Western Hypocrites

How they wailed and moaned over the Houla massacre, one year ago in Syria.  ”Assad the Butcher” needed to be taken out.  ”Diplomats” pulled out of Syria.  Diplomacy with the mad murderer of Damascus was impossible.

How they wept for the 49 murdered children, until the moment it was revealed that the murderers were their own Salafist terrorists.  Then the news disappeared forever.

Syria : One Year After the Houla Massacre. New Report on Official vs. Real Truth

Syria: The First Casualty…

The mass murder crime remains.  The perpetrators are known, and they are being funded and armed by the US and its immoral allies.

And how we trembled at Obama, the great leader’s, “red line” concerning chemical weapons, nerve gas, the terror of “Weapons of Mass Destruction”(TM) in the hands of the evil overlord Bashar Al Assad.

When the gas was released, the line was crossed.  Only swift heroic action by valiant NATO troops and planes could save the poor “freedom fighters” from the clutches of the brute.  It was global news, an hysteria and call for more war.

Then the United Nations determined it was those same Jihadi terrorists again, who had used the nerve gas.  The so-called “freedom fighters” had killed Syrian troops at a security station with the gas.  The lie was exposed once again, and the terrorist’s PR front, all those lying “activists” trained in deceiving western publics were completely discredited again for the thousandth time over the past two years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CpYmUZTTtXM

And silence.  Silence in the US press.

The Orwellian US “free press” is nothing of the sort.  By self-censoring the truth, on behalf of US imperial interests and war propaganda, they are the enemy of the American People.  Turn off that junk noise.  Get the facts yourself.  Do not believe US media, as they are known liars.

Pakistani court declares US drone strikes illegal

 

Judge ORDERS government to halt cooperation with US drone attacks in Pakistan tribal belt, and to go to UN Security Council.

UK Independent: A Pakistani court has declared that US drone strikes in the country’s tribal belt are illegal and has directed the government to move a resolution against the attacks in the United Nations.

Obama’s official state murder policies may be meeting some meaningful resistance.

 

UN Exposes Syria False Flag Gas Attack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CpYmUZTTtXM”

Leading UN Investigator: “Evidently Syrian Rebels Used Sarin”

More evidence.

Israel’s Latest War Crimes

“Israeli strike kills 42 Syrian soldiers”

-Stars and Stripes

The psychotic double-standard in international relations could easily compare to WW2 Nazi rationalizations.  If any other country does the same thing — invade a country’s air space, drop bombs on its facilities, murder its soldiers, it suddenly becomes quite clear what’s happening.  If Canada flies down into New York and bombs a military base, the United States would have a problem with that.  If Russia flies into Alaskan air space and sinks a US patrol boat, this is clearly to be interpreted as an act of war, a war crime and an atrocity.

But imperialists and “exceptionalists” don’t adhere to reality, morality, common sense or anything approaching ethical behavior.

The big story that US media doesn’t want to talk about:

UN: Rebels, not Assad, appear to have used chemical weapons

United Nations human rights investigators said Sunday they have gathered testimony from outside Syria suggesting rebels, not Bashar Assad’s regime, may have used chemical weapons.“Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated,” Carla Del Ponte, a member of the independent commission of inquiry on Syria, told Swiss-Italian television. “This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities.”

-The Hill

If the ignorant sheeple don’t hear about it, then it never happened, clearly.

UN: Prosecute US Torturers

A new breakthrough at the UN Commission for Human Rights:

UN demands US leaders be charged with War Crimes over Torture

After eight years of stonewalling and resistance by US and UK authorities, the UN special investigator addressed the world body’s Human Rights Commission publicly, demanding the two nations cooperate with the investigation.

Ben Emmerson, the lead special investigator, described to the gathered UN dignitaries a setting of self-approved legal immunity among US and UK national leaders. He called the two governments’ standing policy, “A policy of de facto immunity for public officials who engaged in acts of torture, rendition and secret detention, and their superiors and political masters who authorized these acts.”

This is one for the Quotables page:

“Platitudinous repetition of statements affirming opposition to torture ring hollow to many in those parts of the Middle East and North Africa that have undergone, or are undergoing, major upheaval, since they have first-hand experience of living under repressive regimes that used torture in private whilst making similar statements in public.”

