About Rwanda:

It is a myth that all ethnic slaughter, based on centuries of hatred, arises spontaneously from the bloody ground like some force of nature. It is perhaps true in some cases (e.g. the communal violence when India was partitioned). In other cases there is a carefully orchestrated campaign building up to the bloodshed, a campaign lasting for years (Serbia with respect to Bosnia) or months (the genocidal Hutu majority in Rwanda, against the Tutsi minority).

The Hutu buildup was especially blatant. Preparations were conducted by radio broadcast. It's instructions included "make sure you kill all the children."

There was a small UN. peacekeeping force in Ruanda, but basically the Hutus had the Tutsis at their mercy. There was a Tutsi military force outside the country, which was able to regain control, but only after close to a million Tutsis had been butchered.

The head of the U.N. peacekeepers asked U.N. headquarters for permission to shut down the broadcasts, but that permission was denied.

Just as the open preparations for mass murder took quite a while, so did the killing of all those people, mainly because nearly all of it was done by hacking the victims to death with machetes. Crowds of Tutsis were imprisoned in sports stadiums and places like that. Groups were led out and hacked to death, as many as the murderes could kill in a day. The whole process took weeks. I have seen pictures of huge piles of worn out machetes.

The French wanted to take the leadership role in a multi-national military effort to rescue as many Tutsis as possible. The United States wanted no part in such an effort, even though we are actually bound by an anti-genocide treaty ratified by us and most of the other nations of the world, to take what collective action is possible to stop genocide. We even refused to give such a force any equipment, only offering a small amount of crap equipment. So that effort died.

There was an outcry over the U.S. position. At least two State Department officials resigned in protest. But State found one official who was careerist enough to "carry the water" for the miserable team of Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Warren Christopher (who had already disgraced themselves over Bosnia). This careerist testified before Congress that the reason we were not taking action against genocide was that we lacked evidence that genocide was taking place in Rwanda. This at a time when there had been simply horrific reports coming out of that country.

-- Peter Errington (petere@ricochet.net), November 01, 2000

Answers

Hey Pete - I got news for ya...its a complex world out there guy.

You are simply demonstrating that beliefs and perceptions of it are like the different colored and shaped clay coming out of a kids Play-Doh machine.

-- Jeeter Hotairington (yo@hotairington.), November 01, 2000.

OMG please tell me that didn't really happen.

-- cin (cin@cin.cin), November 01, 2000.

It's a big old ugly frickin world, always has been. This seems to be news to Pete.

The French wanted to take the leadership role in a multi-national military effort to rescue as many Tutsis as possible.

Good, it is about time the damned frogs did something useful. Why did the French effort fall apart anyway? Why did they need our equipment? I mean, aren't these the same people who sold Exocet missiles to Argentina? And they don't have the technology to go after savages using machetes? Holy crap! Wussup wit dat?

I for one am tired of seeing US troops run all about the globe as the world's police force. Enough already. But I have to wonder, is Africa a continent of savages? Are there any civilized people living there? If there are, we don't THEY do the policing of their own continent, instead of asking OUR sons to put their lives at risk?

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), November 01, 2000.

Deedah:

No one with any sense wants the U.S. to be "the world's policeman." There are times, though, when I think we need to join a posse.

-- Peter Errington (petere@ricochet.net), November 01, 2000.

Have to agree with you Unk but don't just pick on the Africans.

If we intervene in places like Ruanda, Afghanistan, Balkans, former Soviet states, Kashmir, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, etc, etc, etc, the result will not only be American deaths but both sides will end up hating us. Remember Yemen, just a few years ago? We went in there to save starving people and ended up having to fight our way out. Clinton was damn lucky this didn't happen in Kosovo.

Peter, are you volunteering you or your children to give their lives in one of these tragic, but immediately forgotten foreign debacles?

What is the purpose of US military policy? To protect the US and our closest allies. Sorry, it has to be limited to that.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), November 01, 2000.

Peter:

While Z doesn't need a web following, he probably doesn't know about it. From his last email he is in bush country. West Texas. You know where there are only bushes, From the schedule, he should be in the Mexican Desert about now. He should be back by the weekend.

DB

-- DB (Debunker@nomore.xxx), November 02, 2000.