{"id":73117,"date":"2016-05-09T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T11:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=73117"},"modified":"2016-05-08T12:32:23","modified_gmt":"2016-05-08T11:32:23","slug":"smart-power-the-human-rights-industrial-complex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/05\/smart-power-the-human-rights-industrial-complex\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart Power & the Human Rights Industrial Complex"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Photo Illustration by Shawn Helton)<\/p><\/div>\n

19 Apr 2016 – Human rights in the West: does the reality live up to the rhetoric? On the surface, the cultural narrative seems innocent enough: billionaire philanthropists, political luminaries and transnational corporations, along with legions of staff and volunteers \u2013 all working together in the name of social justice, forging a better, fairer and more accountable world.<\/em><\/p>\n

The story reads well on paper, and well it should. After all, the 20th century saw a string of apparent failures by various governments to curb and halt some of the most horrific exhibitions of genocide and crimes against humanity. As a result, the door has been opened for many high-profile charities and human rights organizations to play a bigger role in moderating international affairs.<\/p>\n

Upon more rigorous inspection, however, a number of uncomfortable realities emerge regarding the 21st century international human rights concern. Though many human rights charities still market themselves as \u2018neutral\u2019 and \u2018nonpartisan\u2019, the reality is something very different. Below, we will detail a number of high-profile cases where these organisations are being used as public relations organs to further western foreign policy objectives. With public skepticism of the charity sector already at an all-time high, the danger is clear: if conflicts of interest are not addressed in a serious way, they threaten to undermine the credibility of the entire non-governmental organization (NGO) sector internationally.<\/p>\n

One difficult aspect in analyzing this battle of \u2018perception management\u2019 is that there\u2019s a real risk of wrongly demonising the entire NGO sector. The reality is that most human rights and aid organizations are staffed and run by good, hard-working and extremely well-educated individuals, many of whom carry out their roles with an altruistic heart and with the best of intentions. For the most part, many remain unaware or uninterested in who actually funds their organisations and what those financial strings mean in terms of the what a given organisation\u2019s stance will be on any range of geopolitical issues or military conflicts. It\u2019s certainly true that over the years, sincere and dedicated campaigning by organisations has helped to free individuals who were unjustly imprisoned and achieved due process and justice for the dispossessed. It\u2019s also true that many of these same organizations have helped to raise awareness on many important social and environmental issues.<\/p>\n

Due to increased funding from corporate interests and direct links to government and defense policy think tanks in recent years, these organisations have become even more politicised, and more closely connected with western \u2018agents of influence.\u2019 As a result, an argument can be made that, on many levels, these \u2018human rights\u2019 organizations may be contributing to the very problem they profess to be working to abate: causing more suffering, death and instability worldwide through their co-marketing of the foreign policy objectives of Washington, London, Paris and Brussels.<\/p>\n

The problem is both systemic and institutional in nature. As a result, many of the western world\u2019s leading human rights organizations based in North America and Europe have become mirror reflections of a western foreign policy agenda and have become virtual clearing houses for interventionist propaganda.<\/p>\n

Writer Stephanie McMillan describes the new role of the non governmental organizations in the 21st century:<\/p>\n

\u201cAlong with military invasions and missionaries, NGOs help crack countries open like ripe nuts, paving the way for intensifying waves of exploitation and extraction.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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In 1999, the manufacturing of consensus for NATO\u2019s war against Yugoslavia was a multilateral effort (Image: Tass News)<\/p><\/div>\n


\n<\/a>Outsourcing\u00a0\u2018Consensus Building\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shaping western public perception and opinion on major international issues is essential if major world powers are to realise their foreign policy goals. Not surprisingly, we can see that many of the public positions taken by NGOs are exactly aligned with western foreign policy. In the Balkans\u00a0War<\/em> of the 1990\u2019s, human rights groups supported partitioning. In the Ukraine in 2014 and with both Syria and Yemen in 2016 they supported regime change. In each instance NGOs function as public relations extension to a United Nations western member Security Council bloc, namely the US, UK and France. This collusion is manifest throughout the upper echelons of these organizations whose streamlined agenda conforms through a lucrative revolving door which exists between a cartel of western NGOs, government and media.<\/p>\n

As western governments find themselves more heavily involved in long-term conflicts around the globe, the need to outsource their ethics and morals to NGOs becomes more apparent. Continuity between these symbiotic entities is essential if governments are to successfully frame the geopolitical narratives on which international human rights organizations so often derive their own public relations and fundraising campaigns. Together, all of these things converge to form a highly efficient, functioning alliance which could be described as a type of \u00a0\u2018government-media-human rights\u2019 industrial complex.<\/p>\n

Nowhere is this complex more evident than with the United States-led foreign policy towards Syria. By framing the Syrian Conflict (2011 to present) as a \u201ccivil war\u201d, both western media and human rights organizations did their part in propping-up an important western foreign policy narrative. Inaccurate and distorted, this narrative has helped shield the US-led clandestine proxy war which has been allowed to carry on almost unimpeded below the surface narrative of western public perception. For mainstream US audiences, if truly known, the reality of Syria might be too much to bear \u2013 a US-backed guerrilla war where Washington and Ankara, along with NATO and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) allies, flooding Turkey and Syria with weapons, cash, equipment, social media teams, military trainers and foreign fighters from as a far away as Pakistan. When analyzed from this wider perspective, very little is \u2018civil\u2019 about the Syrian Conflict.<\/p>\n

