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Originally Posted by Malkavian
Perhaps, but that assumes a fixed plan on the part of Hutu militias... They only killed 10 Belgians because that was their order to scare UN off.... If UN decided to stay, what if an order came through for full scale engagement?
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A guess? Detailed? Bleh. Say you divide the corps you have on hand & assign each one to those places where the largest number of civilians were gathering. Then you wait, because if such a command/permission been given, with it would have been at least some the troops the UN had originally promised Dallaire. Odds are, with that kind of support behind you, you won't wait long: when the French went in (after the genocide, & to protect
the Hutus), they mobilized fast.
The point of killing the Flemish soldiers had been scaring off the UN... Had they underestimated UN's commitment to its ideological principles, seeing more troops come in would've given them pause. (< understatement)
You must understand, there's an element of momentum critical to this type of situation, and they were not up to fighting both the UN & Kagami's troops.
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They buy their guns on the black market nowadays, but still, we could stop selling them weapons... and stop propping up governments, and let them nationalize their industries (those that are controlled unfairly from colonial times)...
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RE Nationalized industries et al - It probably depends on the region (& industry). Remember how many of those dictators funneled $ for themselves, and still do, so it's not working out so well. OTOH, foreign owned corporations would probably also suck. Who sucks less? Don't know yet, it's an enormous subject & I've some way to go before I might know what I'm talking about.
The black market supplies some weapons, others are from shadow nations who supply them 'secretly' (sometimes, it isn't that big a secret). As far as I know, if the US has culpability now, it's far less active than a couple of others, not necessarily for the right reasons.
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Those are all fine points for non-interventionism. After all, Africa existed before West showed up, and for better or worse, they managed their own affairs and lived their own lives as they saw fit. I'm pretty sure they'll sort things out eventually, like they always have before, without much outside assistance, as long as we don't create artificial barriers for it.
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...Before the European scramble is just... no comparison. Sure it did relatively well, colonial expansion was limited to the technology of the time. Africa's topography & climate made much of it a most inhospitable place to visit, much less explore & conquer...
(later) OK, maybe I see why you're not getting me at all. Before I started reading about these countries, I didn't understand how and why these strong-men kept getting control of those countries over & over again, and I didn't get how Europe's artificial borders aggravated tribal conflicts & warlords. Do you feel as if I'm coming from a school of thought that perpetuates dilhemmas like these by fostering helplessness (or something like that)? -- Because I can't make sense of this part otherwise, they don't call this planet a global village for nothing.
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Well, they don't want us there... If we show up, they fly planes into buildings... I mean, as you mentioned before, we can keep dumping aid, but that's hardly a permanent solution... We can not do nation building for moral and political reasons, so else is left there, realistically?
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You mean: we've already tried it all & nothing's worked so far?
I must be very tired or something
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Hmm... ok, from the countries mentioned above... US in Iraq, Russia in Chechnya, and China in Tibet... Would any of those warrant interventions? By some measures those actions would warrant genocide label... Or at least "lotsa people killed" one.
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Iraq: yup. Don't know much about Chechnya or Tibet at all (mortifying). Are you giving me these examples of situations where you think UN peace-keepers - and I use the term deliberately, as that is their primary function - would have driven the stakes up into more serious events?
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To kill a million people with machete requires a lot of people. It's very labor intensive. It wasn't one guy pushing a button in gas chamber or dropping napalm on the jungle... With machete, results are right in front of you, so you know what you are doing... Given the amount of people who must have been involved in the effort, i think they though it was cool... If i hear a radio program that tells me to pick up a knife and hack my neighbors to death, my reaction would be  ... Granted, there would be a few psychos would would go out and murder, but those should be a very small minority.... Definitely not on the scale of million murders.
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You'd think more people would go wtf, but that didn't happen, and given the correct conditions, more people than not will go along with what they perceive as the majority. Hutu civilians who went along with it did it to save themselves, possibly a spouse or a child. Most of them have said that the first was the hardest, then it got easy, and the memory of that first kill bothered them less as they killed more.
If you're thinking large #s of Hutu complicity = very large force against the UN, nope.
Well, you could establish a refugee camp in a country that actually would want to accept it... As for Rwanda, even Tutsi rebels opposed UN presence... Would a confrontation between UN and the rebels have slowed down their offensive and thus prolonged the genocide? We may have the means, but if we are not welcome, i don't think we will will succeed.[/quote]Mal? You've already said this RE Tutsi feeling towards the UN, and as I've said before: no, that isn't it. Kagame's ambivalence over the UN doesn't make a case against intervention, that's spin.
+Again, with Rwanda, armed confrontation was an issue when massacres began upon Pres Habyarimana's assassination
half a year after Dallaire's arrival. UN troops could & would have stopped the genocide, and people who were there are convinced a small show of strength would have been enough.