During the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, President Bill Clinton and members of his administration pushed for the reduction of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Rwanda from over 2,500 troops to 270, with the remaining troops’ mandate being reduced to a mere observers’ role. The U.S. government evacuated foreign (read: white) personnel from Rwanda, and pretty much ensured the total success of the 100-day slaughter that occurred. President Clinton later told Rwandans that he “did not act quickly enough after the killing began” in his 1998 address in Rwanda.

President Clinton did not fail to act as he told the world then. Actually, he actively pushed for a particular course of action. The genocide began after the April 6 assassinations of the Rwandan and Burundian presidents. By April 11, U.S. government and foreign personnel were successfully evacuated from Rwanda. Once the evacuations were completed, President Clinton, along with then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, “visited the State Department task force in charge of evacuating American citizens to congratulate them on finishing their job.” President Clinton’s administration then strongly and successfully pushed for the reduction and evacuation of the peacekeeping force, by April 21, 1994.

On the day the Rwandan Genocide is generally commemorated, former President Clinton’s words rang hollow both in material and delivery. Instead, they conjured up images, of white foreigners being evacuated from Rwanda to safety at the outset of the genocide. The rest of us, the innocent civilians, were provided with neither the option of evacuation, nor the decency of protection, but were left, amidst a bloody war and genocide, come what may.

What about our black lives made them immaterial to President Clinton and his administration? The cynicism of his utterance “Black Lives Matter” in Africa juxtaposed to his administration’s comments and actions goes even deeper. In discussions about whether to call the events occurring at the time in Rwanda genocide, Clinton National Security Council staff member Susan Rice, who went on to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., and as current National Security Advisor, said, “If we use the word ‘genocide’ and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November [congressional] election?”

It is almost impossible to articulate the depth of betrayal felt at this profound sense of political expediency. While our lives were being slaughtered, at least somewhere in the United States, elections were being won. And in exchange, 800,000-1,000,000 casualties of black lives that apparently did not matter more than mid-term elections were lost.

The Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial included the following reasons for endorsing him:
“his willingness to put principle above party”

“the best credentials and experience to immediately serve Pennsylvania and the nation”

“he can maneuver beyond partisan politics to help the middle class rebound from years of stagnant wages”​

“Sestak’s refusal to be put into a partisan box”

“a deep understanding of government and foreign policy that Katie McGinty and John Fetterman cannot match.”
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion

Former President Clinton apparently was not expecting, when he appeared last week at a campaign event in Philadelphia on behalf of his wife, the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to be confronted by Black Lives Matter protesters over the consequences, intended and not, of one of his Administration’s signature bills—the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Clinton, his voice raised, wanted protesters to believe that it was thanks to this bill that the nation’s crime rate went down, police forces became more diverse, and a federal assault-weapons ban became law, at least until the ban expired, a decade later; he was able recite a fusillade of statistics without it always being clear where they came from or what, exactly, they referred to. The shouting, Clinton’s finger-wagging replies, and the reluctance to accept what others were saying provided a fascinating glimpse of a group with a deeply felt point of view and of a major political figure repeatedly, even stubbornly, grabbing a political third rail and refusing to let go. For all that, as a political actor, he never broke character, never stopped trying to connect, reminding witnesses of his enormous talent as a campaigner, as well as his potentially volatile role in his wife’s race for the Presidency.

Last week’s confrontation must have been especially hard for Bill Clinton, who loves to speak, hold forth, speak some more, and further explain—none of which is possible when you can’t be heard and you don’t listen. What must have made it harder was listening to his wife’s challenger, Senator Bernie Sanders, whose supporters include Spike Lee and Harry Belafonte, say that “the President owes the American people an apology for trying to defend what is indefensible.” Clinton later said that he was “almost” ready to apologize for the angry tenor of the occasion, which, after all, was intended to bolster black support for his wife generally, and specifically in the now-competitive April 19th New York primary. However much he is helping or harming his wife’s campaign, he’s visibly enjoying his work (on Sunday, he spoke at three Harlem churches), even if his enthusiasm sometimes pushes him over the rhetorical line. His encounter with Black Lives Matter protesters, though, did not help the campaign at all.

Clinton did not exactly reprise his “Sister Souljah moment,” of 1992, when, as the Democratic candidate for President, he offended some supporters (and won many others) by comparing a rap singer’s remarks to the views of the Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. It was, rather, more of an anti-Souljah episode, showing impatience and irritation with people whose views he seemed unable to acknowledge. It was, above all, a case of the present confronting the past—modern awareness confronting yesterday’s mistakes, such as Hillary Clinton’s use of the term “superpredator” to refer to some of the juvenile criminals who would be most affected by the crime bill’s harsh sentencing provisions. The former President did not say much about how the legislation led to a very bad outcome—the imprisonment of African-Americans, in alarming numbers, for nonviolent crimes.

Philadelphia -- Something "YUGE" is happening in the Democratic presidential campaign, and perhaps in the broader American body politic. It's hard to put your finger on it, but like that feeling of your neck hairs rising off your skin as a big thunderstorm approaches, you know it's big and it's coming.

For me it was going with my wife and a friend to join a line of people waiting to get into Temple University's 10,000-seat basketball arena for a hastily planned address by Democratic candidate for president Bernie Sanders. When we got to the campus early yesterday, there was already a crowd of young people camped out by the entrance to the Liacouras Center. They told me they had been there since 6:30 am for an event that was scheduled to start at 8 pm, with doors opening at 5 pm. Already a line stretched back to the corner of Broad Street, around the corner and halfway down the block on Montgomery. Most of those in the line were students from Temple or from one or another of Philadelphia's many other universities. They were white, black, latino and Asian, with a smattering of older folks. I went off to do some work, with plans for our little band to join the line around 4:30.

Big mistake! By the time we headed out to get in line, it was winding around the huge sports complex, snaking up and down several alleys and back to Broad, and then down Broad for another six blocks -- about half a mile of people in all with more piling on all the time. At many places this line of people was eight to 10 across, and fairly densely packed, as people tried to shelter each other from a biting cold wind.

As we were heading back to our car with from the rally, my wife and I found ourselves walking behind the head of Temple University's police department, which had largely handled the security and traffic issues caused by the huge all-day line of people coming to attend the rally. A tall crew-cut wearing guy who looked 100% cop, when we complemented him on how his officers had handled the crowd management issue, he told us his own 21-year-old son was a "Bernie supporter."