For whatever it's worth, at the time the perception within the military was of an administration, following the travesty of Somalia, completely unwilling to intervene in Africa.
I think this is the most important part of the article:
"It's a lot harder to imagine that while Hillary Clinton was advocating military intervention, she not only failed to convince her husband to send troops, but also failed to convince him, for instance, not to advocate the withdrawal of most of the UN peacekeepers, or that he really ought to order the Pentagon to jam Radio Milles Collines. If she was doing her best behind the scenes, and failed to accomplish even this -- if, despite her best efforts, she couldn't persuade her husband not to advocate withdrawing UN peacekeepers just to provide cover for the Belgians -- then we really need to ask how effective an advocate she really is, especially since no one except her husband, in full campaign mode, seems to remember her efforts at all."
They didn't even jam the radio broadcasts, and now Bill Clinton is trying to take advantage of what happened to help his wife win power. This might be a new low even for him.
The initial Boston Globe article isn't very clear on what exactly Bill Clinton said Hillary had said. It's glossed as Bill saying Hillary urged him to "intervene" in Rwanda. It doesn't say she urged an American military intervention. But I remember the way the debate was unfolding in April '94. It seems entirely possible that Hillary was in the camp of those saying that the genocide was most likely real and that, if it was, then the US needed to be doing something to try and stop it, rather than trying to stay out of it. I don't think it would be dishonest to characterize that, in retrospect, as urging the US to intervene. Most of those at the time who credited the genocide reports and felt the US needed to act weren't talking about a military intervention; that would have been viewed as precipitous and would have harmed the case that we ought to do something. The way these things unfold, as in Kosovo, is that the pro-intervention crowd first makes the case that the human rights catastrophe is intolerable; then argues for some kind of intervention; then various kinds of intervention are mooted; then they all fail; then, with prestige committed, the last option of military intervention is put on the table. I mean, few or none of the Darfur activists are arguing for a US military intervention, but I don't think it would be dishonest to say 10 years from now that they were among those urging the US to "intervene".
I have no idea whether or not Hillary actually argued for a stronger response to Rwanda. I'm just saying that noting that she doesn't seem to have gotten military intervention on the table at the NSC doesn't make Bill's or Hillary's claim a lie. They may be stretching the truth, or they may even be speaking broadly accurately.
But, as Bill said, "That's politics" (Clinton-style): The facts don't matter if the lies get repeated often enough. And the television media is not known for good fact-checking. If the US had at least helped the UN do its job of protecting the Rwandans, then maybe she could have a claim. At least in that case the spin would pass the smell test, but this one reeks.
As the article says, there were many steps short of military intervention that the US could have, but didn't, take:
"In reality the United States did much more than fail to send troops. It led a successful effort to remove most of the UN peacekeepers who were already in Rwanda. It aggressively worked to block the subsequent authorization of UN reinforcements. It refused to use its technology to jam radio broadcasts that were a crucial instrument in the coordination and perpetuation of the genocide. And even as, on average, 8,000 Rwandans were being butchered each day, U.S. officials shunned the term "genocide," for fear of being obliged to act."
If Hillary was advocating action but couldn't even convince Bill to jam the radio broadcasts, then she was extremely ineffective.
Salon and Slate magazines have recently run stories with various retired generals stating that McCain does not have the temperament to be commander in chief, but Obama does. One of the generals quoted has endorsed Obama. I hope we see an Obama ad that publicizes this.
It's a way to hit back at Clinton's repeated comments that she and McCain have a lifetime of experience and he has a speech. Hillary is also known to also have quite the temper. The ad doesn't mention Clinton at all. It's the classy way to punch her glass jaw.
A suggested script for General McPeak:
Senator McCain is a tremendous American and I honor and respect his service to our country. However, I decided not to endorse McCain in his run for the presidency due to my concerns about his temperament. He is well-known for his explosive temper and colorful tantrums, which is exactly what one doesn't need in a commander in chief.
In a crisis situation, the commander must be cool, calm, and able to exercise good judgement. That is why I have chosen to endorse Barack Obama. Senator Obama will make the hard decisions required to protect our national security.
Senator Obama's intelligence, emotional stability, and wide-ranging knowledge have convinced me that he is the one to lead us into the future.
I invite you to join me and millions of other Americans in supporting Barack Obama for President. Together we can move this country forward in confidence and security.
If Hillary is so sure we should have intervened in Rwanda, is she willing to advocate intervening in Darfur? I don't mean sending some diplomats to negotiate an eventual unarmed observer force once the consent of all involved parties can be obtained; I mean flying in 10,000 U.S. soldiers with orders to shoot, whether Sudan likes it or not. Is she willing to stand up and loudly say: "On my first day in office, I will deploy U.S. troops into Darfur."
Kirk Parker, or Rockley White, or Trent Youngblood, or Mendel Bernstein or whatever your real name is:
how does the fact that Bill Clinton said he "never held a staff meeting" on the Rwandan genocide contradict his later contention that his wife was advocating a stronger response or intervention?
