A review by siria
A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power

5.0

Fascinating, passionate, and damning in equal measure, A Problem from Hell is an indictment against the prevailing attitudes in the USA (and much of the west) towards genocide throughout the twentieth century. From the Turkish massacres of the Armenians, through to the Serbian butchery in Kosovo, Power examines the ways in which American politicians have paid lip-service to opposing genocide, while failing to act for reasons of political expediency. As Power writes: "No US President has ever made genocide prevention a priority, and no US President has ever suffered politically for his indifference to its occurrence. It is thus no coincidence that genocide rages on." She makes a very compelling moral argument as to why military intervention is sometimes necessary to ensure that lives are saved, and why the US should use its pre-eminent global position to bring about that intervention. I did, however, wonder why Power chose to focus on examples of genocide which placed Washington as a rather remote outsider, a quasi-isolationist, removed from complicity in the causes of genocide—East Timor and Guatemala are two sad examples—why not also look at the suffering American militarism and complicity have caused?