Should the U.S. act to stop Genocide?

[Vixentrox]

Going to throw the bullshit flag on this one:

 

1) There's a likelihood that foreigners will bring as much assistance as strife. Cultural conflicts and clashes more often than not produce an even uglier face to racism. Sometimes, you just can't trust your soldiers to keep their pants up when they're overseas. I mean - the American soldiers stationed in South Korea ought to be viewed as heroes - after all, isn't their presence a deterrence against North Korea from invading and installing their evil little communist dictatorship? So why are there just as many people who dislike them as there are people who like them? Could it be because there are always stories of impropriety (aka rapes that are never properly investigated), or young girls going to a birthday party being run-over by tanks? And South Korea is supposed to be a strong ally of the US - but quite a number of people are largely hostile to the US troop presence nonetheless

 

Having been stationed in S. Korea for three tours (91-92 & 98-00) I can say that the majority of people seem to have little problem with us. Yes, there are problems. That is unavoidable. Did you know that a lot of protesters are paid to go out and protest? Its a freaking paycheck for them. Additionally, some protests that are seen have nothing to do with Americans. Take for example when there was one outside Osan AB. All the Americans were worried about these so called protesters at the gate. If they would have bothered to check they would have known it was a politicall rally becuase elections were the next day. They were trying to drum up election votes from the Korean people who worked on the base. Somehow I doubt the candiadte was anti-american......

 

I had mostly Korean friends and was always hanging out with Korean people. I never had any problem. I went all over the country and I was treated very very well. In some parts of the country I was practically stared at in wonder and happiness. This is particularily true of the older folks who REMEMEBER the war. Many of them express disgust at the younger generations attitude toward the north.

 

As far as the thing about being run over by a tank...yeah that happened. Did you know that many Korean children don't look to cross the street...just like American kids.

[Kay]

Going to throw the bullshit flag on this one:

 

Feel free

 

Did you know that a lot of protesters are paid to go out and protest?

 

Do you have the receipts for these payments? Going so far as to allege some 'conspiracy' any time you get anti-US protest in an Asian country doesn't seem surprising. If there are demonstrators out on the streets in Hong Kong in support of the Chinese government, they're obviously a rent-a-crowd.

 

Additionally, some protests that are seen have nothing to do with Americans.

 

Nowhere have I tried to say that all protests in South Korea were aimed at the US military presence. Now burn the strawman and start again.

 

This is particularily true of the older folks who REMEMEBER the war. Many of them express disgust at the younger generations attitude toward the north.

 

But the young are entitled to the opinion that the foreign military presence is no longer relevant. You may think them wrong, misguided, ignorant or overly idealistic. But you can't deny that it's there. I never claimed "a majority" or people disliked the US presence. I only allowed myself to go as far as to say that there was support and resentment.

 

As far as the thing about being run over by a tank...yeah that happened.

 

How about the rest of the story? How about: the soldier was not tried in South Korea by South Koreans under South Korean laws. Instead, the soldier was whisked into the safe arms of his own brethen, who gave him a slap on the wrist and discharged him. He didn't even do jail time for the manslaughter.

 

Did you know that many Korean children don't look to cross the street...just like American kids.

 

Mind if I put the bullshit flag on this pathetic justification? How fast do tanks travel in narrow streets of suburban areas? Why do kids get hit by cars when they jay-walk? Because cars are travelling at high speeds. Unless the tank was preparing to ram through a two meter thick brick wall, I don't think it was travelling at a speed that rendered it incapable of stopping after colliding with a pedestrian, let alone "run over" her with it.

[SOIL]

...

We should stop genocide because: I feel upset?

...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Kay,

 

Basically my opinion on why "we" (or perhaps I should say we Christians) should stop the genocide, is described in one of the books I have been plugging for several months now (here is the Table of Contents), I am still waiting for the OK to quote some of the copyrighted pages from the book (in order to help me be more clear about the 'whys' I feel the way I do). You have said yourself that I don't communicate very effectively when I clumsily make attempts to write my own opinions. I try not to offend - when I can help it - while still attempting communicate as effectively as I know how. As I have said before, quoting others (who know how to write more effectively than I), is one way I try to be considerate of your sensitivities.

 

I am not going to rush into a vain effort to wax eloquent about why I think it is worth supporting one of the foundational reasons as to why the United Nations was formed.

 

I almost get the idea you are saying you may be of the position that it is OK that neither the U.N. nor the U.S. stepped in to try to stop the genocide in Rwanda. If in fact that is what you are saying, then I would think you are taking the radical position, which most needs defending. In my opinion, (which I think is basically the mainstream opinion) - even among non-christians - the U. N. was instituted for just 'such a time as this' (i.e. - I think the genocide in Rwanda was an excellent example of the very kind of thing the U. N. is supposed to prevent).

