The Hijacking of Human Rights By Chris Hedges

April 08, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - The appointment of Suzanne Nossel, a former State Department official and longtime government apparatchik, as executive director of PEN American Center is part of a campaign to turn U.S. human rights organizations into propagandists for pre-emptive war and apologists for empire.

Nossel’s appointment led me to resign from PEN as well as withdraw from speaking at the PEN World Voices Festival in May. But Nossel is only symptomatic of the widespread hijacking of human rights organizations to demonize those—especially Muslims—branded by the state as the enemy, in order to cloak pre-emptive war and empire with a fictional virtue and to effectively divert attention from our own mounting human rights abuses, including torture, warrantless wiretapping and monitoring, the denial of due process and extrajudicial assassinations.

Nossel, who was deputy assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs under Hillary Clinton in a State Department that was little more than a subsidiary of the Pentagon, is part of the new wave of “humanitarian interventionists,” such as Samantha Power, Michael Ignatieff and Susan Rice, who naively see in the U.S. military a vehicle to create a better world. They know little of the reality of war or the actual inner workings of empire. They harbor a childish belief in the innate goodness and ultimate beneficence of American power. The deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents, the horrendous suffering and violent terror inflicted in the name of their utopian goals in Iraq and Afghanistan, barely register on their moral calculus. This makes them at once oblivious and dangerous. “Innocence is a kind of insanity,” Graham Greene wrote in his novel “The Quiet American,” and those who destroy to build are “impregnably armored by … good intentions and … ignorance.”

There are no good wars. There are no just wars. As Erasmus wrote, “there is nothing more wicked, more disastrous, more widely destructive, more deeply tenacious, more loathsome” than war. “Whoever heard of a hundred thousand animals rushing together to butcher each other, as men do everywhere?” Erasmus asked. But war, he knew, was very useful to the power elite. War permitted the powerful, in the name of national security and by fostering a culture of fear, to effortlessly strip the citizen of his or her rights. A declaration of war ensures that “all the affairs of the State are at the mercy of the appetites of a few,” Erasmus wrote.

Nossel, they noted, “sees no conflict between her current role and having been a member of the executive staff whilst her President and Secretary of State bosses were carrying out war crimes such as drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan and shielding torturers and their enablers in the Bush administration from prosecution.”

There are cases, and Bosnia in the 1990s was one, when force should be employed to halt an active campaign of genocide. This is the lesson of the Holocaust: When you have the capacity to stop genocide and you do not, you are culpable. For this reason, we are culpable in the genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda. But the “humanitarian interventionists” have twisted this moral imperative to intercede against genocide to justify the calls for pre-emptive war and imperial expansion. Saddam Hussein did carry out campaigns of genocide against the Kurds and the Shiites, but the dirty fact is that while these campaigns were under way we provided support to Baghdad or looked the other way. It was only when Washington wanted war, and the bodies of tens of thousands of Kurds and Shiites had long decomposed in mass graves, that we suddenly began to speak in the exalted language of human rights.

These “humanitarian interventionists” studiously ignore our own acts of genocide, first unleashed against Native Americans and then exported to the Philippines and, later, nations such as Vietnam. They do not acknowledge, even in light of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, our own capacity for evil. They do not discuss in their books and articles the genocides we backed in Guatemala and East Timor or the crime of pre-emptive war. They minimize the horror and suffering we have delivered to Iraqis and Afghans and exaggerate or fabricate the benefits. The long string of atrocities carried out in our name mocks the idea of the United States as a force for good with a right to impose its values on others. The ugly truth shatters their deification of U.S. power.

