Rwanda: WI Bill Clinton listened
- Thread starter Hades
- Start date
America would have immeasurably more respect now than it does OTL. That much is almost certain.
Mmm Clinton. I expect the CIA would be the first choice. But it depends whether he wants people to know that the US did this. If yes than he would probably send in the marines, though I think cruise missiles might be a bit over the top.
MacCaulay
Banned
This is assuming a lot of things. The world was looking at other things: the OJ Simpson trial was #1 on TV when Rwanda really started going downhill. Congress was very much opposed to getting involved in Africa after Somalia.
Are you basically assuming that the Clinton Administration is somehow able to tell the Republican Majority in Congress to stuff it for the time it takes to do something?
Genocide, almost by definition, is not a covert operation, although it has been covered up before. Likewise, preventing Genocide, especially a case like Rwanda, is rather hard to do completely under the radar.
MacCaulay
Banned
Well, depending on your PoD, you're talking about the Clinton Administration going over the heads of Congress to authorize some sort of covert action into a place where the UN is already in place.
As if the French, Belgians, UN, and various factions didn't have enough views, I don't know what the CIA could do to make this whole thing better.
As if the French, Belgians, UN, and various factions didn't have enough views, I don't know what the CIA could do to make this whole thing better.
Well, covert ops worked with Pinochet and the Shah.
Do you remember how both of those went in the long run?
MacCaulay
Banned
I would like to know just what source you're citing for that.
There was already one coup when the UN was deploying in the country. I don't know if another one would've helped.
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The Republican's weren't in charge yet, MacCaulay. Gingrich won in November 1994. The Genocide was over by then.
As for how to do this, I don't how you'd get an acceptable option. The Marines would be possible, and the Air Force CAN jam a radio station like RTLM. Only sure way of stopping the genocide is stopping the Rwandan Presidential jet from being shot down (that kicked it off in June 1994) and if violence breaks out, you'd have to deploy the Marines. That would be tougher to do, because the hatred festered in Rwanda was ugly to a level that was hard to believe, so they'd have to shut down the radio station, for starters, and ensure to knock off as many of the hatemongerers on both sides as humanly possible.
AmIndHistoryAuthor
Banned
Entirely stopping the genocide in advance seems much harder to me. But greatly limiting it is much easier. Bombing or simply jamming the radio station is pretty easy.
And I wish I could remember the source, but I recall someone claiming as few as 5000 Marines could have brought a halt to the worst of genocide if deployed very early. The ones doing it in many cases were often armed mostly with knives and sometimes just farming tools. Something like 80% of the deaths could have been prevented.
The harder part is keeping the peace to make sure it didn't flare up again. IOTL the intervention did the worst thing possible, actually defended many of the ones responsible for genocide, who hid among the refugees fleeing to other countries. Trying to arrest many of the leaders is necessary but extremely difficult.
And I wish I could remember the source, but I recall someone claiming as few as 5000 Marines could have brought a halt to the worst of genocide if deployed very early. The ones doing it in many cases were often armed mostly with knives and sometimes just farming tools. Something like 80% of the deaths could have been prevented.
The harder part is keeping the peace to make sure it didn't flare up again. IOTL the intervention did the worst thing possible, actually defended many of the ones responsible for genocide, who hid among the refugees fleeing to other countries. Trying to arrest many of the leaders is necessary but extremely difficult.
Well, covert ops worked with Pinochet and the Shah.
The Chilean coup was not actually carried out by American operatives, although Nixon et. al. did meddle to set the stage for the coup. And I have to wonder how you could consider either of those instances successes for American policy, especially in the long term.
For that matter, preventing a Rwandan genocide is very different than simply overthrowing a government (in fact, doing so would probably be counterproductive, but that is another issue). How do you propose that the CIA head off the genocide, and what happens when Congress realizes that the CIA is meddling with the government (as you seem to suggest) of Rwanda contrary to its wishes?
Ibn Warraq
Banned
I've heard stories like that before. Romeo Dallaire is one of the bigger proponents. People have said the same about Darfur.
Personally, I think it's bullshit and reminds me of all the arrogant assumptions that Iraq would be a cakewalk and people would greet coalition forces with flowers.
Probably not like Iraq, but not nearly as rosy as many like to think.
No battle plan survives the first gunshots.
MacCaulay
Banned
Well, the big thing was that Iraq was an intact nation that had all this stuff simmering below the surface.
Rwanda, especially after the coup (I was wrong: the UN troops hadn't deployed yet: the factfinding team had, but the troops weren't on the ground when the actual first coup happened), was already descending into anarchy.
What some people don't get, though, is that the anarchy didn't get this genocidal tinge to it until a few months later. Before that it was just like every other sub-Saharan African country with a weak government.
Romeo Dallaire, in Shake Hands with the Devil, seems to be of the mind that if the UN had been able to get a well trained force onto the ground by August of '93, then things would've been perfectly manageable and there wouldn't have been a blip.
And it's not like that wasn't giving the countries involved an enormous amount of time: the Arusha accords' first deadlines were up in mid-September.
