The Holocaust saw millions upon millions of people murdered, mutilated
and destroyed. The very dignity of the human race was under a total assault from sustained forces dedicated to nothing more
than the complete degradation of the concept of the sanctity of life. The world reviled in horror at the Nazi genocide, the
showers, the camps, the ovens, the Einsatzgruppen, at the collaboration with Nazis in every occupied European state, and at
humanity itself for both containing and then sheltering such brutish villainy.
Unable to save the millions the world
had lost to the scourge of fascist genocide, decent people the world over resolved to in the future halt the advance of such
wicked acts. In one voice, all of civilization swore "Never Again." It was the promise of the empathetic, the ashamed and
the impotent to the dead and the bereaved. It was the promise of the powerful to have purpose.
Unfortunately, it is
a promise as-yet unfulfilled. The world established a United Nations organization to fight off a recurrence of World War II.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was passed. Unlike every other international convention
or treaty, this one used the word crime, and swore the contracting parties to prevent genocide and to punish it. No other
crime exists in similar fashion - yet no other crime goes as unpunished today as genocide.
The UN, bogged down by dictators,
tyrants, anti-Semites and corruption, is incapable of doing anything for victims of genocide besides sending them some food
and medical supplies and bringing them filthy refugee camps. The UN spends ten times the energy providing abortion around
the world than it does preventing genocide. The UN is now simply a vehicle for enriching the cruel and wicked - a tool for
the very criminals that seek to destroy part of humanity to be defended by its will.
During the genocide in Rwanda
which killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 100 days the murderous Rwandan government faction had a seat on the Security
Council. A state in transition from civil war to theoratical nascent democracy was allowed to sit on the Security Council
and have full access to all the information the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) had.
When the killing finally
ended it was not the United Nations that stopped it, nor the governments of the West. It was the Tutsi rebels, the Rwandan
Patriotic Forces, that attacked the government forces following the start of genocide. In the end, it was only because of
soldiers, dedicated and disciplined, that the Rwandan genocide didn't take well over one million innocent lives.
The
UN stood impotent, the soldiers under-manned, under-equipped, under-funded and crippled by a near-total lack of political
will from the West or from the UN. Because the West so feared 'another Somalia' where Pakistani and American troops were attacked
and a dead American was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, they instead got a 'Rwanda.' Fearing the deaths of a few
dozen Americans, they allowed the death of eight hundred thousand Rwandans.
Clearly our priorities are simply wrong
when genocide of a million people could fall into anyone's least-bad scenario. We need a total reworking of our priorities
to stop the plague of genocide.
A new international coalition, not a replacement for the UN but a new organization with a new purpose,
must be established. We cannot replace the UN in functions the UN never fulfills. It ought to prevent and punish
genocide, but the UN has no time between luncheons on famine, conferences on climate, and dinners with dictators. Leave
the UN to its bigoted declarations, impotent resolutions and high-spoken irrelevance. There is work to be done and the
UN as it stands is unwilling and unable to do it.
We must have a select organization, comprised only of liberal democracies, of countries willing and
pledged to fight genocide wherever it arises. By joining together the elite forces of developed nations and the intelligence
capacities of the best agencies and highest technology in the world, we can stop genocide quickly. We can save millions
of lives from death and millions more from the grief, chaos and poverty that follows genocide.
To those who claim stopping genocide is not in our interest, I shame you. Any who can say that
the Holocaust should not have been stopped, even if it could have been in a practicable manner, is an inhuman coward or a
bigot. We would never allow our fellow citizens to be raped and murdered if it were not in our interest to protect them;
they have rights and we defend them. Does a Tutsi, Kurd or Jew living outside the US have any lesser right to life than
his cousin living as a US citizen? Let no one say such a thing.
Cowards and bigots aside, it is in fact in our interest to prevent genocide. By stopping the
chaos and uncertainty of genocide, we assist the loca, regional and global economy. By stopping the fear of genocide
we prevent the inevitable humanitarian costs for refugees and migrants that need to be supported. By stopping the instability
and frustration of genocide we prevent political chaos and hatred, and therefore prevent genocide-ridden states from becoming
hotbeds of radicalism, violence and terrorism. We can prevent terrorism and humanitarian crises by stopping genocide.
We can protect the regional economies where genocide begins to occur, thereby aiding the developing world to eventually, feed,
clothe and police itself. Saving lives, making money, preventing terrorism, helping the developing world to help itself.
These are all in our interest.
But let it never be our priority to do the right thing because it is in our interest; let doing right
always be its own justification.
As many as 7 million Jews, Gypsies, gays, political dissidents
and handicapped people were murdered by the Nazi doctors, camps, ghettoes and roving bands of Einsatzgruppen. None
of them saw justice in their lifetime. All we can do is remember their story and make their extermination move us to
truly mean it when we tell the survivors: Never Again.
Never Again will people be treated like vermin or pestilence; Never Again
will tinkering with the genome be an excuse for bigotry, fear or hatred of those who are different; Never Again will a wheelchair
or a religious icon be grounds for execution; Never Again will politics be allowed to degrade into ethnic cleansing; Never
Again will thousands die for the prejudices and power of others. Never Again.
Never Again
