Introduction to Genocide and the United States

First off, what is genocide? Dictionary.com defines genocide as "the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political or cultural group." Genocide has been occurring for hundreds of years, for as long as there have been humans, there have been different races, beliefs, cultures, etc, thus creating conflict. The most well-known genocides (and many of them are not well-known, but simply heard of) are Germany's Holocaust, the Cambodian genocide, the Bosnian genocide, and the Rwanda genocide. The genocide going on in the present day is occurring in Darfur, Sudan. In this blog, I plan to focus on Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur, while touching on aspects of Germany's Holocaust.

Though it may seem I am going to explore the genocides themselves, I am not going to go into detail about them. In the genocides at hand, the United States has been known to either a) not get involved until incredible amounts of people had been killed or b) not get involved much at all. A majority of the genocides that occurred were not recognized as genocide by the United States government, and if they were, they were not until later. I plan to explore why the United States does not seem to recognize genocide and why it will not send more aid to prevent or end it.

As the Superpower of the world, the U.S. definitely has the tools to help in genocide prevention. It has the means necessary to save millions of lives without truly threatening its homeland, especially in regards to the genocides occurring in smaller, much less powerful countries of the world. So why is it that the United States turns a blind eye?