Clarke and Rwanda: Ten Years On [Mark Steyn on Clarke's "apology" to the victims of 9/11]

Steyn Online ^ | April 8, 2004 | Mark Steyn

[NovemberCharlie]

How about that Richard Clarke! He's the bureaucrat-turned-book-tour celebrity who began his testimony to Congress by issuing a dramatic apology to the American people for the Administration's failure to prevent 9/11: "Your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you and I failed you."

Hey, thanks for that, big guy. But, if you want an example of a President doing nothing to prevent not thousands but the best part of a million deaths, how about the Rwandan genocide? Remember that? It was exactly a decade ago, and the media commemorations so far are, to say the least, low-key. The editors of The Economist wonder, "How many people can name any of the perpetrators?" I'd say it's more basic than that. How many could tell you whether it was the Hutu killing the Tutsi or the Tutsi killing the Hutu? Come on, take a guess, without looking it up.

If there's a point to the UN, which some of us doubt, it should surely be for the likes of Rwanda. An irrelevant basket-case state (even by African standards) will never be a legitimate national interest for any great power. To America, Britain, France, Russia and China, it makes no great difference who's running Rwanda, or even whether there is a Rwanda: if those Hutu and Tutsi mutually hacked each other into extinction, it's their problem. But the UN is supposed to represent a global will, a moral purpose beyond crude hard-power calculations: instead, born in the wake of one genocide, it sat by and idly watched another unfold, so serenely complacent it couldn't even rouse itself to jam the state radio station, through which the ruling thugs urged their teenage hackers on in public service messages pointing out "the graves are not yet full". So the killing continued, until some 800,000 were dead.

Bill Clinton felt their pain. Retrospectively. In 1998, on his Grand Apology Tour of Africa, a whirlwind tour of whirlwind apologies for slavery, the Cold War, you name it, he touched down in Kigali and apologized for the Rwandan genocide. "When you look at those children who greeted us," he said, biting his lip, as is his wont, "how could anyone say they did not want those children to have a chance to have their own children?"

Alas, the President had precisely identified the problem. In April 1994, when the Hutu genocidaires looked at the children who greeted them in the Tutsi villages, that's exactly what they thought: they didn't want those Tutsi children to have a chance to have their own children. So the question is: when a bunch of killers refuse to subscribe to multiculti mumbo-jumbo, what do you do?

"All over the world there were people like me sitting in offices," continued Bill in his apology aria, "who did not fully appreciate the depth and the speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror."

Au contraire, he appreciated it all too fully. That's why, during the bloodbath, Clinton Administration officials were specifically instructed not to use the word "genocide" lest it provoke public pressure to do something. Documents made public last week confirm that US officials knew within the first few days that a "final solution" to eliminate all Tutsis was underway.

General Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian commander of the 2,500 UN peacekeepers, said he could prevent the killing if he had 5,000 men. Instead, the Clinton Administration blocked him from taking any action and got the blue helmets to pull out. The UN has to learn, said Mr Clinton, "when to say no". There weren't people like him all over the world sitting in offices. There was him, sitting in his office, the Pain-Feeler-In-Chief kissing off half-a-million nobodies: Toot-Toot, Tutsis, goodbye!

It's a tenable position to feel America has no interest in preventing one bunch of Africans slaughtering another bunch of Africans. But it requires especial reserves of cynicism and contempt to seek approval for feeling bad about it four years later. Whether or not the Bush Administration could ever have put together a few random clues - an uptick in Arab men taking flight-school training, etc - in time to prevent what happened on September 11th, Bill Clinton knew about Rwanda and chose to do nothing.

Why was this? Well, Somalia, of course. When ten Belgian peacekeepers were hacked to pieces in Rwanda, it reminded the Administration of those 18 US servicemen in Mogadishu. As Samantha Power writes in her book A Problem From Hell, "The news from Rwanda only confirmed a deep skepticism about the viability of UN deployments. Clarke believed that another UN failure could doom relations between Congress and the United Nations. He also sought to shield the president from congressional and public criticism."

What was that name again? "Clarke"? Who's that?

Turns out it's Mister Apology himself, Richard Clarke. He was the guy in charge of Rwandan policy for the Clinton team and, as far as I can tell, unlike the Pain-Feeler, he feels not even a twinge of pro forma remorse. As we know, regrets, he's had a few. But this isn't one of them. "It is not always the United States that has to answer the 911 call," Clarke said. "It is not always the United States that has to be the world's policeman." Correct. But in this instance Clarke and Clinton went further and scuttled a UN mission that had already answered the 911 call. Nothing the supposedly "unilateral" Bush team has done damaged the UN and its credibility as much as the Clinton-Clarke team did during the Rwandan bloodbath. And whenever a local bully gets away with it, it emboldens others.

