So much for my defense of Gloria Ssteinam, yesterday. This article claims
she was a CIA agent.
Miriam
Emersberger writes: "Human Rights Watch's latest World Report is filled with
imperial assumptions and misinformation."
Executive director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth. (photo: Reuters)
Human Rights Watch: The Empire's Human Rights Group
By Joe Emersberger, teleSUR
10 February 16
Human Rights Watch's latest World Report is filled with imperial assumptions
and misinformation.
In its 2016 World report, Human Rights Watch shows how deeply it shares the
U.S. governments concern about its declining influence in Latin America.
Executive director Ken Roth does not see the U.S. and its EU allies as the
most abusive and dangerous states in the world - something the ongoing
destruction of Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan should make clear to anyone. In
Latin America, hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost due to U.S.
backed coups and counterinsurgency in the past half century all
motivated by the U.S. governments efforts to maintain a dominant role in
the region. Last year, brushing aside millions of victims, Roth proclaimed
the United States to be the most powerful proponent of human rights. He
conceded that the United States has faults, and added that the world is
rightly suspicious of the U.S. governments agenda, so Human Rights Watch
is careful to maintain our independence from U.S. foreign policy. In fact,
it exerts negligible effort to be independent as showed by its response to a
petition signed by over 100 scholars and activists (including a few Nobel
Laureates).
In an essay that introduces the World Report, Roth harshly criticizes the
U.S. government and other powerful states, stating a polarizing
us-versus-them rhetoric has moved from the political fringe to the
mainstream. Blatant Islamophobia and shameless demonizing of refugees have
become the currency of an increasingly assertive politics of intolerance.
This is true and its to his credit that he wrote it. Human Rights Watch
like much of U.S. corporate media is a liberal institution. Like the
liberal end of the corporate media, it can point to criticism that is aimed
at it from the left and right to falsely claim that it is free of political
bias. But the liberal faction of the U.S. establishment has at least as much
blood on its hands as the right. The CIA, for example, is despised in Latin
America for excellent reasons, and it also has long recruited U.S. liberals
very effectively. The renowned feminist Gloria Steinem was a CIA agent. She
was impressed and relieved to find so many enlightened Kennedy era
liberals in the CIA (watch the video clip provided here). A former CIA
analyst named Miguel Díaz sat on a Human Right Watch advisory committee from
2003 to 2011 and then returned to work for the U.S. government as an
interlocutor between the intelligence community and non-government
experts. Other examples of a revolving door between Human Rights Watch
and the Western establishment were provided in that petition I mentioned.
The shared assumptions between HRW and the liberal faction of the U.S.
establishment are more important than the shared personnel. Roth deplores
some of the abuses of worlds most powerful states in his World Report
essay, but still describes them as the strongest traditional allies of the
human rights cause. He fears that as Western powers violate rights in
addressing refugees or terrorism, their ability to uphold the broader set of
rights is compromised. It is up to western powers, in Roths view, to
straighten out the rest of the world, but if those powers become too
conspicuously bigoted and ruthless at home, he worries their influence may
be easier to resist abroad. Roth devotes pages to his concern that
nongovernmental organizations are being deprived of their right to seek
funding abroad when domestic sources are unavailable. He sees western
funded NGOs as essential to strengthening democracy in poor countries.
Roth defines autocrats in his piece as not simply dictators who have
dispensed with any pretense of democratic rule, but also governments that
maintain a facade of democracy and restrict or regulate foreign funding of
NGOs. Roth calls out three Latin American governments in his essay with the
clear intention of smearing them with the autocrat label: Ecuador,
Venezuela, Bolivia all left wing governments who have to contend with the
threat of coups backed by Washington. Ecuador defeated a coup attempt in
2010, Bolivia in 2008, Venezuela in 2002. The last one was briefly
successful and the U.S. State Departments Office of Inspector General
stated that the Bush administration had "provided training, institution
building, and other support to individuals and organizations understood to
be actively involved.
Its obvious, just relying on Human Rights Watchs World Report alone, that
Colombia, Mexico and Honduras - all close U.S. allies whom Roth did not
mention in his essay have vastly worse human rights records than the three
Latin American countries he singled out. Colombia is truly in a class by
itself, surpassed only by its patron, the United States. The World Report
summary for Colombia says that as of May 2015, the Attorney Generals
Office was investigating more than 3,700 unlawful killings allegedly
committed by state agents between 2002 and 2008. Colombia also has the
worlds second largest population of internally displaced persons (IDPs)
after Syria 6.8 million people. Colombias civil war was winding down
before Bill Clintons Plan Colombia pushed it into its worst period, as
Dan Kovalik recently pointed out.
