Enough of CIA’s ‘Enough Project’ in Africa! [Avaaz, International Crisis Group, Center for American Progress]

Libya360 | Internationalist News Agency

Cross-posted from TeleSUR

October 7, 2016

By Thomas C. Mountain

The “Enough Project” claims it’s mission is to prevent genocide in Africa, but has been conspicuously silent when it comes to the genocidal famine in Somalia.

WKOG editor: As people finally become aware of Avaaz – as a key instrument of empire – watch for the Enough Project which could, if embraced by the public, become the new NGO assigned to create acquiescence for the destabilization of targeted countries. The Enough Project was co-founded by the Center for American Progress (see below) and the International Crisis Group in 2007. Key partners include Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam and UNHCR. Enough is a project of the New Venture Fund, and is based in Washington, DC. Its co-founders are John Prendergast (former Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council) and Gayle Smith (current administrator of the United States Agency for International Development).

Enough of the CIA’s “Enough Project” in Africa!

EP, as it is known, was founded by senior U.S. Intel “spook” Gayle Smith, former Senior Director of the National Security Council under President Obama and now head of the USAID/CIA.

Today EP is headed by Ms. Smith’s protégé John Prendergast whose history as head of EP is one of subterfuge and lies in service to Pax Americana.

EP claims it’s mission is to prevent genocide in Africa, as in the name “Enough Project”, yet has been conspicuously silent when it comes to the genocidal famine in Somalia during the Great Horn of Africa Drought in 2011-12 where 250,000 Somali children starved to death.

Recently George Clooney was enjoying 15 minutes of fame as a humanitarian claiming to have exposed massive corruption in South Sudan when he should have been warning the world of the U.N.’s next genocide in Somalia as in 300,000 starving children. Soon the genocide in Somalia will hit its peak with hundreds, up to 1,000 children a day dying from hunger with only a deafening silence emanating from the CIA’s Enough Project.

EP, with support from its big brother the Center for American Progress, only once in its history raised a real genocide, that back in 2007-8 when Gayle Smith was out to political pasture, she being a rabid democrat during the Bush Jr. years in office. Then she was part of the Democrat “opposition” to the Bush regime and oh so briefly raised the food and medical aid blockade in the Ogaden in Ethiopia, where the only instance of both the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders being expelled from a famine stricken region has been allowed.

Once Ms. Smith jumped on the Obama For President bandwagon, no further mention of the genocide in the Ogaden was heard.

 Today EP is proving its loyalty to Pax Americana by playing huckster for regime change in South Sudan, as in denying China access to African oil via the invasion of “peacekeepers” in the name of Responsibility To Protect of Libyan infamy. The USA has abandoned former “rebel leader” Riek Machar in favor of direct military intervention by the U.N. and the USA’s gendarme in Africa, the African Union.

The Chinese have started to expand their oil production so expect to hear louder cries of outrage from the likes of EP about various crimes and even “genocide” in South Sudan followed by demands for more foreign military intervention in the country.

With all their lies and subterfuge, don’t you think that we here in Africa have had enough of the CIA’s Enough Project?

 

 

[Thomas C. Mountain is an independent journalist in Eritrea living and reporting from here since 2006.]

 

Further reading:

Imperialist Pimps of Militarism, Protectors of the Oligarchy, Trusted Facilitators of War | Part IV

US Behind Massacres in Beni, Congo

http://www.anngarrison.com/audio/creating-south-sudan-george-clooney-john-prendergast-and-george-w-bush

 

 

Impunity International

Wrong Kind of Green

May 4, 2016

by Jay Taber

 

Many so-called ‘peace and justice’ centers in the United States are still oblivious to the ongoing betrayal of human rights by Amnesty International (AI), which—like Human Rights Watch– has become increasingly corrupt over the past two decades. This brief overview is intended to help dispel the mistaken notion that AI is sacrosanct, and to prompt the pious poseurs–that comprise the purity networks in the US–to begin basing their policies, programs and associations on facts, rather than on outdated fantasies about the Human Rights Industrial Complex.

In order to transition from these preconceived fantasies to research-based reality regarding human rights, these ‘peace and justice’ centers will need to reorient themselves to doing research related to digital Netwar, rather than reflexively responding to press releases by Amnesty International, or to the social media propaganda by AI public relations associates Avaaz and Purpose. Until these local nodes of ostensibly noble causes do research, they will remain a notably unconscious milieu—infantile consumers, rather than informed and engaged citizens.

In 1991, Amnesty International eagerly acquiesced to the $11 million Wag the Dog public relations campaign–devised for the Pentagon by the Hill & Knowlton PR firm–to generate support for the US invasion of Iraq, and in 2012, AI was an enthusiastic cheerleader in support of the escalated bombing of Afghanistan by NATO.

In 2015, Amnesty International–in one of the most egregious examples of the nihilism that now characterizes the human rights industry–endorsed the organized crime initiative to freely engage in human trafficking of women and children for sex slavery through the decriminalization of the prostitution industry–rather than choosing to support the Nordic model of decriminalizing the victims, but not the perpetrators.

 

In 2015-2016 Amnesty International supported–and continues to support—US and NATO military aggression in countries like Libya and Syria, which is bolstered by the public relations campaigns of Avaaz and Purpose–Wall Street-funded marketing agencies with deep ties to the very heart of the military industrial complex. By unthinkingly supporting AI, these ‘peace and justice’ centers become complicit in these war crimes and crimes against humanity.

