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A review by bravelass85
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power
5.0
A Problem from Hell is a powerful, well-researched and well-written book. Power tracks her argument through the book that in each case, the United States simply lacked the will to act against genocide. In the end, the evidence is damning. Looking at the Jews, Armenians, Tutsis, Bosnians, Kosovars, and Iraqis, she tracks patterns of U.S. officials responding to genocide.
Patterns:
1. The U.S. has enough information to call it genocide, but dithers
2. The U.S. dances around calling it "genocide" because then it has a legal obligation to act (based on the U.N Genocide Convention) and it doesn't want to act, so it doesn't call it genocide. There was actually a few places that were ridiculous, where officials would say things like "well, I think we can
say there were ACTS of genocide, but I'm not sure we're in a place to officially say it IS genocide..."
3. The U.S. claims that atrocities are occurring on both sides (and thus it is a civil war we shouldn't step into) and concurrently, that the region has a long history of violence (and thus it is futile for us to step in). This last part also has the moral tinge of "they don't deserve our help" because they have been killing each other for a long time.
4. The U.S. says that there is no support from other countries, or from the U.N. (even though they are specifically NOT drumming up support, and it the leading member of the U.N....). As Biden said about Bosnia: "As defined by this generation of leaders, collective security means arranging to blame one another for inaction, so that everyone has an excuse. It does not mean standing together; it means hiding together."
5. The U.S. says there is no public support for action. But as Powers writes, "American leaders have both a circular and a deliberate relationship to public opinion. It is circular because their constituencies are rarely if ever aroused by foreign crises, even genocidal ones, in the absence of political leadership and yet at the same time U.S. officials continually cite the absence of political support as grounds for inaction. The relationship is deliberate..." In other words, the U.S. does nothing to inform the public, let alone galvanize the public toward action, and then uses lack of public support to justify not acting. There is not public support because they are not asking for it.
6. When the U.S. does step in, it is because of self-interest. Kosovo was being used by his political opponents to paint Clinton as weak, and in a "wag-the-dog" moment, he stepped in with the full backing of the U.N. into Kosovo. He had done nothing for Bosnia or Rwanda. The U.S. stepped into Kuwait, but less for the Kurds and more for economic reasons.
This book took me over a year to read through - it is dense, and on a basic level it was difficult to keep seeing the same US responses to each case and not find it dulling, tiring, or frustrating. I found the book to be entirely morally damning, but also empowering. I would suggest it to anyone.
Patterns:
1. The U.S. has enough information to call it genocide, but dithers
2. The U.S. dances around calling it "genocide" because then it has a legal obligation to act (based on the U.N Genocide Convention) and it doesn't want to act, so it doesn't call it genocide. There was actually a few places that were ridiculous, where officials would say things like "well, I think we can
say there were ACTS of genocide, but I'm not sure we're in a place to officially say it IS genocide..."
3. The U.S. claims that atrocities are occurring on both sides (and thus it is a civil war we shouldn't step into) and concurrently, that the region has a long history of violence (and thus it is futile for us to step in). This last part also has the moral tinge of "they don't deserve our help" because they have been killing each other for a long time.
4. The U.S. says that there is no support from other countries, or from the U.N. (even though they are specifically NOT drumming up support, and it the leading member of the U.N....). As Biden said about Bosnia: "As defined by this generation of leaders, collective security means arranging to blame one another for inaction, so that everyone has an excuse. It does not mean standing together; it means hiding together."
5. The U.S. says there is no public support for action. But as Powers writes, "American leaders have both a circular and a deliberate relationship to public opinion. It is circular because their constituencies are rarely if ever aroused by foreign crises, even genocidal ones, in the absence of political leadership and yet at the same time U.S. officials continually cite the absence of political support as grounds for inaction. The relationship is deliberate..." In other words, the U.S. does nothing to inform the public, let alone galvanize the public toward action, and then uses lack of public support to justify not acting. There is not public support because they are not asking for it.
6. When the U.S. does step in, it is because of self-interest. Kosovo was being used by his political opponents to paint Clinton as weak, and in a "wag-the-dog" moment, he stepped in with the full backing of the U.N. into Kosovo. He had done nothing for Bosnia or Rwanda. The U.S. stepped into Kuwait, but less for the Kurds and more for economic reasons.
This book took me over a year to read through - it is dense, and on a basic level it was difficult to keep seeing the same US responses to each case and not find it dulling, tiring, or frustrating. I found the book to be entirely morally damning, but also empowering. I would suggest it to anyone.