Emmerson directly calls out Barack Obama:

“The skepticism of these communities can only be reinforced if Western governments continue to demonstrate resolute indifference to the crimes committed by their predecessor administrations.”

 

The Truth About Radiation

 

Published at…

 

The Truth About Radiation

Joe Giambrone

(Please distribute widely with attribution.)

I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news, and I’m going to have to point out some widespread – let’s say – untruths going around concerning the health impacts of radiation poisoning from the Fukushima meltdowns.  Yes, that’s “meltdowns,” plural.  It’s actually quite a bit more catastrophic than your mainstream media will tell you, and your government officials, of course, have only ever had one message on the subject: ‘It’s reaaaaaaally not so bad, so don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.’  They were saying this on day one, before they knew how bad it was. They were saying it ever since, even as the numbers skyrocketed up into uncharted territory.  How can they get away with blatantly lying to the public, you might ask?  That is a complex question, and requires a complex answer.

Ask yourself this, next time you come upon a “don’t worry be happy” take on a nuclear meltdown in the media:  are any doctors, the people directly treating the children who live in the radioactive contamination zones, ever included in their reporting?

Short answer is no.  They are not.  Are these doctors far too busy and/or isolated to be interviewed?  Is that the reason for their absence across the mainstream news-tainment complex?

A typical radiation news report includes an IAEA spokesman, a government official, and a factoid from the latest study that has come out, all of which bolsters the idea that nuclear meltdowns aren’t so bad.  One might assume that the IAEA, or International Atomic Energy Agency, is some kind of skeptical party, a watchdog perhaps.  This is false.  The IAEA was created by the UN Security Council, and its five permanent nuclear powers, to “…[assist] its Member States, in the context of social and economic goals, in planning for and using nuclear science and technology for various peaceful purposes, including the generation of electricity…”  In other words, the purpose of the IAEA is to promote the nuclear power industry on behalf of the most powerful nuclear states on the planet.

The IAEA is a political organization with the power to censor other UN bodies on nuclear matters, including the World Health Organization.  How would I know this?  Because it happened in 1995, when the World Health Organization studied the Chernobyl catastrophe.  WHO Director Hiroshi Nakajima held a conference of “700 experts and physicians” who would go on to produce the most comprehensive report of the human consequences of the Chernobyl meltdown to date.  This report was never published, never released to the public, and erased from history by orders of the IAEA.  You didn’t hear about that from network news.  It is found in a small Swiss news documentary entitled “Nuclear Controversies” (available online).

The corporate press went ape recently over a new report by the WHO, telling us that yes there is massive contamination, but “only” small percentages were calculated by them to form cancer as a result during their lifetimes.  These calculations make erroneous assumptions, however, and glaring omissions, which require further examination.  This examination did not happen in the corporate press; it never does.  CNN proclaims, “Report: Fukushima’s radiation damaged more souls than bodies (Feb 28, 2013).”

Do you believe that?

Ten days before this headline appeared on the world’s flagship news source, the Fukushima prefecture (ground zero) produced an official report that tells us, “44.2 percent of 94,975 children sampled had thyroid ultrasound abnormalities (RT, February 18, 2013).”  So, is the thyroid in the realm of the body or of the soul?

The thyroid is but one organ of the body.  It absorbs radioactive iodine and then the patient goes on to suffer a long list of incurable illnesses for the rest of their lives, including cancers.  Cancers, it should be understood from the start, take decades to form, and should not be widespread barely two years after the disaster.  But there are many, many other organs affected by ingesting radioactive “hot particles,” which CNN, the IAEA, and most of the corporate press will not talk about.  For this information you will need to perform due diligence and research the matter personally.

I’m afraid the public has been propagandized and blatantly lied to since the days of “Our friend the atom.”  A logical outgrowth of the nuclear weapons industry, the nuclear power industry was championed by the United States with outlandish claims that never, ever came close to being true.  The initial pitch was that electricity would be “too cheap to meter,” which is absurd today.  Nuclear power generation is one of the most expensive methods of creating electricity, and far and away the most dangerous.

Another factor that most in the public don’t know about is the Price Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act of 1957.  Indemnity?  That’s a curious word to be found in an act of congress, no?  Why would a private for-profit electrical generating industry need the federal government to grant it “indemnity?”  What does this law have to do with the nuclear power stations, perhaps in your neck of the nation?

