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In NYTimes, Prendergast, Eggers Warn of Obama’s Rwanda Moment

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In NYTimes, Prendergast, Eggers Warn of Obama’s Rwanda Moment

Posted by Enough Team on July 13, 2010

Don’t miss the op-ed authored by critically-acclaimed author Dave Eggers and Enough Co-founder John Prendergast in The New York Times today. Here’s a preview:

For many good reasons, Americans are doubting our ability as a nation to positively influence events abroad. We’re involved in two conflicts with dubious outcomes and we’ve begun to question whether any step we take, anywhere, will be the right one. But it was not long ago that the United States intervened abroad in a bold way that led to undeniably positive results.

From 1983 to 2005, more than two million people died and four million were forced from their homes in southern Sudan during a war between the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Shortly after George W. Bush entered the White House, he decided he would put the full diplomatic leverage of the United States to work in ending this war, one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century.

He succeeded. In 2005, the United States helped broker a comprehensive peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the southerners. It was an important moment for international diplomacy and a prime example of what the United States can do when it focuses its influence effectively.

Click here to read the full piece.