 

In this thread, I have asked for opinions about an article I thought was/is worthy of discussing. I'm happy to hear your opinions - and I will continue to be happy to "hear" even more from you, and I also hope to hear more opinions from others.

 

...When am I going to get something substantial and intelligent from you, Dennis? ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Kay,

 

I don't start threads just to try to say something substantial myself, and/or to try to prove how intelligent I am (actually, I suspect I am less educated than most of the people who post here, though I do agree with Cerise that a degree from some school may not be the best way to measure one's intelligence). I think everyone - even those of us who are not the sharpest tack in the box - have a right to communicate about things we find important. I'm hoping (and thinking) there are some others here who agree with me on that.

 

Actually, yet another of the many reasons I start threads, is simply because I understand there are other people here who are decidedly more intelligent than I - and I like to learn from them.

 

For instance, you have taught me some valuable things in this thread - and for that, I say a genuine heartfelt "Thanks!"

 

Sometimes I get the impression you are mad at me, and/or you desire to try to show me to be inferior in some way. If either actually is the case: I apologize for my part in causing you to be upset, and/or I don't think you really need pursue a quest to show me inferior either in intelligence or the ability to provide substantial content, (or even just plain intellectually lazy) as I hereby plead guilty!. <wink>

 

 

-Dennis

[Vixentrox]

Do I have recipets for these payments? No. But having lived in South Korea for three years and have quite the number of Korean friends, and have a next door nieghbor who is Korean...I don't think they all were lying to me about it.

 

Yes, narrow streets. Know what that means? It means a kid can pop out from a building or an alley and be in the street without any time to stop. Heck you can run into people as a pedestrian. Ever bump into someone in a hall or get a door opened in your face? Same principle. Ever HEAR an armored vehicle trundeling down the road? They are not exactly the most quiet things....pretty hard to miss that clanking of tread sound isn't it?

 

As far as the soldier getting wisked away...that isn't unusual. I belive the SOFA states that crimes (if you can call an accident a crime) commited by military members while performing thier duties are handled by US Armed Forces jurisdiction. I'm not a laywer or a JAG so I'm not 100% on that but I belive that's how it was.

 

Yeah, I'll give you that there is some resentment....but how about adding there is still a lot of support for the US military over there. The amount of good things the American military does for the Korean people by far outwieghs the drawbacks. Of course....you hardly ever about the good things that happen, just like in Iraq. No...all the fucking media ever wants to report are bad things.

[SOIL]

...

We should stop genocide because: I feel upset?

...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Maybe the best person to respond to that "because"? is someone like Yolande.

 

From Yolande's Story :

...

If your neighbour's house is burning, you help put out the fire, because you don't know where the wind will blow the flames.

 

"And who is my neighbor?"

(context)

 

-Dennis

[Kay]

Do I have recipets for these payments?  No. 

 

So are you going to take back your absurd statement that the protestors were not genuine and paid to create a rabble?

 

But having lived in South Korea for three years and have quite the number of Korean friends, and have a next door nieghbor who is Korean...I don't think they all were lying to me about it.

 

Lying about what? Their sentiments for a foreign military presence? They speak for themselves - I'm not going to say they were lying about their feelings nor do I have reason to. I'm just amused by your instant resort to shady, unsubstantiated theories of conspiracy and whatnot at the first hint of any suggestion that you're unpopular.

 

Ever HEAR an armored vehicle trundeling down the road?  They are not exactly the most quiet things....pretty hard to miss that clanking of tread sound isn't it?

 

Wow - your fumbling just hit rock bottom. Now you intend to argue that the girl heard the tank, could probably feel the ground vibrating, but chose to throw herself in front of it anyway?

 

As far as the soldier getting wisked away...that isn't unusual.  I belive the SOFA states that crimes (if you can call an accident a crime) commited by military members while performing thier duties are handled by US Armed Forces jurisdiction.  I'm not a laywer or a JAG so I'm not 100% on that but I belive that's how it was.

 

I'm not trying to say it's unusual. I'm trying to say how absurd and unfair it is. I had a discussion some time back with someone on this issue - he was convinced the American soldier would not get a fair trial if he were to be tried by the South Koreans. I argued that the soldier isn't exactly getting a fair trial either by being judged by his own peers.

 

Fact of the matter is - when a foreign presence is only answerable to themselves, as the tank-roll-over-girl case demonstrates, it highlights the ease in which hate and resentment that could easily take root. In my personal opinion, you ought to be tried in the country you commit the crime. That's the first basic principle to determining jurisdiction, and I'll spare you the latin maxim for that. To go against the natural jurisdiction of the country, to thumb your nose at another country's sovereign right to try any person caught committing a crime in their country, is quite a grievous insult.