That is quite curious, indeed.  The law caps the liability of the companies that run these power plants.  It shields them from the consequences of their actions, their giant dirty bombs, which are routinely operated in a reckless manner and not maintained at anything approaching a reasonable degree of safety.  Plants across the United States have exceeded their 40 year initial design lifespans, and yet remain in operation with leaking pipes and worn out critical safety systems.  Often emergency generators won’t even operate at all, and these are not kept in proven working condition.

The Price Anderson Act rewards this culture of recklessness by shifting the burden onto a minimal insurance fund that isn’t even paid unless a meltdown occurs.  Once a meltdown occurs, the industry as a whole is required to chip in a token amount per year with the federal government left holding the bag to the tune of unknown billions of dollars.

Nuclear power plant operators are:

“…capped at $17.5 million per year until either a claim has been met, or their maximum individual liability (the $111.9 million maximum) has been reached… (Wikipedia)”

Simply put, no private insurance company will take on the risk of insuring entire cities, entire regions against a nuclear calamity.  The industry would not exist at all, period, if the federal government didn’t absorb this risk.  What’s more, those affected by massive radiation leaks are in no way guaranteed anything if their properties and businesses find themselves swimming in radiation.  If the patterns witnessed so far hold true, the standard response to a meltdown is to claim that a radiated zone is clean enough to go on living in, whether you and your family are contaminated or not.  The end result of a fictional, feel-good spun reality is that the people on the receiving end are out of luck, and those responsible for massive environmental calamities walk away with fat bank accounts.

Speaking of nuclear controversies, the blackout on valid medical reporting and the human costs of radiation poisoning, isn’t total.  Slivers of light do shine through from time to time.  How many have actually sat down and watched the 2004 Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary Short?  It’s a low-budget, one-camera excursion to the radiation zone near Chernobyl by Maryann DeLeo, and it’s called Charnobyl Heart.

What is “Chernobyl Heart?”  It’s not a feel-good term for emotional outpouring.  It’s a medical condition brought on by ingesting radionuclides, which damage the vital organs of the children of Ukraine, Belarus and the surrounding region.  This heart disease, labeled “cesium cardiomyopathy,” is killing the young of the contaminated zone who require major open heart surgery to remain alive. Thyroid cancers are also prevalent, and quite a large number of other radiation induced maladies, which you will not learn about from your corporate media.  Chernobyl Heart is also available online.

What you will be told by your televised talking heads is that there is such a thing as “background radiation” and that any and all radiation problems you may encounter are of no more concern to you than eating a banana or flying in a plane at high altitude.  Are you really going to fall for that one?  They type this stuff with a straight face.

The US Academy of Sciences studied the effects of low-level ionizing radiation in a massive report called BEIR-VII: Health Risks From Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation (2006).  Well, the very first paragraph tells us, “A comprehensive review of available biological and biophysical data supports a “linear-no-threshold” (LNT) risk model—that the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and that the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.”

So think about that.  How then can the news media and government officials proclaim that doses are so small that they are “safe” and of no concern?  Their own best available scientific data tells us that there is no “safe” dose at all, and that all radiation is bad and to be avoided.  Radiation is the most potent carcinogen in existence, and it also negatively impacts vital body organs in numerous other ways.  Outdated models of risk assessment do not use this LNT paradigm.  The first models were developed after World War 2 by studying the effects of a radiation blast vis a vis the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  These studies were not concerned with long term ingestion of radioisotopes by populations.  This illustrates the problem with outdated models, outdated thinking and outdated propaganda.

Ingesting radioactive “hot particles” is categorically different than being exposed to a single exposure of gamma radiation.  Particles trapped within the body can behave differently depending upon where they end up.  Some radioactive elements collect in the thyroid, as with Iodine-131.  Others, such as cesium-137 and 134 collect in muscle tissue and other organs. Strontium-90 collects in bones, and there it stays irradiating the host for likely the remainder of his life.  In such close proximity to other cells a radioactive hot particle engages in “cellular disruption (CDC, Cesium 2, Relevance to Public Health).” These radioactive isotopes bombard the nuclei of surrounding cells with energy, and this energy can cause mutations in DNA, thus sparking cancer.