Your next comment on how easy it would be to stop genocide in Darfur leads me to believe you are 13 years old, and so perhaps deserve to be cut some slack.
The assertion that the Clinton administration "never even had a staff meeting" on the Rwanda genocide is laughably unbelievable to anyone who remembers the events.
This story was leading the news for weeks. There were dozens of press conferences at the state department and the white house that were dominated by questions on Rwanda. Adminstration members were clearly engaged in a coordinated policy of avoiding the word "genocide" when everyone in the world was aware that was exactly what was happening. Repeated calls to action by hordes of career civil servants were supressed, which would only have happened with guidance from the highest levels of the administration. All this was widely covered in the press at the time.
Only under some bizarre Clintonesque definition of "staff meeting" could there have been no staff meetings on this. ("Well, the secretary of transportation wasn't present, so it wasn't a full staff meeting.")
David Wright, how is the question of whether or not Clinton held a staff meeting on the issue even relevant to whether Hillary was advocating a stronger response at the time?
Brooksfoe, I grant that it doesn't directly contradict Hillary's claim; it's certainly possible that Bill is lying his ass off, but that Hillary was nonetheless advocating intervention.
Still, his ludicrous assertion does call into question Bill's veracity on the subject, and he is Hillary's primary witness supporting her claim. So it is indirectly relevant, because it inclines the observer to dismiss the only testimony supporting her otherwise unsupported, and prima facie rather impropable, claim.
Why didn't Hillary go to Rwanda and have tea with the Hutu and Tutsi leaders? If it brought peace to northern Ireland, you'd think it could work there as well.
There seems to be an overtone in this discussion and among the Democrat politicians running for office that intervening militarily in Rwanda would have been a "good" thing.
Why?
I certainly agree that we should have brought U.S. economic power to bear, and support in all things short of the military would have been the right thing to do, but I don't agree on the use of the military.
But I have a rather specialized viewpoint--I was in the military (Marines) for 28 years, and my son is in the Marines now. So I ask myself a few simple questions before any use of military force: (1) what are the political objectives that would be achieved through the use of military force, (2) what is the national security interest involved, and (3) would it be worth losing my life or my son's life?
For Rwanda, like Bosnia and Kosovo, the answers to #'s 2 and 3 are None and No respectively. #1 was never articulated for Bosnia and Kosovo, and indeed we are still there with no way of knowing when we will leave. For Rwanda, at least, #1 is answerable, even though it can not be easily articulated, unlike Iraq, where the answer is To permit establishment of a government in Iraq which will deny the country to use by terrorists. (Even if you disagree with the goal, it is articulated.)
She also claims that she worked to pass the Family of Medical Leave Act of 1993 - which Bill and congressional leaders planned on getting re-passed as soon as possible after he was sworn it.
I say re-passed because it was passed twice before but President George H.W. Bush vetoed it.
More here:http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/9/111930/6389/50/472849
For Republican Lurkers: The democrats are just TOO MESSED UP.
Hillary Clinton is NOT A FIGHTER..SHE’S A BULLY!! She would SAY & DO ANYTHING TO GET WHAT SHE WANTS. She's soo full of herself, stoop soo low as to make Obama less qualified than the Republican nominee , calling him a fairy tale, maybe a muslim, maybe a drug dealer, going around telling people to fear him, equate him to Ken Starr for crying out loud and after that she has THE ARROGANCE to imply she would consider him to be her running mate when he’s the one with more delegates, more states won, more votes. Now, that's LOW even for republicans. The Clintons would rather see their party torn apart, than having somebody else be the nominee. She has made Obama's supporters so disgusted & appalled that the thought of voting for her on any ticket would make them hurl!!! REPUBLICANS SHOULD KEEP THIS GOING, The longer the Clintons talk, the more repulsive they become, they JUST CAN’T HELP THEMSELVES.
My republican friends, WITH OUR CANDIDATE ALREADY SELECTED, LET'S MAKE SURE WE VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON! This is OUR GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY. She has screwed up her party so much, there's no way most of those new enthusiastic Obama’s supporters would vote for her come general election, those Obama republicans certainly won't, majority of independents may consider McCain but CAN’T STAND Clinton. There's NOTHING MORE ENERGIZING FOR US THAN TO VOTE AGAINST HER IN NOVEMBER (talking about turning the table to our side) She's done a PERFECT job FOR The Republican Party, LET'S REPAY HER “KINDNESS” & GIVE HER WHAT SHE WANTS. Obama's movement will be GONE (Thanks to her), and WE'LL BE THE ONE REAPING THE BENEFIT. WE WILL HAVE A MOVEMENT VOTING AGAINST HILLARY IN GENERAL ELECTION. You gotta stomach it republicans, if you’re in PA you have until March 24 to register as democrat & vote for Hillary. The outcome will so worth the sacrifice.
We should NEVER let democrats win the White House & Hillary can help us do it, SHE ALREADY HAVE, WE JUST NEED TO FINISH IT! Even after George Bush screwing up, Billary are helping us claim VICTORY in 2009. There's still HOPE for us afterall. Ooh the IRONY is just too much. One DEMOCRAT is A MONSTER and the OTHER is A LOOSER, Thanks to the Monster! Their ONLY HOPE candidate is crushed by his party MONSTER and giving US the HOPE instead. PERFECT!