 

But right - you have never experienced what it feels like to be treated and seen as second class citizens, so you'll probably coddle yourself to sleep convincing yourself that some idiot Korean kid threw themselves in front of a roaring tank to make the Americans look bad.

 

Yeah, I'll give you that there is some resentment....but how about adding there is still a lot of support for the US military over there.

 

If you didn't lose your senses the moment I mentioned there was antagonism in the Korean folk against foreign occupation, you would have noticed my initial introduction to this matter did not discount the presence of support.

 

The amount of good things the American military does for the Korean people by far outwieghs the drawbacks.

 

-- so....as long as the Americans are keeping the communist hounds of North Korea at bay, it's ok if they indiscriminately rape a few women and roll some citizens over with their tanks?

 

Excuse me whilst I flush that logic, along with your credibility, down the toilet.

[Kay]

Dennis,

 

I have nothing more to say to you. You're not merely here to hear other people's opinions. You've put forth a position - "we should", and aside from your theatric horror, you've put no more reasons to support your own opinions. If you won't or can't state them, tips for next time would be to have the honesty to be upfront about this, and not have someone ask you six times before you decide to stop pretending you have something of value to offer.

 

I almost get the idea you are saying you may be of the position that it is OK that neither the U.N. nor the U.S. stepped in to try to stop the genocide in Rwanda. If in fact that is what you are saying, then I would think you are taking the radical position, which most needs defending.

 

Why does it need defending when you can't offer one good piece of ammunition to destablize this position? Just because something upsets us doesn't mean we have to stop it. Your cheap appeals to emotion doesn't exactly undermine my position.

 

You're so easy to read Dennis. Your attempts to insinuate are about as subtle as being hit by a flying brick. "If I think the US/UN should not have attempted to stop the genocide in Rwanda, thereby going against what moral and righteous Christian observers have advocated, I'm obviously immoral just like all the other heathens."

 

I'll only 'defend' my 'radical' position when you can actually threaten it.

 

Sometimes I get the impression you are mad at me, and/or you desire to try to show me to be inferior in some way.

 

Do I honestly care? Is this even relevant to the discussion? You bought it up because? No wait - what am I saying? This is about as close as you get to throwing an ad homined without appearing to tarnish your good Christian image.

 

I don't even have the time to waste to be mad at you.

[Vixentrox]

It has nothing to do with stopping the NKs, the good we do for the Korean people. Here is one little example. Our unit (like most of the units on Osan) sponsered a Korean orphanage. Without our donations of money, this orphanage wouldn't have heat in the winter. We built a playground for them. We visted them every month to hold a birthday party for the ones that had a birthday that month. Service members adopted children to make sure they got birthday and Xmas presents. We did clean-up work and maintence at the orphanage.

 

As for my friends...THEY were the ones that told me about paid protesters. Here's a little tip for you. Why don't you actually try living there before you belive all the bullshit the media feeds you?

 

And my statement still stands about the tank. Perhaps if you knew what Korean children do when crossing the road you would understand better. They raise thier hand and often just march across the road expecting the trafic to stop becuase thier hand is raised. It's a recipe for disaster but thats thier culture. Unfortunatly, most foriegners don't know about this little tidbit of Korean behavior.

 

Foriegn occupation? All the Koreans have to do is ask us to leave. Foriegn occupation is the Allies at the end of WW2 staying in Germany and Japan without those countries say-so. The Koreans regualrily give a number of presents to the service members in appreciation for being there. I got a nice pen set and a decorative plate from the Korean government. They also arrange various tours free of charge for Americans atationed there.

 

Oh, btw...did you know that the war is technically still on-going? There never was a peace treaty signed. Only a cease fire which has lasted a long time. Of course...shooting still goes on. Sometimes you hear about it on the news. Sometimes not.

 

Ah..the old rape of the Korean women story. Yes, that does happen. People are not angels. I'm certain some of the cases are quite legitamite. Take a town of 30+ thousand people and there probably will be a rape. Take 30+ thousand service people and thier will probably be a rape. Of course, considering how the Korean legal system works, I wouldn't put it past some Koreans to exagerate or make it up becuase they can settle a case by getting money from the accused. Who better to accuse than a "rich" American? It's one of the things service people are warned about when they get there. Even in America it's not unheard of for someone to falsely accuse another of a crime to get revenge, to get money, or get something else out of it. Why should the Korean people be different?

[SOIL]

...   Why does it need defending when you can't offer one good piece of ammunition to destablize this position? Just because something upsets us doesn't mean we have to stop it. Your cheap appeals to emotion doesn't exactly undermine my position.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Kay,

I understand I can't expect a reply from you, given you have nothing more to say to me.

