Customer Reviews

Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide

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It seems that instances of genocide are increasing as the world becomes a global community. This excellent book undertakes several case studies of genocide and asks why the world's countries, and the US in particular does not respond to prevent such acts against humanity.
If you dont think this book is necessary, see the review by justreviewingit below which calls the Armenian genocide the "Armenian Relocation"; this reviewer is an apologist for Turkish genocide. Holocaust deniers come in all forms and must be confronted with their evil. This book will help you do that
when you hear " Pol Pot wasn't all that bad".

This powerful and chastening book is a detailed account of American official responses to the recurrent genocides of the 20th century. Power begins with the slaughter of the Armenians by Turkish nationalists in WWI, goes through the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, Saddam Hussein's attack on the Kurds, and the disasters that followed the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Much of the book is a detailed analysis of American response to the more recent events, notably Cambodia, Rwanda, Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo. For the sake of completeness, I'd like to mention that Power doesn't cover all the genocides of the last century. The massacres in Burundi and the mass killings in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) are barely mentioned.
What did the US do about these atrocities? The short answer is that US policy has been consistently not to do much of anything about these events. This has been true regardless of which party has been in power and regardless of whether administrations have been relatively liberal or conservative. Even worse, there are several examples of American administrations either implicitly (Cambodia) or explicitly (Hussein's Iraq) aiding governments engaged in genocidal activities. The hypocrisy of several administrations is simply startling and has ironic dimensions. Several important policy makers in the first Bush administration disparaged humanitarianism and support for human rights as appropriate responses to Saddam Hussein's genocidal attacks on the Kurds on northern Iraq. Some of these individuals are now prominent in the present Bush administration and use humanitarian arguments to justify the present Iraq policy. This type of hypocrisy is matched only by the behavior of the Clinton administration during the Rwanda and Bosnia crises. This is a shameful record and many chapters make for very depressing reading.
It appears that it is very difficult to mobilize our system to do much about genocidal events. Kosovo is an interesting counter-example. Only when a number of important Clinton administration policy makers and members of Congress, and public opinion were in favor military intervention was it possible for efforts to be made to intervene successfully. When only a few influential figures are in favor of intervention, it is hard to accomplish much. Senator Dole, in probably the most distinguished episode of his long political career, was an outspoken advocate for the Bosnian Muslims. Despite his considerable influence, there was little support for intervention in either his own party or the Clinton administration for appropriate intervention.
A good part of the book is devoted to the efforts of individuals in the US who attempt to persuade our governments to pursue more aggressive policies towards genocides. What is striking is how isolated many of these individuals become. The obessive Polish-American lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide and worked tirelessly for international conventions against genocide,is the archetype of these individuals. At this death, Lemkin was a penniless fringe figure. What progress we have seen, howwver, is due in large part to the efforts of these quixotic people.
Power ends with a short final chapter that contains some actual policy prescriptions. These are generally sensible, even modest, but hard to implement in our political system. This is not an indictment of Power's suggestions but rather of a political system that doesn't place a great deal of value on human life.

This outstanding book was difficult to put down, and even more difficult to stop thinking about. Its topic was burdensome, sad, terribly unrelenting and tragic. Samantha Power's thorough research, well documented bibliography, and clean articulate writing style made the reading of such a depressing topic interesting and compelling. This book took me about a month of careful reading to complete and I highly recommend it.

What disturbs me more than the topic of Ms. Power's book, however, is the lengthy and jumbled review below entitled "Scholarship from Hell." The reviewer is engaging in sophistry designed to discredit Ms. Power and mislead. Beginning with the phrase "Armenian Relocation" the reviewer spirals into ten, inarticulate, horribly written and confusing paragraphs whose sole intent is to misdirect and mislead. Notice the use of the phrase "Ottoman-Armenian Conflict" giving the impression of moral equivalence and balance. In paragraph three, he then attempts to discredit Ms. Power - and subsequently her book - by claiming she did not utilize "objective sources" and as having "...a lack of sufficient grounding in history to tackle a subject as sensitive and controversial as the Ottoman-Armenian conflict." There is nothing controversial or sensitive about the Armenian Genocide, and the careful construction of this babble, undermines Ms Power and devalues the awesome bulwark of research she has undertaken and produced, and is intended to mislead the reader by throwing as much junk at the wall as possible and hoping that some of it sticks. Despite the fact that Ms. Power's work is almost seven hundred pages long (with a bibliography as long as a short novel), the reviewer claims that she fails to refer to "objective scholars" in reference to the Armenian Genocide.