The Human Rights Industry<\/strong><\/p>\n

What was once a 20th century adjunct to an emerging international progressive movement has since mushroomed into a 21st century multi-billion dollar, internationalised \u2018third sector\u2019 concern \u2013 underwritten by some of the world\u2019s leading transnational corporations. This impressive labyrinth is led by organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and the Worldwide Human Rights Movement (FIDH). Each of these organisations has well-developed links leading directly into central governments, and perhaps more surprisingly, links leading straight into the heart of the military industrial complex. Safely cloaked under the official guise of \u2018charity organisation\u2019, many of these entities push a political agenda and\u00a0effectively serve as public relations outlets<\/a>\u00a0for US and NATO forward military planning.<\/p>\n

Working behind the public-facing human rights industrial complex is another key component which helps set the geopolitical agenda. Leading western governmental efforts are the White House and the US State Department. Behind the political facade, however, is where the real work takes place; a myriad of think tanks which serve as an unofficial academic-like support structure for managing policy planning,\u00a0rolling out grand strategies and other big ideas<\/a>. Some recognisable names in this industry are the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Brookings Institute, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and Foreign Policy Initiative (the heir apparent to PNAC<\/a>). These think tanks and foundations are also referred to as \u2018policy mills\u2019 because of their ability to churn-out volumes of policy \u2018white papers\u2019, surveys and strategic studies which are then disseminated through various industry journals and at functions, conferences and events in Washington DC and New York City. Certain think tanks,\u00a0like the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf<\/a>, were set-up in the 1990\u2019s to push through specific foreign policy objectives \u2013 like kick-starting the war in Iraq. Where you find a war, you most certainly will find a think tank advocating behind it.<\/p>\n

Follow the Money<\/strong><\/p>\n

To find the common thread between think tanks, foundations and human rights charities, one needs only to follow the money.<\/p>\n

Many of these entities receive large portions of their funding from the same sources \u2013 transnational corporations. One large contributor of annual funding for human rights organisations, including HRW, is the controversial Wall Street billionaire George Soros,\u00a0through his NGO the Open Society Institute<\/a>. Other human rights organisations like FIDH which draw together some 178 organizations from 120 countries, receive funding from the US State Department by way of the\u00a0National Endowment for Democracy<\/a>\u00a0(NED). Here we have a direct financial link which forms a ring connecting western governments, NGOs and charities.<\/p>\n

One can argue, and successfully, that this nexus ensures that the output, ideas and marketing messages of each leg of a human rights campaign conforms to western foreign policy language and objectives.<\/p>\n

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Smart Power: Formerly of the US State Dept., now an NGO luminary, Suzanne Nossel (Image Source: Pen.org)<\/p><\/div>\n

Washington\u2019s HR Revolving Door<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s no secret that a revolving door exists between the US State Department and many of the western world\u2019s leading human rights organisations. That relationship can be gleaned from\u00a0this CFR policy paper<\/a>\u00a0which states:<\/p>\n

\u201cTo 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 \u2026 Washington, the theory goes, should thus offer assertive leadership \u2013 diplomatic, economic, and not least, military \u2013 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).\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

That passage, taken in the context of the Syrian conflict, reveals a stark picture of how Washington really works. It was written by Suzanne Nossel, one of Washington\u2019s most high-profile humanitarian advocates who managed to transition seamlessly from her position as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organisations at the US State Department \u2013 directly into an executive director position at Amnesty International USA in 2012. Prior to the State Dept., Nossel also served as chief operating officer for Human Rights Watch, vice president of strategy and operations at the Wall Street Journal and a media and communications consultant to CFR founding corporate member, law firm McKinsey & Company.<\/p>\n

Here we see a powerful public relations resum\u00e9, combined with established links to Washington\u2019s foreign policy core, and at a time when multiple Middle Eastern nation states, like Libya and Syria, were being forced into submission under the yoke of US-led international pressure. Projecting Washington\u2019s preferred narrative is paramount in this multilateral effort and Nossel would be a key bridge in helping to project US foreign policy messaging internationally through top tier NGO Amnesty.<\/p>\n

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IMAGE: 2012 Amnesty International USA PR campaign.<\/p><\/div>\n


\n<\/a>Around this time, Amnesty USA launched a new PR campaign aimed at millennials and selling the following geopolitical narrative: \u201cNO MORE EXCUSES: Russia has vetoed two UN Security Council resolutions while continually supplying arms, causing the violence to worsen.\u201d<\/p>\n

This digital and print campaign was also backed by rallies and other live events used to promote their anti-Russia and Anti-Syria PR effort. At one event in 2012, young school children in Nepal could be seen\u00a0holding up signs<\/a>\u00a0that read, \u201cRussia: Stop Arms Transfer to Syria!\u201d.<\/p>\n

When you consider its mirror reflection of foreign policy lines emanating from the US State Dept., it\u2019s easy to see how this catchy slogan had little if anything to do with human rights, but could easily be viewed as trying to isolate both the Russian and Syrian governments geopolitically.<\/p>\n

In truth, Amnesty\u2019s narrative was a complete inversion: while attempting to lay the blame on Russia as being responsible for the escalation and sustained violence in Syria, the country was being over-run by tens of thousands of foreign terrorist militants, illegally trafficked weapons, along with CIA and other foreign assets,\u00a0as part of the wider US-led Coalition<\/a>\u00a0presently waging a proxy war in Syria.<\/p>\n

