Once should have been enough

The 20th century has seen an explosion of genocide, of different races by different leaders and different groups all over the world. But one thing all these genocides have in common is the United States' astounding ability to ignore them.

Take, for example, the Armenian genocide. It says in our textbook, A Problem from Hell, that the United States refused to take action against the Turks despite numerous accounts of their cruelty, some of them coming from the U.S. ambassador in Turkey, Henry Morgenthau. Even The New York Times reported on what was happening to the Armenians, albeit the stories that were told were always given a certain amount of discredibility by cautioning the reader that those stories were pieced together or not from "credible" sources. The United States chose to ignore the horrors coming from Europe in order to stay isolated because the majority of the American public had no interest in becoming involved in a war, especially one that was overseas and seemingly had nothing to do with the United States.

The Armenian genocide was almost a hundred years ago, but I still feel the impact of so many deaths that were never acknowledged. Most likely it's because there have been so many other genocides besides the one in Turkey, more recent and more awful in the sheer numbers of lives lost. And time and time again, the United States ignored the obvious. There were first-hand witnesses that were brushed aside because what they spoke of was "unimaginable." Pictures shown to various officials who said that the people shown in them were blurry, not specific enough to truly point to genocide. How is genocide made imaginable, made obvious? One way is to keep pointing out the signs, keep spreading the word that genocide has happened, is happening, and will happen again if the "unimaginable" isn't imagined and prevented. Too many lives have been lost, some lives that haven't even been counted, while major countries that could make a difference, like the United States, ignore the facts. While you search and learn about genocide, remember this: Facts speak for themselves, but not if they are kept to yourself.