Your first reaction to seeing this title is probably “Alex, why on earth would I ever read a 500+ page nonfiction book about genocide? What a downer…” And you’re right. It is a downer. Published in 2002, Samantha Power, a former journalist, human rights activist, and Harvard professor, later a chief foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama, and recently appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations -- this book focuses specifically on America’s responses to the genocides of the twentieth century, from Armenia to Kosovo. Summary: the record isn’t pretty, to put it mildly.I decided to pick up this book after seeing the video of Power’s powerful September 6 speech making the case for U.S. military action in Syria, following the Assad regime’s chemical weapons attack outside Damascus on August 21, which killed over 1,400 Syrians. Given Power’s successful advocacy inside the Obama administration for robust U.S. military intervention in the past – she reportedly played a key role in convincing Obama to intervene militarily in Libya in 2011 – I thought this book would be a timely glimpse into Power's point of view as she sought to persuade Obama (and a skeptical U.S. public) to intervene in Syria.Although U.S. action in Syria hasn't materialized, A Problem From Hell is well worth reading. Clearly written and passionately argued, Power's account is largely an attack on what Anthony Lake described as "a basic intellectual approach which views foreign policy as a lifeless, bloodless set of abstractions." The villains that Power singles out for the harshest criticism are the senior U.S. officials (and presidents) that knew the full extent of the horrific evil being perpetrated in places like Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda, but consistently sought to either ignore or excuse it. Warren Christopher, Bill Clinton's first secretary of state, gets particularly brutal treatment in this regard.Advocates of U.S. intervention in Syria have often tried to draw comparisons to other historical conflicts (Bosnia, for instance). While these types of analogies are highly problematic because of the dramatic differences between the conflicts, what is stunningly similar, throughout the twentieth century right up through Libya and Syria today, are the arguments that the opponents of intervention make. Probably the greatest strength of Power's book is the way she tackles and refutes these common anti-intervention arguments – summarized by economist Albert Hirschmann as “futility” (our actions won't make a difference), “perversity” (intervention will only make things worse for the people we're trying to help), and “jeopardy” (intervention will jeopardize other U.S. foreign policy goals) – head on.A few other notable examples:1) There are “no good guys” - In virtually every case, U.S. officials intentionally "accentuate the grayness and moral ambiguity of each crisis," emphasizing "atrocities on all sides" of the conflict, and claiming that there are "no good guys." Since genocides usually occur in the context of war (and civil wars at that), it's easy for officials to defend inaction by claiming that the U.S. doesn't want to "take sides," implying two more or less equivalent opponents. In 1992, George H.W. Bush's administration defended its policy of non-intervention in Bosnia by insisting that there were "no good guys" in Bosnian conflict, even though the Bosnian Muslims were mostly unarmed due to an international arms embargo and were essentially at the mercy of well-equipped Bosnian Serb forces. The Clinton administration continued this line of reasoning; in 1993, Bill Clinton defended the U.S.'s continued policy of inaction in Bosnia with the following statement: "Until these folks get tired of killing each other, bad things will continue to happen." (real quote)2) We need more proof – A common theme in the U.S. reaction to genocide overseas is a vague admission that something bad might be happening, but an insistence that "more concrete evidence is needed" before the U.S. can commit to taking action (despite often already having overwhelming proof in hand). Power notes the notorious difficulty in obtaining physical evidence of atrocities due to severe lack of access for foreign observers (due to an unstable security situation, ongoing civil wars, xenophobic government policies, etc.), and also criticizes the West's repeated unwillingness to believe the accounts of refugees or opponents of the regime, who are often dismissed as “biased” or exaggerating for political gain.Power also notes not just an unwillingness to believe such accounts because of their “hearsay” nature, but because we simply cannot believe them. U.S. officials disbelieve accounts of mass slaughter because they usually sound unbelievable. Since the U.S. foreign policy establishment is built to view all parties as “rational actors,” incredulous U.S. officials often have a hard time wrapping their minds around the conclusion that other governments would slaughter their own citizens en masse. They also refuse to believe because of the moral implications for U.S. action should the stories be true. Writes Power: "U.S. officials have been reluctant to imagine the unimaginable