By all accounts, Mr Clarke is a difficult man to work with. He reminds me of that comic classic on British history, 1066 And All That, with its battles between Royalists - "wrong but romantic" - and Roundheads - "right but repulsive". In much of his Clinton-era approach to terrorism, Mr Clarke seems to have been "right but repulsive", which is why nothing got done; in his more fanciful moments, he was "wrong but romantic". But in his present incarnation he's wrong and repulsive. He seems to have learned from his old boss, who's always preferred to apologize for the mistakes of others rather than his own: shortly after 9/11, Bill Clinton apologized for the Crusades.

By September 11th, Clarke was far removed from the decision-making on Afghanistan, al-Qae'da and beyond. He has no more authority to apologize for the events of that day than I do.

But he bears a lot of responsibility for Rwanda. Any chance of an apology for that?

[NovemberCharlie]

An angry Steyn column, not in newspapers.

[NovemberCharlie]

Ping to the Steyn List, and to your list.

[cyborg]

Don't hold your breath for any apologies Mr. Steyn

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[JasonC]

Amazing revelation. Very damning. Don't expect much play...

[Huck]

What about Congressional reponsibility for any of this. Do they have nothing to do with national security?

[cripplecreek]

Ive been mad a liberals all day because of this kind of crap. I started my day with a liberal telling me that the Rwanda genocide never happened, it was all right wing propaganda meant to make the anointed one (Clinton)look bad.

Next we moved on to the UN oil for food scandal where i was informed that since only FOX was reporting on it, then it was clearly more false propaganda.

Keep in mind these are the same people who tell me daily that me and my right wing friends just can't face reality.

[solzhenitsyn]

Bravo! A magnificent column!

[visualops]

ping

[nuconvert]

Not in newspapers?


Rwandan lives don't matter. That's why hundreds of thousands were allowed to die and the news of the GENOCIDE was a blip on our TV screens.

[reformedliberal]

I understand totally.

I stopped talking to a friend last week over this. He began by telling me that *Bush is toast* over the Clarke testimony/Condi testimony. He then segued into Rwanda and how he felt so terrible. You see: he worked in the State Department then and he was in Rwanda a few months afterward. And then, he told me that I couldn't *use* this for *political ends*. No. THAT was just too much for such a sensitive intellectual like himself.

I countered him strongly and asked what Clarke and he, personally had done. I got silence in reply.

Since then, he wants to discuss other (nonpolitical) things. Me, I am at a familiar point. Much like I felt in the late 1960s/early 1970s: everything is political.

Only this time I am on the other side. Or maybe not. I haven't changed at all. It is the left that first presented itself as something good and later revealed itself as something monstrous. Today, I don't think they even have a mask. They have some rhetoric designed to disguise what they really are and anyone who calls them on the fact that words mean things is automatically the enemy.

They are correct about that. I am their enemy.

[hershey]

Well, I had a set-to with my Italian/American friend who thinks 9/11 happened because we keep sticking our noses into other people's business. She announced (when I said we intervened in Iraq to save them from a homicidal dictator who'd murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people, like Hitler), that Saddam was NOTHING like Hitler...who'd invaded other countries. I said what was Kuwait -- chopped liver? No answer.

As for Rwanda...she said that was another of our failures, but 'you can't do anything for those people. Like the Middle East.' We should just let 'those people' go to hell. She had no answer about 'those people' sitting on 90% of the world's oil supply. Evidently oil doesn't exist in her universe. As for Iraq and 9/11, 'Iraq had nothing to do with that. It's been proven.'

Asked about the 707 sitting in the Iraqi desert, used to train Al Qaeda, or that Saddam had aided and sheltered wounded bin Laden's henchman, no answer was forthcoming. When I suggested,'okay, what do we do now? We can't simply leave Iraq.' She said sarcastically, 'oh no we CAN'T leave Iraq.' There's no getting through to this woman. Although having become a US citizen (dual citizenship with Italy...she's married to an American), six years ago, she thinks of herself as Italian and always will. All those stereotypical cowardly, bumbling Italian soldiers in old WWII movies...it's genetic. Great food. Dumb people.

[prairiebreeze]

Liberalism is a mental disorder. Seriously.

Prairie

[prairiebreeze]

ping to Steyn article

[Mr. Silverback]

Bump!

[Enduring Freedom]

An impressive confessional.

You're all RIGHT by me!

[Enduring Freedom]

Too many Italians are Socialist/Communist sympathizers.

It is in the blood.

But this Berlusconi guy, he's got what it takes!

[NovemberCharlie]

Not in newspapers; his website only.

[nuconvert]

Shouldn't surprise me I guess.

[nuconvert]

And this is a friend?

[Bramuce]

Hey!!

