[Robson]

...I can't help but wonder how the national debate would have gone if the USA decided to go to Rawanda to stop the killing.

A very interesting question, PJT. I'd guess that, depending on how our involvement in Rwanda had gone, the American people would have either been far more inclined or for less inclined to go into Iraq with humanitarian goals. Thus, this wouldn't just affect the post-Iraq discussion, but would have made for a dramatically different pre-Iraq discussion.

[Political Junkie Too]

The Clinton administration used "humanitarian" reasons do defend going into Kosovo, partly because of the world's failure to go into Rwanda. We said we didn't go into Rwanda because we had no vital interests there, and we didn't have vital interests in the Balkans either, but we had to go for humanitarian reasons.

Now we say that went into Iraq for WMD and for humanitarian reasons, and yet the Left and Democrats are discounting the humanitarian aspects and saying that the interests (oil) are too vital to objectively assess the situation.

Damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

-PJ