 

Here is some more of the things I have been reading.

 

The Genocide Convention

 

never again The world's Most Unfulfillled Promise :

...

Samantha Power, Director of the Human Rights Initiative at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, is writing a book, "Again and Again," on American responses to genocide since the Holocaust.

...

But in the half century since, something has gone badly wrong. In Bosnia the men, women and children of Stupni Do, Srebrenica, Ahmici, Zvornik, Prijedor, etc., all learned in recent years that the promise of "never again" counted for little. And they were not alone. Notwithstanding a promising beginning, and a half-century of rhetorical ballast, the American consensus that genocide is wrong has not been accompanied by a willingness to stop or even condemn the crime itself.

 

Since the Holocaust, the United States has intervened militarily for a panoply of purposes -- securing foreign ports, removing unpalatable dictators, combating evil ideology, protecting American oil interests, etc. -- all of which provoke extreme moral and legal controversy. Yet, despite an impressive postwar surge in moral resolve, the United States has never intervened to stop the one overseas occurrence that all agree is wrong, and that most agree demands forceful measures. Irrespective of the political affiliation of the President at the time, the major genocides of the post-war era -- Cambodia (Carter), northern Iraq (Reagan, Bush), Bosnia (Bush, Clinton) and Rwanda (Clinton) -- have yielded virtually no American action and few stern words. American leaders have not merely refrained from sending GIs to combat genocide; when it came to atrocities in Cambodia, Iraq and Rwanda, the United States also refrained from condemning the crimes or imposing economic sanctions; and, again in Rwanda, the United States refused to authorize the deployment of a multinational U.N. force, and also squabbled over who would foot the bill for American transport vehicles.

 

What are the causes of this gap between American principle and American practice?

 

During the Cold War, one might be tempted to chalk up America's tepid responses to real-world geopolitical circumstance. With the nuclear shadow looming, and the world an ideological playground, every American intervention in the internal affairs of another country carried with it the risk of counter-intervention by its rival, and the commensurate danger of escalation. In the same vein, while the United States was embroiled in its war with the Soviet Union, it was said, humanitarian concerns could not be permitted to distract American leaders, soldiers and resources from the life-or-death struggle that mattered most. Henry Kissinger was one of many who believed it was best not to ask questions about the domestic behavior of states but to focus on how they behave outside their borders. Countries that didn't satisfy vital security needs, or serve some economic or ideological end, were of little concern. And since staging a multilateral intervention would have required Security Council clearance, the superpower veto effectively ruled out such operations.

...

 

Fifty years ago a state-centric universe allowed governments to treat their own citizens virtually as they chose within national borders. Today the concept of human rights is flourishing, and the rights of individuals are prized (if not always protected). Across the contemporary legal, political and social landscape, we see abundant evidence of the legitimation of the movement: we see global conventions that outlaw discrimination on the basis of gender and race and outline the rights of refugees and children; a planet-wide ban on land-mines that was sparked by the outrage of a Vermonter; a pair of ad hoc international war crimes tribunals that take certain mass murderers to task; and an abundance of human rights lawyers who have acquired a respected presence at the policy-making table. In short, when it comes to human rights as a whole, states and citizens have traveled vast distances.

 

But one ugly, deadly and recurrent reality check persists: genocide. Genocide has occurred so often and so uncontested in the last fifty years that an epithet more apt in describing recent events than the oft-chanted "Never Again" is in fact "Again and Again." The gap between the promise and the practice of the last fifty years is dispiriting indeed. How can this be?

In 1948 the member states of the United Nations General Assembly -- repulsed and emboldened by the sinister scale and intent of the crimes they had just witnessed -- unanimously passed the Genocide Convention. Signatories agreed to suppress and punish perpetrators who slaughtered victims simply because they belonged to an "undesirable" national, ethnic, or religious group.

 

The wrongfulness of such mindful killings was manifest. Though genocide has been practiced by colonizers, crusaders and ideologues from time immemorial, the word "genocide," which means the "killing: (Latin, cide) of a "people" (Greek, genos), had only been added to the English language in 1944 so as to capture this special kind of evil. In the words of Champetier de Ribes, the French Prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, "This [was] a crime so monstrous, so undreamt of in history throughout the Christian era up to the birth of Hitlerism, that the term 'genocide' has had to be coined to define it." Genocide differed from ordinary conflict because, while surrender in war normally stopped the killing, surrender in the face of genocide only expedited it. It was -- and remains -- agreed that the systematic, large-scale massacre of innocents, stands atop any "hierarchy of horribles."

