Book: A Problem from Hell

UN ambassador Samantha Powers was on Rachel's show last week, and talked persuasively about the moral imperative for the United States to intervene in genocides. Although the 620-page book may get skimmed pretty peremptorily, it seemed like a subject with enough moral ambiguity to make for interesting reading.

"Genocides" go beyond the normal sectarian, religious, ethnic or racial warfare. In a genocide, one group decides it must wipe out an entire population, men, women and children, regardless of whether any of them are actively involved in hostilities. It is "ethnic cleansing" which is not always based on ethnicity. The author focuses on six instances, the 1915-6 assault on Armenians by Turkey, the 1939-1944 Holocaust, Pol Pot's 1975-9 Cambodian campaign, Saddam Hussein's 1987-8 anti-Kurd campaign, Bosnia's 1992-5 slaughter of Serbian Muslims, and the 1994 Rwandan killing of Tutus.

I'm not expecting light reading.

"A problem from hell" indeed. Intervene too soon, and you end up OWNING the problem, like Viet Nam.

Intervene too late and millions of innocents have already died.

"Dead men tell no tales." The common theme to all these genocides is the closing of borders, expelling of journalists, control of information. Once shut off from the outside world, the rulers are free to slaughter at will as many people as they want, and there will be no evidence until the pile of bodies or stack of bones or wall of skulls is uncovered. By then, it's too late.

Good thing the human species is not endangered.

Or maybe that's not a good thing. I can't think of any other species that slaughters its own kind in quantity. Fish will eat their young, territorial animals will defend their territory to the death, lions will kill cubs of other males. But nobody wipes out entire populations.

After 400 pages of stomach-churning photographs and descriptions, I've stopped even skimming. The human race is abysmal. I want no part of it.