References used by Ms Power include numerous newspaper and magazine articles published in 1915 when supposedly this "sensitive" and "controversial" "Ottoman-Armenian conflict" was at its height. The New York Times had very little doubt about what was occurring in Anatolia since in 1915 alone the Times published almost two hundred detailed articles - including dates, numbers of casualties, villages destroyed etc - about the slaughter of innocent Armenian men, women and children by the Ottoman Army.

Ms Power also references Henry Morgenthau the United States Ambassador to Turkey during World War One. It is almost comical to read the lame attempt by the reviewer at discrediting an ambassador of the United States, and the ridiculous suggestion that if you really want to understand Ambassador Morgenthau's memoirs and his "interpretation" of the "controversy regarding the Ottoman-Armenian conflict" that a book by some offbeat writer gives more information than Morgenthau's own words. Apparently his idea of an objective source does not include the memoirs of a U.S. Ambassador - nor the army of diplomats British, French and American - who were strewn all over Anatolia and who wrote voluminous accounts of the well organized genocide.

Other trustworthy objective references made by Ms Power include memoirs written by American and European missionaries, references to memoirs written by Ambassador Viscount Bryce (British Ambassador to the US), the renowned British historian Christopher Walker, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, Arnold Toynbee, etc. This is a stellar bibliography. In stark contrast the reviewer offers no contemporary sources for his claim that the Armenian Genocide is controversial, sensitive or can be categorized as merely a "conflict." .

In addition the reviewer says nothing about all the other Genocides covered in the book and whether or not Ms. Power did a trustworthy job of covering them. Thus, presumably, Ms. Power had the "historical grounding" and sophistication to get everything else regarding all the other genocides in these seven hundred pages correct and properly documented except for the Armenian Genocide. Of course this begs the question, if she was sufficiently ungrounded to the point of getting the Armenian Genocide incorrect why should I believe anything that she has to say about the other genocides. And conversely, if her documentation is trustworthy about all the other genocides why should I not believe that she got everything correct and properly documented regarding the Armenian genocide?

The point is Ms. Power got everything correct. Genocide scholars, Holocaust scholars and professors from around the world have hailed her book as a monumental benchmark. The goal of the reviewer is to put forth a carefully worded babbling denial that actually does more than simply deny, and does more than simply babble. The reviewer also seeks to blame the victim, and also shroud the events of 1915-1922 behind a scrim of supposed controversy where there is no controversy. The reviewer's goal is not even to re-write history, but rather to paint a situation that seems so hopelessly confused that one would need a doctorate to figure it out. The Armenian Genocide is neither "controversial" nor is it confusing, nor is it a "sensitive" issue (though I am sure it is a sensitive issue if your grandfather was one of the perpetrators of the crime) nor does one need a doctorate to understand it. The Armenian Genocide was a carefully planned genocide by Talat Pasha and Enver Pasha who used a well-trained Ottoman Army, to murder 1.5 million innocent men, women and children. It had nothing to do with World War One (except to the extent that the War was used as a cover,) it had nothing to do with the Russians, it had nothing to do with "relocation," it was all about hate, power, envy and jealousy - the Armenians were a peaceful people who had lived on their ancestral lands for 2,500 years. In "A Scholarship from Hell" the reviewer's careful rambling use of words attempts to sow confusion where none exists, and bring into question the credibility of Ms Power and her research methods, thus rendering anything she has to say irrelevant.

Ms. Power has written an awesome, trustworthy account of Genocide in the 20th century. It is a heavy, time-consuming read, but it is also one of the best non-fiction books I have read in the last five years.

As many Pullitzer prize winning books often fall to high expectations, alas, there is one which does not. Samantha Power's amazingly well researched analysis of American (and worldly) foreign policy during times of genocide is a rare breed, in that it delivers to the level which any "gold star" book is expected to.

Power, a highly qualified author for a book on a subject like genocide, obviously had great passion for the premise behind this book. Each argument she sets forth is backed up not only with hard evidence (which believe me, there is a bounty of), but also of her own experiences. Therefore, this book flows like a novel, but has the logicality of a textbook.

The one area in which this book loses some points (and it is not a glaring problem, but forced me to give a 4, since 5 merits only near perfection), is that a few of Power's assertions (mostly in the chaper on Kosovo) are highly debatable. She begins to disregard the obstacles which the U.S. government faced. This disappointed me because her other assertions took into full-mind these problems. However, as I stated just one moment ago, ten of her eleven chapters are carefully thought out.

In the end, I feel that anyone who wishes to offer an informed view of American foreign policy must read this book. It includes a wealth of information which proves Power's bold claims, and as a result does not leave much room for an equally respectable retort. Secondly, this book, like almost every Pullitzer Prize winner in the nonfiction category, is superbly written in stark and powerful prose.

