There is a genocide going on. Arab militia, backed by the Sudanese government, have terrorized non-Arab tribes in the region in western Sudan over the past three years, murdering and raping tens of thousands, burning villages and driving more than 2 million people into squalid camps in Darfur and neighboring Chad.  The UN just cut humanitarian aid to the refugees by 50% due to lack of funding.  The American populace seems too focused on ensuring that same-sex couples aren't allowed to marry and women aren't allowed to control their own bodies, while doing nothing to help stop the murder and/or death by starvation of millians of innocent human beings.  How can we get people to focus their attention on this real genocide?  How can we get the government to pay attention to this situation and do something concrete about it?
202918
The only realistic option you have is raising money for a private mercenary army.\n\nYou won't be able to protest or convince government officials to take military action because our army is already too spread out - we just don't have the man power right now.  I'm still confused why nothing was done by international government agencies in the 1990's.  Probably don't want to re-live the Somalia mistakes just yet.\n\nProviding humanity aid is also ineffective because, just like in Somalia, the military is stealing the supplies to feed their troops.\n\nI'm not convinced that Americans don't care, I bet they just don't know what the facts are.  News agencies don't report it because it's not as sexy as Iraq.  As with all things retarded in America, people won't listen unless a famous person champions the cause.  Why haven't any celebrity activists done this yet?\n\nER seems to be doing their share of advertising the problem, let's see who else gets on board.
195044
Sadly, civil war/genocide in sub-sahara Africa just isn't important to Americans because it doesn't really have an ecomomic impact on them or our country like the illegal Mexican immigration issue.  If they had oil, if their refugees were flooding across our border, or even if we shared a common culture (and sadly maybe skin color) you can bet more attention would be paid.
618086
250,000 Iraqis have been murdered by the barbaric American troops since the 2003 invasion. Most of them are civilians, women and children. Therefore by the Bush administrations own 'standards' you have committed genocide. I don't know about you but I do not like to be partially responsible for such war crimes, whether 250,000 deaths is genocide or not, it is an unforgivable crime. As citizens in a "democratic, freedom loving" country you should take some responsibility for the actions of your elected barbaric governments.
665090
its part of the propaganda of diabolization. They need those people to be the "bad" ones so that they can justify commiting atrocities against them. Its a vicious circle that only ends when we end global poverty. Guess what we could have done for the same price as the Iraq war?
620506
Try to convince the usa gov who r supporting all this brutal israeli actions,and the israelies will stop,\nwhy should the israelies destroy a whole town to free one  soldier!!!\nthey can negotiate over him in a peacfull way,\nor\nthey sure can send a special force unit to search for him and save him if they know where he is, instead of all that,\nand if they dont know where he is,so how they think they will save him by mass invasion to gaza,and by destroying the infrastracture of a city with a very hight population,not carring how many they kill and harm in the way?they propably will get him killed that way\nand in the same time all the innocent civ,including KIDS,will be badly harmed by the electricity & water cut.\nWhy r u punishing the palestinians for electing their gov in a democratic way,is it cause u dont like their DEMOCRATIC choice,u make them suffer this way?\nusa could stop all that with one phone call from the white house,and try to stop a new human massacres,but i think that the american gov ,agree and bless whats hapening.\n\nsend e-mails to usa gov and ask them to stop & not support whats happening there,thats what any good average american can do.
595204
you are so right i can not beleive i am hearing this.for years i have been telling people we need to take careof our own problems first and then maybe we can help the world out.spreading democracy is important and like curing an illness it starts in the middle and spreads out illness may come from the edges but it is cured from the inside out .to cut of your arm is not curing the problem it is only slowing it down and curing it is the only real solution.so sending troops all over is only weaking the bodys abikity to fight of the infection growing at home .poverty illness lack of good paying jobs all in need of repair before we go troting off telling the world how to live .We need to include all the people in the countries around us if we are going to succeed so mexico needs to be fixed alot of good people are fleeing from oppresion and poverty so bad that being poor in america or in jail here is better then most people have it in mexico.i hate no one so please do not turn out to be a hater of people and know we must help all the people we can and it is possible if we try.
278708
Great question. another one I would ask is why genocide and terrorism is allowed in Africa but when it happens 15 years ago in Iraq we invade the country and overthrow THAT dictator... but we don't care about Ghana or Sudan where people are getting killed and kidnapped and raped everyday.\n\nI think the answer to the Iran question lies in the fact that they are currently talking trash to the world about how they are going to do it anyways and basically we can't let them have what they want or else other countries will do the same... also, realisitcally, we need to keep the Iranians down so that they have to sell their gas for cheaper because it would be their only export.\n\nAnd of course, all the people in the white house have little penises.
313277
We want them to stop strapping explosives to women and children and killing people in buses, restaurants and crowded marketplaces.\n\nOur perception of Arabs and Muslims is that they strap explosives to women and children and let them kill themselves and others in the places I mentioned above.\n\nOur perception of Arabs and Muslims is that they are eager to let Americans sacrifice their own lives to free Arabs and Muslims from tyranny and in their gratitude, the people who benefit from this sacrifice kill their liberators.\n\nOur perception of Arabs and Muslims is that they would like to have another holocaust to kill every Israeli, Jew and American on the planet.  This perception is supported by the fact that they strap explosives to women and children and allow them to kill Israelis, Americans and themselves in this manner.\n\nWhy?  Are you saying that none of this is true?  Tell me which parts are untrue.  Remember, we've all seen the videos of beheaded Americans and body parts in the streets.  You really are a lovely people, aren't you?
