Hotel Rwanda

[Flasch186]

Wow....

it certainly is a shame that people do this to eachother. May we never stand aside while Genocide occurs and allow it to continue anywhere in the world. No matter the politics, we should all be in support of stopping these attrocities.

[NoMyths]

And yet we are. 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur; another 10,000 are murdered every month. What is our country doing to stop the slaughter?

[sovereignstar]

And yet we are. 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur; another 10,000 are murdered every month. What is our country doing to stop the slaughter?

Huh.. maybe they could squeeze that in on the news sometime in between the stock market reports and updates on that faggot Michael Jackson.

[NoMyths]

Huh.. maybe they could squeeze that in on the news sometimeYou'd think that they would. But most folks don't want to be bothered by it.

It's not like it's hard to be informed about it, given our unprecedented access to information. It's just easier not to care. And after it's run its course, we'll have another round of "never again" commiserations.

[MrBug708]

And yet we are. 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur; another 10,000 are murdered every month. What is our country doing to stop the slaughter?

When we do people like you accuse the admin of forcing our views on people. Just a no win category.

[NoMyths]

When we do people like you accuse the admin of forcing our views on people. Just a no win category.You're trying to paint too broad an area with that brush, Bug. And you're incorrect on both counts.

[Kevin]

No oil in Rwanda or Darfur.

[stevew]

Huh.. maybe they could squeeze that in on the news sometime in between the stock market reports and updates on that faggot Michael Jackson.


Most Pederasts are not faggots with people that are a similar age to them.

[Bubba Wheels]

Uh, yeah, isn't this why we created the U.N. and spend billions of dollars a year in supporting and maintaining it? Then isn't it the U.N. who should be shedding light on these atrocities and coming up with a plan for intervening on behalf of the helpless parties? Or maybe, as we've seen with the Oil-for-Food program those running the U.N. have a different idea of 'parties' in mind.

But the clear bottom line is, if we have to do all the world policing ourselves then why in the heck are we paying billions for the U.N. at all?

[Flasch186]

in the movie the journalist has an awesome conversation about the coverage and how he believes the west will react, with Paul.

Good movie, I recommend it.

[albionmoonlight]

Uh, yeah, isn't this why we created the U.N. and spend billions of dollars a year in supporting and maintaining it? Then isn't it the U.N. who should be shedding light on these atrocities and coming up with a plan for intervening on behalf of the helpless parties? Or maybe, as we've seen with the Oil-for-Food program those running the U.N. have a different idea of 'parties' in mind.

But the clear bottom line is, if we have to do all the world policing ourselves then why in the heck are we paying billions for the U.N. at all?I, for one, am not ready to give the U.N. the power that it needs to really make a difference in areas like this. Something tells me that you are not either.

You can't use the presence of a neutered U.N. to excuse our standing on the sideline. Not if you want to be taken at all seriously as one who applies logic to facts to arrive at conclusions. "There's this organization that, if it were different, might do something about this, so I don't see why it should be my problem." Really?

To put it another way--if you saw a guy beating an innocent old woman on the street, would you just ignore it because "we pay thousands of dollars for a city police force that is supposed to stop this sort of thing"?

Christ said "Do unto others . . ." Not "Do unto others unless you can think of a good excuse"

There are certainly pros and cons to the political/moral decisions concerning intervention in global trouble spots. You need to, however, debate those pros and cons. Not rely on the presence of some other body to excuse your standing by with a smug air of moral superiority. You can do better than shooting the UN fish in the (oil) barrel.

[NoMyths]

I, for one, am not ready to give the U.N. the power that it needs to really make a difference in areas like this. Something tells me that you are not either.

You can't use the presence of a neutered U.N. to excuse our standing on the sideline. Not if you want to be taken at all seriously as one who applies logic to facts to arrive at conclusions. "There's this organization that, if it were different, might do something about this, so I don't see why it should be my problem." Really?

To put it another way--if you saw a guy beating an innocent old woman on the street, would you just ignore it because "we pay thousands of dollars for a city police force that is supposed to stop this sort of thing"?

