# You're Clinton in '94: What Do You Do About Rwanda **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 8, 2011, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623 "2011-04-08T03:38:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/41 "2011-04-11T10:28:19Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Yes, but I wouldn’t really do anything differently if I were President Clinton. Rwanda is just too logistically and politically difficult for me to intervene in, were I President Clinton. There’s no freaking benefit in it for me, and the American people don’t even know where Rwanda is, let alone care if some Rwandan tribe is killing another Rwandan tribe. Besides, I’ve already got troops committed in Bosnia, and who knows if that peace is going to hold, and I’ve got the Republicans who won’t agree to a budget deal, which is what most Americans do care about; I’ve got the Independent Counsel’s office on my ass, and I’m gearing up for a reelection campaign. I just don’t have the time to worry about Africa right now. Let some other country deal with it if it’s so terrible. Let France or Belgium or whoever worry about it. This is why American foreign policy is considered racist. I like the OP’s question, but the problem is that you’re asking us to state what we would do AFTER THE FACT. We don’t know exactly what President Clinton knew or could reasonably predict. I personally believe in realist foreign policy _except_ in the case of genocide. My reasons for that are personal but clearly not shared by past administrations. If President Clinton had admitted that genocide was happening, jammed the airwaves, or done anything remotely active, then he would have been expected to respond. There is little reason to think that Clinton could have prevented genocide (or the attempt of), but\* maybe\* we could have intervened. A NATO-type mission would have been needed and I’m not sure we could’ve done that. Congress would not have backed Clinton in any kind of unilateral mission. Our NATO allies clearly weren’t interested. The U.N. was worried about foreign nationals in Rwanda. Like someone else pointed out, the U.N. didn’t help the actual people targeted. Have you guys seen the West Wing episodes where they respond to a fictional genocide in Africa? It’s loosely based on Rwanda. _sigh_ It sounds so easy to just go and ‘stop genocide’, but it isn’t. Genocide is systematic, bureaucratic, political, and rarely shows how horrific it is until it’s too late. The aftermath of the civil war was just…huge…the Congo nearly blew itself up. I think if I had been President, I would have raised hell. I hope so. I’d like to think so. I do respect President Clinton for his apology. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/42 "2011-04-11T10:30:54Z")
> [@straight\_man](#): > > Actually, the combatants in Somalia _did_ get mowed down at a fairly outrageous rate —to the American fourteen killed, there were somewhere up to three thousand Somali casualties. [No, seriously](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mogadishu_(1993)#Known_casualties). The number of UN/Western/whatever soldiers killed if they engaged in outright combat to protect civilians would probably have been substantial. > > That said, it would have been worthwhile. Sovereignty matters, but stopping mass murder clearly matters much more. It’s also worth remembering that the world’s best chance to stop the genocide came before it had begun, when raiding weapons caches and shutting down the whole system of genocide might have worked — as Dallaire proposed, in fact. Canada, the United States, and the UN, among others, had more than enough intel that they knew perfectly well what was going on. > > It’s also worth remembering how enough the remorse over Rwanda has been. It quite probably played a role in the amount of intervention in the Balkans, and it might conceivably have influenced intervention in Libya. Rwanda seems to have taught a lesson that really shouldn’t need teaching: if there’s about to be a genocide, and you don’t stop it, _there will be a genocide_. Shocking, right? What is it about Americans that are so hesitant to go stick up for the non-white foreigners? It’s like we’re only sad when Hollywood makes a movie about it. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/43 "2011-04-11T10:44:14Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > States and institutions do have moral duties No, they don’t. They are, at the very best, loosely bound by public opinion and/or treaties and similar pieces of paper. Ultimately however, nations (and corporations, for that matter) act like sociopaths. They are not here to be moral, but to pursue selfish interests - and that is all they ever do. Sometimes these interests dictate they behave as if driven by morals but you’d be a fool to assess them as moral entities. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/44 "2011-04-11T11:07:25Z")
> [@toofs](#): > > What we should be doing with Libya. What is taking place (or could have happened) in Libya isn’t (wouldn’t have been) a genocide. In Rwanda, anything that could have possibly be done should have been done. Jamming the radio, sending paratroopers, whatever it takes. This doesn’t apply only to the USA, but to any other country. It is an absolute shame that nothing was done to prevent the genocide, and we’re all to blame to some extent (except those who were too young, of course). I still feel guilty about it ☹ ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/45 "2011-04-11T11:16:11Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > . Genocide is systematic, bureaucratic, political, and rarely shows how horrific it is until it’s too late. . What was happening was well-known all along (and I didn’t even have a TV at the time). Certainly even moreso for a president. It was horrific from the get go. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/46 "2011-04-11T11:18:13Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > In Somalia we were up against heavily armed militiamen of the warlords. In Rwanda we would have faced a bunch of machete wielding half-crazed nobodies, any coherent military force of decent size would have made short work of. Indeed. The Hutu militia won the war and _they_ put an end to the genocide. I’d hazard the guess that western militaries could have done at least as much. ---
