No Regrets, Even About Genocide

President Bush doesn't have second thoughts. It's just not his style.

Though at times he's been forced to admit problems during his presidency, he never suggests that he should have taken a different approach.

And so he remains largely at peace with himself -- even in the face of a genocide that continues years after he called it by that name.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died in the Darfur region of Sudan since government-armed militias began burning villages, raping women and executing villagers 2003.

Bush's decision not to intervene more forcefully hung heavy over his visit yesterday to Rwanda, where he toured of a memorial to the victims of that country's genocide in 1994.

As Peter Baker writes in The Washington Post, the president was obviously affected by his Rwandan visit: "'This is a moving place that can't help but shake your emotions to your very foundation,' Bush said after touring the museum to the 1994 genocide, built on grounds that include mass graves with more than 250,000 bodies. 'It reminds me that we must not let these kind of actions take place.'

"But unlike Bill Clinton, who came here in 1998 to admit he should have done more to stop the Rwanda genocide, Bush said he feels no guilt and harbors no regret over Darfur -- except regret that others have not done what he has pressed them to do. He opted not to send U.S. troops unilaterally into Sudan and instead has tried to help assemble an international peacekeeping force that has yet to fully deploy. . . .

"'I'm comfortable with the decision I made,' he said. 'I'm not comfortable with how quickly the response has been.' . . .

"Yet activists say it has not been enough. 'There is a lot about Darfur that all of us, the president included, should regret now,' said Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur Coalition. . . .

"So far, just 9,000 peacekeepers are on the ground and major military powers have yet to come up with needed helicopters. China has blocked sanctions at the U.N. Security Council. And Sudan continues to defy the international community as militias renew violence and burn down villages. 'How can anyone have a clear conscience about what's happening in Darfur?' Fowler asked."

James Gerstenzang writes in the Los Angeles Times: "The issue of Sudan government's brutal suppression of a rebellion in Darfur has shadowed Bush during his five-nation trip to Africa, even as the president has sought to focus on political progress and the fight against diseases on the continent. . . .

"Since 2003, at least 200,000 people are believed to have died from violence, hunger and disease as the Sudanese government, often using militias as proxies, sought to suppress a rebellion in the region. Some Darfur activists have put the toll as high as 450,000. The Sudanese government says 5,000 have died."