because of the implications...they have taken shelter in the fog of plausible deniability. They have used the search for certainty as an excuse for paralysis and postponement."3) It will cost too much – Opponents of U.S. intervention often cite a high proposed cost, both in terms of U.S. resources and (in the case of military action) in the lives of U.S. service members. Power notes that the Pentagon has consistently and vehemently opposed U.S. military action to prevent or stop genocide in every single case, often even to the extent of exaggerating required troop levels and expected costs. Slippery-slope arguments are frequently employed: any intervention by the U.S., critics warn, will inevitably lead to another Vietnam (or, in contemporary parlance, another Iraq). Better to play it safe and do nothing than take any action and risk getting bogged down in an endless quagmire. But as the late Richard Holbrooke wrote in a 1992 op-ed, "[It] is not a choice between Vietnam and doing nothing...doing nothing now risks a far greater and more costly involvement later." As Power noted in her September 2013 Syria speech, “there is no risk-free door number two.” Inaction has a heavy cost...though policymakers may prefer these costs, however high they may be, due to the simple fact that they are often longer-term and may not surface until long after that particular administration has left office. In addition, Power warns in her book that "citizens victimized by genocide or abandoned by the international community do not make good neighbors, as their thirst for vengeance, their irredentism, and their acceptance of violence as a means of generating change can turn them into future threats.” This warning, written more than a decade ago, is a warning that surely rings true today when one thinks about long-term consequences for Syria.Power's overall argument is that it was not lack of knowledge or influence that caused the U.S. to stop genocide throughout the twentieth century, but rather a lack of will. Power's brutal conclusion is that the U.S. record on genocide is not one of "failure," but rather one of success. In nearly every single case, U.S. officials successfully avoided having to taking responsibility or action to stop the massacres. She also faults U.S. society as a whole -- without political pressure, it is virtually impossible to get U.S. officials to do anything to stop genocide. U.S. officials have routinely cited lack of public support for intervention in foreign crises as an excuse for inaction. Power notes, however, the circular relationship leaders have with public opinion -- officials fail to lead by rallying the public's support to intervene to prevent genocide, and then cite lack of public support as grounds for inaction.Power also acknowledges the difficulty of getting the U.S. public to care about genocide -- however horrific -- when it occurs thousands of miles from U.S. shores and in light of competing priorities. Writing just months after 9/11, Power readily admits that when it comes to choosing between fighting terrorism or preventing genocide in a third world country, it's hard to argue that the U.S. shouldn't devote all available resources towards protecting our own citizens. But she also offers this bit of perspective:"In 1994 Rwanda, a country of just 8 million, experienced the numerical equivalent of more than two World Trade Center attacks every single day for 100 days. On an American scale this would mean 23 million people murdered in three months. When, on September 12, 2001, the United States turned for help to its friends around the world, Americans were gratified by the overwhelming response. When the Tutsi cried out, by contrast, every single country in the world turned away."Well, you might say, the U.S. can hardly be expected to send in the infantry every time civilians are threatened anywhere in the world by a murderous regime. Our resources are limited, and other countries in those regions should bear some of the burden too. Which is a fair point. But Power's response is that "what is most shocking about America's reaction to [the genocides of the 20th century] is not that the United States refused to deploy U.S. ground forces to combat the atrocities. For much of the century, even the most ardent interventionists did not lobby for U.S. ground invasions. What is most shocking is that U.S. policymakers did almost nothing to deter the crime." Indeed, in many cases (such as in the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and Saddam Hussein in Iraq) we even actively supported the perpetrators *while the genocides were occurring.*Some of Power's arguments are less convincing – her early-2000s optimism about the International Criminal Court, for example, hasn't exactly been borne out by events. Regardless, this is a book that will make even the most uber-realist or non-interventionist think hard about what they believe. "How many of us who look back at the genocides of the twentieth century, including the Holocaust, do not believe that [advocates of intervention] were right?” Power challenges in her conclusion. “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 to face hard choices and wrenching moral dilemmas, were wrong?"