The organizations attacks on Venezuela and Ecuador have often focused on
alleged limitations on freedom of expression. The World Report largely
sticks to that line of attack on Ecuador and goes on at length depicting
government critics as leaving in fear, facing unreasonable media
regulations, and having minimal access to an audience. In reality, Ecuadors
media, which I have mentioned before (here and here), gives ample voice to
very aggressive government critics. The World Report summary for Venezuela
is even more dishonest. It states, While criticism of the government is
articulated in some newspapers and on some websites and radio stations, fear
of government reprisals has made self-censorship a serious problem as if
there were no TV broadcasters which are able to air criticism of government.
During the height of violent anti-government protests in February of 2014,
government critics appeared on the largest private networks (Venevision and
Televen) to accuse the government of murder, repression and theft. Given
Roths claim that foreign funds for NGOs are crucial to democracy in
developing countries because government critics would otherwise be
voiceless, Human Rights Watchs lies and distortions about the media in
these countries become easy to understand.
If foreign funded NGOs offered a path toward a vibrant democracy, then Haiti
would be a democratic utopia by now. Instead, Haiti is the ultimate
cautionary tale, a lesson in how foreign funded NGOs can help crush
sovereignty and democracy. The World Reports section on Haiti evades
mentioning the U.S. perpetrated coup in 2004 that set the stage for Haitis
current political crisis. That coup was consolidated by U.N. troops
(MINUSTAH) whom have been in Haiti ever since and whom Human Rights Watch
cynically credits with efforts to strengthen the countrys democratic
institutions. The World Report does not denounce the U.N. for dismissing
its responsivity for a cholera epidemic that killed 10,000 people, nor does
it mention, much less deplore, that the Obama administration urged U.S.
courts to dismiss a case against MINUSTAH brought by numerous victims.
As usual, while finding much to say about freedom of expression and
self-censorship elsewhere, Human Rights Watchs World Report is completely
silent about the corporate medias role in stifling public debate in the
United States. However, if you really see western states as the strongest
traditional allies of the human rights cause, then you are probably as much
a victim of the Wests propaganda system as a contributor to it.
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Executive director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth. (photo: Reuters)
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Human-Rights-Watch-The-Empires-Huma
n-Rights-Group-20160210-0010.htmlhttp://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Hu
man-Rights-Watch-The-Empires-Human-Rights-Group-20160210-0010.html
Human Rights Watch: The Empire's Human Rights Group
By Joe Emersberger, teleSUR
10 February 16
Human Rights Watch's latest World Report is filled with imperial assumptions
and misinformation.
n its 2016 World report, Human Rights Watch shows how deeply it shares the
U.S. governments concern about its declining influence in Latin America.
Executive director Ken Roth does not see the U.S. and its EU allies as the
most abusive and dangerous states in the world - something the ongoing
destruction of Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan should make clear to anyone. In
Latin America, hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost due to U.S.
backed coups and counterinsurgency in the past half century all
motivated by the U.S. governments efforts to maintain a dominant role in
the region. Last year, brushing aside millions of victims, Roth proclaimed
the United States to be the most powerful proponent of human rights. He
conceded that the United States has faults, and added that the world is
rightly suspicious of the U.S. governments agenda, so Human Rights Watch
is careful to maintain our independence from U.S. foreign policy. In fact,
it exerts negligible effort to be independent as showed by its response to a
petition signed by over 100 scholars and activists (including a few Nobel
Laureates).
In an essay that introduces the World Report, Roth harshly criticizes the
U.S. government and other powerful states, stating a polarizing
us-versus-them rhetoric has moved from the political fringe to the
mainstream. Blatant Islamophobia and shameless demonizing of refugees have
become the currency of an increasingly assertive politics of intolerance.
This is true and its to his credit that he wrote it. Human Rights Watch
like much of U.S. corporate media is a liberal institution. Like the
liberal end of the corporate media, it can point to criticism that is aimed
at it from the left and right to falsely claim that it is free of political
bias. But the liberal faction of the U.S. establishment has at least as much
blood on its hands as the right. The CIA, for example, is despised in Latin
America for excellent reasons, and it also has long recruited U.S. liberals
very effectively. The renowned feminist Gloria Steinem was a CIA agent. She
was impressed and relieved to find so many enlightened Kennedy era
liberals in the CIA (watch the video clip provided here). A former CIA
analyst named Miguel Díaz sat on a Human Right Watch advisory committee from
2003 to 2011 and then returned to work for the U.S. government as an
interlocutor between the intelligence community and non-government
experts. Other examples of a revolving door between Human Rights Watch
and the Western establishment were provided in that petition I mentioned.
