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samantha power
USAID Chief Admits Famine Is Underway in Gaza as US Keeps Arming Israel
"In northern Gaza, the rate of malnutrition prior to October 7th was almost zero, and it is now one in three—one in three kids," said Samantha Power.
Apr 11, 2024
The head of the U.S. Agency for International Development admitted during congressional testimony on Wednesday that famine is already underway in the Gaza Strip, publicly confirming an assessment that her agency's officials outlined in a cable to the White House last week.
USAID Administrator Samantha Power, a well-known liberal interventionist and the author of a famous book on American leaders' failure to act in the face of genocide, answered in the affirmative after U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) asked whether "famine is already occurring" in Gaza, which is under a suffocating Israeli siege and relentless bombing campaign.
"Yes," said Power. "In northern Gaza, the rate of malnutrition prior to October 7th was almost zero, and it is now one in three—one in three kids."
During her opening statement at Wednesday's House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Power said that "nearly the entire population" of Gaza is "living under the threat of famine."
"USAID teams have been working day and night to address the catastrophic humanitarian crisis," said Power, who earlier this year was confronted by current and former USAID officials over the Biden administration's support for Israel's assault on the Palestinian territory, which the United Nations' highest court has deemed a plausible genocide.
The hearing was interrupted by peace activists with CodePink, who pointed to the number of children Israeli forces have killed in Gaza and condemned the USAID chief for "not using her power and influence to end" the assault.
"Will Samantha Power continue to be a bystander and be complicit in genocide? Or will she, in her own words, be an upstander to stop the genocide?" asked Jennifer Koonings, one of the activists who took part in the protest.
Power's remarks to the House panel came after HuffPost's Akbar Shahid Ahmed reported that USAID officials drafted a cable describing the spread of malnutrition in Gaza as "unprecedented in modern history" and warning that deaths from starvation will likely "accelerate in the weeks ahead"—echoing the conclusions of U.N. experts and human rights organizations.
The cable, Ahmed wrote, "shows the Biden administration is aware of the risk that the death toll there will rise dramatically as it continues to support Israel's operation and resist calls for a permanent end to the war."
Last week, hours after Israeli forces killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in a series of targeted airstrikes, The New York Timesreported that the Biden administration is pressing Congress to approve a proposed sale of $18 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets to Israel despite U.S. laws barring aid deliveries to nations committing war crimes and obstructing the delivery of American humanitarian assistance.
In late March, the Biden administration quietly approved weapons packages that included more than 1,800 2,000-pound bombs, which the Israeli military has repeatedly dropped on densely populated areas of Gaza.
"The idea that we have supplied and are continuing to supply 2,000-pound bombs which could wipe out an entire block and other military aid is unacceptable," U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told journalist Christiane Amanpour in an interview that aired earlier this week.
"There is an imminent risk of famine for the majority, if not all, the 2.2 million population of Gaza. This is not a point in debate."
Fears of mass starvation in the Gaza Strip have mounted in recent days as Israel continues to restrict the flow of necessary aid to Gaza, sparking accusations that the Netanyahu government is using hunger as a weapon of war—a grave violation of international law.
"There is an imminent risk of famine for the majority, if not all, the 2.2 million population of Gaza," David Satterfield, the U.S. special envoy for Gaza humanitarian efforts, said Wednesday during a virtual event hosted by the American Jewish Committee.
"This is not a point in debate," he added. "It is an established fact, which the United States, its experts, the international community, its experts assess and believe is real."
A report released earlier this week by the International Crisis Group found that the Israeli government has been directing limited Gaza aid to "big families who agree to embrace its agenda, while targeting those who refuse."
"It has not coordinated military with humanitarian action, endangering aid workers and recipients, and frequently halting convoys," reads the damning report. "It has attacked civilian police, citing links to Hamas, and compelled their retreat, which leaves supplies vulnerable to plunder, whether by profiteers or the desperately hungry. It has tried to work around the international aid system and its protocols for famine prevention and response, doling out assistance on an ad hoc basis in hopes of building a network to administer Gaza on its behalf after the war."
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What a Leaked US Cable Says About Israel's Looming Assault on Rafah
An invasion would have "catastrophic humanitarian consequences, including mass civilian casualties, extensive population displacement, and the collapse of the existing humanitarian response," the cable warned.
Mar 06, 2024
An Israeli invasion of Rafah would have "catastrophic" consequences for the 1.5 million civilians sheltering in the southern Gazan city, a U.S. diplomatic cable has warned.
