And Libya goes on...

[carl]

Fuchs is correct, others had the capability. Even had they not we could have done what I got to do in '64 -- hop on a US C-130 and ferry and jump Belgique paratroopers in the Congo. We've provided airlift for many people going many places we did not send ground troops. LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK.

We didn't even offer airlift to others, and airlift is the one thing that we do better than anybody.

The mood in the US after the Mogadishu screw up by Delta and the Rangers -- and make no mistake, they're the ones that screwed the pooch -- was totally opposed to any intervention anywhere. Rwanda was the victim of two pieces of bad luck: Timing and not one single US interest. You may think stopping genocide is in the interest of the US. The folks who'd have gotten killed and their parents, wives and kids might disagree.No it's not a fallacy. A thing is either right or wrong. The issue with both China and Russia is not that we could not have stopped it because we could have -- the issue is the cost. What you're saying is if it appears * the cost won't be too high, we should go in, OTOH, if it might be too great, we just cannot.

A lot of ideas in the above paragraph. I would say the inside the beltway crowd was in no mood to do anything after Mogadishu. The Americans, if told that we were going to make a small effort but decisive effort to stop a genocide by the knife, would have been up for the effort. We are a great people handicapped by poor leaders, especially in that case.

It is true that 800,000 sliced and brain shattered to death Rwandans not dying was not in the vital interest of the US. The internet still worked, gas prices were low, beer was cheap and the Indians didn't win the world series. Life went on as pleasantly as before. But we could have kept most of those people from dying a wide eyed terror stricken death and that would have benefited them, humanity and thereby us.

The question of the human cost when viewed on an individual basis is unanswerable. What is worth a child? Has any war we've fought since the days of Indian attacks really been needed? We have oceans between us and them. It is my opinion that the men who would have gone, volunteer combat soldiers, if told that they were going to risk in order to save hundreds of thousands of innocents from having their heads bashed in; they would have been willing to chance it.

It is obviously a matter of cost. If a great good can be done with very little cost, you are rather less than justified in not doing it. Cost of course is a relative term. What is small cost for us is great cost to another and they cannot be blamed for not trying. If the 5 year old sees the 14 year old snatch the purse of the old lady, he isn't blamed for not helping. If the 27 year old olympic track star sees the same thing, he is blamed. It is not wrong that the track star is blamed because he didn't help and the 5 year is not blamed. We were the track star.

Do you really think we could have stopped Mao's China from causing the famines and the other evils? That track star can't be blamed for not going up to a pair of grizzly bears that are eating the mailman and punching them on the nose

So you're willing to interfere because the target is weak but not to do so if it is strong. I didn't present a fallacy because a wrong is a wrong -- you are engaging in moral equivalency -- do 'what's right' only if it might not hurt too much...

No that is not moral equivalency. That is a recognition of the practical realities of life. We do what we can when we can and mourn when we can't, if we genuinely can't. In the case of Rwanda, we could have but we didn't and we rationalize our failure.

How can you say with any degree of assurance that stopping the killing in Rwanda would be a "relatively small effort?"Oh? How so? Please tell me of what the US -- or I -- should be ashamed.

Are you looking for certainty? It won't be found anywhere. As for a guess as to the magnitude of the effort required to stop the slaughter, I say that from the history of the continent in the last 70 years, that chances were good that effort would have been relatively small. Also the slaughter stopped because the RPA stopped it, light armed, foot mobile troops who were outnumbered by the killers. That may be another indicator.

You don't have to be ashamed. The Americans don't have to be ashamed, they would have responded if asked. America should be ashamed because the leaders we elect didn't act. I am ashamed because of that.

Many here say others were capable of helping the Rwandans live. In an absolute physical sense they were. But that overlooks the relative likelyhood of somebody helping if the cost is small vs. large. For us the cost would have been relatively small. But even that overlooks something much more important; the heart for it. When I say we were the only ones, it is as much a matter of us occasionally having the heart for it vs. the others not having the heart for it. We would have had the heart for it if our leaders had not been feckless and had asked. The other countries would probably have followed. That is the reason we, the US, were the only chance those dead Rwandans had, and we let them down.

It is well to say if we don't act then the others will have to. Maybe that is true. But even if it is it will be a long time before they develop the heart for it. In the meantime, innocents pay.

The way it is is we are the leaders, if we act the others will follow. If we act in a small way in Libya now, the others will follow, slowly maybe but they will. If we don't they won't act. Besides now, we even have an interest or two and the Libyan rebels will take great heart from it.