The shared assumptions between HRW and the liberal faction of the U.S.
establishment are more important than the shared personnel. Roth deplores
some of the abuses of worlds most powerful states in his World Report
essay, but still describes them as the strongest traditional allies of the
human rights cause. He fears that as Western powers violate rights in
addressing refugees or terrorism, their ability to uphold the broader set of
rights is compromised. It is up to western powers, in Roths view, to
straighten out the rest of the world, but if those powers become too
conspicuously bigoted and ruthless at home, he worries their influence may
be easier to resist abroad. Roth devotes pages to his concern that
nongovernmental organizations are being deprived of their right to seek
funding abroad when domestic sources are unavailable. He sees western
funded NGOs as essential to strengthening democracy in poor countries.
Roth defines autocrats in his piece as not simply dictators who have
dispensed with any pretense of democratic rule, but also governments that
maintain a facade of democracy and restrict or regulate foreign funding of
NGOs. Roth calls out three Latin American governments in his essay with the
clear intention of smearing them with the autocrat label: Ecuador,
Venezuela, Bolivia all left wing governments who have to contend with the
threat of coups backed by Washington. Ecuador defeated a coup attempt in
2010, Bolivia in 2008, Venezuela in 2002. The last one was briefly
successful and the U.S. State Departments Office of Inspector General
stated that the Bush administration had "provided training, institution
building, and other support to individuals and organizations understood to
be actively involved.
Its obvious, just relying on Human Rights Watchs World Report alone, that
Colombia, Mexico and Honduras - all close U.S. allies whom Roth did not
mention in his essay have vastly worse human rights records than the three
Latin American countries he singled out. Colombia is truly in a class by
itself, surpassed only by its patron, the United States. The World Report
summary for Colombia says that as of May 2015, the Attorney Generals
Office was investigating more than 3,700 unlawful killings allegedly
committed by state agents between 2002 and 2008. Colombia also has the
worlds second largest population of internally displaced persons (IDPs)
after Syria 6.8 million people. Colombias civil war was winding down
before Bill Clintons Plan Colombia pushed it into its worst period, as
Dan Kovalik recently pointed out.
The organizations attacks on Venezuela and Ecuador have often focused on
alleged limitations on freedom of expression. The World Report largely
sticks to that line of attack on Ecuador and goes on at length depicting
government critics as leaving in fear, facing unreasonable media
regulations, and having minimal access to an audience. In reality, Ecuadors
media, which I have mentioned before (here and here), gives ample voice to
very aggressive government critics. The World Report summary for Venezuela
is even more dishonest. It states, While criticism of the government is
articulated in some newspapers and on some websites and radio stations, fear
of government reprisals has made self-censorship a serious problem as if
there were no TV broadcasters which are able to air criticism of government.
During the height of violent anti-government protests in February of 2014,
government critics appeared on the largest private networks (Venevision and
Televen) to accuse the government of murder, repression and theft. Given
Roths claim that foreign funds for NGOs are crucial to democracy in
developing countries because government critics would otherwise be
voiceless, Human Rights Watchs lies and distortions about the media in
these countries become easy to understand.
If foreign funded NGOs offered a path toward a vibrant democracy, then Haiti
would be a democratic utopia by now. Instead, Haiti is the ultimate
cautionary tale, a lesson in how foreign funded NGOs can help crush
sovereignty and democracy. The World Reports section on Haiti evades
mentioning the U.S. perpetrated coup in 2004 that set the stage for Haitis
current political crisis. That coup was consolidated by U.N. troops
(MINUSTAH) whom have been in Haiti ever since and whom Human Rights Watch
cynically credits with efforts to strengthen the countrys democratic
institutions. The World Report does not denounce the U.N. for dismissing
its responsivity for a cholera epidemic that killed 10,000 people, nor does
it mention, much less deplore, that the Obama administration urged U.S.
courts to dismiss a case against MINUSTAH brought by numerous victims.
As usual, while finding much to say about freedom of expression and
self-censorship elsewhere, Human Rights Watchs World Report is completely
silent about the corporate medias role in stifling public debate in the
United States. However, if you really see western states as the strongest
traditional allies of the human rights cause, then you are probably as much
a victim of the Wests propaganda system as a contributor to it.
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http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