Christ said "Do unto others . . ." Not "Do unto others unless you can think of a good excuse"

There are certainly pros and cons to the political/moral decisions concerning intervention in global trouble spots. You need to, however, debate those pros and cons. Not rely on the presence of some other body to excuse your standing by with a smug air of moral superiority. You can do better than shooting the UN fish in the (oil) barrel.Well said.

[Warhammer]

This isn't just the case of stopping a guy beating an old woman on the street, unless you are paying someone millions of dollars for the rights to do so. Then again, after the law suit that the guy brings against you, you might need millions...

Anyway, this is a classic case of the press not doing their duty. This was a news worthy event, but it did not receive much press here. However, what would we have done about it?

I do not think people would have favored going in to stop the killing. People still opposed the war in Iraq even with all the past history of abuse Saddam has heaped upon his people. Did people want to go into Afghanistan under the Taliban, even though there were abuses there?

People of this country do not want to, and would not help, another people unless we are directly, or perceive us to be directly, threatened.

[st.cronin]

This isn't just the case of stopping a guy beating an old woman on the street, unless you are paying someone millions of dollars for the rights to do so. Then again, after the law suit that the guy brings against you, you might need millions...

Anyway, this is a classic case of the press not doing their duty. This was a news worthy event, but it did not receive much press here. However, what would we have done about it?

I do not think people would have favored going in to stop the killing. People still opposed the war in Iraq even with all the past history of abuse Saddam has heaped upon his people. Did people want to go into Afghanistan under the Taliban, even though there were abuses there?

People of this country do not want to, and would not help, another people unless we are directly, or perceive us to be directly, threatened.

Not to mention all the opposition to Kosovo and Rwanda during the Clinton years. Foreign interventions are a very tough sell for the american people.

[Wolfpack]

Not the least of which is because you'll get bleats of "American imperialism" or "America is acting unilaterally" or "the UN should be sanctioning this" every time we try to do such actions, no matter who's running the country. Unless, of course, it's North Korea, in which case we should be acting unilaterally. Or something like that.

[judicial clerk]

I have to trust our leadership to make the decision to intervene or stand idle in these types of situations. I expect them to be well-briefed on these sorts of issues and make decisions in accordance with the mandate that goes with their offices.

[QuikSand]

People of this country do not want to, and would not help, another people unless we are directly, or perceive us to be directly, threatened.

I realize there is a good deal of truth to this, but I think it's overstated. Certainly, there are a lot of Americans who couldn't care less about the rest of the world. But I think there are a lot of Americans of all political persuasions who would support American intervention into circumstances of potential genocide.

The thing is, as a political event, we suffer from our "top-down" thinking, where we seek to turn every vent into an opportunity to leverage some new degree of embarassment onto our political opponents. If the current Republican administration wanted to wade right into the Sudan to intervene... there's no doubt at all that some people would opt to attack this strategy in one way or another. And the fact of the matter is that in a military engagement, things can go horribly, horribly wrong - helicopters crash, soldiers are killed by friendly fire, children step on land mines, hospitals get blown up, and so forth. And you know that when you go in, there's at least the chance that some of this sticks to you, politically speaking.

So, the only way you do it is if you are properly motivated. And that means, regrettably, that it's basically one of two things that will motivate us to get involved abroad. Our own self-defense, and our own bottom-line. If the United States had a meaningful stake in the ongoing stability in the Sudan, or the entire Sub-saharan Africa region, you bet your sweet ass we'd be in there helping to sort things out. We'd have been there in Rwanda, and we'd be there right now in Sudan. But that simply isn't the case. We don't go in somewhere for the sake of peace, or for the sake of protecting humanity, we go in for the sake of our own interests - be they economic, military, or cultural. Yes my inclusion of that last element also conccedes that, like it or not, our foreign policy is in some part determined by the degree to which people are "like us." The whiter they are, the more people here in America can trace their roots to that country, the more things in their culture we can identify with... the more likely we are to give a damn about them. Too bad if you don't pass those tests. Eastern Europe just scores higher than Central Africa.