**Author:** ![Walmarticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Walmarticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walmarticus)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/47 "2011-04-11T11:53:48Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > There’s no freaking benefit in it for me… That’s not the point of helping other people. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/48 "2011-04-11T12:56:59Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > What was happening was well-known all along (and I didn’t even have a TV at the time). Certainly even moreso for a president. It was horrific from the get go. I was just pointing out that you can’t just go and “stop” genocide like you sign a proclamation making it Appreciate Teachers Day or something. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/49 "2011-04-11T13:16:23Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > It’s a thread about genocide, so I’m not going to hold back on the Nazi comparisons. Was the Nazi genocide against the Jews a “civil war?” > > The UN had armed troops and support on the ground at the time. If “a genocide is happening right now in front of our face” is not a time for those troops to act, what exactly is? Heavily armed troops, with the equipment and logistics to, at the very least, establish a safe zone and transport trapped civilians to it (remember, the arms they were up against were largely machetes), were ordered to just sit around watching. It’s as if we had armed troops hanging around a largely unarmed Auschwitz and decided to have them play Monopoly all day in front of the lines to the gas chambers. > > It is important to note that even in their ineffectual role, the UN troops played a role in slowing the slaughter. The killing started off relatively slow, and increased with each step the international community took to distance themselves from the genocide. The killing began in earnest when it became clear that nobody was going to stop them. In the first month 160,000 had been killed. By the end of the second month, around 400,000 had been killed. It was when everyone pulled out that the _genocidaires_ were able to kill the most efficiently, with another 400,000 killed by July 17th. > > After the genocide, we had little logistical, military or political obstacles keeping us from setting up and protecting refugee camps that largely functioned to keep Hutu refugees safe from reprisal, despite the continued instability and violence. I’m not sure how you can argue that we could effectively provide safety and security to Rwandan people in July, but would have been completely unable to do it in May. > > Rwanda was no more a “tribal war” than WWII was. I have no idea when it comes to Africa we throw all understanding of politics aside and resort to “Oh, those black people just can’t stop killing each other over their silly tribal prejudices,” as if black people are somehow motivated by different incentives than the ones that drive politics the world over. > > Hutu and Tutsi were political categories, loosely based on a “tribal” affiliation that had more to do with class than anything else. Hutus and Tutsis speak the same language, practice the same religion, live intermixed on the same land, and intermarry fairly freely. The difference is not a tribal difference, but rather something more along the lines of caste. Anyway, this difference was formalized and given political power by the modern state for modern political purposes. Its like the differences between Black, White, Colored and Asian in apartheid South Africa- sure, there is some “tribal” basis, but what makes it really meaningful is the power of the politics behind these categories. Did apartheid South African hate each other from irrational prejudice? Not really. They hated each other because that hate was structured into their political power. And modern politicians used those political categories to the fullest they could be exploited. > > Nor were they fighting about random tribal prejudice. The killing was largely about the same “whose political group is going to be in power” conflict that exists in every country, and on the individual level there was a land grab element, as land and food strapped people contemplated how much easier life would be in Africa’s densest country if their neighbors weren’t there. Many, many Hutus were included in the slaughter- sometimes with some weak justification of suspecting them to be “sympathizers,” but often with no real reason at all rather then bumping off the guy on the farm next to you would give you a bit a more space. > > FWIW, I don’t think any western power involved has stuck to their resolve and said “You know, goddammit, we made the right choice in Rwanda.” Everyone, almost universally, agrees that they did the wrong thing. I’m surprised how many people feel free to look back and conclude it was the right thing to do, when I don’t think any of the people actually involved and who actually made those choices would agree. Sounds like a blaring contradiction. If the Rwandan divisions were of political nature more than ethnical ones and the Rwandan conflict actually a totally political conflict, it’s a civil war we’re talking about, not a genocide. And the motives for intervention are then far more feeble. And so are the criticisms against a lack of reaction from the international community. Again you want to have the cake and eat it too. