Reply #60: somebody really needs to explain Iraq

[iverglas]

... and Saddam Hussein, and all the armed citizens ...

It is as horribly distasteful to watch all these "progressive" folks here exploit the tragedy of the victims of the Rwandan or any other genocide, in an attempt to further their own selfish agenda, as it is to watch them exploit the violence of which women are victims.

I dare anyone here to invite someone who actually knows something about the Rwandan genocide ... and actually cares about the victims of such events ... to offer an opinion on the clueless and essentially vicious statement that widespread firearms ownership in that society would have been a source of any good.

The people on this panel might be a good start:
http://www.cbc.ca/hottype/season03-04/04-03-30.html

• Lt.-Gen. Romeo Dallaire, Author "Shake Hands With The Devil"
<the commander of the UN forces in Rwanda at the time>
• Prof. Ervin Staub, Dept. of Psychology, University of Massachusetts
at Amherst, Author "The Roots of Evil"
• Leo Kabalisa, Hope for Rwanda Children's Fund
<"a Tutsi who lost most of his family in the Rwandan genocide of 1994">
• Priscilla de Villiers, Office for Victims of Crime

I only caught a bit of the show the other day, but I didn't notice anyone offering an assault rifle in every home as the thing that would have prevented the Rwandan genocide.

Here are some thoughts from Prof. Staub on what might have prevented, and might in future prevent, such events:
http://www.othervoices.org/2.1/staub/commentary.html
http://www.othervoices.org/2.1/staub/preventing.html
I don't see much mention of arming neighbours against one another.

For pity's sake: did the Tutsi not also have knives and machetes? If they had had firearms, would the Hutu not also have had them?

Yeah, an assault rifle in every home might have meant that the genocide would not have happened when it did. There probably just wouldn't have been enough people left at that point for there to be a genocide.

Funny how much interest some people take in shithole little third world countries when they look like handy places to hang an agenda on. I do trust that none of that crowd actually thinks that anyone reading what they say thinks that they actually give a shit about the people in those countries.

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