But what’s the excuse of those who opposed intervening in Rawanda and elsewhere during the Clinton Administration? I remember the phrase “body bags” being bandied about by Republicans as well as an editorial cartoon depicting an elephant dressed as a hippie with a sign saying “Hell No, We Won’t Go!”. These people are now in power and just look at how they treat people who oppose US military interventions. When Bush and Rumsfeld said “We’re not into nation building”, it was a legacy of their anti-Clinton anti-interventionism. One of the reasons we didn’t prevent 9/11 was that Bush was more interested in being President Notclinton than in fighting terrorism.
The U.S. was not completely at fault. The U.N. also had a policy of not getting actively involved in the fighting. When the killing started it was not uncommon for U.N. troops with guns to be nearby while mobs attacked Tutsis with machetes. They certainly could have reduced the killing if not stopped it before it got to the extent it did. That order never came.
The Hutus were also well aware of what had happened in Somalia. They knew if they killed a few U.N. troops early on they would pull out. They lured a small group of Belgian soldiers into a building and hacked them to death stuffing their genitals down their throats. They were right. The U.N began to pull out the next day.
Is there an international or some other kind of an agreement that obliges anyone to prevent genocides? From the looks of it there is a system to capture and punish the perpetrators after the fact (nazis,serbs…), but nothing that states that it is the responsibility of the US or the UN to do anything beforehand. And laws aside common sense would suggest that if it was anyones job it was the job of the former colonial power that left the situation in such a bad state. The US wasn’t that power.
I recommend everyone see the frontline doc Ghosts of Rwanda if you are really interested in this subject. It’s available on Netflix. Clinton does not come off well.
I support Bill Clinton and voted for him twice. However I think his policies on Rwanda were disgraceful, the worst mark on his presidency. On the other hand, I don’t think there was much public outcry for intervention. Clinton had expended a lot of capital passing a tax policy designed to reduce the deficit. He was facing a rising Republican movement that would gain control of Congress, and I understand his political caution. But seeing him and his staff prevaricate over the word “genocide” in such a lawyerly fashion is pretty enraging.
Sadly, I think few people realize(d) how small and limited a force would have been neccessary to stop the killing, if they had been given sensible rules of engagement. The U.N. has repeatedly proven that they are utterly incompetent at stopping atrocities. They are proving it again in Darfur.
What I would like to see is an international anti-genocide force. This would be a permanent military organization, rather than an ad hoc collection of troops like the U.N uses. It would be drawn mainly from Europe, with the U.S. providing logistical and naval support. It would have the power to initiate the use of force at the discretion of commanders on the field.
Sadly, my cat is more likely to buy me a car than this force is likely to come into being.
In addition to the excellent book Grant recommends, I’d recommend this. It was inspired by the Rwandese holocaust, but places it in a larger context.
Finally I’m a little disapointed that the genocide seems to have become just another shouting point for libs and cons to yell at each other with. There’s Plenty of blame to go around.
Without a cite for the Republicans oppoosing a Clinton initiative to go to Rwanda, your post is just so much blather.
I would like to ask you to clarify…just how DOES this administration treat those who oppose military interventions? Pray tell how horrid life has become for the anti-war folkies.
No Sam, those document- and now your second post, do not support your earlier thesis. They say that the USA has determined that the UN forces- at the strength and authority they had- were doing no real good (true) and that if they stayed there, there would very likely start being deaths amoung those troops and foriegn civilians. Really, unless the UN is willing to send in LOTS of troops- with the ability to back up their authority by force- a few dudes wearing blue helmets is worse than useless. Which is exactly what the US said. And, has been shown to be true, over & over.
In fact, your “document 13” shows that the USA was willing to send in add’l forces- IF the UN gave them authority to use force as needed. Without that authority, such troops were only going to be in danger.
This has been shown over and over again- UN troops- without the authority to use force- really aren’t a serious deterant and don’t do much. The UN was unwilling to allow the UN forces to use reasonable force, so the USA said “Well, then, all that’s going to happen is some of our boys are going to get their asses shot off- thanks but no thanks.”
Nor do I see any evidence in your cites that “Again, the issue isn’t just that America stayed out - it’s that the Clinton administration actively lobbied within the U.N. to discourage other nations from doing what the U.S. would not.”. It seems just the opposite- we were willing to go in- if we had the authority to do something effective, and not just stand around with a blue helmet on our head and a thumb up our butt. Of course- some other nations would use the opportunity to go into Rwanda with armed troops under their own orders as an excuse to perfrom Colonial or Imperialistic actions. Not every UN nation had the best interests of Rwanda to heart. :rolleyes: :dubious:
As to uglybeech 's assertion that all we had to do was jam a few radio stations- this tribal violence in Rwanda has been going on for centuries- even before the invention of radio. And, such action is illegal without UN approval- which they didn’t give. So- still no “magic wand”.
The US bears little blame here. The blame is on the wishy-washy “use no force” members of the UN. Grant is correct.
I understood from early last year that the Clinton administration felt badly burned by Mogadishu and was afraid to commit US troops in another peace-keeping effort in which the US had no strategic interest. As for why the US might seek to discourage UN action, I cannot say, except to speculate that any peace-keeping force capable of doing much good would necessarily involve NATO troopes, and, to a great degree, US troops. I doubt very much the US was alone in this tragic weighing of self-interest vs. duty, or the broader international community would have simply moved forward without us. We were not the only industrialized Western nation aware of the Rwandan genocide. There’s plenty of blame to spread around.
