Pregnancy of War

I read <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29888-2004Mar27?language=printer">this</a> story in the Washington Post this morning and it just tore at my heart. Let alone these women living through an unimaginable time of death when around 800,000 people were killed they were used as sexual toys and have the children from the encounters to deal with on a daily basis. Anybody who can read this story and not be moved by the anguish of these people must not have a heart or a soul.<br />n<!–more–><br />nThe other thing this reminds me of with anguish is our countries reaction to this genocide when it was happening. I don't know if my disgust with our political system has come through 100% in the writings I have been doing but believe me it's there and this issue is what led me to have these opinions. I remember clearly when reports were starting to come out of Africa about the slaughter of people in Rwanda and I was appalled. What even shook me more was our Governments total lack of interest in the situation. I called the White House, I called our Congressmen, I called anyone who I thought would listen to try to get our Government to do something to stop this slaughter, and nobody would listen. We had troops in Yugoslavia preventing slaughter of innocent civilians so why were we ignoring the situation in Rwanda? The total lack of concern for the situation with anyone I talked to just appalled me. To this day I have no concept why President Clinton didn't do something about the slaughter instead of watching it happen.<br />n<br />nEver since this futile attempt to get our government to care about this slaughter I have lost faith in the system. I don't have any faith that our Government will do the right thing. The people in power will only do what is politically expedient and to hell with doing the right thing. All they care about is being elected again, and they will promise anything to get it done, and then do what ever the hell they please with there power and screw the common man and doing the right thing by humanity. I don't know what it will take to fix th system, if it can be fixed, but I just don't have the heart to try. It just tore my heart out to watch the innocents slaughtered in Rwanda and the story today just brought it all back to me. Our Government failed and I will never forgive it.<br />n<br />nP.S. I know I always put a quote after my entries, but there is no quote that adequately can convey what I feel so I will leave it off this time. Forgive me.<br />n<br />nUPDATE: Thanks to Ed at <a href="http://www.billingsgazette.com/citylights/">City Lights</a> for the link to <a href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20040328-0916-rwandanghosts.html">this</a> story from the Canadian General who was not allowed to do any thing about the massaceres. I have had pretty leaky eyes today over this since all it can remind me of is death. Death for thousands of people and death for my idea that America was a shining beacon of hope in this world, death for the idea that America helps people in this world, death of the idea that people care about everybody in this world and not their little portion of it, and death to the idea that a little person can make a difference. The Rwandan people were sacrificed on the alter of political expediencey so the politically powerful wouldn't have to expose themselves and that is the crime here.