I hate to essentially agree with the most cynical views about our political system... but that's essentially the most coherent way I can see to make sense of contemporary foreign policy. (And that's not a partisan comment, I don't mean the last handful of years, I mean the last policital generation or two)

[Flasch186]

I realize there is a good deal of truth to this, but I think it's overstated. Certainly, there are a lot of Americans who couldn't care less about the rest of the world. But I think there are a lot of Americans of all political persuasions who would support American intervention into circumstances of potential genocide.

The thing is, as a political event, we suffer from our "top-down" thinking, where we seek to turn every vent into an opportunity to leverage some new degree of embarassment onto our political opponents. If the current Republican administration wanted to wade right into the Sudan to intervene... there's no doubt at all that some people would opt to attack this strategy in one way or another. And the fact of the matter is that in a military engagement, things can go horribly, horribly wrong - helicopters crash, soldiers are killed by friendly fire, children step on land mines, hospitals get blown up, and so forth. And you know that when you go in, there's at least the chance that some of this sticks to you, politically speaking.

So, the only way you do it is if you are properly motivated. And that means, regrettably, that it's basically one of two things that will motivate us to get involved abroad. Our own self-defense, and our own bottom-line. If the United States had a meaningful stake in the ongoing stability in the Sudan, or the entire Sub-saharan Africa region, you bet your sweet ass we'd be in there helping to sort things out. We'd have been there in Rwanda, and we'd be there right now in Sudan. But that simply isn't the case. We don't go in somewhere for the sake of peace, or for the sake of protecting humanity, we go in for the sake of our own interests - be they economic, military, or cultural. Yes my inclusion of that last element also conccedes that, like it or not, our foreign policy is in some part determined by the degree to which people are "like us." The whiter they are, the more people here in America can trace their roots to that country, the more things in their culture we can identify with... the more likely we are to give a damn about them. Too bad if you don't pass those tests. Eastern Europe just scores higher than Central Africa.


I hate to essentially agree with the most cynical views about our political system... but that's essentially the most coherent way I can see to make sense of contemporary foreign policy. (And that's not a partisan comment, I don't mean the last handful of years, I mean the last policital generation or two)


kind of goes against the paperwork we signed after WW2....sad.

[Desnudo]

I'm not sure dropping the Marines into Rwanda is an automatic solution. Or would even help, or have helped, substantially. Really what I would like to see is pressure on the European Union for their ex-colonial powers to clean up the mess they made over a few hundred years. Is genocide a horrible thing? Absolutely. Should the US be everywhere at once? Definitely not. Some weight must fall on the shoulders of other developed nations. Where have Germany, France, England, et al. been during all of this?

[BishopMVP]

No oil in Rwanda or Darfur.Actually, there is plenty of oil in Darfur and the Sudan. The Chinese have bought drilling rights to most of it, but another group heavily involved there is Total (formerly TotalFinaElf) controlled by Paul Desmarais, the same group that controlled the largest share (25%) of drilling rights under Saddam if sanctions ceased. Also a very good friend of Chretien and Martin.

To back up Quiksand's point, I'm surprised no one has brought up Mogadishu yet.And after it's run its course, we'll have another round of "never again" commiserations.Why wait? Let's just start now, because as much as I'd love to see the US going in and stopping it, it ain't going to happen. In Rwanda, we had enough Marines on the ground, the French enough paratroopers within days to stop it, but just used them to evacuate westerners. And the UN certainly won't be intervening in the Sudan with China having veto power (even if they did, the track record in the Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, etc. is abysmal.) Any other countries interested in stepping up? Maybe in a decade when it becomes impossible to ignore the rise of Wahhabism and Extremist/Fundamentalist Islam along the Christian/Muslim rift in countries like Nigeria/Chad/Sudan we'll start paying more attention. Not that it will help any of today's victims.

[Sharpieman]

I have a really bad feeling about ignoring Africa. For some reason I think its going to hurt us in the future.

[korme]

Great movie.

10/10

Rarely do I see better acting than Don Cheadle's performance.