Samantha Power quotes

Samantha Power is an Irish-American academic, diplomat, and author best known for serving as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Her work focuses on human rights, international relations, and humanitarian issues. She continues to influence global policy through her leadership and advocacy. Here are 38 of her quotes:

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. (Samantha Power)
Some anti-Americanism derives simply from our being a colossus that bestrides the earth. This resentment may be incurable. But much anti-Americanism derives from the role U. S. political, economic, and military power has played in denying such freedoms to others. U. S. foreign policy has to be rethought. It needs not tweaking but overhauling. We need: a historical reckoning with crimes committed, sponsored, or permitted by the United States. [.. ] A country has to look back before it can move forward. Instituting a doctrine of the mea culpa would enhance our credibility by showing that American decision-makers do not endorse the sins of their predecessors. When Brandt went down on one knee in the Warsaw ghetto [in 1970], his gesture was gratifying to World War II survivors, but it was also ennobling and cathartic for Germany. Would such an approach be futile for the United States? View quote
Samantha Power
What is most needed in Darfur is an international peacekeeping and protection presence, and this is what the Sudanese government most wants to avoid. View quote
Samantha Power
We know that often holding those who have carried out mass atrocities accountable is at times our best tool to prevent future atrocities. View quote
Samantha Power
It's hard to know how to deal with liberalization in cultures that have been repressed for a long time, that don't have strong civil societies. But for the United States, of all countries, to be talking about human rights just rings very, very hollow in light of all the objections to our policy in Israel - the perception that we're hard on one side and not on the other, and that we don't contest the settlements or human-rights abuses committed by Israeli soldiers, and so on. Plus the fact that we have turned our back on international treaties and not been a global citizen, I think, makes people, even democrats, the leading lights in these repressed societies, very squeamish about being associated with the United States. View quote
Samantha Power
I got into journalism not to be a journalist but to try to change American foreign policy. I'm a corny person. I was a dreamer predating my journalistic life, so I got into journalism as a means to try to change the world. View quote
Samantha Power
History is laden with belligerent leaders using humanitarian rhetoric to mask geopolitical aims. History also shows how often ill-informed moralism has led to foreign entanglements that do more harm than good. View quote
Samantha Power
On the rare occasions when U.N. blue helmets have made the news in the past, it has unfortunately too often been in the context of situations where peacekeepers have failed to shield civilians, or even when the peacekeepers themselves have been involved in abuse. View quote
Samantha Power
In the 2000 election, George W. Bush, who had shirked military service, succeeded in presenting himself as more reliable on national security than Al Gore. View quote
Samantha Power
When dictators feel their support slipping among adults, it is not unusual for them to alter school textbooks in the hope of enlisting impressionable youths in their cause. View quote
Samantha Power
The U.S. government engages with many countries around the world in official dialogues on human rights. (Samantha Power)
India is at the vanguard of figuring out how to exploit technology and innovation on behalf of democratic accountability. View quote
Samantha Power
In the '90s, there was scant presidential leadership and insufficient domestic political mobilization for foreign policy grounded in human rights. View quote
Samantha Power
The key to U.N. reform is giving Americans a clearer picture of what the U.N. is and what it isn't, what it can be and what it can't be. View quote
Samantha Power
If you represent everyone, in some ways you represent no one. You're un-owned. View quote
Samantha Power
I think Obama is right when he talks about the rule of law as a cornerstone of what the United States should stand for. View quote
Samantha Power
International institutions are composed of governments. Governments control their own military forces and police. View quote
Samantha Power
No more than a surgeon can operate while tweeting can you reach your potential with one ear in, one ear out. You actually have to reacquaint yourself with concentration. We all do. View quote
Samantha Power
Brokenness is the operative issue of our time - broken souls, broken hearts, broken places. View quote
Samantha Power
Historical hypocrites have themselves carried out the very human rights abuses that they suddenly decide warrant intervention elsewhere. View quote
Samantha Power
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. (Samantha Power)
Democracies are expense-averse and they think in terms of short-term, political interests rather than a long-term interest in stability. View quote
Samantha Power
Foreign policy is an explicitly amoral enterprise. View quote
Samantha Power
Since 9/11, there has been a huge leap in people wanting to get personally involved in public service and international affairs. View quote
Samantha Power
The story of U.S. policy during the genocide in Rwanda is not a story of willful complicity with evil. U.S. officials did not sit around and conspire to allow genocide to happen. View quote
Samantha Power