Genocide 2011
In 2008, President X campaigned on a platform of A, B and C. Never talked much about genocide, except to express anger over Darfur to score points with the base. Never made any serious commitment to “never again,” cause what is that besides a phrase everyone says but no one means?
But now it’s 2011 and yesterday some lurid reports came out of _______. A couple days ago, there were massacres in the north, ___ on ____ violence. A couple villages massacred---the men and boys being immediately executed, women and girls taken out and raped, then executed. Unknown number of dead. Possible government involvement. It appears as a little paragraph in the global roundup sections of major newspapers.
The next day, similar stories appear, except specifying casualty figures in the hundreds, even though the actual toll is already over a thousand. In America, the foreign policy geeks are talking about it a little bit, but the public hasn’t noticed yet. They have more important things to worry about than dead _______s. The president knows, though. But the president has more important things to worry about, namely legislation C.
The next 2 days bring more stories. The violence is escalating. Definitely government involvement, looks like they might be arming paramilitary forces to carry out massacres. Standard, just like last time, and the time before that. Smells like Rwanda. Still too murky to tell if government forces are directly involved in the massacres themselves. Rebellion is heating up. Heavy fighting.
The president calls the ________ president to clarify the situation and encourage them to find a peaceful solution to this crisis. The ________ president heartily agrees and promises they are doing their best, but those damn rebels are trying to overthrow the government and have to be stopped. The president accepts this explanation, and meekly reiterates that it’s important to find a peaceful solution to the problem, which the ________ president again agrees with. The president then asks the ________ president for help securing American citizens and the ________ president says he’s trying the best he can, but has his hands full right now, but will keep doing his best because that’s all he can promise.
American citizens who had been in the country are getting out through South Africa. Some of them have some pretty terrible stories, actually, but none of the major media are publicizing them much. The President’s press secretary finally gets a question about it at the morning Q & A. He brushes it off, says we’re monitoring the situation, it looks like a civil war, besides that we don’t know much about it, that we’ll work through the UN to do something, all that jazz, but doesn’t give any details. And it’s just one question anyway --- most of the talk is still about ______ legislation and ______ scandal.
But the truth is the president has been getting graphic, horrifying reports from the State Department and knows that the number of dead is certainly already well into the tens of thousands and that the government is definitely arming the paramilitary forces carrying out the massacres, and probably directly participating in some, and that it’s going to continue for awhile. It’s another Rwanda.
The president calls the ________ president again, exchanges the same conversation, and does nothing. Hopefully it will just go away. Besides, the president thinks----and is counseled by veteran DC advisers----“If I do anything, the {Opposition} Party will start screaming about how we shouldn’t get involved in other countries’ affairs, and I don’t want to have to explain it to angry-sounding media vultures freshly stirred-up and emboldened by {Opposition} politicians who’d get their base frothing at the mouth at the first image of a dead American soldier. Or they’ll just saying I’m playing Wag the Dog. My approval rating might go down 10 points. So I’m not going to do anything. It’s not my problem.”
It’s been over a week now. Same stories. They’ve moved from page 8 to page 6 in the major papers. Lurid stories of ____s massacring _____s are translated by editors into dull war summaries. A town we’ve never heard of changed hands yesterday. Whatever. It looks like there’s no end in sight, it’s just going to be one of those stories with no developments besides more death and people don’t like reading those ‘cause there’s no plot to follow. Besides, no one even knows where the hell ______ is.
By day 10, there are over 100,000 dead, although none of the media reports specify a number, citing confusion on the ground. A ______ in the government-held region is a dead _______ and the government-held region is expanding.
But the American citizens are all out. They’re safe now. So we can all stop paying attention. Scandal _____ and legislation _____ can return to center stage.
Rwanda -- 1994 -- Bill Clinton
Darfur -- 2003 -- George W. Bush
_______ -- ____ -- ________
Seriously, who’s next? Who’s going to pretend they’re powerless to help? Which party is going to play the role of opportunist-isolationist ready to rip the flags off American coffins for important self-draping, poll-influencing purposes? Who’s going to be the leader too cowardly to face them down? How many journalists and editors will fail to sound the alarm? How many people will die? How many women will be raped? How many children will be made orphans? How many minds will learn to hate back? How many excuses, clichés and empty promises will we hear out of President _____ after it’s over?
Who will be the next American president to tell us, “NEVER AGAIN”?
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