Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, this month marks the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide in which nearly a million perished in a horrific 100- day span while the world idly stood by. As has been documented in print and film, including Samantha Powers' riveting book, ``A Problem From Hell: American and the Age of Genocide,'' cables were sent, reports of the violence and the targeting of innocents received, and yet the American foreign policy apparatus was largely consumed not with stemming the bloodshed, but rather with avoiding use of the word ``genocide'' less it necessitate a response. And so many people died. Of course, there is the now notorious negligence of the United Nations in this regard, which culminated in a catastrophic moral failure on the part of the international community. Kofi Annan, then head of U.N. peacekeeping, was receiving on-the- ground intelligence from General Dallaire, who was a Canadian general, about the impending tragedy, and yet he repeatedly refused to authorize General Dallaire to seize known weapons caches until it was too late. What horrors might have been prevented had Annan chosen otherwise? Fast-forward several years. President Clinton traveled to the Kigali Airport in Rwanda and issued what has come to be known as the ``Clinton apology'' for failing to do more to stop the violence. Later, President George W. Bush famously wrote ``not on my watch'' in the margin of a report on the Rwandan genocide.…”