and hellooooooo south america.

I think your being rather naive. It's not that easy. 250,000 troops in Iraq can barely contain a much smaller situation in Iraq. UN troops in Rwanda would have been there in much smaller numbers and probably weren't equipped to do anything other than protect themselves.

91% of Rwanda's population lived in rural areas. It's a country of high mountains, jungle and swamp. Roads are poor or non existant. Communication links are patchy etc, etc. In the real world there are limitations on what you can actually do. You just can't magic solutions out of the air.

True, but by withdrawing themselves from the situation, UN Peacekeepers weren't doing anything to help the situation. Remember also that the vast majority of the genocide was committed with machetes. No, there's no magic solution, but you don't just bury your head in the sand and plead "non-interference." You don't abandon a whole country to chaos because the situation is going to get messy.

Colin, I'm not sure I understand the question here. Are you wondering why OKC registers more loudly with Americans when the scope was much narrower and less catastrophic, or are you trying to reason ways of preventing these sorts of tragedies from occuring or leaving such a wide path of destruction?

It seems to me that the conversation has taken a turn for the latter query, but I may be wrong. If so, there are plenty of conflicting statements since it seems to be the general opinion that we didn't do enough in Rwanda and now Darfur, but at the same time there have been several mentions that American intervention has piss-poor track record. This two statements don't jive.

To me, these sorts of situations will never be preventable. Partly because it can happen so quickly and out of plain view that by the time the magnitude is discovered it is too late.

It's like asking someone to stop a wildfire. By the time it's reached a certain intensity, you have to fight as best you can and hope to contain it. You can't undo the damage it's caused, you can only hope to reduce future damages.

Even if I'm toting a gun, this scares the dog shit out of me. A guy with a gun, or even several guys with guns aren't gonna be much of a match for a bloodthirsty mob with machetes that are looking to bust heads.

The Somali citizens had lots of guns, but the sheer numbers and the inability to distinguish friend from foe gave American servicemen quite a tough load to sort through. I bet machetes wouldn't be much of a walk in the park either.

Good point. I guess what I'm saying is that regardless of how difficult it would be to quell the violence, that was the UN's job. They are supposed to keep the peace, and it seems to me that allowing/facilitating a genocide is not in keeping with that goal.