48									#16
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quote: Why "we" did nothing in Rwanda? Unwillingness to expose our boys in the line of fire*, the strategic unimportantness of the region, the Rwandan regime having unlikely friends in influential places, the fact that international politics are alot about realpolitik and not alot about humanistic ideals.

Spot on. Also African wars are considered par for the course in the West, mostly because of the geographical boundaries and thus many countries have a wait out the wars and see what happens attitute.

	07-04-2004 05:48									#17
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Will it? I'm not aware of much evidence supporting that conviction.

Edit: This as reply to johncmcleod.

	07-04-2004 05:49									#18
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quote: There are quite a few places that we should be invading if gross human rights violations justify an unprovoked attack.

Yep. Unfortunately, the current state of this government is a strange combination of total ineptitude and malevolence.

The closest thing to Rwanda today in terms of magnitude of human rights violations is probably Burma. I'm not sure that I'd oppose an invasion of Burma by this gov't.

	07-04-2004 05:53									#19
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Myanmar, not Burma.

	07-04-2004 05:55									#20
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http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications...ok/geos/bm.html

quote: since 1989 the military authorities in Burma have promoted the name Myanmar as a conventional name for their state; this decision was not approved by any sitting legislature in Burma, and the US Government did not adopt the name, which is a derivative of the Burmese short-form name Myanma Naingngandaw

	07-04-2004 05:55									#21
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Same difference. Burma's a better name.

	07-04-2004 05:58									#22
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I don't see why we shouldn't continue to call the place Burma. But this is definitively OT.

But the place's "minority policies" are indeed atrocious, and they're not exactly treating the Burmans very well either. However, I'm afraid I'm extremely skeptic that a US invasion would improve matters.

	07-04-2004 06:00									#23
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I was quite amazed to see the term 'Burma' being in use at here, in ACS; since I haven't seen it written in Finland since... very early 90's, I think. If it's called Burma in the 'states (Altough according to the final and absolute truth Myanmar is the correct, international term), then go on, I don't care that much from semantics, either.

Last edited by VJ on 07-04-2004 at 06:06

	07-04-2004 06:11									#24
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Of course another reason we went into Iraq is they were working to destroy America and kill Americans. They were the only nation to officially say the Sept 11 attack on New York was good thing and publicly support and congratualate the people who did it.

That might make us a little more aggressive at wanting to take a go at them than some country who wasn't actively trying to murder us.

	07-04-2004 06:24									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Verto So you would have supported an invasion of Iraq made under a pretense of ending Saddam's murder and brutality?

Saddam's murder and brutality ended ten++ years ago.

	07-04-2004 07:20									#26
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quote: Originally posted by St Leo quote: Originally posted by Verto So you would have supported an invasion of Iraq made under a pretense of ending Saddam's murder and brutality? Saddam's murder and brutality ended ten++ years ago.

When is the last time you have spoken to a Kurd? Facts please, opinions are like a$$holes.

	07-04-2004 07:23									#27
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quote: Saddam's murder and brutality ended ten++ years ago.

Around the same time his american support ended.

	07-04-2004 08:14									#28
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On the 'why should we front' wasn't the new justification for toppling Saddam that he was a bad guy who killed lots of his own people?

I seem to recall that it was US quibbling over using the word 'genocide' which would have forced them to honour the original treaty and miserably failed purpose of the UN, i.e. to prevent future genocides via collective security and a multinational army.

	07-04-2004 08:21									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Seeker On the 'why should we front' wasn't the new justification for toppling Saddam that he was a bad guy who killed lots of his own people?

A statement that applies to so many countries as to be laughably meaningless. Unless of course you'd care to spearhead the invasion into China or North Korea.

	07-04-2004 11:30									#30
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quote: Will it? I'm not aware of much evidence supporting that conviction.

Iran, Nicaragua, Indonesia.