During and after World War II, it slowly dawned on the world that the terrible tragedy of the Holocaust must never be allowed to happen again. With many books, films, speeches, memorials, etc., educating the public about the horrors of genocide, surely the international community would stand up and confront genocide in the future. Right? Well, guess what? Genocide has happened many times after the Holocaust and America, the United Nations, and other countries did nothing to prevent it. How did the world(and especially America) allow this to happen? What is Genocide exactly? What political issues erect roadblocks to something so morally indefensible? This book answers all these questions in a very engaging and informative way.

Samantha Powers has done an excellant job researching the origins of Genocide in the twentieth century; how it came to be ratified by the United Nations, and why America was one of the last countries to enact legislation to support it. Also, she reviews the ineffectiveness of the United Nations in preventing Genocide in Iraq, Rwanda, Kosovo, etc. This book is not a dry, academic study. It is very enaging and well organized. My hope is that we will not stand by silently anymore while brutal dictators like Saddam Hussein commit Genocide. Somewhere there is another Anne Frank waiting...hoping...praying silently that someone will help protect her basic right to life.

"A Problem From Hell" is what Secretary of State Warren Christopher called the Bosnia war. After the author, Samantha Power, reported on that war, she studied the beginnings and ends of some other major genocides of the 20th century. This book is her report, and it is stunning, not as an indictment of anyone, but as a revelation to us all.

First, the beginning: Genocide begins with the policy choice of a man in command of a sovereign state to achieve state aims by killing pre-identified citizens. The book details the policies of the Young Turk Mehmed Talaat Pasha, Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Colonel Bagosora, and Slobodan Milosevic.

Second, the end: Genocide cannot be prevented or ended from the outside if respect of national sovereignty trumps other values, which it usually does. Even if international effort or an invasion from the outside runs over national sovereignty, genocide is unlikely to be stopped unless the suffering is personally witnessed. Genocide stops when individuals who MUST fight evil act to end it. The book tells the uplifting story of a number of heroic individuals who became political Good Samaritans to help the victims of genocide. The first of these was Raphael Lemkin, who coined the work "genocide." Read the book to find out who the others are -- you will be pleased and surprised to learn of the actions of some very selfless Americans.

This book was the parable of the Good Samaritan writ large. Most of us choose to walk by on the other side of the road when the thief attacks the victim, the better not to see the victim's terror and suffering. This book should jolt us out of that habit, and if you opposed our invasion of Iraq, you might find solace in knowing that we deposed a perpetrator of genocide.

As I was finishing this book, one thought that crossed my mind was that Ms. Power's family should be proud of her. To have done the necessary research and then, more importantly, to have written the story of genocide in the last century, to have faced down what must have been periodic visions of horror and gone on, is a feat most of us can only imagine. Ms. Power stands out as one of the heroes who are rarely recognized. I was pleased to note her special tribute to her parents after I had this thought.

The book takes us from the Armenian massacres in 1915 through the Bosnian Serb massacres of Muslims in the 1990s, describing how each situation developed, how it was viewed by the world, what was done about the atrocities. There are hard facts, stories of bad decisions, details of massacres, rape, and destruction. What might otherwise have become a dry (yet horrifying) history book is lifted and made personal by the author's restrained yet compassionate style, and by her inclusion of the stories of the many individuals who worked to stop genocide over the years.

The focus of the book is on the response of the United States to repeated instances of genocide in different parts of the world, and that response in the 20th century was consistent. The United States did nothing to stop genocide unless it was in our national interest to do so. And it rarely is.

Oddly, although I feel shame and disgust with our leaders for choosing to do nothing in the face of indisputable information on massive slaughter, I also feel hope. Throughout the years a few people have stood up, have braved ridicule, loss of life, loss of careers, even loss of their mental stability, to speak for the invisible, the victims. These few individuals rose like bubbles to the surface again and again, were forced down and rose up, would not let go. It is because such persons have arisen, often from unlikely places, that I hold out hope for our future.

I also take hope, although it may be premature, in the maturing of our society and its government. The analysis in this extraordinary work of the way decisions were made also suggests that there are alternatives. It is clear that when we have 1) no mandate for protecting innocent persons from slaughter and 2) no plan for dealing with genocidal regimes that we are going to be caught in a bind again and again, continually applying the lessons of "the last war" to the present one, and almost always choosing the wrong course.

Our government relies heavily on public pressure and when that pressure doesn't materialize primarily because the public does not know what's going on, decisions are made that do not reflect the feelings of the majority of Americans. Again and again I read that "the public doesn't care because [the country] is too far away". We do care. We care when we know. There is now a far simpler solution to filling this gap than there has been in the past: the Internet. I have high hopes for its use to provide accurate information and gather support for actions against future Milosevics.

