In '' The Politics of Genocide '' ( co-authored by David Peterson , with a foreword by Noam Chomsky , 2010 ) , Herman and Peterson argue that " genocide " has become a politicized notion through analysis of the media and comparative studies of what they title " constructive " and " nefarious " genocides . They argue the Kosovo War , the Rwandan genocide in 1994 , and the War in Darfur have been publicized in the West to advance an economic and intellectual agenda . They contrast media coverage of these events with Sanctions against Iraq and the Iraq War , arguing that despite similar casualties to those massacres which receive the label genocide , there was an inverted response when Western powers were directly involved . Through analyzing use cases of the term " genocide " , Herman argues the west has leveraged human rights abuses to advance its own agenda resulting in minority controlled government of pro-Western and pro-business Tutsi , while other " genocides " , such as East Timor , have been largely ignored for the same reason
Rwandan genocide
Rwandan genocide
Edward S. Herman