[Rocky]

"It is the left that first presented itself as something good and later revealed itself as something monstrous. Today, I don't think they even have a mask. They have some rhetoric designed to disguise what they really are and anyone who calls them on the fact that words mean things is automatically the enemy."

Destruction of the English language is one of their goals. It's just like in Orwell's 1984. "Good" is the new word for bad things, "bad" is reserved for what we have traditionally considered good. The Ministry of Love is a place of torture and brainwashing. Reversing meanings is all part of the game. Or making the words become nonsensical: "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

They are unashamed in their crusade to destroy language. Once you have control of the media and the educational system, and you have the authority to make any word mean whatever you want it to mean at any time, and the opposite in the next minute (if it suits your purpose), you then don't have to say anything of substance. Just emote. "I feel your pain." People give up on trying to think, or to discuss ideas. It's too difficult in the shifting sands of the new English. All that remains for them is to take power and use force to disarm and imprison those who oppose them. They cannot win in the marketplace of ideas, so they will have to resort to force.

George Orwell understood the principle of control of language to control the minds of people. The Left is implementing it on TV, in movies, in books, and in our schools.

[hinckley buzzard]

Yes. Seriously. Liberalism is what you get when you have a person full of infantile narcissistic rage--who finds that rage to be a severe threat to his delusional view of himself as a wonderful, virtuous and morally superior person--and because it is unnacceptable, he denies it from his conscious awareness. Being unconscious, his rage is unmodulated, and finds expression by doubling back as a righteous entitlement to exude the most vile hostility against his fellow man. The same dynamic energizes the Islamic terrorists, by the way...

Ever noticed? Liberals feel about George Bush exactly the same as Islamofascists feel about the Crusaders who kicked their sandy butts out of Europe various centuries ago-- and in centuries to come, if there are still republicans and democrats, the dems will still be bitter about the 2000 election. Seriously.

[prairiebreeze]

The parallels between terrorists and liberals are very evident. And growing all the time.

Prairie

[lainde]

bttt

[Libertina]

I just love this guy! What a writer!

[aruanan]

"When you look at those children who greeted us," he said, biting his lip, as is his wont,

When he's not gnawing on someone else's.

[aruanan]

Don't hold your breath for any apologies Mr. Steyn

We could, though, hope that Mr. Clark run into the relatives of those he helped to kill. There are a lot of them in the U.S. now.

[finnigan2]

Quote from the article: " Turns out it's Mister Apology himself, Richard Clarke. He was the guy in charge of Rwandan policy for the Clinton team and, as far as I can tell, unlike the Pain-Feeler, he feels not even a twinge of pro forma remorse. As we know, regrets, he's had a few. But this isn't one of them. "It is not always the United States that has to answer the 911 call," Clarke said. "It is not always the United States that has to be the world's policeman."

When I read that, I suddenly recalled the speculation of a week or so ago that Clarkes charges against his boss, a black female, might be racially motivated resentment. When Steyn points out his refusal to recommend assistance to blacks in Rwanda, it makes me think their could be some truth in the speculation.

[optik_b]

On the recent PBS Frontline about Rwanda they recounted the telephone call from Richard Clarke to Madeleine Albright. He insisted that we do nothing to stop the genocide. He was the head of peacekeeping for the National Security Council.

[bondjamesbond]

Me, I am at a familiar point. Much like I felt in the late 1960s/early 1970s: everything is political.

Only this time I am on the other side. Or maybe not. I haven't changed at all. It is the left that first presented itself as something good and later revealed itself as something monstrous. Today, I don't think they even have a mask. They have some rhetoric designed to disguise what they really are and anyone who calls them on the fact that words mean things is automatically the enemy.

Man, it's like you read my mind...

[bondjamesbond]

George Orwell understood the principle of control of language to control the minds of people. The Left is implementing it on TV, in movies, in books, and in our schools.

I know it is a small thing, but have you read the nutritional label on a food package recently? "Nutritional Information" has become "NUTRITION FACTS". It's not just poor usage. Instead of presenting information having to do with nutrition, now the label is the be-all-and-end-all, the Alpha and Omega, the FACTS, by God!

And instead of the "Recommended Daily Allowance", the RDA of our youth, it is now the "Daily Value". Daily Value of what? Does this just today's value? Will it change tomorrow? Note that there is no longer a recommendation, which can be heeded or ignored. And there is no longer an allowance, with all of the implications of allocation of resources. There is just the Daily Value, a name which has no connection to anything. The Daily Value is what the label says it is. Live with it.

I know, it's a small thing. But somewhere in some basement over at the FDA, there is a small army of bureaucrats who looked at this language, and thought "Yes, that's much better." These are the people who are going to shape our society in a Million ways, large and small, for the forseeable future.