THANK GOD FOR MCCAIN…, he looks BETTER & BETTER BY THE DAY! My fellow republicans let's MAKE SURE WE VOTE FOR HILLARY. This is WAY…TOO EASY to keep the White House. NO WONDER DEMOCRATS NEVER WIN. Hillary has given us OBAMA on a SILVER PLATER, & SHE WILL BE ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK when SHE'S THE NOMINEE. EITHER WAY, REPUBLICAN WILL WIN! HOW BEAUTIFUL IS THAT!
brooksfoe, maybe she did claim this, but as hilzoy pointed out, her name has never even come up as ever having even had a stated opinion on this until this campaign. They're the ones that brought up Rwanda. I doubt Power, Gourevitch, Dallaire, Kuperman, etc. all avoided talking about Hillary's strong anti-Tutsi Power stance because they were Obama partisans back when their books were written before Obama became a Senator. I've read a decent amount about the Rwanda genocide and Washington's (non) response and Hillary Clinton has never been mentioned once in anything I've read as an advocate of intervention. It is weird that this comes out during a primary campaign during which she had to cook up some BS foreign policy experience besides being more willing to kill innocent brown people and during which, until recently, one of the most respected scholars on genocide, who reported from Bosnia while the Serbs shelled the capitol, just happened to be advising Obama.
(2) what is the national security interest involved, and (3) would it be worth losing my life or my son's life? For Rwanda, like Bosnia and Kosovo, the answers to #'s 2 and 3 are None and No respectively. - Rex
In that case, Rex, you are the America which Samantha Power accurately described in "A Problem From Hell": you do not believe in honoring the US's treaty commitment to stop genocide. Power's book is at root a neutral, factual, and devastating examination of the fact that the United States has never intervened to prevent genocide, either before or after the signing of the Convention on Genocide which obligates us to do so. Not only have we never intervened militarily, we have never exerted any significant diplomatic or other effort to bring a genocidal campaign to a halt, and have generally reacted by denying or obscuring the evidence that the genocide was occurring, trying to defray responsibility onto other nations, and arguing that action would only make the situation worse. Power shows that US policy has followed this pattern in Armenia/Turkey in 1915; in the Holocaust, when we refused to do anything to stop the Final Solution while it was taking place despite Rafel Lemke's pleas to FDR; in Cambodia in 1975-8; in Bosnia in 1992-4; and in Rwanda in 1994. I can't remember whether she treats Kurdistan in 1988 but obviously we did less than nothing there; nor did we do anything in Sierra Leone in 1998. Our record is not noticeably better than that of China in Darfur. The sole exception, arguably, would be Kosovo in 1999; that never became a genocidal situation, but one could argue that it never did precisely because of outside intervention led by the US.
I would ask you to consider how it sounds to, say, a Jewish American when you say you do not feel it would be worth your son's life to prevent a genocide in progress. I just find this confusing. I don't understand why someone would be willing to die for the vague and notional idea that an Iraq ruled by Shiite theocrats would be a better base camp for radical Muslim terrorists who might ultimately be better able to launch terrorist attacks on the US from there than they can from their current safe houses in Pakistan, Somalia and Hamburg, but unwilling to drop into Rwanda to stop men with machetes from systematically murdering 800,000 civilians, including women and children, in an episode of mass hysteria. I find this all the stranger because it's so much easier for small forces of US Marines to subdue African farmers holding machetes than to fight six dozen different AK and RPG and IED-armed clans in Iraq. It took the French 2,500 troops and about 20 aircraft to bring the Ivorian civil war to a dead stop. Executive Outcomes almost put an end to the conflict in Sierra Leone; the Brits ultimately did so with 2000 troops. We're bogged down with 150,000 in Iraq and barely holding the place together.
"I would ask you to consider how it sounds to, say, a Jewish American when you say you do not feel it would be worth your son's life to prevent a genocide in progress."
I would ask you why that Jewish-American's feelings would matter. It might be different if Jewish fathers had ever sent their sons out to stop the genocide of some other group. Was it up to Jews in Britain to do somethng about the Potato Famine? None of us has any real basis to expect other people to lay down their lives for us.
I find this all the stranger because it's so much easier for small forces of US Marines to subdue African farmers holding machetes than to fight six dozen different AK and RPG and IED-armed clans in Iraq.
True, but the political fallout, both domestic and diplomatic, is 100% negative for any politician who orders such a thing. EO was a wildly effective and highly ethical fighting force compared to many African armies, and the UN came down hard on their very existence. The Marines got criticized for lacking the "moral authority" to dole out tsunami relief without UN permission. And I recall when Albright visited the U of WA in (I think) mid-2001, the Society of Boneheaded Student Protesters (I paraphrase) put up posters excoriating her for 1) murdering Serbs in Bosnia and 2) failing to stop the Rawanda genocide.
