When good men do nothing from SCBBC

One dark night in Rwanda, a man who called himself Jean-Pierre warned the UN about a plan to exterminate Tutsis at a rate faster than the Nazis killed Jews.

A horrifying story and one that needs to be told. But as you would guess from the SCBBC it is the United States fault again. Let us not forget that Clinton, a Democrat, was in power and Democrats do not believe in intervention. Not to mention the world at large berating the US for intervening in other countries. Again, it is a case of damned if we do damned if we don't.

Anyway, on with the hatchet job by a Panaroma reporter. What a shame, I used to like the Panaroma show.

As you read this keep one thing in mind, the UN they are talking about is the same UN the world is demanding should take over in Iraq.

This was not tribal frenzy, not anarchy, but the work of an organized, hierarchical and obedient society. One that would certainly have noticed if the rest of the world had said "Stop It" and backed the warning up with a little force.

But while the UN voiced its disapproval, it declined for many of those 100 days even to use the term "genocide".

Over half a century after the world swore "Never Again" to the Holocaust, what are we to make of this exercise in what political scientist Norman Geras has called balefully the "Contract of Mutual Indifference"?


Cannot the same be said for Iraq? How many did Saddam kill? Why are some despots tolerated? What about Mugabe?
Talk about hypocrites.

The ultimate insults to the dying are now well known. The US State Department's spokeswoman Christine Shelley - acting on orders - declined to use the term "genocide" unqualified, insisting on saying only "acts of genocide" were occurring.

Calling it genocide might have compelled Clinton to act, something he would not have wanted to do. Look what was happening in Afghanistan at the same time. US and world opinion was against any action there as well. It took 911 before Bush felt he could act and even then the "world" whined, moaned and demonised the US and the UK. Mr Bradshaw, this is the one important underlying fact that you and your organization will not come to terms with. The peaceniks of the world, prompted by the evil doers, don't want the west to intervene.

War is not the answer we are told. OK, so what is the answer? Let the Amins, Saddams, and Mugabes carry on? What about Iran and North Korea?

Hence the title of Panorama's 1999 film "When Good Men Do Nothing" a phrase attributed to the English philosopher Edmund Burke, and his condition for what he called The Triumph of Evil.

We could also, I suppose, have called it And Who Is My neighbor? That, you may recall, is the sardonic question a lawyer asks in Saint Luke, a question that prompts the Parable of the Good Samaritan.


Well Mr Bradshaw, look what happened when "Good Men did Something". The US is attacked around the world for "doing something" in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, who are these "Good Men" Mr Bradshaw and what is this "Something" you talk about? I put it to you sir, it is the US and getting rid of tyrants.

A challenge Mr Bradshaw, write and article or do a Panorama show about the "Good Men of the US did Something" in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yugoslavia. You will not because "bad news sells".

One official who originally backed the do nothing policy, Anthony Barnett, told Panorama he could never have believed he would be a bystander to genocide.

"You should be ashamed," he told himself on camera. I think he would like to feel he speaks for the rest of us


Well he does not speak for me, nor I would dare say millions of Americans who supported doing something in the countries I mentioned. No, Mr Bradshaw, it is you, writers like you and organizations like the one you work for who should be ashamed. For it is you the question "When good men do nothing" is asked.