Samantha Power War Quotations

Another longstanding foreign policy flaw is the degree to which special interests dictate the way in which the "national interest" as a whole is defined and pursued.... America's important historic relationship with Israel has often led foreign policy decision-makers to defer reflexively to Israeli security assessments, and to replicate Israeli tactics, which, as the war in Lebanon last summer demonstrated, can turn out to be counter-productive.

'Acting as if...' I decided, ridiculously in retrospect, that my experience covering women's volleyball for my college newspaper was sufficient for me to at least try to become a war correspondent.

As even a democracy like the United States has shown, waging war can benefit a leader in several ways: it can rally citizens around the flag, it can distract them from bleak economic times, and it can enrich a country's elites.

When it came to the Vietnam War, Mr. McNamara was an early advocate of escalation but came to realize the flaws in the American approach earlier than many of his colleagues. Yet in public, he continued to defend the war.

Influence is best measured not only by military hardware and GDP, but also by other people's perceptions that we, the United States, are using our power legitimately. That belief - that we are acting in the interests of the global commons and in accordance with the rule of law - is what the military would call a 'force multiplier.'

You know, there is a long tradition in the U.S. of, um, promoting elections up to the point that you get an outcome you don't like. Look at Latin America in the Cold War.