 

 

 

[Jay Thomas Taber is an associate scholar of the Center for World Indigenous Studies and a contributing editor of Fourth World Journal. Since 1994, he has served as communications director at Public Good Project, a volunteer network of researchers, analysts and journalists defending democracy. As a consultant, he has assisted Indigenous peoples in the European Court of Human Rights and at the United Nations.]

 

Further reading on AI

https://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/?s=amnesty+international

 

 

 

Aid, Internationalists and Self Interest in Palestine

Just a Platform

Oct 19, 2013

by Sav D’Souza

Chloe Ruthven’s excellent documentary The Do Gooders, which showed at this year’s London Film Festival, shed not an inconsiderable light on how ‘international aid’ works in operation in places such as Palestine.

The concept of “aid”, in its numerous guises, humanitarian, international, overseas, foreign or overseas all invoke a nice altruistic association but the reality as Ruthven found in Palestine is that aid is more about political control, power and influence.

‘NGOs are increasingly motivated by self interest, they need money, they need to pay themselves in their jobs and in order to get those contracts they have to keep quiet about what’s going on and that’s really shity to see. What they are doing is talking about it as a humanitarian crisis, when in fact what we have is a people where every aspect of their lives is being militarily and economically controlled and oppressed,’ said Ruthven.

Two aspects of the “valuable infrastructure” that Ruthven delved into were roads and water in the occupied West Bank.  Roads it seems benefit US construction contractors and people with business and assets and not directed to what local disadvantaged people need or desire. Ruthven highlighted a more sinister aspect too – how when roads are built they cut of Palestinians, effectively by building two roads, an ‘apartheid road system’ as it has been called. ‘By using the main artery roads and preventing Palestinians from using them by this kind of road blocking system. Every time the Israelis build a bit of new road in the West Bank for the settlers, they cut off the village roads that come down and join that central road and so Palestinians can’t actually access it even though it’s in the territory,” said Ruthven. “At the same time USAID are also building Palestinian roads that are taking Palestinians further away from the main artery roads, and yet telling the Palestinians they are coming to help them” added Ruthven.

Image Labour2Palestine via Flickr

Then there is huge amounts of money spent on flashy water pump systems, complete with typical USAID obligatory PR fanfare overdrive, which in practice appear nothing more than a grand vanity project. As Ruthven explained ‘All the engineers know that there is no water, it’s like you can build the flashiest Ferrari engine but if there is no petrol! In my probing it became clear that everyone knows this up front so it’s not like they made a mistake.’ In her movie Ruthven is seen having just such a discussion with an engineer about water in the region, the engineer telling her about the situation resulting from the Oslo agreement which meant that Israel was assigned two aquifers and Palestine one, adding that when Palestinians want to drill or do anything to get more water they have to ask for Israeli permission which is invariably refused. It was at this point in the film that a USAID representative nervously efficiently calls time on the conversation.   In 2009 an Amnesty International report was highly critical of the  “discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water.”

Image US Army Africa

One of the main issues around aid to Palestine, but that could also be just as applicable for numerous other countries, is that it comes with strings attached and so is deeply politicised. Current systems of aid provision are carefully controlled and managed and dictated by Western organisations that know best. Not really much democracy at play in the sense of what local people think, want or need.

Already living in an occupied land which is both restrictive and prescriptive, Palestinians have to deal with “Do Gooders”, the entourage of “internationalists”, NGOs and the likes of USAID, when what Ruthven’s film shows is that want they want is the right to self determination, to work out between themselves how to improve their lives on a daily basis and look to the future. Too much to ask for? Maybe they lack the wisdom of the more sophisticated westerners to achieve this?

Image www.dalia.ps

A good example of what can be achieved is a grassroots organisation called the Dalia Association. Dalia is a Palestinian community foundation which is addressing and reacting to the problems they face by involving people in the decision making process, using resources to try and achieve their goals and being self accountable as a community and not external bodies.  Ruthven went to visit the organisation  in her film where she interviewed a member of the organisation who told her that they had refused to sign a potential grant application worth $200,000 as it stipulated that there could be no ties to organisations such as Hamas.

Image disbona via Flickr

Although Hamas is seen as a political party that has support all over occupied Palestine and means different things to different people in the region any association to them means that your organisation will not get funded, and individuals will not get a job working with the Internationalists due to Hamas being deemed a terrorist organisation.

At the moment there are 144 humanitarian organisations working in Palestine, of which 51 are UN agencies, 78 international NGOs and only 15 local organisations. Any local organisations require a number of internationals on their board to be deemed legit and get funding.

Palestinians seem to be having a different conversation between themselves about what they need and want than that which are being offered through foreign aid. Tired of the same old status quo which ultimately does nothing than continue the cycle of aid dependence and control, grassroots organisations like Dalia are trying to forge a different way.

 

WATCH: U.N. Troops Slaughter Haitian Civilians | Amnesty & HRW Complicit in Covering Up the Crimes

We Must Kill the Bandits

 

Kevin Pina Documentary on MINUSTAH, Reviewed By Dady Chery

Haiti Chery

 

“Since terror is the sole resource left me, I employ it…. We must destroy all the mountain negroes, men and women, sparing only children under twelve years of age. We must destroy half the negroes of the plains….” – French General Charles Leclerc referring to his battle against Haitians in 1803.

