Saturday, March 26, 2011

"Samantha Power: The voice behind Obama's Libya action"

Margaret Talev (McClatchy Newspapers):
Samantha Power made her reputation arguing that the United States has a moral responsibility to do more to rally the world to stop genocide and human rights violations.

President Barack Obama's decision to back a multilateral intervention in Libya suggests that her voice is being heard. The 40-year-old Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Harvard academic is a senior adviser to Obama's national security team. She's also an Irish-born, U.S.-raised redhead with a deep voice, an abrupt manner and a love of baseball.

Power has long argued that politicians shy away from humanitarian intervention because they see too much domestic political risk with little payoff for saving foreign lives. She contends that it's up to activists and ordinary Americans to change that way of thinking. MORE...
Howie P.S.: Because the author is speculating that Power is "behind" this decision, I wonder if the headline should have had a question mark. I think this adds to the notion that Obama's decision-making process on this issue has not yet been fully explained.

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