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A review by aldenmackie
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power
5.0
After owning this book for nearly 9 years I was able to finish it. I had attempted to read this book no less than three times prior only to get bogged down in the depressing nature and overall frustration wrought with the "system". It's hard to recommend this book to others because it is so painstaking to read but at the same time the images of the events, the reactions of the supporters and dissenters toward action, and the results of action and-more commonly-inaction is so powerful that it would benefit every single human being to read it.
In every case of genocide in the 20th century there is no one reason why more often than not apathy was chosen over action. It was not a conservative or liberal agenda that prevented intervention as can be exemplified by Bob Dole pushing for US persons out stating "I don't think we have any national interest there. The Americans are out, and as far as I'm concerned, in Rwanda, that out to be end end of it." (more than 700,000 civilians were slaughtered AFTER that was stated) yet in the event of Srebrenica and Kosovo, Dole was one of the key protagonists for action to stop the genocide of the Muslim population by the Christian Serbs.
I think the crux of the issue Samantha Power raised with this book was that everyone, liberal and conservative, diplomacy, national interests, or military intervention oriented, from those dedicated to the military machine to those determined to see a world without guns - all have to drastically redirect their vision in the face of genocide. It is not a problem that goes away with inaction, it is not a problem that can often be fixed by lobbing ordinance at the perpetrators; it requires a consolidated effort of worldwide influence, often including military intervention consisting of troops on the ground and the acceptance that if we truly want to protect the lives of innocents, we have to be willing to risk our own.
We cannot continue the notion, as one state department official speculated when intervention in Rwanda was being mulled over, that one American casualty in the effort to stop genocide was only worth every 85,000 dead civilians in a country that we had no national interest in. Most importantly, we, as a world that stated over five decades ago that "never again" would we allow genocide to take place, have to start listening to the witnesses of such events when they first raise their concerns - as Power states in her conclusion "They were usually branded 'emotional,' 'irrational,' 'soft,' or 'naive.' Many of them saw their careers destroyed by the stands they took...how many of us who look back at the genocides of the twentieth century, including the Holocaust, do not believe that these people were right? How many of us do not believe that the presidents, senators, bureaucrats, journalists, and ordinary citizens who did nothing, choosing to look away rather than face hard choices and wrenching moral dilemmas, were wrong? How can it be that those who fight on behalf of these principles are the ones deemed unreasonable?"
In every case of genocide in the 20th century there is no one reason why more often than not apathy was chosen over action. It was not a conservative or liberal agenda that prevented intervention as can be exemplified by Bob Dole pushing for US persons out stating "I don't think we have any national interest there. The Americans are out, and as far as I'm concerned, in Rwanda, that out to be end end of it." (more than 700,000 civilians were slaughtered AFTER that was stated) yet in the event of Srebrenica and Kosovo, Dole was one of the key protagonists for action to stop the genocide of the Muslim population by the Christian Serbs.
I think the crux of the issue Samantha Power raised with this book was that everyone, liberal and conservative, diplomacy, national interests, or military intervention oriented, from those dedicated to the military machine to those determined to see a world without guns - all have to drastically redirect their vision in the face of genocide. It is not a problem that goes away with inaction, it is not a problem that can often be fixed by lobbing ordinance at the perpetrators; it requires a consolidated effort of worldwide influence, often including military intervention consisting of troops on the ground and the acceptance that if we truly want to protect the lives of innocents, we have to be willing to risk our own.
We cannot continue the notion, as one state department official speculated when intervention in Rwanda was being mulled over, that one American casualty in the effort to stop genocide was only worth every 85,000 dead civilians in a country that we had no national interest in. Most importantly, we, as a world that stated over five decades ago that "never again" would we allow genocide to take place, have to start listening to the witnesses of such events when they first raise their concerns - as Power states in her conclusion "They were usually branded 'emotional,' 'irrational,' 'soft,' or 'naive.' Many of them saw their careers destroyed by the stands they took...how many of us who look back at the genocides of the twentieth century, including the Holocaust, do not believe that these people were right? How many of us do not believe that the presidents, senators, bureaucrats, journalists, and ordinary citizens who did nothing, choosing to look away rather than face hard choices and wrenching moral dilemmas, were wrong? How can it be that those who fight on behalf of these principles are the ones deemed unreasonable?"