Samantha Power to the UN Ambassador Post
Samantha Power
I'm ambivalent about Samantha Power being elevated to UN ambassador.
On the one hand, she's very well qualified academically.
On the other hand., she's not a conciliator--she's more of a molotov cocktail you throw on a fire.
She's been outspoken on IRA rights (I support a free Ireland also, but she has taken some radical positions)
Her book on genocide devoted 15 pages to the Armenians, 200 to the Serbians, and zero to the Muslim terrorists who are our true enemies of the US. She is reportedly pro-Palestinian because she has been reportedly pro-IRA.
In fact, she's a lot like Andrew Young, Jimmy Carter's 1970s UN Ambassador, whose views she pretty much shares, and whose stint at the UN under Jimmy Carter was controversial.
Finally, she broke up Cass Sunstein's relationship with Martha Nussbaum, and Sunstein ended up having to leave U Chicago. Power was the "younger woman" in a love triangle. Messy, messy, messy.
I think there is certainly a place for Samantha Power in the foreign policy establishment, but the UN just isn't it. Unless, of course, she intends to go there and vote the US alongside all of the nations which are currently condemning Israel each and every day for the very fact that they dare to exist, breathe and cultivate the soil upon which they have a God-given birthright as set forth in the Old and New Testaments.
But what do I know? It's just her and some wild-eyed terrorists against the Word of God.
Admittedly, a Pascalian wager, but I'll take my chances with the afterlife. I support Israel, unconditionally, and if they carved out a Palestinian state in Mississippi and relocated the current residents of that state to a reservation in Oklahoma to make way for them, well, I'd consider that as a policy proposal better than some of the ones involving removing hard working Israeli families from the West Bank of the Jordan.
It's important to note that Samantha Power is not an American--she is Irish from Ireland.
John Kerry is Irish-American, and also, like Ted Kennedy, has been in the past, known to have pro-IRA views, which have lead him inevitably to have views consonant with Palestinian statehood.
This result follows because if the Irish are entitled to statehood, then so, too, are the Palestinians.
Not sure how Cyprus and a dozen other countries (like Quebec) got left out of this mix, but there you have it. Especially since Cyrpus was a country, but then got invaded by Turkey, and no one is willing to get the bully and their troops out of there for going on forty years now.
In a nutshell, Kosovo is the spiritual homeland of the Serbian people. In Power's view, the IRA is justified in killing people to liberate Ireland because Ireland is the spiritual home of the Irish people. That to her is justifiable homicide.
But when the Serbian people engage in similar actions to liberate the spiritual home of the Serbian people, where there are Serbian Orthodox churches standing since the 10th 11th 12th and 13th centuries, Power condemns this as genocide.
Well, my retort is, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Or as Rage Against Machine sang, "Killing in the Name".
Killing in the Name of country, creed, race, etc. either it's justified or it's genocide, but it's still killing, and to God, it's murder. It's killing. And it's wrong.
How can she countenance the IRA while condemning the Serbians? This makes absolutely no logical sense at all. Also, as we see below, she actually comes close to endorsing killing by the PLO, Hamas and other palestinian terrorist organizations.
Again, for Power, whether killings are genocide really depends for her, on who is doing the killing.
If Irish Catholics or Muslims are killing, it seems ok with her. But if it's Serbians, she's not ok with it. Perhaps that's why her chapter on the Armenians is so short--she doesn't want to get her Muslim friends riled up.
But maybe this is all just Irish blarney.
I'm not saying that the UN Ambassador should be a natural born citizen, but I cannot remember the last time an important foreign policy post went to anyone foreign born since Kissinger and Brzezinski, but no one is alleging that Power has their brilliance or their accomplishments. And, both of them had mixed records on their watches, Kissinger with Vietnam and Cyprus, and Brzezinski with Iran. And then there's that infernally annoying daughter of his on Morning Joe. When are they going to replace her with someone less annoying? Has a brilliant man ever had a stupider daugher? She actually wrote a book for 400 pages--about eating.
Well, newsflash--people on TV NEED TO BE RIDICULOUSLY THIN. So yes, Mika, we understand why you have an OCD compulsion to be thin. It's actually in your contract that if you gain five pounds, you get fired. It's not like you're actually talented, like Oprah.
But please spare us the sharing, please? I'd read about fifteen boring policy books by Kissinger before I read this gargantuan kindling for the fire work by Mika B. of Morning Joe.
But perhaps I digress. Can Samantha Power--can that actually be her real name?
It should be noted that Power has recanted her views, and that Profs. Dershowitz and Peretz have backed her up in recent days, saying that she really is a friend of Israel, although the fact that they need to drum up those kind of statements from such close friends of Israel sort of leaves you scratching your head as to whether there is still a problem, especially when the President himself has come under fire for not being friendly enough to Israel. Here's some notes from Wikipedia about Power's anti-Israel views:
Some individuals have accused Power of being hostile towards Israel, largely on the basis of statements she made in a 2002 interview with Harry Kreisler. When asked what advice she would give to the president if either the Israelis or Palestinians looked "like they might be moving toward genocide." Power said that the U.S. might consider the deployment of a "mammoth protection force" to monitor developments between the Israelis and Palestinians. She characterized it as a regrettable but necessary "imposition of a solution on unwilling parties," and "the lesser of evils."[19] She clarified that remark on several occasions, including in an interview with Haaretz correspondent Shmuel Rosner in August 2008.[20] Many strong supporters of Israel have dismissed the charge that she is not a friend of Israel, including Alan Dershowitz,[21] Rabbi Shmuley Boteach,[22] Martin Peretz,[23] and Max Boot.[24] Boteach, who recently ran as a Republican congressional candidate in New Jersey, recalled that "she rejected utterly the notion she had any animus toward Israel [during their conversation]. She acknowledged that she had erred significantly in offering hypothetical comments that did not reflect how she felt." In an article that he published after her nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the UN, he stated that "as a Jew I am in awe of Samantha's achievement in emerging as the foremost voices against genocide in our time and I absolutely believe in her strong commitment to Israel's long-term security."[25] According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, "[a]fter joining the Obama team in 2009 as a member of the National Security Council — a post she left in February — she assuaged many concerns [about her commitment to Israel], first by joining [Susan] Rice in taking the lead against the singling out of Israel at the United Nations. It was Power's call, ultimately, to keep the United States out of Durban II, a 2009 reprise of the 2001 conference on racism in South Africa that devolved into a festival of Israel bashing."[26] Power's best known book, A Problem from Hell, does not discuss Israel.
notes 19-26 are here:
- ^ http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/short-decade-old-youtube-clip-likely-to-dog-power-confirmation-as-u-s-ambassador-to-un.premium-1.528003
- ^ Obama`s top adviser says does not believe in imposing a peace settlement by Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz, August 27, 2008.
- ^ a b Alan Dershowitz, "Samantha Power Will Wow Them at the United Nations," Huffington Post, June 5, 2013.
- ^ Shmuley Boteach, "Samantha Power Clarifies Her Comments on Israel," The Algemeiner, April 11, 2011.
- ^ Martin Peretz, "Samantha Power Is A Friend of Israel," The New Republic, December 4, 2008.
- ^ Max Boot, "Defending Samantha Power Again," Commentary Magazine, February 29, 2008.
- ^ Shmuley Boteach, "Defending Samantha Power on Israel," Huffington Post, June 6, 2013.
- ^ Ron Kampeas, "In new White House role, Israel will still keep Susan Rice busy," JTA, June 5, 2013.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Power
for her book on genocide, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Problem_from_Hell:_America_and_the_Age_of_Genocide