 

The United States led the movement to build on the precedents of the Nuremberg war crimes trials, enshrine the "lessons" of the Holocaust, and ban genocide. Though slow to enter the Second World War, this country emerged from the armistice as a global spokesperson against crimes against humanity, taking charge of the Nuremberg proceedings and helping draft the 1948 Genocide Convention, which embodied the moral and popular consensus in the United States and the rest of the world that genocide should "never again" be perpetrated while outsiders stand idly by. President Harry Truman called on U.S. Senators to endorse the Convention on the grounds that America had "long been a symbol of freedom and democratic progress to peoples less favored," and because it was time to outlaw the "world-shocking crime of genocide."

 

The American people appeared to embrace these abstract principles. And though one wing of the American establishment still downplayed the importance of human rights and resisted "meddling" in the internal affairs of fellow nations, even its spokesmen appeared to make an exception for human rights abuses that rose to the level of genocide. Though Americans disagreed fervently over whether their foreign policy should be driven by realism or idealism, interests or values, pragmatism or principle, they united over the cause of combating genocide. A whole range of improbable bed fellows placed genocide, perhaps the lone universal, in a category unto itself.

....

If American leaders ever used the word "genocide" to describe atrocities, it is likely that this public support would have grown. A July 1994 Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) poll found that when citizens were asked, "If genocidal situations occur, do you think that the U.N., including the U.S., should intervene with whatever force is necessary to stop the acts of genocide" - 65 percent said "always" or "in most cases," while 23 per cent said "only when American interests are also involved" and just 6 percent said "never." When asked how they would react if a U.N. commission decided that events in Bosnia and Rwanda constituted genocide, 80 percent said they would favor intervention in both places.

 

It is possible that such support is superficial and would fade once U.S. forces incurred casualties, but it also arose without prompting from American leaders. In no postwar case of genocide has an American president attempted to argue that mass atrocity makes military or political intervention morally necessary. Yet it is notable that when the United States has intervened for other reasons, its leaders have garnered popular support by appealing to American sensibilities regarding mass killing. In the lead-up to the Gulf War, for example. Saddam Hussein was transformed into American "Enemy #1" not so much because he seized Kuwaiti oil fields but because he was "another Hitler" who "killed Kuwaiti babies." The advancement of humanitarian values in fact appears to "sell" in a way that "protecting American oil interests" in Kuwait or "saving the NATO alliance" in Bosnia do not. When it came time to deploy American soldiers as part of a postwar NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, for instance, two-thirds of Americans polled found "stopping the killing" a persuasive reason for deploying troops (64 percent, CBS/NYT 12/9/95), while only 29 percent agreed with Clinton that deployment was necessary so as to maintain a stable Europe and preserve American leadership.

...

...To begin with, the Convention, which defined the crime as "a systematic attempt to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, or religious group as such," was both under-inclusive (excluding Pol Pot's attempted extermination of a political class) and over-inclusive (potentially capturing a white racist's attempt to cause bodily injury to a carload of African-Americans)...

...

The Genocide Convention initially succeeded in articulating a post-war international consensus that genocide was a monstrous evil. But, as Pol Pot, Hussein, Karadzic and the Rwandan Interahamwe discovered, neither it nor the rhetorical commitments of the American leaders have translated into a willingness to halt the masterminds of genocide.

(it was very difficult for me to chose which parts of the excellent article by Samantha Power to not include in the quote box - I highly recommed clicking on the link and simply reading the complete article rather than only the parts I included above.)

 

-Dennis

[SOIL]

From this Frontline interview :

What is the most significant thing to understand about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda?

 

In Rwanda, in the course of 100 days in the spring and early summer of 1994, 800,000 people were put to death in the most unambiguous case of state-sponsored genocide in an attempt to exterminate a category of humanity, a people, since the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews of Europe.

 

... What distinguishes Rwanda is a clear, programmatic effort to eliminate everybody in the Tutsi minority group because they were Tutsis. The logic was to kill everybody. Not to allow anybody to get away. Not to allow anybody to continue. And the logic, as Rwandans call it, the genocidal logic, was very much akin to that of an ideology very similar to that of the Nazism vis-à-vis the Jews in Europe, which is all of them must be gotten rid of to purify in a sense the people. There's a utopian element in genocide that's perplexing. But it is an effort to create community in the most strict sense of "us versus them," by literally eliminating them and bonding all of us in complicity, in the course of that elimination. The idea was that all Hutus should participate in killing of Tutsis. And there have been cases of mass political murder, there have been cases of massacres and genocidal massacres, but never a country and a society so completely and totally convulsed by an effort at pure, unambiguous genocide since the end of World War II, since the passage of the Genocide Convention by the United Nations in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

...