Nossel, in the contentious year she headed Amnesty International USA before leaving in January, oversaw a public campaign by the organization to support NATO’s war in Afghanistan. She was running Amnesty International USA when the organization posted billboards at bus stops that read, “Human Rights for Women and Girls in Afghanistan—NATO: Keep the Progress Going.” Madeleine Albright, along with senior State Department officials and politicians, were invited to speak at Amnesty International’s women’s forum during Nossel’s tenure. Nossel has urged Democrats to stay the course in Iraq, warning that a failure in Iraq could unleash “a kind of post-Vietnam, post-Mogadishu hangover” that would lamentably “herald an era of deep reservations among the U.S. public regarding the use of force.” She worked as a State Department official to discredit the Goldstone Report, which charged Israel with war crimes against the Palestinians. As a representative on the U.N. Human Rights Council she said that “the top of our list is our defense of Israel, and Israel’s right to fair treatment at the Human Rights Council.” Not a word about the Palestinians. She has advocated for expanded armed intervention in countries such as Syria and Libya. She has called for a military strike against Iran if it does not halt its nuclear enrichment program. In an article in The Washington Quarterly titled “Battle Hymn of the Democrats,” she wrote: “Democrats must be seen to be every bit as tough-minded as their opponents. Democratic reinvention as a ‘peace party’ is a political dead end.” “In a milieu of war or near-war, the public will look for leadership that is bold and strident—more forceful, resolute, and pugnacious than would otherwise be tolerated,” she went on. In a 2004 Foreign Affairs article, “Smart Power: Reclaiming Liberal Internationalism,” she wrote: “We need to deploy our power in ways that make us stronger, not weaker,” not a stunning thought but one that should be an anathema to human rights campaigners. She added, “U.S. interests are furthered by enlisting others on behalf of U.S. goals,” which, of course, is what she promptly did at Amnesty International. Her “smart power” theory calls on the U.S. to exert its will around the globe by employing a variety of means and tactics, using the United Nations and human rights groups, for example, to promote the nation’s agenda as well as the more naked and raw coercion of military force. This is not a new or original idea, but when held up to George W. Bush’s idiocy I guess it looked thoughtful. The plight of our own dissidents—including Bradley Manning—is of no concern to Nossel and apparently of no concern now to PEN.

Coleen Rowley and Ann Wright first brought Nossel’s past and hawkish ideology to light when she became the executive director of Amnesty International USA a year ago. Rowley and Wright have written correctly that “humanitarian interventionists,” in or out of government, see no distinction between human rights work and the furtherance of U.S. imperial power. Nossel, they noted, “sees no conflict between her current role and having been a member of the executive staff whilst her President and Secretary of State bosses were carrying out war crimes such as drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan and shielding torturers and their enablers in the Bush administration from prosecution.” (For more on this see Rowley’s article “Selling War as ‘Smart Power.’ ”) More

 

Salafist Movements Threaten World Cultural Heritage By: Hedieh Mirahmadi

The face of radical Islamism has rocked headlines in recent months, demonstrating to the world the threat it poses to Islam’s own cultural heritage.

Many were shocked when spiritual leader Said Efandi al-Chirkawi was killed in a suicide bombing in the tiny Russian Republic of Dagestan by a woman pretending to be one of his students. Nearly 100,000 mourners attended the funeral of the revered cleric, who had been working to bring peace between warring Islamic factions. This was the second such spiritual leader in this remote region to have been killed by radical Islamists in the past year alone.

Elsewhere, in Libya, Mali, Pakistan and Egypt, attacks are also on the rise. Militants around the world are leading a two-pronged assault by targeting outspoken Muslim leaders who denounce violence and by destroying ancient shrines and cultural sites that are respected by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In recent years, the Taliban’s systematic assassination of moderate Afghan clerics, and their destruction of the sixth-century Buddha statues in 2001, are classic examples of how radical Islamists use terror tactics to solidify their power. This blatant disregard for diverse faith and cultural traditions has grave implications for global security.

When pluralistic social norms are eliminated, it paves the way for hardline forces to rise. Nowhere is this trend more apparent than across Africa, where militants are fueling sectarian and community conflict. Earlier this year in Mali, Islamists of the Ansar Dine organization initiated a campaign to systematically obliterate cultural sites in Timbuktu, including 16 mausoleums of ancient Muslim saints. Many of those cultural sites had recently been put on a list of endangered World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. In late August 2012, armed Salafis in Libya attacked the tomb of Abdel Salam al-Asmar, a 15th-century Muslim scholar who was highly regarded by locals. Nearby in the city, militants also set fire to a historic library, burning centuries of rare academic and religious resources to the ground.