The cable, written by members of the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), was sent from Jerusalem to the State Department in Washington, D.C. on Monday and reported by The Intercept on Tuesday.
"A potential escalation of military operations in within Southern Gaza's Rafah Governorate could result in catastrophic humanitarian consequences, including mass civilian casualties, extensive population displacement, and the collapse of the existing humanitarian response, multiple relief actors have warned USAID's Levant Disaster Assistance Response Team," the cable reads.
"A 'military incursion' into a tent city of unarmed civilians is a horrifying, psychopathic action."
It comes amid increased protests against a potential Rafah invasion and international calls for a cease-fire in an attack that the International Court of Justice has deemed a plausible genocide. Israel's assault on Gaza has already killed more than 30,000 people, displaced at least 85% of the population, and induced a famine that is killing children through starvation and dehydration.
The Biden administration faces mounting domestic pressure to push for an end to the onslaught. However, the cable was publicized the same day that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with Israeli War Cabinet Member Benny Gantz and did not categorically reject a Rafah invasion. Instead, Blinken reportedly "underscored the need for a credible and implementable humanitarian plan prior to any major military operation in Rafah, given the risks to civilians."
Yet the stark language of the cable belies the possibility of such a plan.
"At present, there appear to be no viable evacuation options for the 1.5 million in Rafah," the cable said.
The Rafah Governorate, which it said was comparable in size to Syracuse, New York, has seen its population increase by more than sevenfold since Israel began its assault on Gaza following Hamas' deadly incursion into Southern Israel on October 7. The Israeli military ordered civilians to flee southward for safety, and now those who heeded those calls have nowhere else to go.
"A large portion of those residing in Rafah, including elderly populations, exhausted IDPs [internally displaced persons], and those with reduced mobility, would likely remain in the governorate during the potential military operation due to lack of viable alternatives, heightening the risk of mass casualties," the cable said.
It described the situation in Rafah as already dire. Many people entering Rafah from the north had their belongings seized by the Israel Defense Forces and then had to spend months trying to find basic items like blankets. The services that do exist are overwhelmed.
"The impact of hostilities has stretched the capacity of Gaza's health system beyond its limit," the cable said.
In addition, Israel been ramping up a bombing campaign against Rafah, leading to "escalating panic and increased breakdown of social order," the cable said.
Reacting to the cable, journalist Heidi Moore said on social media that its assessment of a potential Rafah invasion as "catastrophic" was "the only conclusion."
"A 'military incursion' into a tent city of unarmed civilians is a horrifying, psychopathic action," Moore added.
It is unclear how much influence the cable will have with the administration. In addition to the State Department, copies of it were also sent to the National Security Council, secretary of defense, and the CIA.
USAID declined The Intercept's request for comment, but pointed to previous remarks of Administrator Samantha Power, who said in late February that the U.S. could not support a Rafah campaign without a "credible plan to protect civilians" and that it had "seen no credible plan."
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Why Does the US Have No ‘Responsibility to Protect’ Gaza?
Not being able to live up to its own principles when a humanitarian crisis is unleashed by an allied country such as Israel is the last nail in the coffin for a thoroughly failed idea.
Jan 24, 2024
At the height of the “unipolar moment” of the 1990s and 2000s, a popular school of thought argued that the U.S. could use its unchecked power to do good on the world stage. When peace proved elusive after the fall of the Soviet Union, the world saw exceptionally deadly warfare and attempted ethnic cleansing erupt in Karabakh, the Congo, Rwanda, and Yugoslavia. If there was one power that could do anything about this, it was the United States.
The primary ideologue of this push for humanitarian interventionism would become Samantha Power. A journalist and author of the influential book A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide, Power argued that the U.S. and other liberal nation states should use military force to halt crimes against humanity in other countries. Nation-states have a responsibility to protect their citizens, and if they are found not be doing this, other states may then step in to do so should the situation continue to deteriorate. This principle was called “Responsibility to Protect,” or “R2P,” and it became so influential that it was adopted into the United Nations Charter in 2005.
Both the Romans and Spanish, more than 1,000 years apart, argued that their bloody conquests in Carthage and Central America would help the world by ending the practice of human sacrifice.
Two decades later, the concept has been shown to be both hypocritical and dangerous. As Israel bombs Gaza to dust, world elites have shown no interest in living up to their apparent responsibility to protect civilians. Contrast this with the response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, in which commentators called for direct intervention to save innocent Ukrainians. And actual examples of R2P have led to disaster, as civilians in Libya can attest. Fortunately, there’s a simple answer to this hellish problem: abandoning R2P once and for all.