What was all wrong, though, was that the US wasn't ready to go back after Somalia, the British had other things on their plate, the French were already in the country with advisors training half the militias, the Canadians (normally the go-to folks for UN missions, and the country that was heading it) were well on their way to gutting the Airborne Regiment over Somalia, and all they were left with were the Belgians.
Which, as the former colonial rulers, was something the UN wasn't happy with but had to swallow since no other country with a first-rate military was able or willing to provide the core force.
^ The gutting of the Canadian Airborne Regiment should go down as one of the biggest disgraces in Canadian history. Whoever thought that was a good idea needs their ass kicked, badly. Yeah, the US got in trouble in Somalia (Al-Queda has claimed they were responsible for Black Hawk Down - personally I think their lying), but with what happened in Rwanda you'd figure they could spare the troops.
The Belgians should have had to pay for the troop deployment costs, because they started that mess in the first place. They were the dimebag idiots who divided the people into Hutu and Tutsi, and of course they used the minorities to keep control. After independence, the Hutu wanted revenge for their losses, and the Tutsi wanted to keep what they had. No surprise that all hell broke loose, is it?
The Belgians should have had to pay for the troop deployment costs, because they started that mess in the first place. They were the dimebag idiots who divided the people into Hutu and Tutsi, and of course they used the minorities to keep control. After independence, the Hutu wanted revenge for their losses, and the Tutsi wanted to keep what they had. No surprise that all hell broke loose, is it?
MacCaulay
Banned
I just can't understand this whole "if the US had only invaded, everything would've been great."
Hell, if some country (the US isn't really the all powerful Oz in Africa, France is) had put forward the troops in sufficient numbers early enough for UNAMIR to get on the ground before the Arusha accords ran out of gas, then there might have been a chance.
Bill Cameron
Banned
I can just see the world's response if the US bombed/jammed RTLM, engineered a coup with the CIA, dropped the 101st, or sent in the Marines. We'd hear nothing but same old complaints about US unilateralism, US adventurism, US incomprehension, and all the rest. What's more, the same people bitching about the US not acting in 2009 would have been the same people bitching in 1994 if the US did act.
That is because explanations the US could give for such an intervention, stopping a genocide, simply wouldn't have been believed by the common herd of knee-jerking Ameriphobes even if the Marines caught the Hutus redhanded and stirring their cooking pots with bloody machetes. Clinton explaining that the CIA had intelligence pointing to a future genocide would have been laughed at by the same world that discounts any and all US statements that don't mesh with their Evil America fantasies.
This question is nothing but a hand-wringing exercise in hindsight. In 2009 we know the genocide occurred. At the time no one knew nothing of the sort would occur, with no real certain anyway, and, when indications finally jelled that the killings were going to begin, the scant hours left weren't enough time to do anything.
I'm continually amazed at the blithe assumption that the US could somehow magically and immediately deploy radio jammers, launch cruise missiles or bombers, send in 5000 marines, and engineer coups in what is rather a remote region of central Africa.
It's also rather sad when the same people who routinely bitch at the US are also the first ones to assume that only the US can intervene. Given the forces she already has in central Africa, France was in a far better position to rapidly put boots on the ground in Rwanda, but you never see threads and news stories asking about why France never intervened.
It's always America's fault and America's failure.
Bill
That is because explanations the US could give for such an intervention, stopping a genocide, simply wouldn't have been believed by the common herd of knee-jerking Ameriphobes even if the Marines caught the Hutus redhanded and stirring their cooking pots with bloody machetes. Clinton explaining that the CIA had intelligence pointing to a future genocide would have been laughed at by the same world that discounts any and all US statements that don't mesh with their Evil America fantasies.
This question is nothing but a hand-wringing exercise in hindsight. In 2009 we know the genocide occurred. At the time no one knew nothing of the sort would occur, with no real certain anyway, and, when indications finally jelled that the killings were going to begin, the scant hours left weren't enough time to do anything.
I'm continually amazed at the blithe assumption that the US could somehow magically and immediately deploy radio jammers, launch cruise missiles or bombers, send in 5000 marines, and engineer coups in what is rather a remote region of central Africa.
It's also rather sad when the same people who routinely bitch at the US are also the first ones to assume that only the US can intervene. Given the forces she already has in central Africa, France was in a far better position to rapidly put boots on the ground in Rwanda, but you never see threads and news stories asking about why France never intervened.
It's always America's fault and America's failure.
Bill
MacCaulay
Banned
While I'm sure you and me probably disagree on some of the thought that went into this, I totally agree with you about France's capability.
And I really don't understand just what the CIA would've known...Avalon1 has made this claim a few times, and I'd be really interested to see the source. Hell, I'd like to add it to my library.
With the whole "radio jamming" thing, I believe the US had the ability, but if that was all they wanted to do, then the UN could rightfully have said, "If all you're going to do is fly around Rwanda in a C-130 with some antennae sticking out and not set one boot on the ground, then stay out."