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Mark Steyn: Clarke Apologizes, But Not for Everything
The Chicago Sun-Times ^ | April 18, 2004 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 04/17/2004 8:10:48 AM PDT by quidnunc

How about that Richard Clarke! Hard to beat that 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.''

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 U.N., 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 U.N. 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.

-snip-

(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: apology; marksteyn; richardclarke
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1 posted on 04/17/2004 8:10:49 AM PDT by quidnunc
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To: quidnunc
Interesting post. I certainly didn't know much of the Rwanda killing fields.
2 posted on 04/17/2004 8:17:17 AM PDT by rj45mis
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To: quidnunc
"Shortly after 9/11, Bill Clinton apologized for the Crusades."

Bwaaahaha!!! Oh Mark, that's a goody!

3 posted on 04/17/2004 8:24:13 AM PDT by Condor51 ("Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments." -- Frederick the Great)
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To: rj45mis
"I certainly didn't know much of the Rwanda killing fields."

A gruesome and dreadful thing. And probably the single greatest argument against gun control the world will ever see. All the dead were machete-hacked to death, with all the gore and horror that implies. What a way to go.

4 posted on 04/17/2004 8:29:41 AM PDT by jocon307 (The dems don't get it, the American people do.)
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To: Condor51
Bill Clinton apologized for the Crusades.

...And we say he did nothing to prevent Islamic terrorism. /sarcasm
5 posted on 04/17/2004 8:38:47 AM PDT by anonymous_user (Only fools trust the partisan media.)
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To: Condor51
Condor51 wrote: ("Shortly after 9/11, Bill Clinton apologized for the Crusades.") Bwaaahaha!!! Oh Mark, that's a goody!

Slick Willy did apologize for the Crusades at a speech at Georgetown University.

I think he claimed they were one of the "root causes" of 9/11 or some such nincompoopery.

6 posted on 04/17/2004 8:39:04 AM PDT by quidnunc (Omnis Gaul delenda est)
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To: quidnunc
He may feel guilty enough to apologize but not enough to forego making a profit on his book

He ought to be asked to donate all the profits to the kids of those killed fighting in Afkanistan
7 posted on 04/17/2004 8:40:51 AM PDT by uncbob
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To: quidnunc
I thought he was the smartest man in the world? Guess not.

Or is it Hillary who's the smartest man in the world?

That sounds more like it.
8 posted on 04/17/2004 8:42:12 AM PDT by texasbluebell
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To: quidnunc
By Sept. 11, Clarke was far removed from the decision-making process on Afghanistan, al-Qaida 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?

It would appear that Clarke was a lot more dispicable then we realized.

9 posted on 04/17/2004 8:46:52 AM PDT by McGavin999 (Evil thrives when good men do nothing.)
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To: quidnunc
bump
10 posted on 04/17/2004 8:47:10 AM PDT by Argh
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To: PastorBubba
Look at this...
11 posted on 04/17/2004 8:50:00 AM PDT by SnarlinCubBear (...all your .jpg's are belong to me.....)
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To: quidnunc
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.''




To be accurate the U.N. did make a request for the U.S. to use its radio jamming technology to block the transmissions but the Clinton admin refused on basis of international law - that it would be interferring with their freedom of speech. I bet there are hundreds of thousand of dead Tutsis who wished the U.S. had a "cowboy" in the Whitehouse back then.
12 posted on 04/17/2004 8:59:23 AM PDT by Avenger
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To: quidnunc
Re Clarke: "...in his present incarnation he's wrong and repulsive.
That about sums it up.
13 posted on 04/17/2004 9:06:26 AM PDT by Brasil ("The cause of freedom is in good hands." GWB)
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To: quidnunc
Steyn BTTT
14 posted on 04/17/2004 9:21:12 AM PDT by spodefly (I've decided not to include a tagline with this post.)
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To: quidnunc
This Steyn article was already posted a week ago, albeit under a different title.

The link and unexcerpted text of Steyn's article is at Clarke and Rwanda: Ten Years On [Mark Steyn on Clarke's "apology" to the victims of 9/11] .