Soft Power vs Smart Power<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite its foreign policy aspirations, the West still needs public opinion backing for any military action. While the public are none the wiser, blinded by the fog of mass media coverage and bombarded with faux moral imperatives and \u2018ticking bomb\u2019 style scenarios demanding that, \u201cwe must act now to save innocent lives\u201d \u2013 soft power agents have provided the crucial communication bridge for most interventions.<\/p>\n

Both media and NGOs fall under the classification of \u2018soft power\u2019, and it is this soft power complex which provides the soft cushion upon which soft-sounding foreign policies like \u201chumanitarian intervention\u201d and the\u00a0Responsibility to Protect<\/a>\u00a0(R2P) can comfortably rest on in western discourse. In reality, these foreign policies are anything but soft, and in the absence of declaring war between nation states \u2013 these policies now serve as the tip of an imperialist spear. If you surveyed any of the millions of Middle Eastern residents on the receiving end of the west\u2019s recent humanitarian interventions they will tell you it was anything but soft \u2013 especially for the people living in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Yugoslavia and Iraq.<\/p>\n

Inside Washington\u2019s inner sanctum, \u2018soft power\u2019 has given way to Smart Power. Indeed, it was Susan Nossel\u00a0who coined the term \u201cSmart Power\u201d<\/a>\u00a0while\u00a0working alongside<\/a>\u00a0US humanitarian hawks like Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power and Susan Rice, and also with Washington\u2019s lesser known\u00a0Atrocity Prevention Board<\/a>, all of whom worked to successfully implement this new range of intervention marketing concepts including humanitarian intervention and R2P.<\/p>\n

In this age of professionally staged colour revolutions and \u2018Arab Springs\u2019, and wars fought by proxies and front organizations \u2013 vaunted human rights organisations should really acknowledge that there are nation-states and central governments who are not long for this world, and who are literally fighting for their survival. Governments who find themselves under the western hammer cannot always afford the luxury of settling internal disputes nicely, or putting down armed rebel factions and terrorists with all affordable due process. If these rebels or terrorists are western-backed, or GCC-backed, then this condition becomes more acute.<\/p>\n

Certainly, the United States and its NATO allies, or Israel for that matter, do not afford such civility for any of its victims of collateral damage\u2019 or during a protracted \u2018humanitarian intervention\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018Agents of Change\u2019 & Emotive Appeals<\/strong><\/p>\n

By now, it\u2019s also\u00a0a well-documented fact<\/a>\u00a0that America\u2019s CIA and Pentagon intelligence departments have used an array of charities, aid organisations, and even\u00a0religious missionary organisations<\/a>\u00a0as fronts for conducting espionage overseas, and with the prime directive to further foreign policy objectives.<\/p>\n

In recent years, however, under the banner of \u2018human rights\u2019, the US has developed some new and innovative methods of intelligence gathering and achieving an increased military footprint in new countries.<\/p>\n

To reach these objectives, western governments enlist \u2018change agents\u2019.<\/p>\n

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IMAGE: The Kony 2012 marketing campaign was organized by a human right front organization, Invisible Children, using US schoolchildren to help lobby for a US military deployment in Uganda, Africa.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

No story serves as a better example of how a human rights organisation can be applied as a sharp tool of foreign policy than\u00a0Kony 2012<\/a>, described by the Atlantic Magazine as a viral video campaign which \u201creinforces a dangerous, centuries-old idea that Africans are helpless and that idealistic Westerners must save them.\u201d<\/p>\n

As viral social media campaigns go, Kony 2012 set a new standard for speed and efficiency in penetrating the western youth market. This effort was not with out help from mainstream corporate media in the US, and also from the US government in Washington DC.<\/p>\n

Here, soft power was applied in order to manufacture public consent through an emotive public appeal which was eventually exposed as a gross distortion of reality. In this case, the antagonist was the illusive warlord Joseph Kony, leader of the Lords Resistance Army. According to their campaign, if the president could send a military force to \u201cfind Kony\u201d, then many children would be saved in the process. The only problem was that no one had actually seen Kony\u00a0in over 6 years<\/a>, with rumors abound that Kony may even have died years earlier. This did not deter the campaign though, as organisers pressed ahead, raising millions along the way. The human rights charity which fronted the project, Invisible Children, actually targeted their viral campaign and fundraising drive at under aged American school children, and even drafted primary school students to raise money on the charity\u2019s behalf. In the end, the project collapsed, but the ultimate objective was achieved: culminating with a successful public relations event and photo opportunity at the White House, and under cover of the Kony 2012 media campaign \u2013 President Barack Obama publicly deployed\u00a0US military assets to Uganda<\/a>\u00a0under an expansion of\u00a0US AFRICOM operations in Africa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trapped inside their own ideological controlled environment where every decision is a virtual fait accompli, western media and government officials will routinely refer to the human rights industry in order to provide a necessary moral back-stop for any foreign policy objective. This same practice is also repeated by the United Nations too, which often cites the very same statistics and reports used by Washington to back-up its foreign policy moves.<\/p>\n

