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. That can encompass our elected officials' adherence to law and our cou...”

“Ignorance and prejudice make for bad advisers.”

“All advocacy is, at its core, an exercise in empathy.”

“We no longer live in an era in which foreign policymakers can claim to serve their nations' interests treating what happens to people in other countries as an afterthought... What happens to...”

“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.”

“The media is an ally when it comes to showing the truth about terrorist groups. Attacking the media will not produce a more compliant citizenry. It will produce a more alienated, suspicious...”

“Virtually all of Darfur's six million residents are Muslim, and, because of decades of intermarriage, almost everyone has dark skin and African features.”

“Countries that intervene militarily rarely do so out of pure altruism.”

“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 m...”

“Foreign policy is an explicitly amoral enterprise.”

“It is a false choice to tell Israel that it has to choose between peace on the one hand and security on the other. The United Nations would not ask any other country to make that choice, and...”

“When we blame all Muslims, all Syrians, or all members of any other group because of the actions of individuals, we fall into the trap of asserting collective guilt. We empower the narrow-mi...”

“We know that often holding those who have carried out mass atrocities accountable is at times our best tool to prevent future atrocities.”

“I'm relieved that after all these years of doing atrocity work, I still cry my eyes out every time I read the paper in the morning. It's surprising, actually.”

“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 m...”

“It's not ideal to always be one eye on the Blackberry and two arms around my children. For the sake of mothers out there who don't have the Blackberry but do have the children and are hoping...”

“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,...”

“When confronting most crises, whether historic or contemporary, aid agencies generally muddle along on a case-by-case basis. They weigh insufficient information, extrapolate somewhat blindly...”

“My basic feeling about military intervention is that it should be a last resort, undertaken only to stave off large-scale bloodshed.”

“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 Rwan...”