In 1994 the world stood back and watched as the Hutu Tribe of Rwanda massacred the Tutsi Tribe in what has been named one of the worst genocides in history. Nearly one million people were killed before help finally arrived and the genocide was ended when the Rwandan Patriotic Front successfully overthrew the Hutu regime 100 days after the genocide started. In 100 days, one million people were killed.

Former President Clinton recognized the implications of the United States’ failure to act on the genocide and apologized publically at Kigali Airport in Rwanda.

“We come here today partly in recognition of the fact that we in the United States and the world community did not do as much as we could have and should have done to try to limit what occurred [in Rwanda],” Clinton said.

Today, over 10 years after the Rwandan Genocide, the United States is once again failing to act. The region of Darfur in western Sudan is battling a massive genocide between the Sudanese military and rebel groups and no one is doing anything about it. Between 200 to 400 thousand people have been killed since 2003 and the violence has most recently spread into the country of Chad as the death toll continues to rise.

The only action that the United Nations has taken to resolve this conflict came in 2006 with the passing of Resolution 1706 which prescribed an increase in the number of peacekeeping forces in the region. The Sudanese government launched a major offensive against the peacekeeping forces in the region the next day.

Indeed, not much has been reported on the genocide due to the Sudanese government’s abduction of many journalists and obstruction of their reports. And a statement has even been made by some countries that the conflict is not a genocide according to a UN report to CBS news in February of 2005.

Regardless of what it is and what it is not, we as a nation are failing to act appropriately on this matter. We are repeating a mistake that was made only one administration ago. We continue to stand idle as many innocent people are massacred in the unstable region of Sudan where massive droughts and overpopulation are plaguing the country and are believed to be the cause of the conflict.

We continue to fight in Iraq for freedom and liberation of the Iraqi people, a cause that has many questions still waiting for answers from our current administration. Most of the support coming from the American public on the Iraq war is for the soldiers who are fighting over there for a cause that seems to have lost a definitive motive. And yet we fail to act in a region that has a clear motive of instilling liberty and life back into a demoralized people.

The United States has always been an avid voice for democracy and liberty in the world. We’ve stood up for the little guy but only, it seems, if there is something in it for us. What would acting on the Darfur genocide do for the United States? Honestly, probably nothing except force us to own up to our position as a major world power. Power comes with responsibilities: responsibilities to nations in trouble and nations crying out for help. In this world it has become necessary for us to act to preserve the peace in hopes of saving humanity. It seems fitting that the United States is referred to by its acronym, U.S. “Us”: it seems to be the only thing we think about these days.