Independent human rights activist Rick Sterling\u00a0explains this all too familiar cycle<\/a>\u00a0in today\u2019s international affairs:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a pattern of sensational but untrue reports that lead to public acceptance of US and Western military intervention in countries around the world: In Gulf War 1, there were reports of Iraqi troops stealing incubators from Kuwait, leaving babies to die on the cold floor. Relying on the testimony of a Red Crescent doctor, Amnesty International \u2018verified\u2019 the false claims. Ten years later, there were reports of \u2018yellow cake uranium\u2019 going to Iraq for development of weapons of mass destruction. One decade later, there were reports of Libyan soldiers \u2018drugged on Viagra and raping women as they advanced.\u2019 In 2012, NBC broadcaster Richard Engel was supposedly kidnapped by \u2018pro-Assad Syrian militia\u2019 but luckily freed by Syrian opposition fighters, the \u201cFree Syrian Army\u201d. All these reports were later confirmed to be fabrications and lies. They all had the goal of manipulating public opinion and they all succeeded in one way or another. Despite the consequences, which were often disastrous, none of the perpetrators were punished or paid any price.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Strange Bedfellows: NATO, Amnesty and HRW<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s no coincidence that nearly every foreign policy front the US State Department has prioritised is mirrored by Amnesty International USA. The US State Department together with the Pentagon, will also utilise social justice issues in order to advance a foreign policy objective. The most potent of these has to be gender identity politics, seen through the western lens as \u201cwoman\u2019s rights\u201d. By projecting this issue on to a non-favoured\u2019 nation, western war planners can quickly construct an important leg in foreign policy messaging.<\/p>\n

In 2012, Amnesty International USA ran a national billboard campaign with images depicting Afghan women and girls, accompanied by the slogan: \u201cNATO: Keep the Progress Going.\u201d Not surprisingly, at this same moment, western media were referring to NATO\u2019s military operation in Afghanistan as \u201cthe first feminist war<\/a>.\u201d In its totality, this is one example of a near perfect streamlined marketing campaign which tied together all branches of the interventionist network \u2013 the US State Department, the Pentagon, the mainstream media and Amnesty International. This cynical attempt to manipulate public opinion by Amnesty International, on behalf of the Pentagon and Brussels, could be traced back to one Amnesty patron, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who in the 1990\u2019s,\u00a0famously remarked<\/a>, \u201cWe think the price is worth it,\u201d referring to the death of a half million Iraqi children as a result of crippling US economic sanctions.<\/p>\n

In early 2015, Ken Roth, Director of Human Rights Watch,\u00a0tweeted out an aerial image<\/a>\u00a0purporting to be from Kobane, Syria, showing a neighborhood reduced to rubble which he described as, \u201ca drone\u2019s eye tour of what Assad\u2019s barrel bombs have done to Aleppo.\u201d It turned out that Roth\u2019s tweet was a forgery. The image he used was actually taken from Gaza the previous summer, showing the destruction of Palestinian neighborhoods at the hands of Israel\u2019s IDF. This was another example of slipshod propaganda disseminated by a high profile human rights organization \u2013 expressly designed to demonise a foreign government that Washington nation builders are seeking to overthrow. It\u2019s no surprise then that HRW would also appoint CIA operative Miguel Diaz\u00a0to serve on its advisory board<\/a>, or that Javier Solana, former Secretary General of NATO and architect of the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia (a war which HRW itself condemned in 2000) also serves on HRW\u2019s board of directors.<\/p>\n

Beyond the slick marketing and celebrity endorsements, in all actuality HRW is nothing more than a Cold War era propaganda relic which has been retrofitted to serve a 21st century Atlanticist geopolitical agenda.\u00a0According to Washington DC-based transparency advocate Keane Bhatt<\/a>, \u201cHRW was originally called Helsinki Watch. It was created in 1978 during the Cold War to scrutinize and criticize the crimes that were being committed by the USSR and its allies. That Cold War ideology has long played a role in the kinds of priorities and advocacy that HRW engages in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Syria\u2019s NGO Kaleidoscope<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the most egregious examples of a NGO being used to reinforce a US-led geopolitical narrative is the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), created in 2006. Beyond the grandiose name, this \u2018organisation\u2019 is basically a one-man show which until recently, was run out of a one bedroom apartment in Coventry, England. SOHR is run by a Syrian dissident named Osama Ali Suleiman, commonly known in the media as \u201cRahmi Abdul Rahman\u201d. The SOHR has played the key role in developing the all-important \u201cfacts on the ground\u201d story for the Washington-London-Paris Axis seeking to topple the government in Damascus through its stoic policy of \u2018regime change\u2019 in Syria. When it comes to \u2018official\u2019 death toll numbers out of Syria, almost every mainstream report in the US and Europe has cited the SOHR as its data source with hardly a passing thought as to either the accuracy or the credibility of its numbers, and under which category death tolls are counted.<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that the SOHR is closely affiliated with the US and UK-backed Syrian opposition, its data sets will often include casualty figures of \u2018rebel forces\u2019 (which will often include known foreign terrorist fighters)\u00a0within its civilian casualty figures<\/a>. These dubious figures are also used by a number of UN agencies, as well as leading human right organisations. Similarly, US, UK and European officials will frequently attribute a figure of 250,000 \u2018Syrian deaths\u2019 to civilians killed by \u201cthe regime\u201d embodied by President Bashar al Assad. One week, a western official will quote a number of 150,000, and the next week it will be 350,000. As a result, most mainstream reports of Syria\u2019s casualty figures are rife with bias and methodological inconsistencies, and as a result no one really seems to know the real figure. The larger the number, the more passionate the plea for western military intervention. Even the Council of the Foreign Relations is on record stating that the numbers being cited by the likes of John McCain simply don\u2019t add up. Micah Zenko and Amelia M. Wolf of the CFR\u00a0admitted in 2014 that<\/a>, \u201cmost of the reported deaths in Syria have not been committed by forces under Bashar al-Assad\u2019s command.\u201d Meanwhile, western media, politicians and human rights organisations routinely ignore the fact that over 100,000 deaths since 2011 have been Syrian Army and Security personnel killed by foreign-backed militants and terrorists.\u00a0Zenko later added that<\/a>, \u201cthe types of interventions that proponents have endorsed for Syria \u2026 have almost nothing to do with how Syrian non-combatants are actually being killed.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Syrian Conflict is a messy and tragic affair, with brutality and violence affecting every side of the fighting, readers should note exactly how this subtle, yet relentless western campaign of disinformation feeds neatly into the western policy of regime change embodied in the rhetorical demand that \u201cAssad must go.\u201d John Glaser from Antiwar.com<\/em> adds here:<\/p>\n