Rwanda is a small, out-of-the-way land-locked nation with few natural resources and a backwards economy. Yugoslavia controlled major Adriatic ports, and was on Western Europe’s doorstep; in many respects still a strong strategic interest in the Western vs. Russian rivalry. Somalia lies at the gateway to the Red Sea, so obviously it is more than an ancillary concern for those who care about the flow of oil and other trade to the Mediterranian, but not by much. Not to minimize the American loss of life in Mogadishu, but it did not take many casualites to convince us to abandon Somalia to the Warlords. In the western Sudanese province of Darfur, the genocide is sufficiently contained to have virtually no impact on neighboring Egypt or the Red Sea; and besides, it’s Arabs killing black Africans, so why should the Arabs worry? I imagine our all-time-low esteem with Arab nations at the moment has done little to enhance any influence we might (if so inclined) seek to apply to pressuring them to intervene beyond containment.
All around, Africans in non-strategic, resource-poor backwates of the “Dark Continent” aren’t going to get help. From anybody. Like I said, there’s plenty of shame to spread around.
I really think you need to back off your assertion that the only options are create your own bloodbath or do nothing. It’s untenable. To any intelligent person there are obviously ranges of interventions to consider. Jamming the radios was just one of them - but it was a very obvious and bloodless one.
It doesn’t matter if there was a history of violence and ethnic tension. The slaughter of 800,000 people in 100 days driven by hate radio is a different animal, and you’re looking for interventions that slow or halt that process, not for everyone to get together in a group hug.
The problem is the U.S. and the U.N. made no effort to intervene period. Clinton apologized and he should have.
You know what Bill Clinton also had a chance to get rid of OBL before he organized 9/11. Why didn’t he, because of public opinion same as stated above. I personally understand his dilemma and don’t fault him for what now looks like two horrible mistakes. He and others who have faced the responsibility that we can only second guess deserve some space.
Is there a cite for Republicans urging the Clinton admin to go into Rawanda? The point is that the idea was a non-starter due in large part to right-wing opposition to any “humanitarian” intervention. We were continuously reminded during that time that US military forces should only be used to protect “vital US interests”.
Don’t you remember what happened to the Dixie Chicks? They and countless other war opponents were denounced as “traitors” who “hate America” (I wasn’t talking about the Bush admin in particular).
Again, where was the support for US intervention in Rawanda?
“denounced”? Gosh, I get denounced a coupel times a day- hasn’t hurt me a bit. Iguess the DC lost a few sales- and picked up a few sales. Big deal. :rolleyes:
“where was the support for US intervention in Rawanda?”- There was very little. And- why should there be? I am not going to “support” spending Billions of $$ and thousands of our boys lives for Rwanda. I don’t “support” the invasion of Iraq, either.
What happened in Rwanda was tragic, but the USA can not spend our servicemens lives and our taxes to stop every atrocity in the world. We simply don’t have the “assets”.
laigle’s the only one who’s got it right - Rwanda (and now, Sudan) was abandoned because the industrialized world cares fuck-all for Africa. The perception is that Africa is backwards and undeveloped, and will remain so far into the future. No one wants to invest because it seems there’s little stability and no resources.
As long as this continues to be the perception, the industrialized world will be content to ignore the slaughter.
First of all, the above link has some great information if you are trying to understand what happened. It includes interviews with key players and it appears to answer some of your questions.
The thing that surprised me most when learning about it was how fast it occurred. Faster than most outside countries seem to react to a Civil war in another country.
First , Africa has no shortage of genocidal wars. take (for example):
-Algeria: Muslim fundamentalists have killed almost 200,000 people since 1962: why doesn’t FRANCE do something?
-Ethiopia: in a series of civil wars (since Haile Slassi was deposed), almost 500,000 people have been killed: where’s Italy?
-Zaire (formerly Belgian Congo): probably over one million killed in the past 10 years: where’s Belgium?
-LIBERIA: perhaps 300,000 people killedin civil wars since John Tubman deposed; where’s the UN?
Let’s face it, there is NO way that the UN (or the US), can prevent people from slaughtering eachother (when they are hellbent to do so).
Personally, I’m GLAD that Clinton didn’t send US soldiers into Ruwanda. the result would probably have been a lot of dead US soldiers, and no dimunition in the number of Tutsi corpses.
In the national media? Being called a traitor is a pretty damming charge. The DC appeared on a magazine naked with hateful epithets scrawled on their bodies, which give some indication of their feelings in that matter. There was also an effort to get their music kicked off Clear Channel, IIRC. That’s a big deal. Meanwhile, conservatives piss and moan that “elites” are “denigrating” their beliefs and calling them “stupid”.
But all that’s periferal to my point.
Exactly. So it’s unfair to single out Clinton for criticism other than as point man for the overall US refusal to intervene in Rawanda. And so the last people who should be criticizing him over that are American conservatives.
As I noted in a thread in CS about the recent movie on the subject, Ambassador David Rawson, the career diplomat and senior American in Rwanda at the time, characterized the impending slaughter as just another tribal conflict. With information coming from the field trivializing the magnitude, it’s not surprising that there was resistance to involvement.
I worked for Rawson in Mali and can tell you that the guy’s biggest regret about Rwanda was that he had to leave his personal possessions behind when he was evacuated. He bitched about it constantly. As a leader and an intellect, the guy was a big zero. However, this is what happens in the State Department. The lesser diplomats get shuffled off to Africa, where they supposedly can’t do much damage. There they languish, out of the spotlight, in countries that nobody seems to care about. It’s not at all surprising that they lose touch with what is happening around them.
It’s disgraceful that the U.S. and the U.N. sidestepped responsibility and instead watched as the Ugandan Army finally came to the aid of the Tutsi ‘rebels’.