Clinton on Rwanda
Former president Bill Clinton, who visited a memorial to the 1994 Rwanda genocide this weekend, said "I express regret for my personal failure" to take actions that might have halted or prevented the slaughter of more than 800,000 people. He laid a wreath at a new museum commemorating the victims of that genocide before touring the museum. After the visit, he told reporters that the museum "faithfully, honestly, painfully presents the truth of the Rwandan genocide. It is an important contribution to the history of the world, that the world cannot afford to forget."
The thing that most saddened me reading of Clinton's visit is the fact that ten years from now there may well be a very similar piece featuring our current president laying a wreath at a memorial to those currently being slain in the Darfur genocide. Never again, they said ...
posted by JBD @ 12:22 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
The thing that most saddened me reading of Clinton's visit is the fact that ten years from now there may well be a very similar piece featuring our current president laying a wreath at a memorial to those currently being slain in the Darfur genocide. Never again, they said ...
Agreed, except it is too much of a stretch for me to expect W to ever admit a mistake, unless he grows up someday. Let's face it, the man is essentially gutless. If anyone has proof to the contrary, show me. I have yet to see the man ever take a stance that indicates ANY moral courage. Always the easy way out when his personal interest or the interest of his cronies was at stake.
President Clinton devoted a single paragraph of his book to Rwanda. Ten years after turning his back to the slaughter, he's not a hero. He sided with polls at the time- he was wrong in doing so. Likewise, Mr. Bush should intervene in Darfur. Just like Mr. Clinton, he's mistaken by playing it safe politically. Both parties play it safe when it comes to African genocide. But the victims are just as dead. To his credit, at least Mr. Clinton intervened in Bosnia.
I have to second the last post’s thoughts about Clinton and Rwanda. It is easily the greatest failure of his Presidency and one of the great failures of recent American foreign policy. Unfortunately, it is part of a long tradition of the international community failing to prevent genocide, stretching from Armenia to Sudan. Of course, this history does not excuse or forgive the failure of world leaders but it does provide a context for what is going on. Sudan is particularly sickening because Bush did devote energy to stopping the killing in the Christian south but has done almost nothing about stopping the violence in Muslims Darfur. If nothing else, the President should realize that his rhetoric of brining freedom to the Islamic world rings hallow when comparisons like this are made. In the last generation, the US actually has an okay record in helping Muslims. We are the only Western country to offer the Palestinians more then rhetoric in their hope for self-determination and we intervened to stop the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo, not to mention liberating Kuwait (I will sidestep the political hot potato of Afghanistan and Iraq). Yet, none of this matters if once again we stand by and let genocide continue.
I would be very surprised to see Mr. Bush lift the arm of America against a Muslim government even one as evil as the Bashir. Would the US and its Allies have the stomach for another front against Islamic Jihad, even with the justification of preventing genocide? Probably not...sad but true. Don't get me wrong. I do believe that intervention in Africa is a laudable goal. Perhaps it is a project for the European Union until we have some resolution in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Off topic, but just wanted to alert you guys that Patrick Ruffini is hosting a 2008 GOP presidential poll on his site. I encourage you guys to head over there and vote. I mean, most readers of this blog are probably self-described RINOS, but RINOS are Republicans too!
www.patrickruffini.com
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