\u201cA common policy proposal to mitigate the mass suffering in Syria is for the U.S. to help the rebels and undermine the Assad regime, a scheme that just becomes ludicrous after looking at the data.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It should also be noted that the SOHR receives its funding directly from the EU, and also enjoys substantial support from the British Foreign Office \u2013 both of whom are actively seeking to overthrow the government in Syria through guerrilla proxies. At the very least this could be described as a conflict of interest. The SOHR is hardly \u2018non partisan\u2019 and more likely to be used as a tool to manufacture consensus for humanitarian intervention in Syria.<\/p>\n

Interventionist Digital Marketing<\/strong><\/p>\n

They say that \u2018the road to tyranny is paved with good intentions\u2019. That old adage couldn\u2019t be more true today, despite all of our seemingly wonderful internet tools and \u2018activist\u2019 platforms online.<\/p>\n

A key set piece in any nation building or humanitarian intervention is the \u2018No Fly Zone\u2019. Made famous during NATO\u2019s Balkans War in Yugoslavia, the US-led Gulf Wars for Iraq, and later with NATO Libya, securing a No Fly Zone is essential for dictating the terms and conditions of any interventionalist program. The term has since developed an elastic quality and has been subtly altered into what many now refer to a \u201cSafe Zone\u201d, the idea being that by securing the skies above with western air power, the people below will be \u2018safe.\u2019<\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s still become a hard-sell because of negative connotations associated with past unpopular operations that have been viewed as western wars of aggression. New technology is needed in order to repackage and market this damaged brand.<\/p>\n

The internet and social networking have provided just that, where a myriad of social networking online petition web portals have been launched in recent years, the most prominent of which is the online organization Avaaz.org,\u00a0co-founded in 2007<\/a>\u00a0by Res Publica and Moveon.org, and whose funding sources include the George Soros\u2019 Open Society umbrella foundation network. Key founders and players include Tom Perriello, Ricken Patel, Tom Pravda, Jeremy Heimans, David Madden, Eli Pariser and Andrea Woodhouse, each of whom have working relationships with the UN and World Bank, and\u00a0coordinate with US-controlled institutions<\/a>\u00a0like the UN Security Council and UN Human Rights Council.<\/p>\n

According to the Avaaz website<\/a>, their mission is to \u201corganise citizens of all nations to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Non-profit Avaaz works closely with its for-profit arm, New York City-based PR firm\u00a0Purpose<\/a>, which refers to itself as a \u201cproud public benefit corporation.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is important to understand that by their own admission, these organizations are not meant to be purely altruistic, but rather are enterprise businesses.\u00a0In her article entitled<\/a>\u00a0\u201cThe Rise of the Movement Entrepreneur and its Impact on Business\u201d, writer Allison Goldberg explains the \u2018big idea\u2019 which is used as a wrapping for their self-styled social license:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rise of new technology has drastically lowered the barrier to movement creation while providing an alternative to established institutions, formerly seen as the route to reform. Instead of relying on government bodies or other established organizations often weighed down by bureaucracy, entrepreneurs are utilizing the power of social media to mobilize the masses in favor of large-scale change. As a result, organizations have arisen such as Avaaz.org, which defines itself as \u201cthe campaigning community bringing people-powered politics to decision-making worldwide.\u201d Avaaz now boasts seven million members worldwide.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Together, Avaaz and Purpose create the language and the online consensus-building tools. While maintaining the illusion of grassroots activists advocating for human rights, the core function of their public relations campaigns are outcome-based, or to help herd public opinion in order to provide a pretext for multilateral institutions like the the IMF and NATO to implement programs like economic sanctions, or\u00a0 military intervention.<\/p>\n

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IMAGE: One of the Avaaz \u2018Safe Zone\u2019 campaigns for Syria in 2012-2013.<\/p><\/div>\n


\n<\/a>In 2012 and 2013, Avaaz campaigns featured a number of large online petitions which demanded that international bodies (like the UN) send \u201c3,000 international monitors\u201d into the country, and that Western military powers (like NATO) impose a \u2018No-Fly Zone\u2019 over the entire country in order to \u201csave innocent lives.\u201d One petition read as follows:<\/p>\n

\u201cTo the Arab League, European Union, United States, and Friends of Syria: As global citizens, we call on you to take immediate action to stop the deadly terror in Syria. Enough is enough. We ask you to immediately demand a ceasefire to stop the bloodshed so that parties can come to the negotiating table to agree on a way forward. Until a ceasefire is reached, we call on you to work together and with the international community to enforce a no fly zone to stop the bombardment of Syria\u2019s civilians and ensure that humanitarian aid reaches those most in need.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Again, another NGO public relations messaging campaign mirroring foreign policy planks from the US State Department and Washington\u2019s defense community.<\/p>\n