 

I think I may take a break from this subject for the rest of the day - it can become very intense.

 

-Dennis

[SOIL]

The G word

 

Again from here :

...

From the Clinton administration's standpoint and the State Department briefings, what was the dilemma they faced in not calling this a genocide?

 

The Genocide Convention basically stood as the one document, the international law about genocide. And what it said was, if there's a genocide, the people who have agreed to this convention (which is the United States included) have to act to stop genocide when it's happening. In other words, if it's a genocide, you must act. It was a straight equation. The Clinton administration didn't want to act, which meant that it couldn't call it a genocide, because if it acknowledged that it was a genocide, it's clear from its own statements that its reading was: It had to do something. And eventually what happened was, the Clinton administration came up with a new reading of the Genocide Convention, which basically said, "Well, it doesn't oblige us to act. It permits us to act. It creates a framework in which we can act," which is nonsense, of course. Who needs permission to act? You don't need an international law about genocide to say, "It's okay to try to stop this." You have one that says, "No, we pledge to try to stop this." So they came up with this spin that basically spayed the convention, spayed the pledge. That's what it was about.

...

[Cerise]

I'm still waiting for the _______ part of the equation.

 

It does no good to say "we should stop genocide" if you don't have a "we should stop genocide by doing _________" after it.

[SOIL]

White House Briefing during the Genocide

 

Clinton Administration Policy on Reforming Multilateral Peace Operations (PDD 25)

 

Again, from Frontline's interview :

Presidential Directive 25: How did it come to be? Was it in response to Somalia?

 

Yes ... after the Somalia debacle, the White House had actually commissioned a policy review. And a document was produced called Presidential Decision Directive 25, which was basically a checklist: These are the things that we should review when we consider intervention. If we encounter any of these factors (and it was a very, very long list of possible political factors), we should not intervene. So it was really a checklist of reasons not to intervene, is essentially what it boiled down to.

 

This document was sort of in its final draft forms as the Rwandan slaughter began. And it was circulating. People at the U.N. say that Madeline Albright was carrying it around there. It was certainly circulating on Capitol Hill. It was circulating out of the White House. It was the Clinton administration document. And what you hear about that is, the most striking thing in it is that it says, "Not only should we decide when we don't want to intervene, but when we don't, we should exert what pressure we can on others also not to intervene." In other words, "We can't be seen to be sitting it out." This, then, is the closest thing we have to a highly articulated policy position, defining the responses that we saw in the course of Rwanda.

 

In the administration's view, what did PDD25 represent?

 

... The administration seems to have looked at Presidential Decision Directive 25 essentially as a template for policy making. They tend these days to downplay its significance. It never became a doctrine, shall we say, of American foreign policy. But it's clearly the backdrop. It's clearly the closest thing we have to a freshly published and clearly articulated policy of non-intervention and obstructing or resisting or pressuring others not to intervene as well.

 

Madeline Albright explains PDD25 to Congress: "These policies have increased discipline in the Security Council's decision-making procedure. The resolution is driven not by a desire simply to do something, but to do the smart thing," ... What is she trying to say to them?

 

There was some outrage in Congress about the fact that this mass slaughter by a government of its people was taking place, and that America was caught in the position of doing nothing. So the Clinton administration's job was to try to persuade Congress that, in fact, doing nothing was somehow or other doing the right thing. It's a tough argument to make. Quite often, the language that's used at that time is, "Let's not be emotional. Let's be lucid. Let's be clear. Let's have a policy that's firm and rational. Discipline." Well, it's not clear that this was the smartest thing to have done. It's not clear that it was the stupidest thing to have done. What's clear is that the administration, itself, was deeply conflicted.

 

And what's striking throughout all of this is how deeply conflicted and defensive the explanations of inaction are. It's not a confident assertion of policy: "The right thing to do is to stay out of this for now." No. What you have is: "We're staying out, but here's why, we're okay, we didn't mean to do any harm. I'm sorry that all these people are being killed, but let's not be too emotional about that." There's a clear sense of shame that presides over this. And that's what's interesting to me. You can have strong strategic arguments about whether or not, in retrospect, it could have been a successful intervention. But what we know now is, it didn't happen. And from the beginning, when it wasn't happening to now, there's an abiding sense of shame.

...

(I have added the red for emphasis)

[SOIL]

From Frontline interview :

Why on May 17th did the Security Council decide to increase the U.N. force?

 

By May 17th, it was no longer possible to pretend that there wasn't a genocide taking place in Rwanda. There was no getting around it. What was happening with immense speed, on an immense scale, was the slaughter of the Tutsi population of Rwanda, by then, by the hundreds of thousands. It was pretty well understood that at least half a million people had been killed by then. At that point, people began to realize, "We're never going to be able to defend having withdrawn. Maybe we ought to think about going back in. We can't bring back the 500,000 or more dead, but we can at least perhaps attempt to bring an end to this slaughter, and not allow this genocide to be completed." I think it was genuine shame that drove the decision to revisit this.

