Chris Kemp

It’s no secret history repeats itself. Anyone who has ever sat through a history class knows that. We’re supposed to look back at the chronicles of our existence and identify patterns in hopes of averting future crisis and suffering. But sometimes, when we’re not in the safety of a classroom, where hindsight is always 20/20, we tend to forget these lessons.

Take for example the Rwandan genocide of 1993, which we’ve been studying in my international conflict class. Strife between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority led to the assassination of the nation’s Hutu president.

Whether the assassination was the work of Tutsis or hardliner Hutus who were frustrated with their president’s willingness to compromise, it led to the formation of militia death squads, sponsored by the Hutu-dominated government.

Tutsis, and those deemed sympathetic to them, were slaughtered with small arms and machetes. First, the United Nations was unable to identify an aggressor and attempted to enter the conflict while remaining impartial, even though it was by then quite obviously the Hutus who were initiating the slaughter.

Then, when things got bad enough, the United Nations began to rally support for an enforcement action to establish safe zones for civilians. While it looked good on paper, the mandate lacked the necessary soldiers to back it up.

For America’s part, following the death of U.S. soldiers in Somalia, the Clinton administration was hesitant to commit troops. Over the course of three months, 800,000 Rwandans were killed. Finally, a U.N.-sponsored but French-led force stepped in and stabilized Rwanda. While the French might have liked to feign humanitarian concern, in reality their action was in response to a Tutsi overthrow of the Hutu government – the French had a history of supporting Hutu interests.

So in the end, it took a western nation having an interest in the conflict itself to get involved. Saving African lives was a peripheral concern in the whole scheme of things.

And now there is Sudan, where Muslim extremist groups sponsored by the Sudanese government have slaughtered more than 400,000 Africans in the western Darfur province, according to reports by Africa News Service. Genocidal history seems to be rolling back to the beginning.

Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Rwanda who was given a mandate back in 1993 without the soldiers to enforce it, said in his book “Shake Hands With the Devil” he could have established safe zones for civilians with 5,500 well-trained soldiers. And Rwanda was a relatively abrupt, explosive conflict. Sudan has festered for years and could have been addressed several times over by now.

But with his rhetoric-filled and actionless response to the genocide in Sudan, President Bush is proving that America hasn’t developed its commitment to humanitarianism in Africa at all.

Speaking out in his trademark strong, direct language during the first State of the Union Address of his second term, Bush referred to the Sudanese crisis as genocide immediately. But other than that and the agreement to commit monetary aid, the Bush administration has done very little.

Sudan was never included in the list of priorities for Bush’s second term. The recent U.S. abstention from voting on sending Sudanese war criminals to the International Criminal Court – rather than vetoing it in opposition to the establishment of an international court in the first place – was touted as a victory.

It was one of the only recent developments in Sudanese matters that could be found in CNN reports – reports that shed light on an incident in which America was praised for doing nothing. And there has been no push to contribute troops or to encourage other nations to do so.

True, the U.S. military is thinly spread over other pressing conflicts. But if Bush is really the champion of democracy and humanitarianism, as his post-Iraq invasion reputation suggests, why hasn’t he at least leveled some grand challenge to the international community to do something?

Even if we are unable to commit troops, there is no question that U.S. clout can sway the focus of the international community, whether through broad appeal or simple coercion (the latter being Bush’s main strength).

And regardless of whether or not the international community would cooperate, Bush has not even made an attempt to exert any influence – something that would have been unheard of if we were talking about Iraq.

Just as the diplomatic Clinton, whom conservatives often accuse of appeasement, turned away from the Rwandans, so too has the confrontational Bush from the Sudanese.

Bush’s hesitation to back his rhetoric with real action proves it doesn’t matter if the president is a playboy or a cowboy. America will never really lend its support to humanitarian military efforts unless there is some underlying interest involved.

While we bring democracy to Iraq as a manufactured priority in the war on terror, the Sudanese people face violence just as bad, if not worse, than anything Saddam Hussein ever dished out in the late 80s. For George W. Bush, hypocrisy is bliss. I’m not even going to try and talk about ignorance.

Reisinger is a sophomore print journalism major and a copy editor of The Spectator.