France and Britain can get away with their little interventions because they aren't the Great Satan; anytime a US soldier pulls the trigger, it's a war crime in the eyes of many people, a goodly number of them US voters.
So yes, stopping genocide is something we never do. Hard to blame the people in power who decide not to, though.
It sure looks like historically we never should have signed such a treaty.
You might think that we're in Iraq for a "vague and notional" idea (I think you are wrong, but that's another discussion), but at least the idea is there. But there is not even that much in the case of Rwanda.
Look, as a military man, it is my honorable duty to lay down my life for my country--but not for other people's countries. If you can't show me the threat to my country, count me out.
That being said, I certainly agree that we have a moral obligation to try to stop genocide short of using military force, but the majority of people in this country don't agree with that. A separate problem is, where do you draw the line? How do you decide when to intervene and when not to? There is a long list of countries that killed their own. Venezuela, North Korea, Colombia, Cambodia, Iran, Vietnam, China, Soviet Union, Balkans, Iraq, Congo, Rwanda, etc. etc. etc.
We can't police the world. What we can do is take action when our national security requires it, and leave the rest to the "diplomats." ("Diplomats" is a curse word, by the way. "The function of diplomacy is to maintain tensions just short of war.")
I'm interested in where you draw the line here. If you (or your son) had been part of the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda when the killing began, would you have wanted to be pulled out? Would you have supported at least allowing people to shelter in a place that you and the rest of the troops made a show of being willing to defend, just to see if even token resistance could save those people at little risk to yourself?
One can certainly argue that we shouldn't have gone to the extreme of a full-scale US military intervention, but it seems that we should have drawn the line far past where we did. We didn't have to actively lobby to have UN peacekeepers pulled out, or to prevent new ones from being sent. And, as I've said a couple of times already in this thread, we could at least have jammed the radio broadcasts.
On the original question of Hillary's advocacy or lack thereof, we'll never be completely sure. But it's hard to see this claim substantially improving anyone's opinion of her given that 1) her supposed position left no trace at the time, and apparently was unknown to all except (if it's true) her husband; and 2) it was spectacularly unsuccessful at geting the US to do anything at all, however slight.
I went where I was sent. Fortunately, people don't usually expect Marines not to fight--so I would have fought to accomplish the mission. Personal beliefs on the mission are not relvant; the time to argue is beforehand, which is why I brought the topic (use military force where there is no threat to national security) up. This is the beforehand stage for the next time it happens. And it will, someday, somewhere.
From what I have seen, UN peacekeeping forces are not worth the air they breath. They back down at the slightest provocation. The only reason for having armed forces on site is to use their power of force. Otherwise, you might as well use unarmed diplomats.
So, Rex, basically you agree with the assessment that the US is no better than China, and should not try to be. And our claims on other countries' sympathies have no more moral force than do the claims of China or any other country, since we, like they, simply act in our own interests. There is no moral dimension to the US's presence in Iraq; we are there simply to protect our own interests. Is that right?
If we shouldn't have signed the treaty, the thing to do is to announce that we are exiting it, not to ignore it. Until we withdraw from an agreement, we ought to be bound by it. You also haven't explained why measures short of boots on the ground -- e.g., disrupting the Rwandan radio encouragement and planning to conduct the genocide -- shouldn't have been pursued.
I'm really confused as to how anyone can believe that Iraq under Saddam's control was going to get turned over to Al Qaeda (at least when the organization was significantly controlled by bin Laden, who believed Saddam to be even more Westernized and degenerate than the House of Saud), yet that the Iraqi government that literally kissed Ahmadinejad's face when he visited is America's bulwark against a terrorist base in Iraq.
It's very nice to say over and over that a goal has been articulated, but not so nice for the goal to bear no relationship to reality. If I said that the goal in intervening in Rwanda was to maintain American prestige in humanitarian efforts, so we later could go into other countries to secure our oil supply without being accused of "Blood for Oil," would that make military intervention in Rwanda in the national interest?
Thanks for elaborating. I agree that it's best to have these debates in advance, and I share your opinion of UN peacekeeping forces. Their bluff has been called over and over again, and yet they keep expecting that same bluff to bring results.
Perhaps brooksfoe and PG missed this part of my earlier post? "That being said, I certainly agree that we have a moral obligation to try to stop genocide short of using military force, but the majority of people in this country don't agree with that."
And brooksfoe, simply because the justification for being in Iraq is that it is in our national security interests doesn't mean that it doesn't have a moral dimension, but that's simply icing on the cake. I didn't swear an oath to my country to risk my life to achieve a "moral dimension."
What a very remarkable couple the Clintons are.
Of course she was a leading advocate for stopping the Rwandan genocide, just as she was instrumental in bringing about peace in Northern Ireland.
Right around the same time, Al Gore was cobbling together his Internet prototype.
Er, thanks --I'll show myself out.
For whatever it's worth, at the time the perception within the military was of an administration, following the travesty of Somalia, completely unwilling to intervene in Africa.