On Avaaz\u2019s website you can often find a number of sensational claims. During their No-Fly-Zone campaign cycle\u00a0this statement<\/a>\u00a0appeared:<\/p>\n

The Syrian air force just dropped chlorine gas bombs on children. Their little bodies gasped for air on hospital stretchers as medics held back tears, and watched as they suffocated to death.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the incident in question\u00a0never actually happened<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rick Sterling\u00a0explains<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cMany well-intentioned but naive members of the U.S. and international public are again being duped into signing an Avaaz petition based on fraud and misinformation. If the campaign succeeds in leading to a No Fly Zone in Syria, it will result in vastly increased war, mayhem and bloodshed.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The following illustration outlines to sequence of events that eventually lead to Avaaz calling for a \u2018No Fly Zone\u2019 in Syria:<\/p>\n

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One organization championed in Avaaz marketing campaigns is a \u2018neutral\u2019 organization called the Syrian Civil Defense also known as the \u2018White Helmets\u2018.<\/p><\/div>\n


\n<\/a>Writer Vanessa Beeley explains the all-too familiar funding sources for the White Helmets in her article entitled, Syria\u2019s White Helmets:\u00a0War by Way of Deception \u2013 Part I<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe White Helmets were established in March 2013, in Istanbul, Turkey, and is headed by James Le Mesurier, a British \u201csecurity\u201d specialist and \u2018ex\u2019-British military intelligence officer with an impressive track record in some of the most dubious NATO intervention theatres including Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine. Le Mesurier is a product of Britain\u2019s elite Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, and has also been placed in a series of high-profile posts at the United Nations, European Union, and U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The origins of The White Helmet\u2019s initial $300k seed funding is a little hazy, reports are contradictory but subsequent information leads us to conclude that the UK, US and the \u2018Syrian opposition\u2019 (or Syrian National Council, parallel government backed an funded by the US, UK and allies) are connected. Logistical support has been provided and given by Turkish elite natural disaster response team, AKUT. A further $13 million was poured into the White Helmet coffers during 2013 and this is where it gets interesting. Early reports suggest that these \u201cdonations\u201d came from the US, UK and SNC with the previously explored connections to George Soros in the US. However, subsequent investigations reveal that USAID has been a major shareholder in the White Helmet organisation. The website for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) claims that, \u201cour work supports long-term and equitable economic growth and advances U.S. foreign policy objectives by supporting: economic growth, agriculture and trade; global health; and, democracy, conflict prevention and humanitarian assistance.\u201d In a USAID report update in July 2015 it is clearly stated that they have supplied over $ 16m in assistance to the White Helmets.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Regarding USAID, Beeley adds that:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe USAID track record as a primary US Government\/CIA regime change facilitator is extensively documented. From South America to the Ukraine and in the Middle East, USAID serve a malevolent and ultimately destructive role in the dismantling of sovereign nations and their reduction to western hegemony vassal states, as always, all in the name of freedom and democracy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Even more crucial in this case, is evidence that\u00a0links the White Helmets<\/a>\u00a0to militant fighting groups in Syria, including al Nusra Front (al Qaeda in Syria). While this does not prove anything beyond association between members of both organizations, it\u2019s significant when one considers that both organizations are receiving material and financial support from\u00a0the same member nations<\/a>\u00a0of the US-led Coalition.<\/p>\n

Geopolitically Correct<\/strong><\/p>\n

For all practical purposes, as a moral and ethical tenet, \u2018human rights\u2019 is an anomaly in any western military action.<\/p>\n

How one frames a story determines its thesis. In the 21st century, the concept of human rights has been weaponised, pointed at nonaligned and independent nation-states who are seen as obstacles to American and European market-makers and nation builders. A number of target states not geopolitically aligned with the US, NATO or the GCC, are yet to be absorbed, seduced, conquered, or as in the case of Libya, completely collapsed, or in the case of Syria \u2013 completely dismembered. These include states listed by former US General and NATO Supreme Commander, Wesley Clark, during his now famous\u00a0Commonwealth Club speech<\/a>\u00a0in San Francisco in 2007. During the event, Clark intimated a conversation he had after a classified defense briefing where a Pentagon source had told him weeks after 9\/11 of the Pentagon\u2019s plan to attack Iraq, as well as a \u201ccoup\u201d being plotted by Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz along with \u201ca half dozen other collaborators from the Project for the New American Century\u201d. According to Clark, he told him about seven countries which were slated for overthrow: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.<\/p>\n

It should also be noted that both Wesley Clark and George Soros\u00a0serve on the board of trustees<\/a>\u00a0of The International Crisis Group.<\/p>\n

For any of these unlucky states, a sustained US or \u2018Coalition\u2019 military campaign means that a nation can be under attack 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and yet, that nation and its residents are given no quarter by western human rights organizations, governments or media. A perfect example of this is Saudi Arabia\u2019s highly illegal undeclared war of aggression against its neighbor Yemen\u00a0which began in the spring of 2015<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting here, that despite its own hotly contested human rights record, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has somehow managed to get elected to the UN\u2019s prestigious Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Evidence suggests that this appointment was facilitated in part by British officials as part of a larger quid pro quo arrangement. According to classified Saudi foreign ministry files that were passed to Wikileaks in June 2015, and translated by Geneva-based\u00a0UN Watch<\/a>\u00a0revealed how the UK initiated the secret negotiations by\u00a0asking Saudi Arabia for its support<\/a>. Eventually, both countries were elected to the 47 member state UNHRC. The following passage from the leaked cables reveals how a clear deal was struck:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ministry might find it an opportunity to exchange support with the United Kingdom, where the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would support the candidacy of the United Kingdom to the membership of the council for the period 2014-2015 in exchange for the support of the United Kingdom to the candidacy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

