A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
by Samantha Power
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Book Summary Information
Author: Samantha PowerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-09-18
ISBN: 0061120146
Number of pages: 688
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780061120145
- Condition: New
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Book Reviews of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
Book Review: An extremely important book...
Summary: 5 Stars
Time and again, politicians vow "never again" will they allow genocide to occur. Yet, despite ample opportunities to back up these claims with action, the global community has done precious little.
Beginning with the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks to Pol Pot's reign of terror in Cambodia to Hussein's gassing of Iraq's Kurds (the first incidence of a leader using chemical weapons to suppress his OWN people) to Milosovic's slaughter of Bosnian Muslims (and Croatians) to the horrific abuses against the Tutsi by Hutu aggressors in Rwanda, Power highlights the frustrating and--oftentimes incomprehensible--responses that the United States, the EU, and UN have pursued.
For instance, even as Saddam was wiping out the Kurds in Northern Iraq and using chemical weapons against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war, the United States continued to supply Saddam with intelligence, trade credits that allowed him to import U.S. agricultural goods, and weapons. Our decisions were rooted in "national interests" which dictated that the United States could not allow Iran to enlarge its presence in the Middle East. (It should also be noted that the U.S. was not alone in supporting Saddam in this war as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Kuwait, all provided succor to the tyrant).
Indeed, our entrenched commercial interests--the United States was the largest importer of Iraqi oil and Iraq was one of the largest consumers of U.S. agricultural products like Arkansas rice-- prevented us from adequately responding to Iraq's genocide. Eventually we established safe zone in Northern Iraq but that, Power argues, was mostly due to complaints from U.S. ally Turkey about a refugee crisis as Iraq's exiled Kurds fled to their Northern neighbor.
National interests also governed our response to the Khmer Rouge atrocities. After nearly three years of genocide, we supported the regime in an attempt to curry favor with China--an ally of Cambodia at the time--and drive a wedge between China and the Soviet Union. Our narrow interpretation of national interests also played a role in our inaction over Rwanda and Bosnia.
Bosnia was especially disturbing given that the United States refused to lift an arms embargo against Muslims, which prevented them from defending themselves against Serbian attacks. This led the Bosnian Muslims to seek the help of Muslim extremists in the region including Al-Queda. Perhaps this didn't register as a national security issue because the United States could not appreciate the threats posed by non-state actors, choosing instead to focus on nation states. This is still no excuse for inaction or inadequate action.
Although Power is critical of the United States, she is equally concerned with the ineptitude of the UN and apathy of the EU, who seemed to do very little in response to genocide happening in its own "backyard".
Power is also very careful in casting U.S. policy responses in the proper context before she draws her conclusions. For instance, during the Cambodian genocide, Power discusses how the U.S. was reeling in the wake of the Vietnam war as public sentiment had sharply turned away from politicians whom they no longer trusted. Nevertheless, Power believes that President Ford and later Jimmy Carter, should have at least denounced the Khmer Rouge publicly. Perhaps the U.S. Presidents could have initiated a vote on the UN to strip the Khmer Rouge of any representation in the delegation.
Myopic interpretations of national interests aside, politicians are loathe to respond to genocide for two other reasons. One is the belief that U.S. voters would never support U.S. involvement in international conflicts. Yet, as Bob Dole demonstrated in his aggressive lobbying for the U.S. Congress to respond to the Bosnian conflict, public support can be cultivated once politicians inform them.
The second impediment to acting is the false choice between committing U.S. troops and doing nothing (or doing little). Indeed, very few policies seem to exist along this continuum for U.S. policymakers and because voters are sensitive to U.S. casualties, the country is reluctant to deploy troops. The result is that the U.S. invariably sides with the latter policy, choosing to view dictators as rational actors who can be wooed by incentives. This has played to disastrous results, and is tantamount to doing nothing.
Yet, as Power demonstrates, small actions can go a long way. For instance, in Rwanda, Hutu militias spared the lives of Tutsi refugees who had fled to a hotel simply because a U.S. diplomat made repeated calls to the hotel manager requesting updates on the status of the refugees. Conversely, dictators such as Milosovic and Saddam were emboldened by the tepid response to their atrocities and redoubled their efforts to exterminate Muslims and Kurds.
This book is anything but a polemic. Instead, Power has provided a balanced, well reasoned book that will force readers to question the way our politicians perceive our country's "national interest."
Summary of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
In her award-winning interrogation of the last century of American history, Samantha Power?a former Balkan war correspondent and founding executive director of Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy?asks the haunting question: Why do American leaders who vow "never again" repeatedly fail to stop genocide? Drawing upon exclusive interviews with Washington's top policy makers, access to newly declassified documents, and her own reporting from the modern killing fields, Power provides the answer in "A Problem from Hell," a groundbreaking work that tells the stories of the courageous Americans who risked their careers and lives in an effort to get the United States to act.
During the three years (1993-1996) Samantha Power spent covering the grisly events in Bosnia and Srebrenica, she became increasingly frustrated with how little the United States was willing to do to counteract the genocide occurring there. After much research, she discovered a pattern: "The United States had never in its history intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred," she writes in this impressive book. Debunking the notion that U.S. leaders were unaware of the horrors as they were occurring against Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Iraqi Kurds, Rwandan Tutsis, and Bosnians during the past century, Power discusses how much was known and when, and argues that much human suffering could have been alleviated through a greater effort by the U.S. She does not claim that the U.S. alone could have prevented such horrors, but does make a convincing case that even a modest effort would have had significant impact. Based on declassified information, private papers, and interviews with more than 300 American policymakers, Power makes it clear that a lack of political will was the most significant factor for this failure to intervene. Some courageous U.S. leaders did work to combat and call attention to ethnic cleansing as it occurred, but the vast majority of politicians and diplomats ignored the issue, as did the American public, leading Power to note that "no U.S. president has ever suffered politically for his indifference to its occurrence. It is thus no coincidence that genocide rages on." This powerful book is a call to make such indifference a thing of the past. --Shawn Carkonen
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