I think this is the most important part of the article:
"It's a lot harder to imagine that while Hillary Clinton was advocating military intervention, she not only failed to convince her husband to send troops, but also failed to convince him, for instance, not to advocate the withdrawal of most of the UN peacekeepers, or that he really ought to order the Pentagon to jam Radio Milles Collines. If she was doing her best behind the scenes, and failed to accomplish even this -- if, despite her best efforts, she couldn't persuade her husband not to advocate withdrawing UN peacekeepers just to provide cover for the Belgians -- then we really need to ask how effective an advocate she really is, especially since no one except her husband, in full campaign mode, seems to remember her efforts at all."
They didn't even jam the radio broadcasts, and now Bill Clinton is trying to take advantage of what happened to help his wife win power. This might be a new low even for him.
Rod:
Just don't forget the Republicans position on Somalia at the time.
The initial Boston Globe article isn't very clear on what exactly Bill Clinton said Hillary had said. It's glossed as Bill saying Hillary urged him to "intervene" in Rwanda. It doesn't say she urged an American military intervention. But I remember the way the debate was unfolding in April '94. It seems entirely possible that Hillary was in the camp of those saying that the genocide was most likely real and that, if it was, then the US needed to be doing something to try and stop it, rather than trying to stay out of it. I don't think it would be dishonest to characterize that, in retrospect, as urging the US to intervene. Most of those at the time who credited the genocide reports and felt the US needed to act weren't talking about a military intervention; that would have been viewed as precipitous and would have harmed the case that we ought to do something. The way these things unfold, as in Kosovo, is that the pro-intervention crowd first makes the case that the human rights catastrophe is intolerable; then argues for some kind of intervention; then various kinds of intervention are mooted; then they all fail; then, with prestige committed, the last option of military intervention is put on the table. I mean, few or none of the Darfur activists are arguing for a US military intervention, but I don't think it would be dishonest to say 10 years from now that they were among those urging the US to "intervene".
I have no idea whether or not Hillary actually argued for a stronger response to Rwanda. I'm just saying that noting that she doesn't seem to have gotten military intervention on the table at the NSC doesn't make Bill's or Hillary's claim a lie. They may be stretching the truth, or they may even be speaking broadly accurately.
But, as Bill said, "That's politics" (Clinton-style): The facts don't matter if the lies get repeated often enough. And the television media is not known for good fact-checking. If the US had at least helped the UN do its job of protecting the Rwandans, then maybe she could have a claim. At least in that case the spin would pass the smell test, but this one reeks.
Brooksfoe -
As the article says, there were many steps short of military intervention that the US could have, but didn't, take:
"In reality the United States did much more than fail to send troops. It led a successful effort to remove most of the UN peacekeepers who were already in Rwanda. It aggressively worked to block the subsequent authorization of UN reinforcements. It refused to use its technology to jam radio broadcasts that were a crucial instrument in the coordination and perpetuation of the genocide. And even as, on average, 8,000 Rwandans were being butchered each day, U.S. officials shunned the term "genocide," for fear of being obliged to act."
If Hillary was advocating action but couldn't even convince Bill to jam the radio broadcasts, then she was extremely ineffective.
Salon and Slate magazines have recently run stories with various retired generals stating that McCain does not have the temperament to be commander in chief, but Obama does. One of the generals quoted has endorsed Obama. I hope we see an Obama ad that publicizes this.
It's a way to hit back at Clinton's repeated comments that she and McCain have a lifetime of experience and he has a speech. Hillary is also known to also have quite the temper. The ad doesn't mention Clinton at all. It's the classy way to punch her glass jaw.
A suggested script for General McPeak:
Senator McCain is a tremendous American and I honor and respect his service to our country. However, I decided not to endorse McCain in his run for the presidency due to my concerns about his temperament. He is well-known for his explosive temper and colorful tantrums, which is exactly what one doesn't need in a commander in chief.
In a crisis situation, the commander must be cool, calm, and able to exercise good judgement. That is why I have chosen to endorse Barack Obama. Senator Obama will make the hard decisions required to protect our national security.
Senator Obama's intelligence, emotional stability, and wide-ranging knowledge have convinced me that he is the one to lead us into the future.
I invite you to join me and millions of other Americans in supporting Barack Obama for President. Together we can move this country forward in confidence and security.
If Hillary is so sure we should have intervened in Rwanda, is she willing to advocate intervening in Darfur? I don't mean sending some diplomats to negotiate an eventual unarmed observer force once the consent of all involved parties can be obtained; I mean flying in 10,000 U.S. soldiers with orders to shoot, whether Sudan likes it or not. Is she willing to stand up and loudly say: "On my first day in office, I will deploy U.S. troops into Darfur."
brooksfoe,
Did you miss the commenter who quoted Clinton from the article in The New Yorker, 9/18/06:
1. A weekend training mission to take out Sudan's air force capabilities (no more Antanov "bomber" or helicopter raids).
2. Air drop all the AK-47's we find in Iraqi ammo dumps to the locals.
Kirk Parker, or Rockley White, or Trent Youngblood, or Mendel Bernstein or whatever your real name is:
how does the fact that Bill Clinton said he "never held a staff meeting" on the Rwandan genocide contradict his later contention that his wife was advocating a stronger response or intervention?