203377
For whatever reason, many incidences of genocide and war in Africa are minimalized and do not receive the same amount of publicity that other world conflicts do (Rwanda, Uganda, DRC). They often involve third world countries that have little or no history of stable democracy and no valuable natural resources to speak of.\n\nI also believe that this incident demonstrates the ineptitude of the U.N. in dealing with international incidents. The media determines what is news and they do not wish for this to become a widely held opinion by making a big story out of it.\n\nThirdly, this is not a big political issue. Very few people have vested interests in Sudan (especially as compared to the current immigration controversy), meaning that very few votes can be gained/lost by action/inaction on the subject. As sad as it is to say, the primary responsibility of a politician (a politician, not a statesman mind you) is to get reelected, and so many politicians will not waste their time on an issue that will not earn them any votes.
284176
There are a few good answers here, but in general many are not well-thought at all. Even Dan Rather had said it was inexcusable that the world media was focused on Bill Clinton's fling while 3 million people died in central Africa over a two year period alone. Africa's problems are immense, and perhaps that is the biggest problem: no one knows where to begin that will have any affect at all.\n\nTo be fair, President Bush has taken an initiative to begin helping those African nations that have taken steps to help themselves. This might seem harsh, sending aid to those that need it supposedly least, but in a way it is not. The countries that are in the worst shape are bad primarily because their leadership and their governing institutions are so rotten to the core that any money or aid sent to them will just be wasted or stolen or worse, and while that might make us feel less guilty it will not really help anyone (just like Live Aid, which gave most of the money raised to a genocidal and corrupt Communist government that was mass murdering its enemies under cover of a manufactured famine).\n\nIt is difficult to mobilize public support for Africa for a number of generally embarassing reasons. The continent has very few 'sexy' resources to trade so we Americans are not directly affected in our daily lives by turmoil (except for a few nations in central Africa, there is very little oil to make us pay more at the pump, we as a rule don't eat the food that they grow so we don't miss anything at the dinner table, we only buy diamonds at very rare occasions, all of the minerals are available from other sources, and for the last hundred years the migration from Africa has largely been to Europe so there is no indigenous ethnic lobby in the United States). The entire continent seems to be so mired in catastrophes of such monumental size that it looks absolutely hopeless, and even thinking of beginning any sort of radical help is completely daunting. Every time foreign armies have tried to intervene (France and England, Soviet Union and Cuba, USA in Somalia) the outcome is nothing but horror stories that would make Freddy Krueger throw up all over himself - prisoners hacked to pieces, infants have arms and legs cut off by rebels simply because they think it is fun, soldiers dragged through the streets to the cheers of little children, etc. Every time a major aid project begins, the material elements are immediately stolen and therefor nothing gets done.\n\nIf the United States is going to intervene, it will have to be with massive amounts of force and social reconstruction on every level, and it will look like colonialism. I can tell you that, from the way we are responding to the relatively benign American behavior in Iraq and the relatively weak opposition we are reacting to, WE DO NOT HAVE THE STOMACH FOR THIS!!!!!!!\n\nSometimes doing something poorly can be worse than doing nothing at all.
40951
Genocide is killing or causing serious harm to members of a national, ethnic or religious group. Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines it in more detail. \n\nIn the Rwandan genocide in 1994, two extremist Hutu militia groups killed over 900,000 members of the Tutsi as well as moderate Hutus. Unfortunately, neither the United Nations or other nations did anything to stop the massacre.\n\nIn 2004, Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed that Sudanese Government backed Arab militia had committed abuses that left 1.2 million black African Sudanese homeless. This was also known as the Darfur massacre.
409659
Except for the small detail of the army that's perpetrating that genocide, yes.  The problem is that malnourished people without weapons cannot overtake a governmental army.  It also doesn't help that the African Union is doing nothing to help the situation there.  They have 7,000 troops (who don't do anything) to patrol an area the size of France.
641121
True.  I don't understand why the government tries to control people's happiness.  They shouldn't worry about who's married to who.  They should be more concerned with how many of my friends their killing in Iraq.
68840
I agree with Dr ans its really shame i donno what the world is watching and what these US and UK doing to stabilize peace in the world? \n\nIn Darfur i really dont understand where the money is going.What this BIG BOSS US is doing cant he understand this.
85350
AIDS is contributing to the underdevelopment of the entire African continent.  There is no good reason for the US to withdrawl funding to fight it.  It is morally reprehensible to ignore the problem and from a more pragmatic view the problems in Africa will hurt America in the long run.  Disease has destabilized much of Africa and led to wars, racial tension, and genocide.  This is a world problem, not just Africa's.
592440
look at Rwanda.  it is in a terrible place:  a landlocked country in central Africa and is so small.  it is in no way a tactical place to be.  it has no shore to dock ships and no oil or mineral reserves.  unfortunately, helping them would have been a waste of time and funds (military and tactically speaking).  \n\nso, on to Hitlers genocide.  Hitler was a very clear threat and was more than capable of taking over all of mainland Europe during the beginning of the war.  thats why we stopped Hitler.  \n\nalso, Clinton tried helping an African country back in 1993.  remember Somalia and Black Hawk Down?  Clinton didnt help Rwanda in '94 because he wanted to avoid a similar incident.
245377
This time, I don't care if the U.S. has to, metaphorically, take the UN by the scruff of the neck and smash their smug, self-righteous faces into the conference table.  I don't care if we have to berate and belittle them.  The UN is making itself IRRELEVANT.  It never does anything but talk.\n\nAnother person just wrote about the killings and starvation deaths in Rwanda and the Sudan, tacitly approved by the UN through their inaction.  We need a public relations campaign to improve the image of the U.S., and to expose the UN for the frauds they are.