Reply #24: Yep....but those 800,000 rwandans are not quite as happy as you.

[FrenchieCat]

Clinton may have been a good diplomat....but...Clinton was'nt all that peachy keen when it came to foreign policy. Wes Clark tried to get him to intervene in Rwanda....but Clinton listened to his Republican Sec. of Defense instead. Clinton finally listened to Clark on Kosovo. Thank heaven for that!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide
The Rwandan genocide was the slaughter of roughly one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus during a timespan of 100 days in 1994.

For many, the Rwandan Genocide stands out as historically significant not only because of the sheer number of people that were murdered in such a short period of time, but also because of the way many Western countries responded to the atrocities.
snip
Clinton was also advised by others close to him to "stay out of Rwanda" because of the possible political backlash similar to what occured just a year earlier in a failed attempt to help the country of Somalia

Clinton "feels the pain" of Africa
In Rwanda, Clinton delivered another apology, this time over the failure of the US to halt the mass slaughter which claimed a million lives in 1994. Clinton vowed, "We must have global vigilance. And never again must we be shy in the face of the evidence." He suggested that the US must be prepared to intervene militarily in the event of a similar outbreak of violence in the future.

The mea culpas from the US president suggest that both the atrocities in Africa and the sins of the United States are things of the past. Apologizing is somehow supposed to wipe the slate clean. The historical relationship of oppression and exploitation supposedly has been transformed into a "partnership of equals." However, the rhetorical breast-beating raises many more questions than it answers.

Even as Clinton spoke in Rwanda, civil strife continued between Hutus and Tutsis in that country. Because of security concerns, the Secret Service determined that Clinton could not leave the airport even to walk 150 yards to a genocide memorial of human bones erected shortly before his visit.
http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/mar1998/afr-m28.shtml