According to The Guardian<\/a>\u00a0another cable revealed a Saudi Arabia transfer of $100,000 for, \u201cexpenditures resulting from the campaign to nominate the Kingdom for membership of the human rights council for the period 2014-2016.\u201d At the time of their report, no one knows how this money was spent.<\/p>\n

In addition, it was later shown that Saudi Arabia pledged $1 million to UNHRC prior to winning the its seat. Then rather amazingly (or not), in the fall of 2015, the UN appointed Saudi as Chair of the UNHRC.<\/p>\n

When pressed on the matter, a Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokeswoman said, \u201cas is standard practice with all members, we never reveal our voting intentions or the way we vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was followed by a standard, throwaway PR platitude:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe British government strongly promotes human rights around the world and we raise our human rights concerns with the Saudi Arabian authorities.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

While it\u2019s commendable that Saudi officials would want to take a leading role in advocating for international human rights, one cannot ignore the political hypocrisy at play considering Riyadh\u2019s own soiled laundry regarding this issue which includes, among other items,\u00a0the sanctioning of more than a 150 beheadings<\/a>\u00a0in 2015 \u2013 a number believed to be even higher than the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS).<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, the controversial Saudi appointment also took place amid a new diplomatic row over a lucrative UK prison building contract in the Kingdom and the proposed execution of 17 year old Shia student activist, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, who was sentenced to \u2018death by crucifixion\u2019 for\u00a0joining an anti-government demonstration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Consider the amount of political and media campaigning against the government of Syria over numerous and largely\u00a0unfounded allegations<\/a>, where an international network comprised of the US State Department, UK Foreign Office, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) lobby, HRW and humanitarian interventionist luminaries are all backing a policy of regime change in Syria \u2013 and then contrast this with Saudi Arabia\u2019s proven record on human rights and abuse of power. It\u2019s impossible not to see the double standard.<\/p>\n

As far as the Western political establishment are concerned, if there are any human rights violations or any local casualties mounting in one of its many dirty wars, geopolitical correctness dictates that these are either ignored or neatly filed away as an inconvenient consequence of America\u2019s \u2018national security\u2019 or an unfortunate byproduct \u201ccollateral damage\u201d along the road to international progress, peace and prosperity (democracy). Because it crosses swords with the US State Department, or NATO HQ, pubic pressure by humanitarian organizations like HRW and Amnesty USA is relatively nonexistent.<\/p>\n

Outside of the theater of combat, the international community is also faced with the inconvenient dilemma of illegal detentions of supposed \u2018enemy combatants\u2019, \u2018enhanced interrogation\u2019 (torture) and \u2018extrajudicial killings\u2019 (assassinations). These are the politically correct terms for the age of western militarisation.<\/p>\n

Again, because of \u201cbad optics\u201d in Washington DC very little attention or pressure is applied by marquee international human rights charities.<\/p>\n

The human rights industry also has its own politically correct lexicon and identifiers like \u2018defectors\u2019, \u2018detainees\u2019, \u2018activists\u2019 and a new emerging category of \u2018activist-journalists\u2019. Sometimes these terms can be accurate, but in a war theater like Syria, they are often euphemisms for actors in full spectrum information warfare. In the case of Syria, this information warfare is\u00a0designed to embolden<\/a>\u00a0a foreign-backed opposition, but more importantly, to apply sustained public relations pressure towards an end goal of regime change.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a>

POINT MAN: US Secretary of State Colin Powell was tasked with selling the WMD narrative to a UN audience. Here he holds up an \u201canthrax\u201d vial pretending that it is \u2018evidence\u2019 of Iraq\u2019s alleged chemical weapons programs on Feb. 5, 2003 (Image: Wikicommons)<\/p><\/div>\n

The WMD Ritual<\/strong><\/p>\n

Conjuring a \u2018WMD\u2019 subplot in order to trigger a humanitarian intervention has become commonplace in western foreign policy. After being exposed as a momentous lie in Iraq in 2003, this set-back did not stop Washington from aggressively\u00a0 pursuing the same narrative in Syria in 2013.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the Syrian WMD narrative collapsed in the aftermath of a failed false flag Sarin gas attack\u00a0that turned out to be orchestrated<\/a>\u00a0by US Coalition-backed \u2018moderate\u2019 rebels52. It was hardly a coincidence then to discover that HRW was the NGO tasked with providing the \u2018smoking gun\u2019 Washington and London needed to make their R2P case in August 2013.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Palmer reported for CBS News at the time, \u201con Tuesday, the group Human Rights Watch issued a report that said evidence strongly implies that Syrian government troops\u2019 firing of rockets containing a nerve agent into a Damascus suburb on August 21 that the U.S. said killed over 1,400 people.\u201d In the end, this turned out to be another epic lie.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

HIDDEN KILLER: Israeli cluster bombs dropped in South Lebanon (Photo: Patrick Henningsen)<\/p><\/div>\n


\n<\/a>While the US-led \u2018Coalition\u2019 is quick to seize upon spurious WMD narratives against its geopolitical targets, it will routinely ignore common Geneva Convention violations like Israel\u2019s use of deadly white phosphorous in Gaza, the use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions by American military units in Iraq and Afghanistan, and American-made cluster bombs being\u00a0dropped by Saudi Arabia\u2019s air force on to Yemeni civilian targets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Western Institutionalised Bias<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wars, whether conventional or covert, are a dirty business.<\/p>\n

