"A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide

A passionate, but incomplete look at the problems of genocide and intervention. Argues that political quagmires and mismanagement lead to a lack of intervention in times of humanitarian necessity, leading to disaster. Her own experience is with the Balkans and Rwanda, and these chapters are easily the best in the book.

It is one thing to recognize and stop evil. It is another to fight apathy, which the author fights with all her might.

The greatest omission, and one which is only too relevant, is where the United States openly cooperates with or aids dictatorial regimes. The Khmer Rouge was allowed to continue to exist because it would serve as a counterweight to Vietnam or China.

Reagan in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Iraq. Nixon and Pinochet. Guatemala. Haiti and the Duvaliers. Mobutu in Zaire. Noriega. Suharto. Videla in Argentina. Any dictatorial bastard who claimed to be fighting Communism was thus approved and aided, because he's our son of a bitch.

Perhaps in the early stages of the Cold War, such 'lesser of two evils' talk was necessary, with the absolute terror coming out of Stalin's or Mao's little empires. But such is the inherent contradiction in foreign policy. The ideal democratic peace will be brought about by power plays and force. Would such ideas be excusable now?

Presently, the author has a position in the Obama administration, and was the primary reason they decided for intervention in Libya. There, at least, this was widely approved. Of course, our own ugly history makes an appearance there, as new records have shown that Bush II, after removing Qaddafi from the 'Axis of Evil', cooperated with him on imprisonment and torture.

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2012/09/05/delivered-enemy-hands

A frightening and passionate book, but one which does not tell the whole story. ( )

There are, I suspect, a lot of people out there who'd accuse Samantha Power of taking an excessively negative view of American foreign policy. Of course, I also suspect that most of those people would never sit down with "A Problem from Hell" in the first place, to say nothing of getting through its five-hundred pages. This book is, in a certain sense, a gigantic refutation of the notion that the United States is "the world's policeman" or that it constantly goes out of its way to defend the defenseless. Power makes her argument carefully and at length: from the legal and linguistic origins of the concept of genocide to verbatim accounts from victims, perpetrators, and bystanders, "A Problem From Hell" is skillfully sourced and meticulously written. It often makes for tough reading, though, and many American readers may end up sharing the author's sense of outrage when she considers what the U.S. government could have done differently in order to avert some of the human tragedies that took place during the last half of the twentieth century.

"A Problem from Hell" isn't just dry policy analysis, though. Power also investigates how outsiders react to the fact of genocide, paying particular attention to defense mechanisms that policy makers tend to use to deny its existence or justify not having to do much to stop it, and its these analyses that might make it really useful. Power wants to let her readers know that genocides are neither uncommon nor wholly unpredictable: they can, according to this account be stopped -- or at least slowed down -- by acute observation and decisive action. If genocide is a permanent feature of our modern age, though, it's also important to realize that most of our modern institutions are not terribly well equipped to deal with it. "A Problem From Hell" is, in some ways, less a criticism of past American foreign policies than an attempt to point out the shortcomings of the institutions that could conceivably halt the next genocide before all that's left for us to do is provide aid to the survivors and to tally the dead. Apparently, Ms. Power has gone on to bigger and better things in the Obama administration since she won the Pulitzer for "A Problem from Hell." Her own descriptions of political infighting and bureaucratic negligence make it seem unlikely that this, in itself, means that the American government has made the halting of genocide a genuine priority. Even so, I'd be willing to bet that a lot of important people read her book. Here's hoping that someday, some historian can honestly tell us that it made a real difference. ( )

I read this book so long ago (was it actually 2005...good lord) that I can't say much about it. I remember being pretty moved by it, and that it changed my mind about the Clinton presidency. Highly recommended for those interested in foreign relations, human history, and the immense suffering we seem determined to inflict on each other. ( )

One of the most important books on genocide. Samantha Power gives us a damning account of America's indifference and apathy in some of the world's worst mass murders. ( )

This is a wrenching, important book that one hopes has been read and understood by a wide range of policy makers. ( )