The book is long and the information in it well-documented. There are 620 pages in the soft-cover edition, including a 17-page index and 80 pages of notes. Power used not only the extensive printed sources listed, but interviewed hundreds of persons. The result is readable, compelling, and for me difficult to put down.

While one might think that a book about genocide would be depressing, I found reading this book to have the opposite effect. It is inspiring to read the stories of people like Lemkin and Senator Proxmire who doggedly prodded the world to pay attention to this crime. It is also energizing to share the author's outrage at policymakers who trot out every excuse imaginable to avoid taking action in response to reports of genocide. I'm not sure any other book has demonstrated the pattern of response to genocide that is documented in this book. While we pay lip service (particularly since the Holocaust) to the idea that "never again" should such crimes be permitted to occur, every time we see evidence of such crimes actually occurring -- in Cambodia, in Iraq in the late 80's, in Rwanda, in Bosnia -- our leaders are afraid even to use the word genocide to describe them (such as Warren Christopher famously allowing officials to admit only that "acts" of genocide may have taken place in Rwanda). The author is not suggesting that the U.S. intervene in every civil war, but instead that we at least speak out against evil, rather than encouraging it by our silence. Not a dry, dull book at all, but exciting to read.

While this book is far from perfect, it certainly is the most comprehensive examination of the issue of genocide that I have come across. It's also an extremely compelling condemnation of America's lack of will in responding to genocide when it occurs.

Power begins with a look at the origins of the term "genocide." One of the many things I learned from this book is that the term is relatively young; in fact, it did not come into existence until after World War II, when a genocide survivor by the name of Raphael Lemkin introduced it into the English language. The story of Lemkin's life and his struggle to bring cases of genocide to the attention of American policymakers is one of the many inspiring, though frustrating, narratives in this book.

After a useful overview of what genocide actually means, Power methodically takes us through cases of genocide in the 20th century. She gives six examples: the Armenians in Turkey in the 1920s, the Holocaust, the reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the Iraqi oppression of the Kurds, the Tutsi in Rwanda, and the Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo. For each she makes a solid argument for why these atrocities should be considered genocide. She also gives a systematic analysis of how the U.S. responded, or in many cases didn't respond. She argues that it was not for lack of knowledge, nor for lack of ability, but rather for lack of political will that America delayed taking action or refused to take any action at all. In Cambodia, the wounds from Vietnam were too fresh to justify another South East Asian military intervention. In Iraq, our hopes of maintaining a strong opponent to Iran in the Middle East prevented us from taking a hard line against Saddam in the 1980s. In Rwanda, our failures in Somalia still haunted us. And of course the underlying theme in all of these cases was that policymakers in both the executive and legislative branches of government consistently fell back on their belief that preventing genocide in faraway places was not of interest to the American people, and therefore was not good politics.

Power is highly critical of U.S. policy, but to her credit she is critical consistently across the board. The book is non-partisan; she attacks the Reagan and Bush Administrations as much as she does the Clinton Administration. She also casts blame fairly evenly between the policymakers at the White House and State Department and the legislators in Congress. It is also important to note that she goes to great efforts to recognize those elected officials and career civil and foreign servants who went to great lengths to make the prevention of genocide a top foreign policy priority.

Many of the negative reviews of this book have either decried it for depicting the Armenian genocide or dismissed it as liberal hackery. Both of these objections are spurious. Power has duly researched the Armenian genocide and simply documented the American and international responses to it. Many of the objections actually try to implicate the Armenians as provoking the Turkish authorities into the genocide, while others deny anything took place at all.

As for the charges of a liberal bias, absolutely none exists. And I wonder if anyone who alleges it has actually read the book. One reviewer actually calls Power a communist sympathizer for not reporting on Chinese and Russian atrocities. This absence is understandable when one looks at the fact that American legislators never missed an opportunity to wave moral superiority over Russian and Chinese communists. We almost always criticized them for that sort of the thing. Hell, one of the main reasons for the passage of the Helsinki convention was to be able to criticize the communists for failing to live up to its ratification. There is no liberal bias in this book. Power lauds Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole for making the Balkan genocides a campaign issue, even going so far as to buck the many dissenters in his party. Indeed, even Jesse Helms receives a paean for calling on the Clinton administration to apprehend war criminals. Clinton himself receives a hearty dose of criticism for his languid responses to genocide in Rwanda and the Balkans.

This book is brilliant. Anyone curious about the heroes and villains of twentieth century genocide will be satisfied after reading this.