Your next comment on how easy it would be to stop genocide in Darfur leads me to believe you are 13 years old, and so perhaps deserve to be cut some slack.
The assertion that the Clinton administration "never even had a staff meeting" on the Rwanda genocide is laughably unbelievable to anyone who remembers the events.
This story was leading the news for weeks. There were dozens of press conferences at the state department and the white house that were dominated by questions on Rwanda. Adminstration members were clearly engaged in a coordinated policy of avoiding the word "genocide" when everyone in the world was aware that was exactly what was happening. Repeated calls to action by hordes of career civil servants were supressed, which would only have happened with guidance from the highest levels of the administration. All this was widely covered in the press at the time.
Only under some bizarre Clintonesque definition of "staff meeting" could there have been no staff meetings on this. ("Well, the secretary of transportation wasn't present, so it wasn't a full staff meeting.")
David Wright, how is the question of whether or not Clinton held a staff meeting on the issue even relevant to whether Hillary was advocating a stronger response at the time?
Brooksfoe, I grant that it doesn't directly contradict Hillary's claim; it's certainly possible that Bill is lying his ass off, but that Hillary was nonetheless advocating intervention.
Still, his ludicrous assertion does call into question Bill's veracity on the subject, and he is Hillary's primary witness supporting her claim. So it is indirectly relevant, because it inclines the observer to dismiss the only testimony supporting her otherwise unsupported, and prima facie rather impropable, claim.
Why didn't Hillary go to Rwanda and have tea with the Hutu and Tutsi leaders? If it brought peace to northern Ireland, you'd think it could work there as well.
FWIW, I never thought Hilzoy was an advocate for stopping the Rwandan genocide.
There seems to be an overtone in this discussion and among the Democrat politicians running for office that intervening militarily in Rwanda would have been a "good" thing.
Why?
I certainly agree that we should have brought U.S. economic power to bear, and support in all things short of the military would have been the right thing to do, but I don't agree on the use of the military.
But I have a rather specialized viewpoint--I was in the military (Marines) for 28 years, and my son is in the Marines now. So I ask myself a few simple questions before any use of military force: (1) what are the political objectives that would be achieved through the use of military force, (2) what is the national security interest involved, and (3) would it be worth losing my life or my son's life?
For Rwanda, like Bosnia and Kosovo, the answers to #'s 2 and 3 are None and No respectively. #1 was never articulated for Bosnia and Kosovo, and indeed we are still there with no way of knowing when we will leave. For Rwanda, at least, #1 is answerable, even though it can not be easily articulated, unlike Iraq, where the answer is To permit establishment of a government in Iraq which will deny the country to use by terrorists. (Even if you disagree with the goal, it is articulated.)
She also claims that she worked to pass the Family of Medical Leave Act of 1993 - which Bill and congressional leaders planned on getting re-passed as soon as possible after he was sworn it.
I say re-passed because it was passed twice before but President George H.W. Bush vetoed it.
More here:http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/9/111930/6389/50/472849
For Republican Lurkers: The democrats are just TOO MESSED UP.
Hillary Clinton is NOT A FIGHTER..SHE’S A BULLY!! She would SAY & DO ANYTHING TO GET WHAT SHE WANTS. She's soo full of herself, stoop soo low as to make Obama less qualified than the Republican nominee , calling him a fairy tale, maybe a muslim, maybe a drug dealer, going around telling people to fear him, equate him to Ken Starr for crying out loud and after that she has THE ARROGANCE to imply she would consider him to be her running mate when he’s the one with more delegates, more states won, more votes. Now, that's LOW even for republicans. The Clintons would rather see their party torn apart, than having somebody else be the nominee. She has made Obama's supporters so disgusted & appalled that the thought of voting for her on any ticket would make them hurl!!! REPUBLICANS SHOULD KEEP THIS GOING, The longer the Clintons talk, the more repulsive they become, they JUST CAN’T HELP THEMSELVES.
My republican friends, WITH OUR CANDIDATE ALREADY SELECTED, LET'S MAKE SURE WE VOTE FOR HILLARY CLINTON! This is OUR GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY. She has screwed up her party so much, there's no way most of those new enthusiastic Obama’s supporters would vote for her come general election, those Obama republicans certainly won't, majority of independents may consider McCain but CAN’T STAND Clinton. There's NOTHING MORE ENERGIZING FOR US THAN TO VOTE AGAINST HER IN NOVEMBER (talking about turning the table to our side) She's done a PERFECT job FOR The Republican Party, LET'S REPAY HER “KINDNESS” & GIVE HER WHAT SHE WANTS. Obama's movement will be GONE (Thanks to her), and WE'LL BE THE ONE REAPING THE BENEFIT. WE WILL HAVE A MOVEMENT VOTING AGAINST HILLARY IN GENERAL ELECTION. You gotta stomach it republicans, if you’re in PA you have until March 24 to register as democrat & vote for Hillary. The outcome will so worth the sacrifice.
