VP: Preventing Genocide is a “National Security Priority”

Aaron Keyak — April 23, 2009 – 11:53 am | Foreign Policy Comments (0) Add a comment

Last night, Vice President Joe Biden addressed the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s National Tribute Dinner in Washington. JTA reports, “[t]he United States needs to see genocide prevention ‘not just as a moral imperative,’ but also as a ‘national security priority,’ said the vice president.”

Sometimes Biden hits it right on the head.

An excerpt from JTA’s post on the event:

Responding to genocide is not required in a moral context, but also “strategically necessary,” he said. “When genocide goes unchecked America’s credibility and leadership is tarnished.”

Biden said that the U.S. has been slow to act in the past against genocide because the issue has been presented as a choice between doing nothing and making a major military commitment.

“President Obama and I reject that as a false choice,” said the vice president, adding that “military might is something that is an option—sometimes the only option” but that there are a “wide range of effective strategies.”

“We have to reclaim the words ‘Never again,’” he said. Too often, he said, those words have been used as a “true lament” or “expression of shame over responses that were insufficient.” But “never again” should be “assertive,” he said.

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