catapult magazine

here’s a recent report about the level of intelligence clinton had regarding the rwandan genocide (which seems quite contrary to his claims that he “did not fully appreciate the depth and speed” of the killing.)

President Bill Clinton’s administration knew Rwanda was being engulfed by genocide in April 1994 but buried the information to justify its inaction, according to classified documents made available for the first time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1182431,00.html

seems like clinton had his own issues with intelligence—kind of the flip side to dubya.

i just read a chapter from [i:285846414e]History of the Present: Essays, Sketches and Dispatches from Europe in the 1990s[/i:285846414e] by timothy garton ash that rakes clinton over the coals for his inappropriate action regarding kosovo, too. we were essentially relying on besieged terrorists for our intelligence in that one.

i’m not sure clinton should take all the blame for not intervening in rwanda. most of the killing happened in the first 3 weeks, and nobody anticipated the scale. the belgians pulled out when some of their soldiers got killed. the african u.n. peacekeepers in rwanda were poorly equipped, and the Canadian general, Rom?o Dallaire, couldn’t get anybody to listen to his requests for troops and supplies, including his own government. Here’s a long interview he had with Ted Koppel almost two years ago:

http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/events/dallaire/dallaire.php

i don’t think he should take all the blame—but i think he should take some of it. this article suggests that clinton and his staff did appreciate the scale, but yet didn’t say or do much to oppose what was going on.

clinton seems to have ignored intelligence to avoid doing something he didn’t want to do; whereas bush seems to have read stuff into intelligence to justify doing something he wanted to do.