We should NEVER let democrats win the White House & Hillary can help us do it, SHE ALREADY HAVE, WE JUST NEED TO FINISH IT! Even after George Bush screwing up, Billary are helping us claim VICTORY in 2009. There's still HOPE for us afterall. Ooh the IRONY is just too much. One DEMOCRAT is A MONSTER and the OTHER is A LOOSER, Thanks to the Monster! Their ONLY HOPE candidate is crushed by his party MONSTER and giving US the HOPE instead. PERFECT!
THANK GOD FOR MCCAIN…, he looks BETTER & BETTER BY THE DAY! My fellow republicans let's MAKE SURE WE VOTE FOR HILLARY. This is WAY…TOO EASY to keep the White House. NO WONDER DEMOCRATS NEVER WIN. Hillary has given us OBAMA on a SILVER PLATER, & SHE WILL BE ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK when SHE'S THE NOMINEE. EITHER WAY, REPUBLICAN WILL WIN! HOW BEAUTIFUL IS THAT!
Or as my favorite suggested bumper sticker reads, "Vote for McCain or we're REALLY in trouble!"
brooksfoe, maybe she did claim this, but as hilzoy pointed out, her name has never even come up as ever having even had a stated opinion on this until this campaign. They're the ones that brought up Rwanda. I doubt Power, Gourevitch, Dallaire, Kuperman, etc. all avoided talking about Hillary's strong anti-Tutsi Power stance because they were Obama partisans back when their books were written before Obama became a Senator. I've read a decent amount about the Rwanda genocide and Washington's (non) response and Hillary Clinton has never been mentioned once in anything I've read as an advocate of intervention. It is weird that this comes out during a primary campaign during which she had to cook up some BS foreign policy experience besides being more willing to kill innocent brown people and during which, until recently, one of the most respected scholars on genocide, who reported from Bosnia while the Serbs shelled the capitol, just happened to be advising Obama.
(2) what is the national security interest involved, and (3) would it be worth losing my life or my son's life? For Rwanda, like Bosnia and Kosovo, the answers to #'s 2 and 3 are None and No respectively. - Rex
In that case, Rex, you are the America which Samantha Power accurately described in "A Problem From Hell": you do not believe in honoring the US's treaty commitment to stop genocide. Power's book is at root a neutral, factual, and devastating examination of the fact that the United States has never intervened to prevent genocide, either before or after the signing of the Convention on Genocide which obligates us to do so. Not only have we never intervened militarily, we have never exerted any significant diplomatic or other effort to bring a genocidal campaign to a halt, and have generally reacted by denying or obscuring the evidence that the genocide was occurring, trying to defray responsibility onto other nations, and arguing that action would only make the situation worse. Power shows that US policy has followed this pattern in Armenia/Turkey in 1915; in the Holocaust, when we refused to do anything to stop the Final Solution while it was taking place despite Rafel Lemke's pleas to FDR; in Cambodia in 1975-8; in Bosnia in 1992-4; and in Rwanda in 1994. I can't remember whether she treats Kurdistan in 1988 but obviously we did less than nothing there; nor did we do anything in Sierra Leone in 1998. Our record is not noticeably better than that of China in Darfur. The sole exception, arguably, would be Kosovo in 1999; that never became a genocidal situation, but one could argue that it never did precisely because of outside intervention led by the US.
I would ask you to consider how it sounds to, say, a Jewish American when you say you do not feel it would be worth your son's life to prevent a genocide in progress. I just find this confusing. I don't understand why someone would be willing to die for the vague and notional idea that an Iraq ruled by Shiite theocrats would be a better base camp for radical Muslim terrorists who might ultimately be better able to launch terrorist attacks on the US from there than they can from their current safe houses in Pakistan, Somalia and Hamburg, but unwilling to drop into Rwanda to stop men with machetes from systematically murdering 800,000 civilians, including women and children, in an episode of mass hysteria. I find this all the stranger because it's so much easier for small forces of US Marines to subdue African farmers holding machetes than to fight six dozen different AK and RPG and IED-armed clans in Iraq. It took the French 2,500 troops and about 20 aircraft to bring the Ivorian civil war to a dead stop. Executive Outcomes almost put an end to the conflict in Sierra Leone; the Brits ultimately did so with 2000 troops. We're bogged down with 150,000 in Iraq and barely holding the place together.
"I would ask you to consider how it sounds to, say, a Jewish American when you say you do not feel it would be worth your son's life to prevent a genocide in progress."
I would ask you why that Jewish-American's feelings would matter. It might be different if Jewish fathers had ever sent their sons out to stop the genocide of some other group. Was it up to Jews in Britain to do somethng about the Potato Famine? None of us has any real basis to expect other people to lay down their lives for us.
I find this all the stranger because it's so much easier for small forces of US Marines to subdue African farmers holding machetes than to fight six dozen different AK and RPG and IED-armed clans in Iraq.
