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Frank Brodhead:<br>
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Alexander Cockburn’s brief characterization of [Obama’s NSC aide]
Samantha Power’s<i> Problem from Hell</i> as a study of "US
foreign-policy response to genocide" is not quite accurate. Among
its "case studies," the book includes only those
situations/countries where the genocide was outside the US
sphere/area of control. It does not include any studies about
genocides that took place in areas within the US sphere/area of
control, such as Indonesia, Guatemala, Turkey/the Kurds, etc. I
asked her about this at one of her lectures; she said my complaint
was false, because her chapter on Saddam's gassing of Halabja was of
the period in which Saddam was a US ally/client. Not much of a
defense….Whether deliberately or not, Power's argument for US
intervention against mass killing is framed as an argument for
expanding the United States' military reach, while not troubling
itself about mass killing within its own sphere of
control/influence.<br>
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