One argument that the western human rights industry judicially avoids is that an armed opposition cannot rightly be classified as a \u2018political opposition\u2019, so long as it is armed. This could certainly be the case in Syria.<\/p>\n

Syrian president Bashar al Assad explained this dilemma during\u00a0his 2015 interview<\/a>\u00a0with CBS News anchor Charlie Rose, stating that, \u201cwhenever you hold a gun, and kill people, and destroy public buildings, destroy private properties, that\u2019s terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although most foreign policy officials in Washington DC would beg to differ, especially if the opposition in question is receiving weapons, cash or logistical support from the US or its allies. Assad futher clarifies the position and also exposes the fallacy in western rhetoric, explaining:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe word opposition, everywhere in the world, including your country, is a political opposition. Do you have military opposition in the United States? Would you accept it? You wouldn\u2019t, and we wouldn\u2019t. No-one accepts military opposition.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

During his speech at Columbia University in 2006, Australian journalist and filmmaker John Pilger explained:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe oldest clich\u00e9 is that truth is the first casualty of war. I disagree. Journalism is the first casualty. Not only that: it has become a weapon of war, a virulent censorship that goes unrecognized in the United States, Britain, and other democracies; censorship by omission, whose power is such that, in war, it can mean the difference between life and death for people in faraway countries.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Pilger\u2019s reference can especially be applied to the institutional media bias that has underpinned the long running international war which the Middle East and Central Asia finds itself currently embroiled in. Some might argue that even if western human rights organisations could somehow be cured of their systemic bias towards Washington and CFR foreign policy narratives \u2013\u00a0 their needs to be an overhaul in defining the concept and the context of what \u2018human rights\u2019 are in real terms. A fresh look needs to take into account a level of western subterfuge which maybe western politicians and media are not yet ready\u00a0 to acknowledge.<\/p>\n

In Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Indeed, it was \u2018human rights\u2019 campaigning which led directly to the illegal bombing of Libya (NATO\u2019s aggressive bombing campaign in Libya was not authorized in the\u00a0UNSC Resolution 1973<\/a>\u00a0which only called for a \u2018No-Fly Zone\u2019, and should therefore be considered illegal under international law), where the West\u2019s sole intent was to topple the government of Muammar Gaddafi. Regrettably, thousands of innocent civilians died in the process and the nation state of Libya quickly collapsed, separating into sub-regional, tribal and lawless militant enclaves.<\/p>\n

The lesson of Libya was stark. The world should have taken note, but unfortunately it did not. Instead, onlookers saw then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who,\u00a0when asked during a CBS News interview<\/a>\u00a0about the removal of the Libyan president, could only cackle and laughingly joke, \u201cwe came, we saw, he died.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is this the new tone of humanitarianism?<\/p>\n

Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch regularly solicit support from Hollywood celebrities and international recording artists, and spend millions of dollars per year producing films which depict situations around the world through their own political lens. To date, they have yet to produce a film showing the other unsavory side of the \u2018rebel insurgency\u2019 in Syria. Is this because that might undermine the entire US and NATO member foreign policy?<\/p>\n

The public and private sponsors of NGO\u2019s like HRW and Amnesty have invested, not donated, hundreds of millions collectively into these organisations so that they can portray world events in such a way that will enable their own corporate aspirations to be met. No matter how idealistic the rhetoric might sound coming from leading human rights organisations, the money could stop flowing if they discontinued manufacturing consent for wars.<\/p>\n

This also raises the question of whether or not a non-governmental organisation that champions the issue of human rights can remain apolitical \u2013 as many such organizations claim to be. What would happen should such an organisation dare to adopt a truly righteous geopolitical (not political) stance advocating opposition to destructive western imperialist policies? Would western governments move to withdraw their 501c3 or tax exempt status which allows these charities to maintain their viability as a nonprofit organisation?<\/p>\n

Once again, if conflicts of interest and revolving doors between government and charities are not properly addressed, it could eventually undermine the integrity of the entire NGO sector internationally. Corruption at the top of the pyramid also threatens to damage countless other small to medium sized organisations who do not have access to the US State Department or Hollywood, but who are still performing important services and engaged in real civic aid projects.<\/p>\n

For human right organisations to be in lock-step with the US State Department, or hiring military operatives as board members and chief executives, is simply inexcusable by any social standard.<\/p>\n

If the international community is to advance beyond defunct neocolonialist paradigms, it will need to place compassion ahead of policy, and humanity ahead of profits. Only then can the reality live up to the rhetoric.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/p>\n

Patrick Henningsen is founder and editor of the news and analysis website\u00a0<\/em>21st Century Wire<\/a>, and is an independent foreign and political affairs analyst for <\/em>RT International. He is also the host of the SUNDAY WIRE talk radio program which airs live every Sunday on the\u00a0Alternate Current Radio Network<\/a>. Find out more at:\u00a0www.patrickhenningsen.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 21stcenturywire.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billionaire philanthropists, political luminaries and transnational corporations working together in the name of social justice forging a better, fairer and more accountable world. The story reads well on paper. After all, the 20th century saw a string of failures by governments to halt horrific exhibitions of genocide and crimes against humanity. As a result, the door opened for many high-profile charities and human rights organizations to play a bigger role in moderating international affairs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-focus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}