 

“We must kill the bandits, but it will have to be the bandits only, not everybody.” – Brazilian General Heleno Ribera, UN Military Commander in Haiti, 2004-2005.

 

Kevin Pina’s documentary is the definitive account of Haiti’s most recent anti-imperialist revolt. The new gambit for Haiti began in 2000 with the surprise election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide as President, but it suffered a setback with Aristide’s February 29, 2004 kidnapping and the installment of a foreign military occupation.

Larceny and lust for gold were certainly key motivators for the new occupation of Haiti. For about 20 years, the United Nations Development Program, the French Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minière (BRGM), a German group, and Canadian junior companies quietly surveyed Haiti’s Massif du Nord for its minerals and stuck to the story that only copper was to be found there. On the other hand, as early as May 2005, the coup government of Boniface Alexandre (President) and Gerard Latortue (Prime Minister) began to sign away Haiti’s mineral rights for 15-year terms to foreign concerns. Now the story is that an abundance of copper had obscured the silver and gold. This would hardly be the first invasion of Haiti for its gold since the 16th-century conquistadors. As recently as 1914, about 24,000 ounces of Haiti’s gold reserves were carried off to Citibank by U.S. kingmaker and banker Roger L. Farnham.

The documentary gives excellent historical context to the new occupation, which followed the letter of the 1915-1934 US invasion of Haiti in the main, with some variations. This time the U.S. and its loyal Haitian paramilitaries teamed up with Canada and France into a Multinational Interim Force (MIF) to purge the country of Fanmi Lavalas (Aristide’s Party) officials and partisans. Haitian patriots were called “bandits,” as they had been 89 years earlier.

When the jobs of killing, imprisoning and torturing Lavalas partisans proved too burdensome for the MIF, a “peacekeeping” force — the so-called United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) — was quickly arranged by the UN Security Council, despite Haiti not being at war. The troops arrived on June 1, 2004.

It is in the roles of “peacekeepers” that emerging powers like Brazil, Chile, and Argentina came to embrace the western imperialist mission. Despite the pretext that the Latin American troops had come “to stabilize Haiti for elections,” the soldiers functioned as the private army of Haiti’s elite. Unarmed Haitians were enthusiastically killed with the same kinds of head shots the racist 1910’s US-occupation marines used to call “popping off Cacos.” Such thirst for Haitian blood from Latin Americans would have been disputable without this brave documentary.

The hard-hitting video also does the great service of exposing the participation of human rights organizations in the persecution of Lavalas officials and highlighting the silence of international NGOs about the large-scale human rights violations that took place in Haiti between 2004 and 2006.

Even without the more than 7000 killed by the UN-introduced cholera and the numerous documented rapes of Haitians by UN troops, the bloodshed that immediately followed Aristide’s removal should have been enough to recommend the non-renewal of the UN mandate in Haiti after MINUSTAH’s first year. Yet year after, (s)election after (s)election, this criminal force has been renewed and expanded.

Current countries represented in MINUSTAH are:

Argentina, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Nepal, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, United States, and Uruguay.

As you watch this important documentary, keep an eye on the shoulder patches of the troops for their countries’ flags. Notwithstanding the pretty talk about repaying Bolivar’s debt to Petion, it is quite easy to tell Latin American friend from foe.

VIDEO: Full-length documentary “We Must Kill the Bandits” (1 hour 7 min). Click “CC” for Portuguese subtitles.

 

Source: Haiti Chery | You Tube

© Copyright 2011, 2012. This material is available for republication as long as reprints include verbatim copy of the article in its entirety, respecting its integrity. Reprints must cite Kevin Pina as the author of the documentary, and Dady Chery and Haiti Chery as the original source for the review, including a “live link” to the article.

Amnesty for Occupation?

by Ashley Smith

August 9, 2012

Socialist Worker

Most people associate Amnesty International with challenging torture, protesting the death penalty and agitating for the liberation of political prisoners. On top of these important campaigns, Amnesty has over the last decade opposed the Iraq war and demanded the closure of America’s concentration camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

So antiwar activists in Chicago were shocked during last May’s NATO Summit to find that Amnesty International USA had plastered city bus stops with ads declaring: “Human Rights for Women and Girls in Afghanistan: NATO, Keep the Progress Going!”

Worse still, Amnesty USA put on a “shadow summit” of its own during the NATO meeting, featuring Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton’s notorious secretary of state, who will be forever remembered for her chilling response to a question on 60 Minutes about sanctions imposed on Iraq in the 1990s. Correspondent Lesley Stahl asked, “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” Albright responded, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.”

With a veritable war criminal as one of its star speakers, Amnesty USA’s shadow summit launched a campaign that, for all intents and purposes, called for the extension of NATO’s “good works” in Afghanistan. Its speakers and promotional materials recycled George Bush’s “feminist” justification of the invasion and occupation–that NATO would liberate women from Taliban rule.

Amnesty USA claimed in “An open letter to Presidents Obama and Karzai”: “Today, three million girls go to school, compared to virtually none under the Taliban. Women make up 20 percent of the university graduates. Maternal mortality and infant mortality have declined. Ten percent of all judges and prosecutors are women, compared to none under the Taliban regime. This is what we mean by progress: the gains women have struggle to achieve over the past decade.”

Compare that to NATO’s own propaganda: “In the ten years of our partnership, the lives of Afghan men, women and children have improved significantly in terms of security, education, health care, economic opportunity and assurance of rights and freedoms. There is more to be done, but we are resolved to work together to preserve the substantial progress we have made during the past decade.”

