Note how they couldn't possibly run with an "Samantha Power, an expert on genocide".
Mark Elf (aka levi9909) | Homepage | 11.26.08 - 9:16 pm | #

they would never make Powers an official or even an advisor to the President; her ideas on genocide prevention are far too radical for the US. Even if she was a rabid pro-Zionist she wouldn't get in. She actually beleives in military intervention to prevent genocide - we couldn't have that as part of US foreign policy considering how many US state clients would be on the receiving end here!
Lazynative | 11.26.08 - 11:37 pm | #

She might even recommend that the U.S. invades Washington to change the regime and prevent another genocide.
evildoer | 11.27.08 - 10:21 am | #

Actually Power defines 'genocide' to exclude crimes committed by the United States or it's allies; as such she'd be perfectly at home in the US government and eagerly cheered on the B-52s which attacked Serbia in 1999.
James O | 11.27.08 - 10:27 am | #

How does she do that James.
Mark Elf (aka levi9909) | Homepage | 11.27.08 - 10:29 am | #

Well, i'm paraphrasing slightly Mark, her book 'A Problem from Hell' extends back to 1915, and includes Kosova in its list of genocides but does not mention either any comparable atrocities committed directly by the USA , such as the Vietnam War or the sanctions on Iraq, or by American satellites such as Rios Mount in Guatemala or Suharto in Indonesia. her sole comment on the invasion of East Timor - in which 10% of the population were killed - is that the US 'looked away'. She's a partisan of the US who sees genocide only in the crimes of it's enemies.
James O | 11.27.08 - 1:30 pm | #

Ah well, that's the end of that then.
Mark Elf (aka levi9909) | Homepage | 11.27.08 - 10:10 pm | #

Samantha Power, Bush & Terrorism.
abb1 | Homepage | 11.27.08 - 10:40 pm | #

I think that is a bit unfair James - been a while since I read it but she was very critical of US policy to support the Iraqi regime during the Kurdhish genocide and the Clinton regimes' refusal to acknowledge one was happening in Rwanda. She cleary has a more activist interpretation of genocide-prevention legislation and the duty to intervene than the current US standpoint reflects.

Her work I think was one which covered major genocides of the 20th century which had become famous and landmakr cases - hence the Armenian, Jewish, Kurdish, Cambodian and Rwandan ones were chosen. I don't think it was meant to be a comprehensive coverage of all genocides that have taken place - so a lot like the ones you mentioned and the Bangladeshi genocide etc were left unremarked on.
Lazynative | 11.29.08 - 2:36 am | #

according to ABC, SamPo is in: http://ww4report.com/node/6406
Hulkagaard | 11.29.08 - 3:48 am | #

"the duty to intervene"?

Not knowing anything about this woman, I'm immediately concerned. All I knew before was her name and description as some kind of expert on genocide. Immediately she looks to me like someone who looks for excuses for American invasions.

Right, I've just had a look at abb1's link to Chomsky and she looks like a very dodgy character indeed. Here's that link again.
Mark Elf (aka levi9909) | Homepage | 11.29.08 - 3:59 am | #

Lazynative - her criticism of US policy towards Iraq is predicated on Iraq's later transformation from ally to enemy. The active US complicity in other genocides as perpetrated by states which remained friendly to the US(Indonesia,Guatemala) is entirely absent. Similarly her 'activist interpretation of genocide prevention' is wholly contingent on the intervention of the United States; she has no political approach capable of dealing with genocides where the US is the enabler or active agent of the killing.
Your claim that her work covers 'major genocides of the 20th century which had become famous and landmark cases' is undermined - as in the possible case of Bangladesh - by the admission of many instances of genocide. A 1999 truth commission found that the US-backed Guatemalan army was guilty of genocide during against the Maya during the 1980s,and this is surely as well know as the Kurdish persecution during the same years, yet Powers fails to mention Guatemala once in her work. She does however include far more controversial cases such as those of Bosnia and Kosova whose position as 'genocides' is dependant only on media claims to that effect. Certainly the American attack on Vietnam and the Iraqi sanctions regime were widely accused of genocide at the time, and these claims were widely reported. Powers, however, does not begin to examine these claims, even to challenge them, despite the fact that their victims were in the millions rather than the tens of thousands as in the ex-Yugoslavia. Powers' entire outlook on the subject is shaped by the limits and prerogatives of American power.
James O | 11.29.08 - 11:07 am | #