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/50 "2011-04-11T13:29:58Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > Sounds like a blaring contradiction. If the Rwandan divisions were of political nature more than ethnical ones and the Rwandan conflict actually a totally political conflict, it’s a civil war we’re talking about, not a genocide. > And the motives for intervention are then far more feeble. And so are the criticisms against a lack of reaction from the international community. > > Again you want to have the cake and eat it too. Jews aren’t a race but Nazis made them so. It wasn’t “Germans v. Jews”. It was “Nazis v. Jews”. A Jew in Germany was still thoroughly German. Tutsi and Hutu didn’t exist before the French created those categories. There was a systematic killing of a class of Rwandans - a group that was once picked to be the “Tutsis” for their light skin. The conflict can be both political and racial, no? The Tutsi and Hutus were a an odd mix, but they were clearly two legally separated groups. From wiki, since it has the UN definition: > [@](#): > > While a precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as **"any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,** as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. \*Edit: I was just trying to point out how the other Doper could be correct in that it was genocide, but the racial distinctions between the two groups were…well, silly. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/51 "2011-04-11T13:47:27Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > Jews aren’t a race but Nazis made them so. It wasn’t “Germans v. Jews”. It was “Nazis v. Jews”. A Jew in Germany was still thoroughly German. Tutsi and Hutu didn’t exist before the French created those categories. Pesky Frenches, they even create racial divides in countries they never ever controlled. **Even Sven** went with the “they’re not all mad tribesmen bent on wiping out each other”, but to justify this she repainted the whole conflict into exactly what constitutes a civil war. Moreover, the way she described the massacres, I fail to see the incomparable lack of morals of the West when clearly the genocide was conceived and acted by Africans. I’m half African, and it seriously tires my ass to see this kind of reasoning over and over. It was a genocide. It was a genocide perpretated by Africans. And it needed the West to end it, because basically Africans were totally unable to do so. It’s a childish position to be in, sadly it is the position Africa is in. And will never get out of as long as it prefers to comfort itself with childs tales where every responsibilities lie with the West. The international community failed to prevent the genocide, and for that it should be very harshly criticized. But you cant have “we’re grown ups we can take care of our shit” and “you didnt help us when we needed it, you bastards”. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/52 "2011-04-11T13:55:53Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > Genocide is systematic, bureaucratic, political, and rarely shows how horrific it is until it’s too late. In this case, it wasn’t. In this case, we knew from the earliest stages exactly what was going on, and were making decisions with nearly full information every step of the way. When we pulled out, 400,00 had been killed over the course of months, all of which was documented, discussed and debated in a leisurely way with cool heads. Only then, after so much drawn-out discussion, did we decide not to do anything. 400,00 died after. There were troops ont the ground with a competent general who had developed a well-thought-out plan. Indeed, even with extremely limited resources, he was able to protect a lot of people right up and to the point where he was ordered to pull out and leave the people he had in a safe, fortified position to be killed. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/53 "2011-04-11T15:35:26Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > I’m half African, and it seriously tires my ass to see this kind of reasoning over and over. It was a genocide. It was a genocide perpretated by Africans. And it needed the West to end it, because basically Africans were totally unable to do so. It’s a childish position to be in, sadly it is the position Africa is in. And will never get out of as long as it prefers to comfort itself with childs tales where every responsibilities lie with the West. > > The international community failed to prevent the genocide, and for that it should be very harshly criticized. But you cant have “we’re grown ups we can take care of our shit” and “you didnt help us when we needed it, you bastards”. Civil war and genocide are not mutually exclusive. Political identity and ethnic identity are not mutually exclusive- indeed, the two are nearly always intertwined. Reality has a habit of not falling neatly into careful UN definitions. Even genocide can be complex and nuanced while still being completely and horrifically wrong. It’s not the conforming to specific language or falling into a category that makes genocide evil. Nobody said anything about the West (the “French” reference was about the history of the Hutu/Tutsi ethnicity, and was not about the genocide or positing any foreign role in causing the genocide.) You are the only one who brought up “blame the west,” and it’s a tired old straw man. Congrats on knocking down something that nobody has argued. My horse in this race is that I find it supremely unhelpful when people describe African conflicts using terms they would not use anywhere else. I don’t understand why, upon seeing black skin, people suddenly forget terms like “ethnicity,” “power base,” and “constituency” and suddenly start talking about “tribes” as if everyone is out chucking spears at each other. When a Southern politician advocates for a pork barrel project for his hometown, that’s just politics. When an African politician does it, it’s “tribal favoritism.” I don’t understand why African conflicts alone are considered products of irrational prejudice, while every other continent has conflicts based on complex economic, political and social situations. I think this terminology is lazy, insulting, and most of all harmful to Africa. The one thing that will help Africa is investment and business, and if we all walk around with the impression that African are uniquely and irreparably motivation by irrational and unpredictable “tribal prejudice” we are not going to see enough nuance to see when it would be profitable for everyone to invest in Africa. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/54 "2011-04-12T03:27:38Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > No, they don’t. They are, at the very best, loosely bound by public opinion and/or treaties and similar pieces of paper. Ultimately however, nations (and corporations, for that matter) act like sociopaths. They are not here to be moral, but to pursue selfish interests - and that is all they ever do. Sometimes these interests dictate they behave as if driven by morals but you’d be a fool to assess them as moral entities. See Romans 13, states bears the sword to punish evil and to reward good. > [@clairobscur](#): > > Indeed. The Hutu militia won the war and _they_ put an end to the genocide. I’d hazard the guess that western militaries could have done at least as much. Actually the Tutsi-led coalition won the war and ended the gencoide. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/55 "2011-04-12T08:21:13Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Actually the Tutsi-led coalition won the war and ended the gencoide. Yes, of course. Sorry for the mistake. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/56 "2011-04-12T08:23:38Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > There were troops ont the ground with a competent general . If I’m not mistaken, he was a colonel. A Canadian colonel. And IIRC, he never really recovered of the experience. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/57 "2011-04-12T14:25:03Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > If I’m not mistaken, he was a colonel. A Canadian colonel. And IIRC, he never really recovered of the experience. I stand corrected. What he has to say on the whole thing is just incredible. He’s one of the few people on this planet who can say they know for sure, that when the pins are down, they will do the right thing. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/58 "2011-04-12T14:33:15Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > If I’m not mistaken, he was a colonel. A Canadian colonel. And IIRC, he never really recovered of the experience. You seem to be mistaken - he was promoted to brigadier general in 1989. ---
**Author:** ![Hold\_Fast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/58f4c7/32.png) [@Hold\_Fast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hold_Fast)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/59 "2011-04-12T14:54:14Z")
I really can’t fathom how people can seriously claim that genocides like this are “none of our business.” That policy made sense back in 1700’s, but the world is too small, and our power too great, to pretend that anything that happens past our borders is the world’s problem. I can generally clear this up pretty easily with a little illustration. Pretend you attend a school that is across the street from another school, and you are an extremely strong, big, guy. Then lets say your out in your school’s field or basketball court, and you happen to glance across the street and see some other guy, or guys, from the other school, walking around their basketball court beating the crap out of everyone smaller then them. Now the reason I added the fact that your huge, is to say that you can easily handle those guys if you had too, ( and for the sake of the illustration, pretend the only thing between those kids and getting beat up is you–no teachers or police or anything). Now if your still going to stand by and tell me that standing by is right because, “its not your business,” then lets up the stakes and say the bullies are walking around killing their fellow students. Again, bear in mind you can put a stop to it very easily and without harm to yourself, if you wished. Its really absurd at this point to continue trying to tell yourself that walking across the street and dealing with it is wrong, and not doing it is morally permissable. I don’t think the U.S should say, “move aside world, we’re in charge and were gonna do what we want when we want, and if you don’t like it, tough.” Genocides like this should be the absolute #1 interest of the U.N security council. As soon as it starts happening, you have nearly every nation in the U.N create a mass coailition of a million troops, flood the area, stop the genocide, and if need be, establish some form of satisfactory government(clearly this would raise issues between countries like U.S and China butting heads over what form of government would be the best, but that still doesn’t moot the fact that this should be done. China and the U.S would just have to deal with it and reach a compromise) But of course we never take actions like this. We sit around and let more Rwandas happen, let more Dafurs happen, let a dictator like Kim Jong Il to stay in power, and meanwhile the U.N spends the worlds tax dollars so that our leaders can get together on saturdays and yell as each other of the NATO’s missle defense system. So–in other words–yes, Clinton should have done something. ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623/60 "2011-04-12T21:54:59Z")
My understanding was that it would not have taken much to stop the genocide or at least protect people. There’s a well know story of two UNARMED UN Soldiers successfully protecting a church full of civilians. Just their being on site was enough. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-clinton-in-94-what-do-you-do-about-rwanda/577623.md?page=4)