This primer on radiation should illustrate why the public should remain highly skeptical, if not outright hostile, to organizations that gloss over the effects of massive radiation leaks.  It is not “safe.”  Do not be fooled by well-oiled spin machines that have distorted and mangled science in the service of perhaps the most dangerous industry on planet earth today.  The most reasonable response to a radiation leak is to run as far away from the source of the contamination as possible and to never return.  These are uninhabitable zones, and the radiation sitting in the environment attacks the young, particularly unborn developing children, many times harsher than it does full grown adult males (the standard body type used in the old risk assessment model).  Horrific birth defects are the norm in the radiation zones, and these, such as those seen in the two films cited above, will shock the viewer to his/her very core.  This is not an academic discussion nor a scientific debate.  This is a moral outrage.  Nuclear power has poisoned millions.
Joe Giambrone is an author and filmmaker.  His novel Hell of a Deal is now available at Amazon.

WW3: Provoking N. Korea

Put that popcorn down. Halfway down the Reuters article we finally learn what’s really happening today to bring the world three steps closer to nuclear war:

THREATS AND WAR GAMES

North Korea’s threats were the latest in an escalating war of words by both sides across the armed Korean border this week.

The North’s unnamed foreign ministry spokesman said it would be entitled to take military action as of March 11 when U.S.-South Korea military drills move into a full-scale phase.

After years of “military exercises” in the disputed islands near the border of North and South Korea, the north has finally upped the ante. If you are incinerated by a wayward nuke next week, you may have wanted to ask Barack and company why it was so fucking important to provoke the N. Koreans and run military mock battles on their border?

 

Nuclear Industry Lies Spread by Techno-Geeks

For quite some time the disgraceful parroting of nuclear industry lies has been a part of the techno-geek alternative media. Particularly, “BoingBoing,” and others, who fancy themselves as savvy bleeding-edge hipsters. They don’t actually investigate the data they post, and simply link to outside sources uncritically.  When challenged on this controversy, particularly the nuclear radiation and poisoning of vast numbers of people and vast areas of the world, the response has been to BAN the dissenting voices from contributing. I now have firsthand experience of this censorship.

What is the mindset of a techno-geek who sees every technological development as a good thing, despite many thousands of doctors and human casualties trying to warn him or her about it?  They’ve been warned. I personally made sure the dissenting side was presented repeatedly.  Since Fukushima I have made it a priority to tell the truth about radiation exposure and the real casualties from nuclear disasters, Chernobyl in particular.

I’m not sure how any rational person can look at the horrifically affected children of Belarus, and simply choose to ignore the great controversy that surrounds this defining issue of our age. It takes a special kind of cold, calculated detachment, something along the lines of a Josef Mengele, I would imagine.

A forgotten victim of the age of nuclear madness / Image from Academy Award winning Chernobyl Heart

Taking cues from the corrupt corporate media, which I needn’t belabor, these so-called alternative sources fall in line and turn off their critical capacities on certain issues. Energy is a desperately important issue to all of us, and thus distorts people’s critical faculties. They fall into line as good little cogs when this seems the more effective modus oprandi.

Rather than investigating the claims of bodies like the IAEA and WHO, highly politicized institutions, they simply accept as gospel what these bodies tell them. It’s God’s own truth, although the UN is, of course, controlled by the nuclear powers. These governments are pro-nuclear, and the people they send to do these studies are similarly inclined. The WHO itself has been corrupted — ON THE RECORD — which can easily be proven with WHO Director Hiroshi Nakajima’s statements about IAEA censorship of his 1995 report on the Chernobyl disaster.

“Because the IAEA reports directly to the Security Council of the UN, and we all specialized agencies report to the Economic and Development Council. The organization which reports to the Security Council–not hierarchically, we are all equal–but for atomic affairs, military use and civil use, peaceful or civil use they have the authority. They command.”
-Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima, former head of UN World Health Organization

“In 1995 the Director General of WHO, Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima, tried to inform on Chernobyl by organizing in Geneva an international conference with 700 experts and physicians. This tentative was blocked. The International Agency for Atomic Energy blocked the proceedings which were never published. The truth on the consequences of Chernobyl would have been a disaster for the promotion of the atomic industry.”
-Nuclear Controversies, 2004, Swiss TV, Film by Wladimir Tchertkoff, Feldat Film Switzerland.

The report was never published.  Is that not a significant enough red flag?  We are cherry picking which WHO reports we get to champion.  It is quite clear the body is compromised on this issue, and cannot be relied upon to tell the world the truth.

