Real Life vs Fiction

      I'm reading the book A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. It is a memoir of his life as a child soldier during the Seira Leonian civil war. It is kind of horrifying, and terribly tragic. It makes me wonder how such terrible things are allowed to happen. It also makes me think about how I've never heard about such terrible things in books.
     Now maybe I'm just reading the wrong books, but I read a fair amount. I am fairly sure that most of all books written, probably even most war books, at least most I've read, don't. It makes me think about how fiction is sometimes the idealized version of life. And there are things in the real world that are worse then anyone can imagine.
     Another thing I thought is how people let this happen. I mean, obviously it would be very difficult for the people being shot at to do much, and once threatened, brainwashed, and drugged. But what about the UN? America? The EU? World powers sometimes are needed to help save people when there own governments can't. Why didn't we raise our voices in protest. I think sometimes it's just easier to do nothing. There are probably things that are going on right now that i should be going out and helping stop, when instead I'm sitting here.