A Problem from Hell Samantha Power,
Publisher: Flamingo
ISBN: 0007172990
DDC: 909
Edition: Paperback; 2003-07-07
Summary:
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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