mz589 said:
Just a couple of things..
1) While I agree we probably could have prevented the genocide, when has Canada ever taken an action of type that you are suggesting entirely on its own?
2) Given that the above has never happened, its pretty unrealistic that Canada would defy the UN and act alone when the world's only superpower wouldn't get off its *** to help.
3) You can blame it on our politicians at the time and claim they weren't leaders but they were hardly alone in that respect. There was no leadership being shown by any of our allies or the US and UN. Sure Canada could have led the charge but its pretty hard to beleive that they weren't getting mixed intelligence from the UN also. I find it hard to beleive that under the same circumstances their is any government in our history as a nation that would have acted differently.
Hindsight is always 20/20 which is pretty much my whole problem with the National Post article.
You are quite correct that no-one did anything because, in the general, global foreign policy calculus Rwanda, like all of black Africa, simply doesn't matter enough - not after the Somalia debacle. (Not the CAR incident; rather the US experience which terrified Clinton's administration and, consequently, coloured the perception of the Chrétien team.)
But, just a very few years, a few dozen months earlier Canada had been looking, actively, for opportunities to:
"¢ Enhance its global
image by doing something - even if it turned out to be wasteful or wrong - in (maybe
for) Africa; and
"¢
Show leadership - that was the OK phrase in the '80s and '90s.
It is not at all hard for me to believe that a different Canadian government, in our very recent history, would have acted differently, decisively and with alacrity.
I dare say that Dallaire wished for a different, lantern jawed,
leader, surrounded by different people. Chrétien, acting in lock step with Clinton, returned us to Trudeau's deeply flawed, ill considered
little Canada policy. Too bad for Dallaire, too bad for Rwanda, too bad for Canada, too.
Moderators : can you, please, merge this with the other Dallaire thread in Canadian Army, up above?
EDIT: In the name of Meagan, it shall be done.