Who’s Protecting Who?
Power’s line of argument masked the darker history of so-called humanitarian interventions. Both the Romans and Spanish, more than 1,000 years apart, argued that their bloody conquests in Carthage and Central America would help the world by ending the practice of human sacrifice. In the 19th century, the colonial states of western Europe began to see their maritime expansion abroad not simply in terms of wealth and power acquisition but as an inevitable stage of human moral development. France and Britain in particular dove into Africa with the justification of putting an end to tribal wars and extirpating the slave trade. With economic and technological shifts, the same empires who had once expanded with shackles in hand now came, so they said, as liberators. Yet the result of this “liberation” was little more than violence and famine.
Unfortunately, the lessons of this sordid history didn’t stick. Barack Obama would end up recruiting Power for multiple roles in his administration. While Obama ran explicitly against the disastrous foreign policy of George W Bush in 2008, subsequent events related to the “Arab Spring” would see him continue if not expand these same policies, launching an overt regime change war in Libya (and a covert one in Syria) while intensifying U.S. operations in Yemen.
It was in the Libya war that Power would see her dream fulfilled, when R2P was explicitly invoked to protect Libyan civilians in rebel-held areas from retaliation by the government of Muamar Gaddafi. This operation resulted in widespread state failure, a collapse of central authority, a massive refugee crisis, a resurgence of extremism in that country, and, most gallingly of all, the return of slave markets along the North African coast. It turned out that there are worse things out there than oppressive governments.
The current Gaza War is, by all the standards usually cited by humanitarian interventionists, a perfect case for invoking R2P.
R2P’s reputation took a hit and receded from the discourse, at least until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine gave it life once more. Some members of the press called for no-fly zones over the country, and politicians in NATO states debated if such ideas were feasible. Ultimately, they decided that it was not, given Russia’s conventional capabilities, particularly in the field of anti-aircraft weaponry. There was also the inconvenient fact of Moscow having nuclear deterrence. Any attempts to create a safe area for Ukrainians using NATO military forces risked a level of escalation deemed unpalatable by most in the alliance. This clearly showed that R2P was only ever really meant to be used by great powers against smaller countries that could not defend themselves. It never had any utility against more robust foes. Interestingly, Moscow had picked up on the trick and justified its invasion of Ukraine using explicitly R2P-flavored rhetoric about protecting lives in the Donbass.
The Gaza Challenge
The current Gaza War is, by all the standards usually cited by humanitarian interventionists, a perfect case for invoking R2P. Rhetoric from some actors inside the Israeli state suggests that some form of population displacement is at least being considered. The incredible population density of the Gaza Strip means civilians bear the brunt of the violence. Lack of access to medicine and food exacerbates all of these problems.
Samantha Power is the current head of USAID in the Biden administration. One cannot help but wonder what she thinks of the war currently unfolding in Gaza while she coordinates food shipments through Egypt’s Sinai that are often held up at border checkpoints. For one so adamant that the U.S. must intervene whenever war disproportionately hits a civilian populace, she has been strangely silent.
Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthis explicitly cite their own version of R2P to justify their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. This shows the true future of R2P, if it is to have any—one of selective applications by great powers that muddy the waters around their wars in an attempt to gain media approval from within their alliance networks. As the world’s balance of power inevitably moves into its more normal state of multipolarity, governments further undermine claims of ethical conduct in foreign policy, as states now have constant incentive to claim that their foes have a monopoly on human rights abuses. Inevitably, this will lead to all such claims being met with greater and greater skepticism by the global public, regardless of their factuality.
Far from the centers of great power rivalries, the utility of R2P seems to be declining, as crises such as Myanmar and Sudan are assiduously ignored by the countries expected to be intervening, likely out of fear of being sucked into another Syria or Iraq and giving one’s foes more opportunities to indirectly strike at stretched-thin tripwire forces.
It is a trite observation to point out that great powers have different moral standards for their allies and their enemies, but R2P is a foreign policy doctrine entirely based on moralist claims. Not being able to live up to its own principles when a humanitarian crisis is unleashed by an allied country such as Israel is the last nail in the coffin for a thoroughly failed idea. We can only hope that a silver lining of this difficult moment in history is that we never have to hear about the Responsibility to Protect again.
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