US chose to ignore Rwandan genocide

[FreakinDJ]

Just Amazing ....

just simply amazing ...

President Bill Clinton's administration knew Rwanda was being engulfed by genocide in April 1994 but buried the information to justify its inaction, according to classified documents made available for the first time.
Senior officials privately used the word genocide within 16 days of the start of the killings, but chose not to do so publicly because the president had already decided not to intervene.

ntelligence reports obtained using the US Freedom of Information Act show the cabinet and almost certainly the president had been told of a planned "final solution to eliminate all Tutsis" before the slaughter reached its peak.

It took Hutu death squads three months from April 6 to murder an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus and at each stage accurate, detailed reports were reaching Washington's top policymakers.

The documents undermine claims by Mr Clinton and his senior officials that they did not fully appreciate the scale and speed of the killings.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/mar/31/usa.rwanda

[brooklynite]

1. ...and how many Sanders voters would have endorsed military engagement to stop it?

[hrmjustin]

2. Great question.

[FreakinDJ]

3. Rape as a reward

Rape as a reward

In a 2002 interview with the New York Times, Rose said that while she sought refuge at a local hospital she saw Hutu soldiers storm the building.

''They said that Pauline had given them permission to go after the Tutsi girls, who were too proud of themselves,'' she recounted.

''She was the minister, so they said they were free to do it,'' Rose said, adding that "Pauline had led the soldiers to see rape as a reward."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4087816,00.html

there are those who have no morals and then there are those who Truly have No Morals

[BigMin28]

6. Bernie supporter her

Clinton supporter then. I definitely would have supported military intervention. I remember seeing reports on the news, all the bodies choking a river. It was heartbreaking. I could not understand how we and the restimate of the world could stand by and do nothing.

[choie]

7. I'll answer it...

I'm sure many, including me - and probably including Bernie.. It was a genocide...if you're trying to compare that with the action taken in Iraq, you're being disingenuous at best...

[FreakinDJ]

9. Veterans for Bernie kind of answers the question

Folks of Strong Moral Conviction

[joshcryer]

15. Sanders voted for Responsibility to Protect.

[JackRiddler]

29. That's too bad.

His naive or knowing collaboration in imperialist justifications is a major problem but part of the game of playing within the Democratic Party, to which he has been loyal for decades (contrary to what some say here). Can you reference the vote(s) you mean, however? To clarify.

[joshcryer]

30. Here's the vote:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/senate-resolution/85/text

It passed by voice vote so no votes were recorded, however, Sanders was a cosponsor.

[JackRiddler]

33. Okay but...

that doesn't mention R2P and other than condemning the Libyan government violence calls for action only within the bounds of the UN SC, unless I missed something.

He did vote for the Libya authorization, did he not?

[PufPuf23]

24. The intervention was a job for the United Nations who already had an accord and peace keepers

in place and failed to add resources to their mission.

The USA should have expressed a stronger voice in the UN and offered resources under the UN banner.

[Snotcicles]

4. I wonder if he thinks about Damnation. nt

[FreakinDJ]

5. and then show up for the Photo Op

[Beausoir]

8. There's nothing like a good Genocide to try and score some cheap political points.

[JackRiddler]

10. Hardly. The U.S. was intervening the whole time.

Last edited Tue May 24, 2016, 01:02 AM - Edit history (1)

The U.S. had armed the RPF, which had been organized in Uganda under the U.S.-backed Museveni. Kagame was training at Ft. Leavenworth when he received word he'd be leading the RPF on the death of its former commander. The indisputably government-run genocide took place in the context of this government losing the civil war against RPF forces entering from Uganda. At that point the U.S. was not going to intervene directly, because this might have had the effect of suspending hostilities in a war that its side was about to win.

France meanwhile backed the genocidal government with arms and special forces, and used a UN resolution as the pretext to intervene, securing a safe zone for the retreat of government troops and genocidaire militias into then Zaire. In the context of what was (also) a proxy war between the imperialist powers of France and U.S., the myth of Western "inaction" is a bitter joke on the victims. But it has persisted because it buttresses the R2P ideology (a.k.a. Samantha Power doctrine) that has justified other interventions since. Such as in Libya.

What if Western powers had shown vision and principle? What if they had steered clear of any covert or overt interventions, and given no military support to any side in the region, in the decades before 1994? What if they had consistently encouraged peaceful development and created fair trade conditions with these countries? We can never know if the outcomes would have been different in any given case.

[PufPuf23]

25. Good thoughts and accurate post Jack.

If you had not posted, I would have posted something about France backing the government and the US backing the rebels in the Rwandan Civil War.

Thanks.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

11. OK, I have to ask this

The takeaway I get from these posts is: Rwandan genocide was bad, and the US should have done something, like sending troops, to stop the slaughter.

So, if that's true, why is it that now when ISIS is committing genocide against Middle Eastern Christians (and also killing a helluva lot of Muslims), we at DU scream from the rafters that we don't want any more US intervention in the Middle East?

At some point, everyone needs to admit that the US cannot solve everyone's problems.

[cherokeeprogressive]

14. Try this.

EIGHT HUNDRED. THOUSAND. Roll that around on your tongue for a while.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

18. The Khmer Rouge killed 4X that many

We did nothing.

We did stop the slaughter of the Kosovar Albanians by the Serbs. That was something.

[cherokeeprogressive]

19. EIGHT. HUNDRED. THOUSAND. Most of them HACKED to death if I remember correctly.

If not most; a HUGE number. With knives. While this country stood idly by.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

21. Pol Pot killed more, and just as grusomely

There was no way anyone would have supported intervention after 'Nam.

There was zero support for sending troops to Rwanda if it has been 8M.