These crimes of intolerance extend to non-Muslim monuments, traditions and places of burial. In March 2012, the Somali terrorist organization al Shabaab desecrated a Christian cross and grave in a cemetery. That same month, former Libyan rebels in Benghazi smashed the headstones and crucifixes of more than 150 British servicemen killed in North Africa. As these broad campaigns continue, local villagers, community activists and everyday citizens watch in horror, thinking of what this destruction means for the future of their respective nations. Most tragically, they feel powerless to stop it.

Unfortunately, the preservation of history and culture is of little value to Salafis, who use violence to implement their own power structures based on extreme interpretations of Islamic law. In an ongoing effort to Islamicize their countries, they cause severe fissures in the countries' social fabric. The most striking example of this is the rise of the Taliban in Pakistan’s northwest frontier area.

When the Taliban swept into the area, traditional Muslim communities faced unprecedented persecution. During their reign of terror, the Taliban razed hundreds of schools in an effort to curb “westernization” and launched attacks on dozens of mosques and mausoleums. In numerous cases the bodies of revered saints and religious figures were disinterred and publically desecrated. While some communities banded together to form peace committees, others joined local militias in an effort to protect their communities from the extremist onslaught. To date, the conflict has killed hundreds of Pakistanis and displaced millions of people, and the Pakistani military has spent billions of US tax dollars to contain the Taliban threat. Still, the region is considered a stronghold of terrorist groups.

Civil-society activists lament that they suffer from a severe lack of funding and resources to organize a nonviolent counter movement. The US government and the international community have a vested interest in protecting and supporting moderate voices as well as the world’s cultural and historical legacies. Whether helping communities develop a neighborhood watch, teaching them how to respond to threats with nonviolent social-mobilization techniques or engaging communities in media and other social campaigns to raise awareness, the strategy of bolstering these groups should be a vital part of a robust program to counter violent extremism. At the same time, it is essential to apply diplomatic pressure on local government and law-enforcement officials who are often accused by their citizens of a lackluster response to the destruction. More

 

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) honored By US Supreme Court In 1935

“Fact: The US Supreme court honored Prophet Muhammad (Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him) as one of the greatest impact on law in the world in 1935.




Equality before the law;

Innocent until proven guilty;

The right to counsel;

This is why in 1935, the United States Supreme Court honored Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) as one of the 18 greatest lawgivers in human history in 1935.

Islam is also recognized in one of our greatest buildings (the Library of Congress) as being one of the 11 or 12 most influential and important contributors to civilization!”

More

 

The Rohingya: Myanmar's outcasts

 This article is the first in a series by Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, a former Pakistani high commissioner to the UK, exploring how a litany of volatile centre/periphery conflicts with deep historical roots were interpreted after 9/11 in the new global paradigm of anti-terrorism - with profound and often violent consequences. Incorporating in-depth case studies from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, Ambassador Ahmed will ultimately argue that the inability for Muslim and non-Muslim states alike to either incorporate minority groups into a liberal and tolerant society or resolve the "centre vs periphery" conflict is emblematic of a systemic failure of the modern state - a breakdown which, more often than not, leads to widespread violence and destruction. The violence generated from these conflicts will become the focus, in the remainder of the 21st century, of all those dealing with issues of national integration, law and order, human rights and justice. 

 

Washington, DC - The image of a smiling Daw Aung San Suu Kyi receiving flowers from her supporters is a powerful message of freedom and optimism in Myanmar, the symbol of democracy in a country which has known nothing but authoritarian oppression for decades.

Yet few ask one of the most pressing questions facing Daw Suu Kyi. How will she deal with the Rohingya?

"The Rohingya," you will ask. "Who are they?"  

The Rohingya, whom the BBC calls "one of the world's most persecuted minority groups", are the little-publicised and largely forgotten Muslim people of the coastal Rakhine state of western Myanmar. Their historic lineage in Rakhine dates back centuries, as fishermen and farmers. Over the past three decades, the Rohingya have been systematically driven out of their homeland by Myanmar's military junta and subjected to widespread violence and the total negation of their rights and citizenship within Myanmar. They are a stateless Muslim minority.

The continued tragedy of the unrecognised Rohingya, both in Myanmar and as refugees abroad, casts a dark shadow over the bright hopes and prospects for democracy in a country plagued by violence and civil war. Suu Kyi is ideally placed to extend democratic reforms to all ethnic peoples, including the Rohingya, in a free Myanmar. More