Douglas Alexander: “Just at the time when we were starting to celebrate the beginning of a solution to a north-south conflict which has gone…”

“Just at the time when we were starting to celebrate the beginning of a solution to a north-south conflict which has gone on for years and years, suddenly we are hit, literally in the face, with this terrible genocide in the western part of Sudan. It is important to this body that we show that in the midst of all of the other things that are going on in the world that we recognize this situation. We recognize the importance of it. We recognize that by our speaking out, by our actions, by visits by representatives of our administration, and by the Congress, we can make a difference in this genocide. As the Senator from Ohio remarked, we all look back 10 years to a time in Rwanda when we were thinking that we cannot be a policeman everywhere in the world, we cannot deal with every problem, but at the same time that problem ballooned to such a massive size we are all embarrassed about the fact that as a country we did not do more.”