Thomas Daschle: “the history of the world's response to genocide is one of long memory and poor eyesight. Each of us have, at one time or…”

“the history of the world's response to genocide is one of long memory and poor eyesight. Each of us have, at one time or another, looked back upon the terrible history of the Holocaust and made a commitment, in public or in our hearts, not to stay silent should the first signs of a potential genocide come into view. Every one of President Bush's six immediate predecessors gave voice to this common commitment. And yet each saw during their tenure a genocide somewhere in the world. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, 1.7 million Cambodians were murdered by the Khmer Rouge; 100,000 Kurds were massacred by Saddam Hussein; 200,000 Bosnia Muslims were killed by Serb militia; and 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed at the hands of Hutu mobs in just 100 days. As these dangers gathered, and the cry for help went out to the world, the world stood by, each time. Our failure has not been one of moral understanding. Our failure, simply, has been one of moral courage. Today, a tragedy of all too familiar dimensions appears to be gathering in the Darfur region of Western Sudan. Armed and protected by the Sudanese military, ethnic Arab militiamen have brought a plague of terror down on the African residents of Darfur. Villages have been razed, crops destroyed, and cattle slaughtered. Women have been raped and enslaved. More than 15,000 Sudanese men, women, and children have been killed, and a million more have been driven from their homes in fear.”