There is barely any difference at all. →

AMNESIA INTERNATIONAL AND WESTERN NGOs: THE WHORES OF THE U.S.A.

 What are Western NGOs useful for?

Amnesty in the Twilight of Human Rights and Imperialism

Planeta Atabex

24 de mayo de 2012

by Sonia Tejada

Amnesty’s Shilling for US-NATO Wars

For decades, Amnesty International has been a respected name in the cause of human rights, but its recent hiring of Suzanne Nossel, a longtime U.S. “humanitarian interventionist,” has swung the organization more behind the Afghan War and the use of U.S. military force, Ann Wright and Coleen Rowley write.

June 19, 2012

Consortiumnews.com

By Ann Wright and Coleen Rowley

Ann Wright is a 29-year U.S. Army/Army Reserve Colonel and a 16-year U.S. diplomat who served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq war. She returned to Afghanistan in 2007 and 2010 on fact-finding missions.

Coleen Rowley, a FBI special agent for almost 24 years, was legal counsel to the FBI Field Office in Minneapolis from 1990 to 2003. She wrote a “whistleblower” memo in May 2002 and testified to the Senate Judiciary on some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures. She retired at the end of 2004, and now writes and speaks on ethical decision-making and balancing civil liberties with the need for effective investigation.

 

The new Executive Director of Amnesty International USA — Suzanne Nossel — is a recent U.S. government insider. So it’s a safe bet that AI’s decision to seize upon a topic that dovetailed with American foreign policy interests, “women’s rights in Afghanistan,” at the NATO Conference last month in Chicago came directly from her.

Nossel was hired by AI in January 2012. In her early career, Nossel worked for Ambassador Richard Holbrooke under the Clinton Administration at the United Nations. Most recently, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organizations at the U.S. Department of State, where she was responsible for multilateral human rights, humanitarian affairs, women’s issues, public diplomacy, press and congressional relations.

She also played a leading role in U.S. engagement at the U.N. Human Rights Council (where her views about the original Goldstone Report on behalf of Palestinian women did not quite rise to the same level of concerns for the women in countries that U.S.-NATO has attacked militarily).

Nossel would have worked for and with Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Samantha Power and Susan Rice, and undoubtedly helped them successfully implement their “Right to Protect (R2P)” — otherwise known as “humanitarian intervention” — as well as the newly created “Atrocity Prevention Board.”

This cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy (which has served mainly to rationalize the launching of war on Libya) is now being hauled out to call for U.S.-NATO military intervention in Syria.

“Smart Power” = smart wars?

In fact, Nossel is herself credited as having coined the term “Smart Power,” which embraces the United States’ use of military power as well as other forms of “soft power,” an approach which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced at her confirmation as the new basis of State Department policy.

An excerpt from Nossel’s 2004 paper on “Smart Power,” published in the Council on Foreign Relations’ Foreign Affairs magazine, sounds a lot like Samantha Power’s (and also traces back to Madeleine Albright’s) theories:

To advance from a nuanced dissent to a compelling vision, progressive policymakers should turn to the great mainstay of twentieth-century U.S. foreign policy: liberal internationalism, which posits that a global system of stable liberal democracies would be less prone to war.

Washington, the theory goes, should thus offer assertive leadership — diplomatic, economic, and not least, military [our emphasis] — to advance a broad array of goals: self-determination, human rights, free trade, the rule of law, economic development, and the quarantine and elimination of dictators and weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Following the CIA Red Cell

Perhaps the AI’s hiring of a State Department shill as executive director of its U.S. affiliate was merely coincidental to how/why its “NATO Shadow Summit ” so closely mimicked the CIA’s latest suggested propaganda device, but….

The “CIA Red Cell,” a group of analysts assigned to think “outside the box” to anticipate emerging challenges, was right to worry in March 2010 when the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) found that 80 percent of French and German citizens were opposed to continued deployment of their countries’ militaries in the U.S.-NATO war in Afghanistan.

Even though public apathy had, up to that point, enabled French and German politicians to “ignore their voters” and steadily increase their governments’ troop contributions to Afghanistan, the CIA’s newly-created think tank was concerned that a forecasted increase in NATO casualties in the upcoming “bloody summer … could become a tipping point in converting passive opposition into active calls for immediate withdrawal.”

In a confidential memo, the “Red Cell” wrote:

The Afghanistan mission’s low public salience has allowed French and German leaders to disregard popular opposition and steadily increase their troop contributions to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Berlin and Paris currently maintain the third and fourth highest ISAF troop levels, despite the opposition of 80 percent of German and French respondents to increased ISAF deployments, according to INR polling in fall 2009.

Public Apathy Enables Leaders To Ignore Voters …

Only a fraction (0.1-1.3 percent) of French and German respondents identified ‘Afghanistan’ as the most urgent issue facing their nation in an open-ended question, according to the same polling. These publics ranked ‘stabilizing Afghanistan’ as among the lowest priorities for US and European leaders, according to polls by the German Marshall Fund (GMF) over the past two years.

According to INR polling in the fall of 2009, the view that the Afghanistan mission is a waste of resources and ‘not our problem’ was cited as the most common reason for opposing ISAF by German respondents and was the second most common reason by French respondents. But the ‘not our problem’ sentiment also suggests that, so for, sending troops to Afghanistan is not yet on most voters’ radar.