This structural issue with the IAEA in control of all international issues related to radiation stems back to the creation of these agencies. The IAEA’s mission / goal is to promote nuclear energy worldwide. Thus this biased mission affects other UN bodies. Their only response to the nuclear issue is damage control, and not to reassess the feasibility or safety of the industry as a whole.

“The Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency, dated 23, October 1956, and subsequent amendments states the IAEA has as its’ objective “to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world.”

The 12th World Health Assembly clause No. 12.40 states: “whenever either organization proposes to initiate a programme or activity on a subject in which the other organization has or may have a substantial interest, the first party shall consult the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual agreement,” The document continues: The IAEA and the WHO “recognize that they may find it necessary to apply certain limitations for the safeguarding of confidential information furnished to them. They therefore agree that nothing in this agreement shall be construed as requiring either of them to furnish such information as would, in the judgment of the other party possessing the information to interfere wit the orderly conduct of its operations.” -Dr. Janet Sherman

Onto this latest “report” by the World Health Organization, reported yesterday by ABC News and today by BoingBoing.net. The Boingites go one step beyond reporting the news and add:

“These people will have an increased risk of leukemia, thyroid cancers, and cancer, in general. But the increase isn’t as large as you might have feared.” –Maggie Koerth-Baker, BoingBoing.net

Since they do inform us that there will be casualties, and that people have been poisoned against their wills by these nuclear meltdowns, this is meant to mitigate any concerns over the credibility or veracity of the study itself. The Boingers link to Time magazine, where the patently dishonest headline blares: “Meltdown: Despite the Fear, the Health Risks from the Fukushima Accident Are Minimal.” Well there you have it. If the WHO and Time Magazine agree, then this must be the truth. Turn off brain, go back to video-gaming.

Time actually goes one better, with its reputation to maintain apparently and quite a history of experience in maintaining it. They quote Greenpeace, which disputes this WHO report:

“The WHO report shamelessly downplays the impact of early radioactive releases from the Fukushima disaster on people inside the 20 km evacuation zone who were not able to leave the area quickly.

The WHO should have estimated the radiation exposure of these people to give a more accurate picture of the potential long-term impacts of Fukushima. The WHO report is clearly a political statement to protect the nuclear industry and not a scientific one with people’s health in mind.” –Dr. Rianne Teule, Greenpeace (Time)

But predictably, as soon as this quote is stated, Greenpeace is smeared by likening it to “climate skeptics.” Thought you’d get honest debate?  That, my friends, is an ad hominem attack.

The WHO’s sleight of hand trick is revealed in the ABC News coverage of this report:

“The assessment also says that male infants exposed at the highest level – between 12 and 25 millisieverts – have about a 7 percent relative risk increase in the lifetime risk of leukemia and that female infants have about a 6 percent increase in the lifetime risk of breast cancer.” -ABC, Cancer Risk From Fukushima Found in Japanese Infants

What does this tell us about their methodology?

The WHO report ignores ongoing contamination in food, air and water. That’s what it tells us. The main contamination pathways are not a part of this so-called “study.” The wishful thinking addresses only a small part of the problem, and not its totality. Ongoing contamination from radionuclides in the environment are by no means limited to “25 millisieverts” as a “highest level.” Thus the continued poisoning of the population of Japan, and elsewhere, is discounted with happy talk and business as usual.

This is, of course and predictably, bogus number rigging. That is what the history of this issue has shown us. It is the standard practice on nuclear industry questions in the mainstream media and at the UN bodies.

The NY Academy of Sciences 2009 book, Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, which cites 5,000 medical studies by scientists and doctors in the radiation zone, should be first on the reading list for anyone who wishes to promote nuclear power. Ignorance is no excuse. Techno-geeks quickly devolve into techno-fascists when discussing life and death over others. The people of Fukushima and Belarus have not chosen these risks. Radiation was forced upon them by centralized governments, which routinely deceive about the consequences. This is morally unacceptable by any standard.

And to think, I had included BoingBoing on my new blogroll.  Delete.

Fake ‘Genocides,’ Real Imperial Wars

R2P and Genocide Prevention
The Good Intentions That Pave the Road to War

by DIANA JOHNSTONE

You students of history should read carefully. This new creation, “Right to Protect” or R2P, is a tool for western imperial powers to launch illegal wars of aggression against targeted nations that remain disobedient.

