Mounting evidence of the corruption of the United Nations' oil-for-food program by Saddam Hussein and various compliant U.N. officials and other individuals has tarnished the international agency.

But the oil-for-food scandal is about stealing money, albeit lots of money. Another scandal - what the U.N. did (or didn't) do when faced with genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and in Dafur today - is possibly a bigger scandal.

With the oil-for-food program, some U.N. officials were complicit in allowing personal enrichment in the gaming of what was supposed to be a humanitarian program. In Rwanda in 1994 and Darfur today, the U.N. has essentially looked the other way as genocide murders hundreds of thousands of Africans.

To be fair, the United Nations was not alone in looking the other way in the face of mass murder; the United States and most Western leaders have taken what appears to be deliberate efforts to delay and avoid involvement in African genocide.

Permitting profiteering from the oil-for-food program is unfortunate, even shameful, but standing by while millions of defenseless people are slaughtered raises fundamental questions about the global organization's most basic reasons for existence.

A film about the Rwanda genocide, called "Hotel Rwanda" surprised some when it was nominated in three categories for an Academy Award. Though the film didn't win an Oscar last weekend, the publicity from the nominations might convince more people to see the movie. And once they see it, they will have a better understanding of what happened in Rwanda in 1994, and also the failures of the leaders of the United Nations, the United States and other Western nations to anything to try to stop the slaughter.

Most Western governments and U.N. officials knew about methodical and brutal murders of 800,000 to 1 million men, women and children in Rwanda as members of the Hutu tribe, armed with machetes and guns, killed up to a million rival Tutsis in a matter of months.

Accepting the fact that the are no guarantees that U.N. or U.S. intervention could have prevented the murders, to not even attempt to stop the killing is something that heaps shame on the U.N. and most Western nations who have been well aware of the genocide in both Rwanda and Darfur.

The leadership of the United Nations and the United States slowly deliberated over the nature of the mass killings and whether or not the slaughter could qualify as genocide, which would obligate the U.N. and the U.S. to take some action.

'Hotel Rwanda' and various documentaries show that many African leaders as well as international aid and church workers in Rwanda in 1994 assumed the West would not allow another holocaust to occur. But they were mistaken, The U.N., the U.S. and European nations all effectively looked the other way and allowed the murder to continue.

But that attitude could be changing. Two recent columns in the Wall Street Journal suggest that President George W. Bush's doctrine of "preventative strikes against rogue states" could be interpreted to include early actions to prevent mass murder in Rwanda or Darfur. Bush's position that it be better to confront evil than ignore it suggests action be taken when genocide occurs.

As one commentator noted, after acknowledging the mass graves found in Iraq, "We cannot shut our eyes to evil anymore. Saddam is Rwanda is Darfur."

There is no easy answer as to how to stop such mass killings, but Rwanda in 1994 and today's killings in Darfur could well force the world to confront evil, and maybe do something to try to stop it.