But Casualties Could Precipitate Backlash

If some forecasts of a bloody summer in Afghanistan come to pass, passive French and German dislike of their troop presence could turn into active and politically potent hostility. The tone of previous debate suggests that a spike in French or German casualties or in Afghan civilian casualties could become a tipping point in converting passive opposition into active calls for immediate withdrawal.

The CIA “Special Memorandum” went a step further, inviting “a CIA expert on strategic communication and analysts following public opinion” to suggest “information campaigns” that State Department polls showed likely to sway Western Europeans.

The “Red Cell” memo was quickly leaked, however, furnishing a remarkable window into how U.S. government propaganda is designed to work upon NATO citizenry to maintain public support for the euphemistically titled “International Security Assistance Force” (ISAF) waging war on Afghans. Here are some of the CIA propaganda expert’s suggestions:

…messaging that dramatizes the potential adverse consequences of an ISAF defeat for Afghan civilians could leverage French (and other European) guilt for abandoning them. The prospect of the Taliban rolling back hard-won progress on girls’ education could provoke French indignation, become a rallying point for France ‘s largely secular public, and give voters a reason to support a good and necessary cause despite casualties… Outreach initiatives that create media opportunities for Afghan women to share their stories with French, German, and other European women could help to overcome pervasive skepticism among women in Western Europe toward the ISAF mission…Media events that feature testimonials by Afghan women would probably be most effective if broadcast on programs that have large and disproportionately female audiences.

Amnesty International struck similar themes in announcements posted online as well as billboard advertisements on Chicago bus stops (like the one above). Telling “NATO: Keep the Progress Going!”, the ads beckoned us to find out more on Sunday, May 20, 2012, the day thousands of activists marched in Chicago in protest of NATO’s wars.

The billboard seemed to answer a recent Huffington Post blog post, “Afghanistan: The First Feminist War?“

The feminist victory may be complete in America, but on the international stage it’s not doing so well with three quarters of the world’s women still under often-severe male domination. Afghanistan is an extreme case in point in what might be termed the first feminist war … a war that now may not be won even if Hillary Clinton dons a flack jacket and shoulders an M16 on the front lines. Still, since the Bush Administration to the present America ‘s top foreign policy office has been held by women … women who have promised not to desert their Afghan sisters.

Our curiosity was further piqued because we consider ourselves to be women’s rights and human rights proponents and also due to our own prior federal careers in intelligence and military. (Colonel Wright is retired from the State Department/US military and Rowley is from the FBI.)

So along with a few other anti-war activists, we packed into a taxi to head to the Chicago hotel where Amnesty International’s “Shadow Summit” featuring former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and other female foreign relations officials was being held. We happened to carry our “NATO bombs are not humanitarian”; “NATO Kills Girls” and anti-drone bombing posters that we had with us for the march later that day.

As we arrived, an official-looking black car dropped off Melanne Verveer, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, who was to be a main speaker (on the first panel, along with former Secretary Albright; U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois; and Afifa Azim, General Director and Co-Founder, Afghan Women’s Network; along with Moderator Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Deputy Director of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Women and Foreign Policy Program).

Verveer cast a cold glance at us and would not answer Ann Wright’s questions as she scurried into the hotel with her aides surrounding her and us following behind. At first the hotel security guards tried to turn us away but we reminded the registration desk the Summit was advertised as “Free Admissions” and that some of us were members of Amnesty International.

So they let us register and attend as long as we promised to leave our signs outside and not disrupt the speakers. The hotel conference room was about half full. We stayed long enough to hear the opening remarks and the moderator’s first questions of Albright and the other speakers on the first panel.

All generally linked the protection and participation of Afghan women in government as well as the progress made in educating Afghan women to the eventual peace and security of the country as envisioned by the new strategic “partnership” agreement that Obama had just signed with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Ms. Verveer said Afghan women do not want to be seen as “victims” but are now rightfully nervous about their future. When we saw that audience participation was going to be limited to questions selected from the small note cards being collected, we departed, missing the second panel as well as kite-flying for women’s rights.

We noted, even in that short time, however, how easy it was for these U.S. government officials to use the “good and necessary cause” of women’s rights to get the audience into the palm of their collective hand — just as the CIA’s “strategic communication” expert predicted!

But Why Ms. Albright?

Not everyone was hoodwinked however. Even before the “Summit” was held, Amnesty realized it had a PR problem as a result of its billboard advertisement touting progress in Afghanistan. An Amnesty official tried to put forth a rather lame defense blaming an accidental poor choice of wording.

But many readers (and AI members) posted critical comments and questions, including concerns about Albright’s involvement given her infamous defense of Iraqi sanctions in the 1990s, which were estimated to have caused the deaths of a half million Iraqi children, with the comment “we think the price is worth it.”

Under the blogger’s explanation: “We Get It / Human Rights Now,” there were comments like these:

…Could someone from AI please explain why Madeleine Albright was invited to participate in this event? We (and especially those of us who are familiar with AI) should all be able to understand that the wording on the poster was a genuine, albeit damaging, mistake. But why Ms. Albright? The posters are pro-NATO and play into prevailing tropes about so called “humanitarian intervention” via “think of the women & children” imagery. The posters & the forum that includes Albright are neither slight slips nor without context. AI is coping heat because they have miss-stepped dramatically. There is NOTHING subtle about either the imagery nor the message! It is not a case of “oh sorry we didn’t realize it it could be interpreted that way! They used pro Nato imagery & slogans ahead of & during a controversial summit that has thousands protesting in the streets. Tell me again how that is not taking sides? They asked a notorious apologist for mass murder of children to speak on the right of women and children…tell me again: how is that not taking sides. So it is absolutely reasonable for past supporters (and board members like myself) to be asking how it is that Amnesty USA so lost its bearings they could make a critical SERIES of errors like this?