True, but the political fallout, both domestic and diplomatic, is 100% negative for any politician who orders such a thing. EO was a wildly effective and highly ethical fighting force compared to many African armies, and the UN came down hard on their very existence. The Marines got criticized for lacking the "moral authority" to dole out tsunami relief without UN permission. And I recall when Albright visited the U of WA in (I think) mid-2001, the Society of Boneheaded Student Protesters (I paraphrase) put up posters excoriating her for 1) murdering Serbs in Bosnia and 2) failing to stop the Rawanda genocide.
France and Britain can get away with their little interventions because they aren't the Great Satan; anytime a US soldier pulls the trigger, it's a war crime in the eyes of many people, a goodly number of them US voters.
So yes, stopping genocide is something we never do. Hard to blame the people in power who decide not to, though.
Brooksfoe,
It sure looks like historically we never should have signed such a treaty.
You might think that we're in Iraq for a "vague and notional" idea (I think you are wrong, but that's another discussion), but at least the idea is there. But there is not even that much in the case of Rwanda.
Look, as a military man, it is my honorable duty to lay down my life for my country--but not for other people's countries. If you can't show me the threat to my country, count me out.
That being said, I certainly agree that we have a moral obligation to try to stop genocide short of using military force, but the majority of people in this country don't agree with that. A separate problem is, where do you draw the line? How do you decide when to intervene and when not to? There is a long list of countries that killed their own. Venezuela, North Korea, Colombia, Cambodia, Iran, Vietnam, China, Soviet Union, Balkans, Iraq, Congo, Rwanda, etc. etc. etc.
We can't police the world. What we can do is take action when our national security requires it, and leave the rest to the "diplomats." ("Diplomats" is a curse word, by the way. "The function of diplomacy is to maintain tensions just short of war.")
Rex -
I'm interested in where you draw the line here. If you (or your son) had been part of the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda when the killing began, would you have wanted to be pulled out? Would you have supported at least allowing people to shelter in a place that you and the rest of the troops made a show of being willing to defend, just to see if even token resistance could save those people at little risk to yourself?
One can certainly argue that we shouldn't have gone to the extreme of a full-scale US military intervention, but it seems that we should have drawn the line far past where we did. We didn't have to actively lobby to have UN peacekeepers pulled out, or to prevent new ones from being sent. And, as I've said a couple of times already in this thread, we could at least have jammed the radio broadcasts.
On the original question of Hillary's advocacy or lack thereof, we'll never be completely sure. But it's hard to see this claim substantially improving anyone's opinion of her given that 1) her supposed position left no trace at the time, and apparently was unknown to all except (if it's true) her husband; and 2) it was spectacularly unsuccessful at geting the US to do anything at all, however slight.
Ann,
I went where I was sent. Fortunately, people don't usually expect Marines not to fight--so I would have fought to accomplish the mission. Personal beliefs on the mission are not relvant; the time to argue is beforehand, which is why I brought the topic (use military force where there is no threat to national security) up. This is the beforehand stage for the next time it happens. And it will, someday, somewhere.
From what I have seen, UN peacekeeping forces are not worth the air they breath. They back down at the slightest provocation. The only reason for having armed forces on site is to use their power of force. Otherwise, you might as well use unarmed diplomats.
So, Rex, basically you agree with the assessment that the US is no better than China, and should not try to be. And our claims on other countries' sympathies have no more moral force than do the claims of China or any other country, since we, like they, simply act in our own interests. There is no moral dimension to the US's presence in Iraq; we are there simply to protect our own interests. Is that right?
Rex,
If we shouldn't have signed the treaty, the thing to do is to announce that we are exiting it, not to ignore it. Until we withdraw from an agreement, we ought to be bound by it. You also haven't explained why measures short of boots on the ground -- e.g., disrupting the Rwandan radio encouragement and planning to conduct the genocide -- shouldn't have been pursued.
I'm really confused as to how anyone can believe that Iraq under Saddam's control was going to get turned over to Al Qaeda (at least when the organization was significantly controlled by bin Laden, who believed Saddam to be even more Westernized and degenerate than the House of Saud), yet that the Iraqi government that literally kissed Ahmadinejad's face when he visited is America's bulwark against a terrorist base in Iraq.
It's very nice to say over and over that a goal has been articulated, but not so nice for the goal to bear no relationship to reality. If I said that the goal in intervening in Rwanda was to maintain American prestige in humanitarian efforts, so we later could go into other countries to secure our oil supply without being accused of "Blood for Oil," would that make military intervention in Rwanda in the national interest?
Rex,
Thanks for elaborating. I agree that it's best to have these debates in advance, and I share your opinion of UN peacekeeping forces. Their bluff has been called over and over again, and yet they keep expecting that same bluff to bring results.
Perhaps brooksfoe and PG missed this part of my earlier post? "That being said, I certainly agree that we have a moral obligation to try to stop genocide short of using military force, but the majority of people in this country don't agree with that."
And brooksfoe, simply because the justification for being in Iraq is that it is in our national security interests doesn't mean that it doesn't have a moral dimension, but that's simply icing on the cake. I didn't swear an oath to my country to risk my life to achieve a "moral dimension."