[azurnoir]

32. perhaps that's because it was purposefully kept hidden from the US public until it was over

the only way you knew about it was if you listened to alternative news sources-Zodiac was a good one back then

[JackRiddler]

20. Misconceptions. "We" did plenty.

"We" first installed a bad military government in Cambodia in 1970, at the same time "we" (Nixon-Kissinger) were "secretly" bombing it back to the stone age, paving the way for the Khmer Rouge takeover.

When Vietnam invaded Cambodia and put an end to the mass murder in 1979, "we" joined with China in sanctioning Vietnam and ARMING THE FUCKING KHMER ROUGE against the Vietnamese "enemy."

Kosovo, I'm not getting into here.

[liberal_at_heart]

23. We do tend to f***k up any military action we take whether the need for help is there or not.

The problem is the whole damn thing is one big ass Risk game to national leaders positioning themselves and their allies to benefit somehow from the military action. That is one reason I am so cautious when it comes to military intervention. Lives are being lost; our military, their military, our civilians, their civilians. War should always be a last resort and in self defense not as a means to benefit from.

[JackRiddler]

22. Because ISIS is the result of prior U.S. interventions?

It wouldn't exist without the prior destruction of Iraq and the all-the-way backing of Saudi despite their interventions in Syria?

And the U.S. was intervening in Rwanda the whole time, just not in a way that would do anything about the genocide.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

26. I'll respond to both posts here

Kosovo: one could go back to the theft of historically Albanian land after the Balkan War, or go back further.

I don't deny that the US helped cause conditions that put homicidal maniacs in positions of power in all three situations. I'm not arguing your analysis. I'm simply saying we took no direct action in Rwanda or Cambodia to stop the slaughter, and there would have been little support for doing so. The only reason many Americans want action against ISIS is that they are killing Christisns. If it were purely intramural, we would not care.

[JackRiddler]

27. One could go back to any given historical point

to justify any statement made about which invented nationlet supposedly belongs on what patch of holy soil in the Balkans. (I speak as someone with family ties to one of the many constructs.) Especially in the Balkans, every nationalism dreams of borders that conflict with every other, based on the claims and myths of long-dead generations that are often valid in their historical context, but border on the absurd or worse as justifications for present-day action.

What has been the result? The best damned idea was to fashion a single multi-ethnic Yugoslavia, and it's tragic that the various revanchists revived the micronationalisms (with support from the same old Great Powers) and brought on civil war when the economic crisis hit.

But anyway, I'm not getting into the Kosovo '99 business here. It's complicated, even if I have a firm opinion.

The Rwandan and Cambodian cases are much more clear cut. Both involved long-running RISK-style interventions by the U.S. (and France in Rwanda) so it's ridiculous to say there should have been a magical switch to a more high-minded form of intervention that saved people's lives at the decisive point. (How about a confession of the U.S. role and exposure of the French role, with an end to arms supply and a demand that all killing cease, for a start? It might actually provide the moral standing if you then want to play shining knight who prevents further killing.)

But more importantly from the present day, here too, it's arbitrary to choose one past moment over another as the one to debate on the question of "intervene or not intervene," especially in retrospect.

Rather, a rational policymaking elite would have stopped the geopolitical wankery known as "realism" and sought a long term global vision with integrity for peace decades earlier.

The big global power could have and still can lead the way in fostering a vision for peace that adopts a perspective of decades, rather than one focused on gaining next week's advantage in some geopolitical tabletop game with real blood on the ground 6,000 miles away. It is on the U.S. as top dog to initiate an end to the global arms trade and military aid system, cease supporting "enemies of my enemy" (no matter how evil), lead negotiations to scale back all militaries, abjure secret policies and covert interventions of all kinds, open records, stop developing the next generation of kill machines (and selling the last generation to despots), etc. etc.

[Vattel]

35. Every case has to be addressed on its own merits.

Sometimes military force is justified even though it saves only a few lives. Why? Maybe because the mission can be accomplished without any serious collateral damage. On other occasions, military force is unjustified even if hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake. Why? Maybe because the mission, though well-intentioned, would do more harm then good.

[JoePhilly]

12. Thanks for the 180 degree spin on the use of the US military.

[GulfCoast66]

17. Spin?

Really. So you say we should have taken military action 20 something years ago. Which of course costs nothing now. But heaven forbid we do the same thing now to prevent the same thing from happening.

Do you support military action against ISIS to prevent more genocide against Christians and other non-approved Muslims? If not, shut the fuck up.

[cherokeeprogressive]

13. EIGHT. HUNDRED. THOUSAND. Roll that number around on your tongue for a while. nt

[XemaSab]

34. Per Wikipedia, that's a low number

Out of a population of 7.3 million people–84% of whom were Hutu, 15% Tutsi and 1% Twa–the official figures published by the Rwandan government estimated the number of victims of the genocide to be 1,174,000 in 100 days (10,000 murdered every day, 400 every hour, 7 every minute). It is estimated that about 300,000 Tutsi survived the genocide. Thousands of widows, many of whom were subjected to rape, are now HIV-positive. There were about 400,000 orphans and nearly 85,000 of them were forced to become heads of families.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide

[liberal_at_heart]

16. One of the biggest failings of ALL politicians is they can't admit when they are wrong and

they are not flexible enough to change course. I am very cautious when it comes to military intervention. I probably would not have wanted the US to intervene early on, but as it became clear just how horrific a situation it was becoming Clinton should have told the American people we needed to help.

[chervilant]

28. The hypocrisy...

it burns.

[fun n serious]

31. To intervene or not intervene

that is the question.

[Skwmom]

36. Watch Sometime in April, the extra footage.

It shows what the Clinton admin did (his press sec argued what the meaning of genocide is and Albright pushed to have
the peacekeepers removed), then shows Bill Clinton saying we can never let this happen again.