Of course the defensive AI blog author never answered the numerous questions asking why Amnesty had chosen Madeleine Albright as their main speaker. So we will venture an answer that probably lies in the fact that all of the powerful feminist-war hawks who have risen to become Secretary of State (or are waiting in the wings) are now taking their lead from the ruthless Grand Dame who paved the way for them, Madeleine Albright — (see Coleen Rowley’s recent blogs: “Obama’s New ‘Atrocity Prevention Board’: Reasons for Skepticism” and “Militarization of the Mothers: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby, from Mother’s Day for Peace“).

It’s also possible the highest ranks of the feminist wing of military interventionism (i.e. Madeleine Albright, Condi Rice, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, et al.) are so passionate and hubristic about the nobility of their goal and “Amercan exceptionalism” that some have simply succumbed to a kind of almost religious (blind faith) type fervor.

The Road to Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions

Nossel’s and Albright’s theories are flawed in many ways but suffice it to say that democracies are actually not less prone to war. A long list of “democracies” — including Nazi Germany, the Roman Empire, the United Kingdom, France and the United States itself — disprove this assertion.

In any event, the U.S. has been terribly hypocritical in its support of “democracies” in foreign countries, often toppling or attempting to topple them (i.e. Iran’s Mossadeqh, Guatemala’s Arbenz, Chile’s Allende) in order to gain easier control of a foreign country through an allied dictatorship.

No one is going to argue that the goals of humanitarianism, preventing atrocities and furthering women’s rights around the world are not “good and necessary” (in the words of the CIA strategic communications expert). We would go so far as to say these ARE truly noble causes!

Testimonials about human rights’ abuse are often true and fundamentalist regimes’ treatment of women seems to vary only in degrees of horrible. But while it’s true that many women lack rights in Afghanistan, some would argue that it’s conveniently true. And that the best lies are always based on a certain amount of truth.

The devil, however, lies in the details of promoting equality and accomplishing humanitarianism. Most importantly the ends, even noble ends, never justify wrongful means. In fact, when people such as Samantha Power decide to bomb the village (Libya) to save it, it will backfire on a pragmatic level.

It must be realized that it is the nobility of the U.S.-NATO’s motivation that — as CIA propaganda department has advised — should be relied upon to convince otherwise good-hearted people (especially women) to support (or at least tolerate) war and military occupation (now known to encompass the worst of war crimes, massacres of women and children, torture, cutting off body parts of those killed, as well as increasing mental illness, self-destructive behavior and suicides among U.S. soldiers and the corresponding cover-ups of all such horrible means).

In the decades after Vietnam, a number of military scholars identified declining American public support for that war as the main factor responsible for the U.S. “losing” Vietnam. One lesson learned and quickly implemented was to get rid of the military draft and put the wars on a credit card so fewer citizens would pay attention.

Some control also had to be gained over the type of free media (that led to trusted TV anchor Walter Cronkite broadcasting his public souring on the Vietnam War). A whole series of war propaganda systems, from planting retired generals as “talking heads” on TV to the assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld deciding to “embed the media,” have worked pretty well to maintain the necessary level of war momentum in mainstream media and amongst public opinion.

But now, with American polls approaching the same problematic levels as those in Europe cited by the “CIA Red Cell,” we suddenly see major human rights organizations like Amnesty International (as well as others) applauding Obama’s (and the feminist war-hawks’) “Atrocity Prevention Board.”

Such sleight of hand seems to work even better amongst political partisans. By the way, it should be noted that Congress may allow these Pentagon propagandists to target American citizens through the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013. Should we connect the dots?

There are some clear lines where the laudable need to further human rights should not be twisted into justifying harsh economic sanctions that kill hundreds of thousands of children or, even worse, “shock and awe” aerial bombing that takes the lives of the women and children the “humanitarian” propagandists say they want to help.

Madeleine Albright’s response about the deaths of a half million children on 60 Minutes, that “the price was worth it,” illustrates the quintessential falsity of what ethicists call “act utilitarianism” or concocting fictional happy outcomes to justify the terrible wrongful means.

It also seems that a human rights NGO, in this case Amnesty International, which had gained a solid reputation and hence the trust of those it has helped through the years, will be jeopardized in aligning itself with the U.S. Secretary of State and NATO.

This is exactly how the Nobel Peace Prize got corrupted, aligning itself with the U.S. Secretary of State and NATO, which is why Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire withdrew from the Nobel Peace forum held in Chicago during NATO.

Good NGOS and non-profits that want to maintain the trust in their humanitarian work tend to be very careful to maintain their independence from any government, let alone any war-making government. When NGOs, even good ones, become entwined with the U.S./NATO war machine, don’t they risk losing their independent credibility?

