Despite the scale of atrocities, the ambassador said, it has been difficult to get Americans, including officials of the Clinton administration, to listen and care.
Dov Zakheim, for example, has written that the scale of atrocities in places like the Balkans is often exaggerated, and that in any case violating another nation's sovereignty threatens "to unravel the entire fabric of international relations".
The documents leaked this week revealed the scale of atrocities under not just Mubarak but the military dictatorship that followed his rule – underscoring the fact that malpractice in contemporary Egypt is not limited to one man.
The report said: "The scale of atrocities committed, their general nature, and the fact of deliberately and systematically targeting victims on account of their membership in a particular group, while excluding members of other groups, were other factors from which the commission was able to infer genocidal intent".
"The scale of atrocities carried out by Boko Haram is truly shocking, creating a climate of fear and insecurity", says Amnesty International.
The Western press was appalled with the scale of atrocities committed by the Austro-Hungarian troops against Serbian civilians, including women and children.
The above passages from Marguerite Feitlowitz's seminal book only begin to suggest the vast scale of atrocities committed by the three military juntas that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983.
Perhaps the scale of the atrocity numbs moral outrage.
He said that they looked like a "Hollywood production," but the scale of the atrocity visibly shook him.
What she didn't know was why she wasn't crippled with grief, stupefied at the scale of the atrocity, unable to move or speak.
