Samantha Power has resigned from her position as a senior advisor to Senator Barack Obama, because of a few ill-considered remarks made in the heat of the moment. This is, for the present time, a loss to the campaign. Still, her voice needs to be heard, as the campaign moves onward. She may not be able to speak for Senator Obama in the coming weeks, but her published work still offers compelling cause for us to seek the fundamental change that Obama represents.
One of the first things I read about the Obama campaign that drew my admiration was news that Samantha Power had signed on to be a senior advisor.
Samantha Power is, as many of you know, among the best scholars working to explore the ethical dimensions of foreign policy. Her new book about the martyred UN diplomat Sérgio Vieira de Mello has been well reviewed. Earlier, however, she wrote "A Problem from Hell": America in the Age of Genocide, a landmark account of American reactions to genocide ranging from the Armenian genocide to the Kosovo war. This is a tremendous book; it won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in the General Nonfiction category. Power writes with eloquence, conviction, and meticulous research; her work makes the bold supposition that it is possible to reconcile ideals with foreign policy - or at least, to work to narrow the gap.
As "A Problem from Hell" argues, that gap has loomed far too wide. American governments ignored the Armenian genocide, failed to act against the Holocaust as it unfolded, and sat by as Saddam Hussein (an ally at the time) gassed the Kurds of Northern Iraq. This tendency to look the other way as mass murder occurs is an ingrained tendency in Washington (as was, of course, the tendency to do it when pursuing the Cold War objective of anti-Communism in cases such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, East Timor, Indonesia, the Congo, and others).
One might have hoped that the Clinton administration would have set the United States on a new course, beginning in 1993. Indeed, as a candidate, Bill Clinton decried George H. W. Bush's do-nothing policy while Bosnians were being put into camps. But Clinton's record where genocide was concerned proved to be - in light of his campaign rhetoric - a disappointment. To be sure, he did intervene in the cases of Bosnia and Kosovo. I would not deny him credit for that. But he sat on his hands during the genocide in Rwanda, at a time when the Hutu militias were committing mass murder at a rate exceeding even the gas chambers of Auschwitz. One might say he got better over time, but that seems cold comfort when considering the human tragedies of the Balkans and Africa.
Samantha Power offered eloquent testimony to Clinton's failures in "A Problem from Hell". Insofar as Hillary Clinton has campaigned her husband's record, "A Problem from Hell" offers emphatic, heartbreaking proof that we can't settle for a return to the outlook of the 1990s.
I've perused my copy of the book, and offer a few of Power's points about the Clintons. Here are some points that leaped out at me
Chapter 9: Bosnia
In 1993, the new administration refused to term what was happening in Bosnia genocide. Secretary of State Christopher steadfastly refused to use the term. Senator Joe Biden accused the administration of putting UN workers in Bosnia in harms way, and then using their presence as an alibi to avoid acting (Power, 301-302).
Hillary Clinton gave her husband a copy of Robert Kaplan's cliche-ridden Balkan Ghosts. Bill, upon reading the observations of an author commonly regarded as a travel journalist with a weakness for stereotyping decided he couldn't possibly use force against the Serbs. Instead the administration adopted the policy of creating "safe areas" for Bosnian Muslims (the ones outside of said zones were on their own) (302-303).
Fearful of the political costs of intervention, the Clintons began to claim that all sides were equally culpable, and these were ancient feuds that no one could stop. These were not tenable claims, but they worked as rationalizations for inaction (305-307).
One of the most powerful advocates in Congress for direct action, Congressman Frank McCloskey (D-IN) recounted vainly/ petitioning Clinton to act. "The problem with Bill Clinton," he observed, "was that he didn't realize he was president of the United States." Policy toward Bosnia calcified into place (326), as the death toll there reached into the hundreds of thousands.
Chapter 10: Rwanda
As reports of mass murder emerged from Rwanda, the Clinton administration once again tap danced away from calling the genocide genocide. Only 6 weeks after the killings commenced, was the G-word authorized (358-364)
Bill Clinton never once convened the National Security Council to discuss the genocide in Rwanda. Diplomats aghast at the bloodshed were marginalized and ignored (366)
In the absence of presidential interest in the genocide, the Pentagon's bureaucratic objections to even the mildest measures designed to stop the killings (including jamming the genocidal broadcasts later captured in Hotel Rwanda) became the same as presidential vetoes (370-373).
The US obstructed proposals by other UN members to send troops into the killing zones. When the administration finally agreed to supply African troops with armored personnel carriers, it let the Pentagon once again obstruct the effort. By this point, most of the genocide's victims were dead (377-380) Intent on avoiding another Somalia, the administration had blocked or allowed to be blocked a wide range of proposals to halt the slaughter - including those that did not in any way involve putting American troops in harms way. It did so at the cost of 800,000 Rwandan lives.
Chapter 11: Srebrenica
As the Bosnian Serbs closed in on the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica - in a bloody campaign that culminated in the deaths of thousands of Bosnian Muslims, and the rapes of thousands more - the Clinton administration succumbed to self-paralysis. Clinton asked a naval aide (a communications officer) what he thought should be done; the young man said he didn't know. (406-407). Clinton, nonetheless, refused a French proposal to send troops into the enclave.
A number of options existed, including forceful demarches to Serbia, threats to use air power around Srebrenica, or threats to hold Serbia and its leaders responsible. These were not pursued. No administration officials directed satellite analysts to watch for signs of mass killings after the Serbs took Srebrenica (407-409).
By the accounts of Power and David Rohde, Vice President Gore played a pivotal role in shaming the administration to take a hard line against further genocide in Bosnia (so, too, did Congressional pressure from Bob Dole). By that point, however, Europe's largest mass killing since 1945 had concluded. (409-430) It easily could have been stopped.
Kosovo followed these three instances, and this was clearly a different story. But the Clinton record on the question of genocide is, at the very least, troubling. Mass murder in the Balkans and Central Africa sowed the seeds for further conflict. Allowing the mass murder of Bosnians tainted the image of the United States in the Muslim world. The genocide in Rwanda was a precursor to the war in the Congo - now commonly recognized as the world's bloodiest conflicts since World War 2, with over 4 million dead. The Clinton administration, in its responses to these events, showed a predilection to blame others for its own inaction, to fail to ask critical questions, and to insert its head in the sand. Small wonder that Bill Clinton apologizes for Rwanda at any available opportunity.
Preventing genocide can, by no means, be the sole goal of an administration. Other, more traditional objectives will always remain salient. But, at a time when America's international credibility has been so damaged, passively allowing future genocides cannot possibly redeem us in the eyes of the world. Those who advocate a bloodless foreign policy - an American equivalent to that being pursued by China or Russia underestimate the value once held by the perception of the United States as a moral, beneficent power. This perception always stood some distance from reality, and it was never universal, but its restoration is a foremost priority - and something I doubt another Clinton administration would be able to do.
Samantha Power will not be able to speak aloud for these next few weeks, but long before she had probably even heard of Barack Obama she penned powerful arguments for his election. Whatever her position vis a vis the campaign, her arguments remain heartbreakingly, remarkably valid.