 

Amnesty and the NATO Cover-Up of War Crimes in Libya

20.03.2012

By Christof Lehmann – nsnbc

Yesterday, on 19 March 2012, Amnesty International was calling on NATO to “investigate the killing of dozens of civilians during it`s air campaign last year and to provide reparations to the people affected”. Amnesty further stated that “adequate investigations must be carried out and full reparation provided to the victims and their families“. NATO rebutted Amnesty International`s call for an investigation and compensation for the “dozens” of civilians, and in doing so, NATO has entered an elegant propaganda dance macabre. A propaganda dance macabre, designed to dominate and more importantly direct the public and political discourse away from the true dimensions and proportions of the war crimes that were committed under NATO command as well as command responsibility.

The “human rights organization” that is branding itself as “watchdog”  is obviously attempting to make even well intended humanitarian minded members of the worlds public belief, that NATO`s Operation Unified Protector, authorized by UNSC Resolution 1973 has resulted in 55 documented cases of named civilians, including 16 children and 14 women that were killed in air strikes in the capital Tripoli and the towns of Zliten, Majer, Sirte, and Brega. The amnesty narrative must make the heart of every NATO propaganda expert jump faster. Possibly, Amnesty is positioning itself for a Nobel Peace Price, where it would be in perfect company with Barak Hussein Obama, Henry Kissinger and other humanitarian avatars. After all, Amnesty International USA has Suzanne Nossel at the helm. A Hilary Clinton aide for International Organizations Affairs.

Reality Amnesty-Style is depended on the all important methodology. With the correct methodology it is possible to reduce a genocide to 55 documented cases – and viola  an amazed misinformed public donates to Amnesty`s pacers, pads them on their back asking them to “keep up the good work“.

For those who would like to leave the Orwellian Matrix one may remember the following.

The NATO led assault on Tripoli started with the firing of over 100 Cruise Missiles into the densely populated Tripoli alone. Now imagine 100 Cruise Missiles fired into the city of Paris, London, New York and the carnage they would unleash.Can anyone in his right mind imagine that 100 Cruise Missiles dropped on Paris would result in 55 death, including 16 children and 14 women ? Or was it more likely that there was something terribly flawed with Amnesty`s methodology. Having the habit of answering rhetorical questions I would say yes, something is terribly flawed about Amnesty`s methodology, and nobody will make me belief that a well financed, well staffed, international organization as Amnesty International is not aware of the fact. So why, Amnesty ? Why, Suzanne Nozzel ?

Right – it`s all about methodology. Those who are to intimidated to “report” the murder on their families to Al Qaeda mercenaries who roam the streets, raping, plundering and murdering don`t exist. And where you don`t look you can`t find anything. Statistic is a great tool – and Amnesty is apt at using it. The problem is, Amnesty has so good ties to the US Department of State and Main Stream Media that nobody who is asking all the right questions will get any air time or columns. Thus, tens of thousands disappear, and NATO can rejoice happily in it`s little public embarrassment about those 55 documented cases.

We may recall that the land assault on Tripoli – right, that one where Al Jazeera and other GCC and Western Media aired pictures of celebrating crowds on Tripoli`s Green Square, which later were proven to having been recorded in Doha, Qatar (1) – let`s recall that NATO`s bombing was strictly coordinated with the so called rebels, who committed atrocities from random arrests and summary executions to rape and systematic ethnic cleansing (2) – let`s recall that that assault was initiated from the sea side, from NATO vessels, and that NATO`s Apache Helicopter Gunships and Jets were strifing the streets with heavy machine gun fire and Hellfire Missiles to pave the way for the advancing heroes of the Libyan Revolution. First among those heroes, the NATO / MI6 Asset, known terrorist, and commander of the Al Qaeda associated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. (3) Yes – the one Belhadj who is now commanding 18.000 Al Qaeda / NATO mercenaries to liberate Syrians to death.

We may recall the fact that even the Colonial Lap Dog of the E.U., the African Union`s Fact Finding Mission and subsequently the Pan African Parliament complained not only about the AU`s failures, but about the wide spread massacres and killings of black African Libyans and migrant workers, and the fact that entire villages and towns were ethnically cleansed.(4) In Tawergha alone some 15.000 black Libyans are expected to having been massacred and the town that was previously populated by 20.000 people has literally ceased to exist.(5)

We may recall the NATO cluster bombs and Fuel Gas Explosion Bombs that NATO used against the citizens of Bani Walid.(6) Personally I personally recall a phone conversation with a Libyan medical doctor at the hospital in Sirte, reporting about hundreds of dead after just one NATO bombing raid and over 1000 dead within the last week.(7) NATO`s UN mandate according to UNSC resolution 1973 permitted one and only one military action, the enforcement of a so called “No Fly Zone” which was already sufficient to be a gross violation of the UN Charter and International Law. The enforcement of a no fly zone is always implemented by the bombing of a sovereign nations air force, radar and other military installations. NATO would not have had to have command responsibility for the murder of over 100.000 Libyans for having committed a gross violation of international law. Fact however is, that by deploying Special Forces who led the Libyan Al Qaeda Mercenaries under Belhadj, by importing foreign fighters from Mazar E-Sharif in Afghanistan (8), by coordinating NATO Special Forces operations with illegally deployed Qatari and Saudi troops who together with NATO attempted to bring some military raison into the headless assaults of the few Libyan fighters who actually fought at times other than for Al Jazeera appearances, NATO, and it`s political as well as military leadership took command responsibility upon them selves.  I could go on, but belief that I have made the point.