The moral bankruptcy of western nations is revealed particularly in the current ongoing terrorism against Syria, as well as their/our utter failure to support a UN multinational peace keeping force in Rwanda in 1994. In the case of Syria, the US wants “regime change” so as to weaken the Iran/Syria/Russia alliance. In the case of Rwanda, the US didn’t see any immediate benefit, or “national interest” and simply abandoned 800,000 people to be butchered.

See Shake Hands With the Devil (2007).

 

 

PS

The ghoul Madeleine Albright (D) as well as Clinton’s war secretary William Cohen, both guilty of genocide against the civilians of Iraq through a sanctions regime, are shockingly now part of a “Genocide Prevention Task Force.”

Albright is, of course, most infamous for knowingly murdering 500,000 Iraqi children, which you can watch in this clip:

 

Stop the ITU / UN Censorship of the Internet

Spread the petition.

 

 

Thanks for joining the fight for a free and open internet! Now, here’s what you need to know.

Access will deliver your signature to your government before the WCIT begins on Dec. 3, so they’ll know the world does not want them to hand over key decisions about the internet to the ITU.

But the success of this campaign lies squarely in your hands. We need to use the internet’s global reach to prevent governments from putting it behind closed doors. Start by:

1. Clicking here to tweet: https://www.accessnow.org/itu-twitter

2. Posting this link on Facebook: https://www.whatistheITU.org

3. Forwarding the email below to your friends.

Thanks for your support,
Access and Fight for the Future

————–

Friends,

Governments from around the world will soon gather in Dubai at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), where they will negotiate a binding international treaty that could change the internet as we know it.

Several countries are proposing to expand the powers of a government-dominated institution, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Some proposals could legitimize monitoring and blocking online traffic. Others threaten privacy, seek to impose new fees for accessing content, or could very well slow down connection speeds¹.

Governments in Latin America to Africa to Asia are expressing doubt about these proposals, and we’ve been told that hearing directly from their citizens may well sway their vote. Together with Fight for the Future², Access has put together a video to mobilize the global internet to call on our governments to oppose handing over key decisions about the internet to the ITU.

Watch and share the video by clicking the link below, and sign this urgent petition. We’ll deliver it before they gather in Dubai on December 3:

https://www.WhatistheITU.org

For an open internet,
The Access Team

PS: We hope you have been enjoying our weekly newsletter, the Access Express. We’ve received a great response, and hope you keep reading!

¹ https://www.accessnow.org/policy/itu
² http://www.fightforthefuture.org/

Wile E. Coyote at the U.N.

Shake Hands With the Devil (2007)

This is the most painful film I’ve seen in many years. I’ve had it six days, whereas I usually hold onto Netflix discs for one day. I’ve had to push myself to finish it, as it is so horrific, so beyond comprehension that the human mind wants to reject it outright. It’s like watching the aftermath of Auschwitz, with more detail, and more culpability on the part of the world at large.

Shake Hands With the Devil is Canadian General Romeo Dallaire’s story of the UN’s failure in its Rwanda peace keeping mission, 1994. It started off odd, the story of a white man in a black genocide. But as it evolved, the overwhelming horror of reality surpasses anything concocted in formulaic Hollywood scare fests.

The UN was the only force that could have prevented the genocide of Tutsis (800,000 killed). Dallaire saw it as a moral imperative to stay and to do everything in his power to minimize the violence. His mission was undercut by the UN and the nations who could have sent reinforcements and supplies, but chose not to. The mission was abandoned, left for dead. The genocide was written off, and the Rwandan people abandoned. This was a case where outside intervention could have been moral and justified and effective.

Dallaire cites the Belgian government’s policies, under their colonial rule, of dividing the ethnic factions of Rwanda and exacerbating ethnic tensions. This history is given some cursory attention in the film, perhaps more in the book on which it is based. Belgian troops were present as part of the UN force under Dallaire’s command. After ten of them were captured and executed by the Rwandan government death squads, the Belgians pulled their entire contingent out. No other countries were willing to send in peace keepers.

This case exposes the hypocrisy of Western powers who preach “humanitarian war.” They have used this false doctrine as a justification for attacking target nations where they wanted certain outcomes. In a case like Rwanda, where there were no readily-identifiable Western strategic aims, the western nations abandon the civilians to chaos and genocide.