United Nations US ambassador nominee Samantha Power is being accused of possessing an un-American mindset and making controversial comments about the United States. Apparently President Barack Obama is not at all perplexed by Power’s criticism of America and is standing behind her appointment.
Samantha Power was a journalist before she became a vocal political activist. She reportedly once compared some of the US war on terrorism tactics to the actions of the French military’s support of the Hutu militia. The militia is responsible for the deaths of approximately 800,000 during the Rwandan genocide. President Obama’s pick for United Nations ambassador also once referred to Americans as “stingy” when discussing foreign aid funding. Wow, as a Libertarian, stingy is most definitely not the word I would use to describe the constant funneling of billions of dollars to other countries (many of which still hate us) while crying poor on the home front, calling for sequester, and raising taxes.
The United Nations ambassador nominee also reportedly indirectly compared United States involvement in world affairs to that of Nazi Germany. During an interview about her book at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Samantha Power voiced concerns about the nations America is partnering with to fight terrorism.
Samantha Power had this to say about the United States and genocide:
“We’re about to partner with regimes that, if they’re not committing genocide, they are certainly committing systematic atrocities against their people. Will somebody else write a book about that and say that we abetted the Russian genocide against the Chechens because we were fighting a war on terror and needed Putin on our side? Maybe. But we know because we’re living in the time, understand our mindset, and why we’re doing it. I don’t think we should excuse it. I think we should change our policy.”
In a recent New Republic report, United Nations ambassador nominee Samantha Power stated Americans should follow post-Holocaust Germany officials’ lead and apologize for war crimes. President Obama’s pick to represent the United States before the world feels that foreign policy should be rethought and that it needs to be overhauled, not tweaked. On that point, Power’s is correct, but I doubt that her liberal mind and my fiscally responsible, Constitution-loving Libertarian one would come to an even remotely similar outline for such an endeavor.
President Obama’s UN nominee also had this to say about US foreign policy:
“We need a historical reckoning with crimes committed, sponsored, or permitted by the United States. This would entail restoring FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) to pre-Bush stature, opening files, and acknowledging the force of a mantra we have spent the last decade promoting in Guatemala, South Africa, and Yugoslavia. A country has to look back before it can move forward.”
Looking back at how America used to be is a wonderful idea. Before progressives garnered such a strong foothold in government, a generational entitlement mindset did not exist. The millions of people on food stamps and other taxpayer-funded social programs did not used to outnumber full-time workers in the country. As previously reported by Off The Grid News, the number of unwed mothers, teen pregnancies, and violent crime was significantly lower, and mass shootings had occurred only a couple of times over the course of many decades. Yes, Miss Power, a country does need to look back before it can move forward. A return to a strong America would require overturning a multitude of personal responsibility decreasing dictates and a cradle to the grave government (i.e. taxpayer) funded existence.
Samantha Power went on to share this when detailing her misguided ideas about the way the United States should behave:
“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 Willie Brandt went down on one knee in the Warsaw ghetto, his gesture was gratifying to World War II survivors, but it was also ennobling and cathartic for Germany.”
President Barack Obama’s choice for US United Nations ambassador has also found herself under fire for her views on Israel and Palestine. Samantha Power also chastised the American response to Saddam Hussein and slavery to the Armenai genocide reaction by the Turkish government:
Powers had this to say about countries understanding what they have done wrong:
“It is the tendency of states and of some individuals not to look back and not to reckon with what we’ve done wrong. Often if you look at our country we were just able to make war in Iraq without ever coming forward and saying ‘let me just explain why I was in Baghdad giving him a bear hug in 1984.’ I want to explain that before we actually go forward. Again, we have to look at ourselves. Slavery would be similarly cathartic to apologize for. We’ve never done that. Only the Japanese-Americans got an apology out of us for domestic political reasons.”
Even though Power has taken such a hard line with a vast array of America’s actions abroad, she does consider arming “victim people” if our troops are not sent to put their lives on the line once again for the sake of not American freedom, but the needs of others. Power tosses out the term “victim people” like it is actually easy to differentiate the bad guys from the good guys in many regions of the world. A lot of the time, the United States has had to choose between the bad guys and the currently not-so-bad guys.
President Obama’s nominee does not feel that Iraq was a good choice of intervention by America. Samantha Power does acknowledge that the Iraq invasion may have produced a successful outcome and thwarted genocide, but she feels that the military action prompted more anti-America sentiment in the Middle East. President Obama touted himself as the man who could bridge the religious and ideological divide between the United States and Middle Eastern countries, but he has failed miserably. The man who barely has time to put his feet up on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office between his travels earned a Nobel Peace Prize for merely saying he was going to be the ultimate peacemaker.
The next potential US United Nations ambassador is unsurprisingly linked to outspoken liberal activists. The Open Society Institute, a George Soros endeavor, gave her a grant several years ago to actually travel to all of the countries she had written about from afar. When working as a White House National Security Aide in 2010, she also participated in a Campus Progress event.
What do you think about President Obama’s decision to nominate Samantha Power as the next United States ambassador to the United Nations?