 

And shame, of course, tends to have an element behind it, usually in political terms of public pressure. There was press reporting. There were people clucking their tongues in front of their television sets and their radio sets. There were editorials. There were congressmen who were beginning to scratch their heads and say, "What's happening? How are we allowing this to go on?" There was an increasing sense around the world that this would not stand. Why aren't we there?

(again, I added red and bold-red for emphasis - maybe to remind me of blood?)

 

-Dennis

[Cerise]

*sigh* Are you ever going to fill in the blanks Dennis? Or are we just going to mess around with red font for a while. Can I have my turn?

Shame

 

Shame

 

Blood

 

Baby-killing

 

Kill

 

Shame

 

 

There. Can we do something productive now?

[SOIL]

...What is motivating U.S. policy?

 

We talk about Rwanda as a failure of US policy: a failure to intervene, a failure to recognize what was going on, and a failure to take action to stop genocide. But if you look at the Clinton administration's approach to it throughout the entire period, what you really see is that it was actually a success of a policy not to intervene. It wasn't a failure to act. The decision was not to act. And at that, we succeeded greatly. It may sound cynical. It may sound sarcastic to say that. But it actually is important to understand this, because not acting was the policy. It wasn't a inadvertent thing. We didn't want to. We did what we didn't want to do. And we then end up in a world where it's clear that what matters is not some consistent policy, "Oh yes, faced with genocide, we will take action," but, "Oh no, we are in a position to say we don't want to, and to refuse." And that's how policy is going to be made.

...

 

'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'

(context)

[SOIL]

... Can we do something productive now?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Cerise,

 

This is something that comes to mind:

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.'

(context)

 

-Dennis

[Cerise]

And are you going to do that Dennis?

 

Or are you going to keep blasting red font at me?

[SOIL]

In addition to my Christian desire to demonstrate that I love God by keepings Jesus' commandments,

 

I am a human being and when I hear that some of my fellow human beings are planning to eradicate an entire group of human beings, then in seems to me that I should become alarmed even if I try to suppress my emotions - I can still consider how the good name of 'human' is likely to be tarnished (yet more) if I simply "do nothing", and do not attempt to intervene and stop what is being planned.

 

Again from Frontline's interview

...

...There's a utopian element in genocide that's perplexing. But it is an effort to create community in the most strict sense of "us versus them," by literally eliminating them and bonding all of us in complicity, in the course of that elimination. The idea was that all Hutus should participate in killing of Tutsis. ...

...

(I added the bold emphasis)

 

As a Christian, I look at scripture passages like the following for encouragement to get past the "us verses them" mindset.

 

From Galatians 3:28

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

I suppose people who are not religious look to various U.N. documents (feel free to correct me if I am wrong), for instance, - like some of the ones I have posted links to (and/or The Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

 

While we are in this present world - there are times of weeping for both Christian and non-christian alike - because the "us verses them" mentality is not always overcome.

 

I still put my hope in the Christian way of overcoming it - I understand not everyone does though - and I think Rwanda is something folks on both sides of the ideology / worldview aisle should take a long hard look at.

 

 

-Dennis

[SOIL]

And are you going to do that Dennis?

 

Or are you going to keep blasting red font at me?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Cerise,

 

Absolutely EXCELLENT questions (as usual).

 

I think the red fonts are mostly needed by me.

 

-Dennis

[Cerise]

I wonder if an excellent answer shall be forthcoming...

[♦ nivek ♦]

Should the U.S. act to stop Genocide?

 

Dennis,

 

This is the topic starter question...

 

I don't care what the ancient words of the useless sand diety say. Care less what the current Admin in the Nut, err, Whitehouse, says...

 

The question begs a simple answer, one without tons of quotes from other sources and bold printing.

 

"Do we as a Nation, the united States, have an obligation to act to stop genocide(s)?"

 

My answer is not only "no", but 'FUCK NO! are we to continue to commit our boys and girls lives in tribal warfare and useless sectarian bullshttings in far countries.

 

We can't even keep the damn tribal warfare off our own streets, we can't even secure our own borders. We can't even secure Freedom in this Country, pave the roads, provide for the Common Welfare...

 

Yeah man, we need to run around the World and stomp out every brushfire and impose *peace* on everything..

 

Only winners in this mess are the arms providers and politicians...