Тільки лінивий не сміявся над риторикою глибокої стурбованості, серйозного занепокоєння і постійної тривоги, до якої вдається міжнародна спільнота замість того, щоб завдати хоч якусь користь. Втім, багатьом із нас ні з чим порівнювати - скажімо, я не відстежувала реакцію цієї спільноти на інші трагедії. Тож для перспективи я з інтересом прочитала «A Problem from Hell” Саманти Пауер - тієї Саманти Пауер, яку ми всі ніжно любимо, постпредставниці США.Свою кар'єру Саманта Пауер починала як журналістка під час Боснійської війни. Вона зблизька спостерігала за етнічними чистками - серби послідовно винищували боснійське мусульманське населення - але найбільший акт геноциду, що розгорнувся після захоплення безпечної зони у Сребрениці, проґавила, бо не могла собі такого й уявити. Коли вбивства іще тривали, знайомий журналіст спитав її,чи справді серби вбили вже тисячу мусульман, вона сказала, що то напевно неправда. То справді була неправда: насправді ж вбито було 7 тисяч.Так вона й зацікавилася реакціями офіційної Америки на геноциди - і на вірменський (власне, то ще й до появи слова «геноцид»), і на новіші, вже після Голокосту (Руанда, винищення курдів у Іраку, Камбоджа, серби проти боснійських мусульман і проти албанців у Косово). Отже, спойлер: ми можемо переставати сміятися над міжнародним глибоким занепокоєнням, для нас зробили швидше і більше, ніж робили для багатьох інших країн у значно страшніших ситуаціях. У порівнянні з тим, як зазвичай буває, у нас все геть ок - і ситуація краща, й реакція швидша.Отже, загальна картина така: Америка ніколи не втручалася в перебіг подій, щоб запобігти геноциду, і навіть вкрай рідко його засуджувала в процесі (й однією з останніх ратифікувала конвенцію ООН із запобігання геноциду). Часті заклики «Ніколи більше» перетворилися, за словами одного журналіста, на констатацію «німці ніколи більше не убиватимуть євреїв у Європі у 1940ві». Решта вільні робити, що їм заманеться.На бездіяльність є кілька причин, і її виправдовують на кілька повторюваних способів. Американським політикам, журналістам і широкому загалу бракує уяви, щоб уявити собі насильство у такому масштабі, й вони натомість до останнього вірять у традиційну дипломатію і переговори. Вони вважають, що цивільне населення, яке не провокує насильства, заціліє, тож спонукають до перемир'їв і жертвують гроші на правозахисні організації. Крім того, своя сорочка ближче до тіла, широкий загал завжди у внутрішніх потребах зацікавлений більше, ніж у зовнішніх, тож невтручання зазвичай не несе з собою жодних ризиків, а втручання - несе. Щоб зменшити й без того малі ризики від невтручання, дипломати починають подавати насильство за кордоном як двостороннє, а не як односторонню агресію чи геноцид (в Боснії подавали конфлікт як «задавнений» і «безвихідий», а представник ООН Акаші навіть звинуватив мусульман, яких в той момент заривали в братські могили, у провокаціях). Крім того, всі звикли перевіряти інформацію з кількох незалежних джерел, що, очевидно, неможливо у випадку свідчень, скажімо, біженців, тож серйозність становища мінімізують, наголошуючи на фрагментарності даних. Це загальники, далі Пауер конкретно розглядає кожен окремий випадок (чому не втручатися здавалося тактично розумнішим, хто виступав за втручання, як змінювалося зображення в медіа і т.д.)Коротше кажучи, у порівнянні з масштабними тупняками або свідомим заплюющуванням очей, які відбувалися навколо останніх кількох геноцидів, міжнародна спільнота в нашому випадку просто неймовірно швидко знаходить сателітні фото російських частин під нашим кордоном і т.д. Тож чтиво неймовірно депресивне, але конкретно в нашому випадку вселяє надію, що нас не налаштовані кидати напризволяще - якщо вони в принципі кидали напризволяще людей у суттєво гіршому становищі.
Do You like book A Problem From Hell (2003)?
