Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Samantha Power's "Astoundingly Ignorant and Malicious" World View

In 2002, at the height of the second intifada, the woman set to become America's next ambassador to the UN said this:
I actually think in the Palestine-Israeli situation there’s an abundance of information and what we don’t need is some kind of early warning mechanism. What we need is a willingness to actually put something on the line in helping the situation. And putting something on the line might mean alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import. It may more crucially mean sacrificing, or investing I think more than sacrificing, really billions of dollars not in servicing Israel’s military, but actually investing in the new state of Palestine; investing billions of dollars it would probably take also to support I think what will have to be a mammoth protection force, not of the old, you know, Srebrenica kind or the Rwanda kind, but a meaningful military presence. 
Because it seems to me at this stage–and this is true of actual genocides as well, and not just major human rights abuses which we’re seeing there–but you have to go in as if you’re serious. You have to put something on the line. And unfortunately imposition of a solution on unwilling parties is dreadful, it’s a terrible thing to do, it’s fundamentally undemocratic. But sadly, we don’t just have a democracy here either, we have a liberal democracy. There are certain sets of principles that guide our policy–or they’re meant to anyway. And there, it’s essential that the same set of principles becomes the benchmark, rather than a deference to people who are fundamentally, politically destined to destroy the lives of their own people. And by that I mean what Tom Friedman has called “Sharafat.” 
I mean, I do think in that sense that both political leaders have been dreadfully irresponsible, and unfortunately it does require external intervention which–very much like the Rwanda scenario, that thought experiment, if we had intervened early–any intervention is going to come under fierce criticism, but we have to think about lesser evils, especially when the human stakes are becoming ever more pronounced. 
Any woman who manifests such stark Zionhass and quotes Thomas L. Friedman should fit right in at the OIC-dominated UN.

Update: Sam claims she's changed her stripes.

1 comment:

Carlos Perera said...

By now, everyone with an IQ above 80 or so should see that this Administration's Israel policy endgame is the elimination of the Zionist Entity (or sand-honky enclave, as they probably refer to it behind closed doors). No doubt, the Big O would be nominated for another Nobel Peace Prize, should he pull it off.