There is one word that is almost as terrifying for war criminals as the word “nationalize” is for globalist cartels. It is the word “command responsibility“, and according to international law, NATO and it`s political and military leadership has direct command responsibility for the murder of over 100.000 Libyans.

Who then, could be a better friend of NATO`s war criminals then, than a humanitarian “Watch Dog” who is telling the world about NATO`s horrendous crimes in 55 documented cases. 16 of them Children! 14 of them Women! How horrific, and someone should get a little slap over his little finger.

Methodology makes it possible.  You see, with the right methodology used, You don`t exist and if you don`t exist, you can be murdered with impunity.The root cause for the problem is systemic. There is in fact no organization that documents war crimes in a prosecutable manner, and especially civilians are, de facto, in a state of legal limbo. We the People can at best fool ourselves to having at least “some” sense of justice by arranging International War Crimes Tribunals with no other than Moral Authority. Now imagine a psychopathic murderer and tell him that you have just sentenced him for mass homicide, and that you morally condemn him. He`ll laugh you straight into your face, if you are lucky, murder you next if you are not so lucky, and that is exactly the effect of such war crimes tribunals. All respect for His Excellency Dr. Tun Mahatir Muhammad, but this is not the way to deal with war criminals. To make matters worse, even though Dr. Tun Mahatir Mohammad`s Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal was established with the best of intentions, such Tribunals are counter productive due to the fact that they give the public the impression that there exists at least “some” kind of Justice which in fact is utterly illusory.

There is one constant that is valid for all citizens, all over the world. It is that war criminals can murder, plunder and rape them, You, with absolute impunity unless “some” nation finds it “opportune” to take on their case; and, even if one is so luck to be instrumentalized in politicized tribunals non of them has any “right” to compensation of any kind, ever, unless the majority of the people world wide “demand” that laws and institutions are established that provide factual rights and factual protection. Such demands can only be enforced by an informed public that is aware of the fact that every single one of them can be murdered and raped with utter impunity. An informed public that organizes itself to the point of critical mass, making use of their best weapon – their money and their will to right and justice. Tribunals that give psychopathic murderers a slap over their little fingers in moral sentences are in fact almost as counter productive as highly politicized kangaroo courts and victors justice at the ICC . Some of the systemic problems are:

The International Criminal Court is a U.N. body. The United Nations was in the case of Libya a waring party due to the fact that it passed UNSC resolution 1973-2011 on Libya, authorizing NATO to act on it`s behalf. Any subsequent war crime investigation about any war crimes committed in Libya would make the ICC not impartial and impeachable. Some nations, like Spain, have implemented International Jurisdiction with respect to the most serious crimes recognized by mankind, including crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, the crime of genocide, ethnic cleansing and other. Now imagine a citizen of Bani Walid or Brega, whose family has been decimated by NATO Cluster Bombs, whose house and business was devastated and ruined gather sufficient resources to plead to the State Prosecutor of Spain to take on his case.

The naked and saddening fact is, that You, I, and every citizen of this world is in fact without actual protection against war crimes by any law, or by any legal body, unless some nation is willing to take on the case; and, even if one should be so lucky to find the “mercy” of the one nation, NGO, or the other, who doubtlessly have their own motivations to engage in your case other than the fact that a crime has been committed, it is highly questionable that we will witness not politically biased kangaroo courts.  The Milosevic trial being but one prime example.

For the sake of humanity it would be high time to consider how to remedy the fact that all those who fall through the mesh of Amnesia International Style war crimes investigations can be murdered with impunity.

At closing, I wonder if Amnesty ever investigated how many Libyans were murdered alone during the one cluster bomb attack on the citizens of Brega shown on the video below. You tube continued deleting and removing it. Amnesia International has most likely forgotten that it ever existed. Methodology makes it possible.

NATO deploys Cluster Bombs over Densely Populated area of Brega / Libya

Christof Lehmann

20.03.2012 – nsnbc

1) Arabian Summer or NATO`s Fall. Christof Lehmann (2011) nsnbc. http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/arabian-summer-or-nato%C2%B4s-fall/

2) The awful Truth of Libya. Christof Lehmann (2011) nsnbc. http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/the-awfull-truth-of-libya/

3) Abdelhakim Belhadj, The Mask Behind the Many Men. Christof Lehmann (2011) nsnbc. http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/abdelhakim-belhadj-the-mask-behind-the-many-men/

4) PAP blasts AU over Libya, covering it`s own Failures. Christof Lehmann (2011) nsnbc. http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/pap-blasts-au-over-libya-covering-it%C2%B4s-own-failures/

5) Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide, and the Tawergha. Human Rights Investigations (2011) http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/ethnic-cleansing-genocide-and-the-tawergha/

6) International Military Support for Libya results in TNC withdrawals. Christof Lehmann (2011) nsnbc. http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/international-military-support-for-libya-results-in-tnc-withdrawals/ NB.: The link to the video documenting cluster bombs has since been removed from YouTube. The video is shown above as part of the present article.

7) New Attack on Sirte at Closing of NATO Summit. Christof Lehmann (2011) nsnbc. http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/new-attack-on-sirte-at-closing-of-nato-summit/

8) CIA recruits 1500 from Mazar-eSharif to fight in Libya. The Nation (2011) http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/31-Aug-2011/CIA-recruits-1500-from-MazareSharif-to-fight-in-Libya

Uganda: A Brilliant Genocide

Counterpunch

September 16, 2016

by Ann Garrison