Rwanda, Rwanda...

Hillary Clinton recently announced that if she is elected president, she will appoint her husband Bill to be America's roaming ambassador to the world. Bill's main duties would be to repair America's "tattered" image throughout his travels. The image she refers to is the usuall stuff. Things like "Bush alienated the world" and "He defied international law" and all that. Hillary frequented goes after the President over the War in Iraq and has called for a withdrawal of U.S. forces. With all of the hatred over George Bush in the world, it sounds like Hill's plan would be the perfect remedy to make the world "like" America again. But there's one place you can bet Bill won't be paying a visit to: Rwanda. In 1994, rebel militiamen rose up and carried out the most efficient killing spree in human history, the Rwandan genocide, a conflict between the country's Hutu ethnic majority and Tutsi ethnic minority. The genocide happened so quickly, killing over 800,000 people in just over three months, that comes out to over 8,000 people being killed everyday. Yet as the body count rose, the world sat back and did nothing. Sure, some peacekeeping contingents were sent in to try and referee the slaughter, but as the fighting reached ferocious levels they took off and ran, saving themselves instead of the innocent Rwandans being macheted in the streets. So what did the United States do? Absolutely nothing. What about the UN, the agency that we need to show respect do? Nothing. The sad reality is that the genocide never actually came to an end. Yes, rival fighters known as the RPF managed to drive the Interhamwe miliias out of Rwanda and into the Congo, but they never stopped killing. In fact, a war in the Congo between various ethnic groups is continuing to this day, with some people estimating 4 million deaths over a five year period. Hillary has chastised Bush for not doing enough to stop an Islamic insurgency from forming in Iraq, yet her husband did nothing to stop the Interahamwe militia from embedding itself into eastern congo, continuing its lust for blood in the dark, forgotten jungles. The Hutu-Tutsi conflict even spilled over into Burundi, Rwanda's southern neighbor, leaving hundreds of thousands more bodies in its wake. Yet the world did nothing to stop it, despite the echoing phrase "Never Again" from the last genocide. Even today, Hillary's party continues the same course of action with frequent calls for immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, even though the innocent people of that country need our help to stop extremists from changing their way of life and murdering those who disagree with them. Even after so many tradgdies, from the Holocaust to Darfur, we still can't get it right. What is so hard about doing the right thing? Next year, when Americans cast their ballots to elect the next president, most people will be thinking about health care costs, deficits, and the economy. How many will be thinking about the cries for help from the people of Rwanda in 1994?