Certainly a groundbreaking and seminal work in genocide policy work, even read over a decade after its release.The book gives you a primer in the history of international law, then spends the bulk of the text on a series of case study-esque sections on genocides in the last 100 years, including both international and domestic American factors that led to the United States failing to take effective action in most cases. It's obvious that Bosnia and Kosovo are the two conflicts Power feels closest to, which isn't surprising because she worked as a reporter there in the early 1990s at the height of the genocide. Those sections are written both succinctly and passionately, and do an excellent job of communicating both the scope of what was happening on the ground and the complex machinations within the United States that caused U.S. inaction. However, other sections of the book weren't as scintillating. Sometimes, I feel like important information is introduced as an afterthought--in the Rwanda chapter, Madeline Albright, who Power cites as "the most outspoken figure within the Clinton administration for intervention" is referenced only in a small paragraph. In the chapters on Cambodia and Armenia, the facts presented lacked a consistent thread of analysis to tie them all to their policy outcomes. Also, there were enough punctuation errors that I at times found them distracting from the reading, though I was reading from a first edition.On the whole, the book is well-written, has several brilliant conclusions drawn from the information it presents, and remains as relevant in 2013 as it was in 2002.
—Sam
It's a well documented and informed review of all the genocides of the last century and the role the U.S. played in all of them, mostly as a silent witness turning a blind eye when it was happening. Even helping economically those who were commiting it. It's chilling to read what humans are capable of doing to other fellow beings. But it's more astonishing to see that the rest of the world didn't care at all! As Ortega y Gasset said, the worst crime is not commited by those who kill, but by those who don't kill but allow others to do so. We have to learn (although I pretty much doubt it) from history, and do all we can to stop it from happening again. Because amazingly enough today's genocide is against the U.S. Now more than ever U.S. citizens are the target just for the simple fact of being Americans. Just because they belong to the "wrong nation". There is so much hatred in the world today and it's so sad that human beings have to die every day because they were born with the wrong size, the wrong skin color, the wrong religion, in the wrong nation... and I still ask myself who decides what's wrong to take someone elses life? Who? And most of all; why?
—Denise
Samantha Power's excellent history of American responses to genocide in the 20th-century is a very enlightening and very depressing story of moral failure. It follows the story of genocide from the slaughter of Armenians in 1915 through the Jewish Holocaust 30 years later, and on to the Khmer-Rouge sponsored killing fields in Cambodia in the late '70s, the mass murder of Iraqi Kurds by Saddam's government in the late '80s, the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides in the early and mid '90s and ending with the massacre of Kosovar Albanians in the late '90s. In almost all cases, the American government sat on its ass and did virtually nothing, despite ample warnings of what was coming, alarm bells rung by observers and survivors about the crime in progress, and lackadaisical attempts to punish perpetrators in the aftermath. This book is very well-documented and well-researched. It is also pretty depressing. We have put our faith in certain institutions of national and international government to keep the peace, and this book begs the question: when both the United States, and the international peace-keeping organization it helped create, the United Nations, fail to step in when men butcher hundreds of thousands or millions of each other like dogs, was our faith in these institutions well-placed? The book exposes the litany of excuses that the US government and the UN trotted out for doing nothing, but it raises another question, not so much what could really be done to stop a genocide in progress, but what has to happen in the future to make genocide interdiction happen? What price must we pay to save the lives of our fellow men? A friend of mine reccommended this book to me while I was doing research for an author who is writing about the feeble American response to the Holocaust going on in Nazi-occupied Europe. I saw with my own eyes State Department cables by the dozens full of excuses as to why we could nothing to rescue Jews from Nazi extermination. It struck me that one of the difficulties which governments have in making the decision to stop genocide is that the goal of governments in regards to the rest of the world is to further its own interests, not to further the interests of all mankind. This is precisely why the United Nations is so often paralyzed: because its individual member nations have a cacophony of clashing interests that rarely coincide. This is a good thing to keep in mind when considering the problem of how to motivate governments to take steps to halt genocide. I haven't finished reading it yet (I'm more than 3/4 through), but this is a good book well worth reading.
—Kevin