 

kL

[Kay]

It has nothing to do with stopping the NKs, the good we do for the Korean people.  Here is one little example.  Our unit (like most of the units on Osan) sponsered a Korean orphanage.  Without our donations of money, this orphanage wouldn't have heat in the winter.  We built a playground for them.  We visted them every month to hold a birthday party for the ones that had a birthday that month.  Service members adopted children to make sure they got birthday and Xmas presents.  We did clean-up work and maintence at the orphanage.

 

This is a function perfectly suited to the South Korean government - who reaps in tax payers money in order to fund public services and to look after the vulnerable of their society.

 

Furthermore, your donations are made in your capacity as an individual. A group of university students could sponsor and orphanage - it doesn't take a foreign military to do that.

 

So what's your point? That you're doing generally good deeds? I'm not going to argue with you on that. I just don't see how your good deeds make you better than anyone else doing good deeds.

 

As for my friends...THEY were the ones that told me about paid protesters.  Here's a little tip for you.  Why don't you actually try living there before you belive all the bullshit the media feeds you?

 

You're trying to tell me I've been misled by bullshit media....but here you're spouting unverifiable hearsay?

 

Give me a break.

 

And my statement still stands about the tank.  Perhaps if you knew what Korean children do when crossing the road you would understand better.  They raise thier hand and often just march across the road expecting the trafic to stop becuase thier hand is raised.  It's a recipe for disaster but thats thier culture.  Unfortunatly, most foriegners don't know about this little tidbit of Korean behavior.

 

This point is moot until either of us can produce some reliable source as to how the actual event occurred. I will no longer engage in futile speculation.

 

But what's interesting about the little trivia is that a US soldier isn't made aware of this immediately, or becomes aware of this after a couple of months stay? Hello? Doesn't this automatically tell you that there should be an even greater standard of care expected from the army then?

 

Foriegn occupation?

 

I may have confused my terminology, or you may like to specify what exactly you are referring to by "foreign occupation". I think in the past two posts, I've been trying to redefine it as "presence of foreign military". Correct me if I'm wrong, and kick my stupid head in for not having made this distinction earlier.

 

The Koreans regualrily give a number of presents to the service members in appreciation for being there.  I got a nice pen set and a decorative plate from the Korean government.  They also arrange various tours free of charge for Americans atationed there. 

 

- what point are you trying to make here? I've already acknowledged that there are as many people who like the US military presence as there are people who resent it. It's not "the Koreans" who are nice to you, it's "there are some Koreans" who are nice to you. Those are individual bequests - they are not given on behalf of the entire South Korean population.

 

Oh, btw...did you know that the war is technically still on-going?  There never was a peace treaty signed.  Only a cease fire which has lasted a long time.  Of course...shooting still goes on.  Sometimes you hear about it on the news.  Sometimes not. 

 

Uh...no shit, Sherlock? And did you know that the line dividing North and South Korea is the 38th Parallel? What next? I'm so smart because I know a little of general history?

 

Ah..the old rape of the Korean women story.

 

Sorry - but if it continues to happen up till this date, I'm not going to callously dismiss it as an 'old' story. Nice try though, but your belittling of other people's pain is really quite disgusting.

 

Yes, that does happen.  People are not angels.  I'm certain some of the cases are quite legitamite.

 

No, what you were trying to say in your previous post was that it's ok to do this kind of thing because the overall good you were doing in South Korea should cover it. I'm not here to talk about the fallibility of human nature.

 

Of course, considering how the Korean legal system works, I wouldn't put it past some Koreans to exagerate or make it up becuase they can settle a case by getting money from the accused.  Who better to accuse than a "rich" American?  It's one of the things service people are warned about when they get there.  Even in America it's not unheard of for someone to falsely accuse another of a crime to get revenge, to get money, or get something else out of it.  Why should the Korean people be different?

 

I'm absolutely disgusted. Your fallback onto racism to explain away the complaints of abuse and rape against US soldiers is frankly disgusting. You must have missed my point through your redneck lenses. I was arguing that a foreign military presence not answerable to the local law of the land is a breach of the natural principles of jurisidiction and an affront to the sovereignty of said country. One poor Korean could try to frame a rich Korean - but both will be subject to and tried by the same standard and the same law.

 

Doesn't take much to make you show your true colours, does it, Vix?

[Cerise]

Only winners in this mess are the arms providers and politicians...

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Ain't that the truth!

[Vixentrox]

The dividing line between North and South is no longer the 38th...and hasn't been since the cease fire. Anyway....this is getting off topic. Feel free to appluad or support genocide or bury your head in the sand. Cant save everyone no, but you can save some. If you had a chance to stop the holocaust, would you?

 

As someone hinted at, most people are more concerened about the electricity in thier house going out or running out of milk more than the murder of thousands upon thousands.