(so, I guess you don't have to worry about getting sued for copyright violations about this one, Quidnunc)

15 posted on 04/17/2004 9:24:20 AM PDT by Gritty ("Each politician choosing separatism does his part in turning us into Rwanda or Kosovo-V D Hanson)
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To: Gritty
*sigh*
16 posted on 04/17/2004 9:32:24 AM PDT by Pokey78 (quidnunc: A one person crusade to destroy Mark Steyn.)
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To: rj45mis
Frontline did a 2 hour piece a couple of weeks ago.

The Belgians were hacked to pieces precisely because of a hoped for "Mogadishu" effect.

Belgium allegedly got the US to get the UN to pull out to save Belgium's face in not appearing to unilaterally pull out.

Clinton & Co. learned the wrong lesson from Mogadishu. We had 18 KIA, without the proper equipment and support,
and the Somali warlords lost a minimum of 800, if not twice that number.

17 posted on 04/17/2004 10:25:54 AM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: rj45mis
Interestingly, there were alot of "international events" that the American people didn't know about under Clinton, because our media didn't want to fill his plate. Just as he turned away from the genocide in Rawanda...and waged a war in the Balkans, he also ignored the atrocities in East Timor and Indonesia.

While I don't know (historically) a lot about the unrest in East Timor, there seems to be some hypocrisy in the way Clinton sided with the Muslim secessionist in Kosovo, while he not only ignored the Christian secessionist in East Timor, he allowed an even greater genocide to take place as Muslims fanatics slaughtered Christians by the thousands. Even worse, his close, personal relationship with one of Indonesia's leading citizens (Riady), guaranteed US support for the Indonesian government which was carrying out the atrocities.

For those ignorant people who like to blame America...and our support of Israel as an excuse for Muslim discontent, one only has to look around the world and see how Muslims are disconetent living next to anyone who is not Muslim. The very fact that we have not only ignored much of their aggression...but have also sided with them in many instances (Balkans, Kuwait, Indonesia, ect.) just shows how Islam does not want to live in peace with its neighbors. We placated and appeased these people throughtout the 1990s, and we still suffered our greatest humiliation at their hands on 9/11. We did offer them the Olive branch...and they broke it.
18 posted on 04/17/2004 10:44:50 AM PDT by cwb (Kerry: Sadr is a legitimate voice in Iraq being silenced by America..and Hamas are sorta terrorists.)
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To: quidnunc
Y'know, this excerpting cr*p is for the birds.

If the Admin Moderator or the WaPo-LAT settlement doesn't require it, why would you excerpt?

Here, for the benefit of those who know what "fair use" means, is the whole freaking thing:

*********

Clarke apologizes, but not for everything
April 18, 2004
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

How about that Richard Clarke! Hard to beat that 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.''

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 U.N., 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 U.N. 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 confirm that U.S. officials knew within the first few days that a ''final solution'' to eliminate all Tutsis was under way.

General Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian commander of the 2,500 U.N. 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 U.N. has to learn, said 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 Sept. 11, Bill Clinton knew about Rwanda and chose to do nothing.

Why was this? Well, Somalia, of course. When 10 Belgian peacekeepers were hacked to pieces in Rwanda, it reminded the administration of those 18 U.S. 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 U.N. 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 U.N. mission that had already answered the 911 call. Nothing the supposedly ''unilateral'' Bush team has done damaged the U.N. 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, 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, 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 Sept. 11, Clarke was far removed from the decision-making process on Afghanistan, al-Qaida 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?

******** (end of column)

Being Dick Clarke and/or a Democrat means never having to say you're sorry unless it's to your political advantage.

19 posted on 04/17/2004 11:25:48 AM PDT by litany_of_lies
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To: quidnunc
Steyn had limited space, so he forgot to note the following things that were infinitely more important than the hundreds of thousands dying in Rwanda at the time::
- passing HillaryCare
- looking through his late mother's book for a WhiteWater excuse (don't remember the details, but certainly remember the "shazams!" from Bubba)
- covering up Vince Foster's true cause of death
- keeping the Rose Law Firm billing records in safekeeping
- setting the stage through the Commerce Department and now-bankrupt Loral for advanced technology transfers to the Chinese that would enable them to target us with nukes
- the ongoing coverup of the true nature of the Branch Davidian massacre at Waco

Oh yeah, we remember. There were SO many more important things than little ol' Rwanda.
20 posted on 04/17/2004 11:39:23 AM PDT by litany_of_lies
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