pbi said:
...there are atrociously evil people in the world, who will get their own way unless they are confronted quckly by armed force (and REAL armed force, not some pathetic, rag-tag blue helmet rabble...). Whether the world takes notice, or takes action, remains to be seen.
I have met Gen Dallaire only once to speak to him, and I admire him. Does that make him a hero? Dunno - but he did the job he could with the resources he was allowed to have, and has to live with the results.
Could he have succeeded if he had pulled a Lew MacKenzie and exceeded his orders and authority? Maybe, or maybe he would have been on the next plane back to NY to 'justify' his actions to his superiors at the UN.
As for the murder of Belgian paras, I have looked at many accounts of what happened, and it looks to me as if he did what he could, with what he had and knew at the time, to prevent that, and wishes (and wished at the time) that he could have done and given more.
In my own opinion, Dallaire was unforunate enough to be the agent of a United Nations that chose not to do anything to help the Rwandan people (all of them, not just Hutus opr Tutsis).
Too many UN bureaucrats believed (and still believe?) that blue helmets are some kind of magic pill that makes bad stuff go away. When UN troops fail to prevent (or worse, cause) 'bad stuff', they point the fingers at the troops themselves and say "The UN was there, but the Canadian commander (or the Jordanian soldiers) failed to act..."
The intent of any armed UN operation is to put a competent disciplined force into a situation to provide relief for all parties... too often UN intervention is lacking in competence, discipline, or force (or any two, or all three of these), and as a result provides no relief, or even aggravates the situation (E Timor comes to mind...).
Bottom Line: Dallaire as an individual did not fail Rwanda in any meaningful way. The UN as an organization failed Rwanda in
every meaningful way.