Samantha Power
Public Servant
1970-09-21
Quotes by Samantha Power
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The United Staes had never in its history intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred,
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The United Staes had never in its history intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred,
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I have only so many foreign-language neurons. When I learned Spanish, that displaced whatever Irish was left, and then I learned German, and that displaced the Spanish, and when I learned Serbo-Croatian, that displaced the German. So I'm a bit of a muddle.
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Zimbabweans are severely malnourished, and deaths from starvation occur even in the cities. The country has not yet suffered nationwide famine only because international donors have stepped in.
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Re-examining our reasoning is not something that has come naturally to American statesmen.
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For me, it's not an option to despair. The question is: what can we do to make someone's life better? Take the unimaginable strides made in places like Bosnia, where I cut my teeth, and Rwanda. Their stories aren't perfect, but I wouldn't have dreamt they could happen in a million years.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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India is at the vanguard of figuring out how to exploit technology and innovation on behalf of democratic accountability.
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Citizens victimized by genocide or abandoned by the international community do not make good neighbors, as their thirst for vengeance, their irredentism and their acceptance of violence as a means of generating change can turn them into future threats.
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Initially, I tried to become an aid worker and someone who could help people, but I was unsuccessful in convincing anyone that I could be of any use. So I went and became a war correspondent without any experience in war or in being a correspondent. So that was daring.
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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.
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America needs a sensible, sustainable Iran policy that can meet U.S. security and economic interests, command international support and withstand the shifting Middle Eastern sands.
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Don't take for granted that the worthiness of your cause will win you allies; bring it down to a scale that people can relate to.
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The economic dynamic in Zimbabwe is perversely robust: while ordinary people suffer, black-market dealers and people with foreign bank accounts prosper, making them powerful stakeholders in the perpetuation of devastating economic policies.
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