Washington’s Hypocrisies
by Dr. Paul
Craig Roberts
May 25, 2012
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The US government is the second worst human rights abuser on the
planet and the sole enabler of the worst--Israel. But
this doesn’t hamper Washington from pointing the finger elsewhere.
The US State Department’s “human rights report”
focuses its ire on Iran and Syria, two countries whose real sin is their independence from Washington, and
on the bogyman- in-the-making--China, the country selected for the role of
Washington’s new cold war enemy.
Hillary
Clinton, another in a long line of unqualified Secretaries of State, informed
“governments around the world: we are watching, and we are holding you
accountable,” only we are not holding ourselves accountable or Washington’s
allies like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the NATO puppets.
Hillary also
made it “clear to citizens and activists everywhere: You are not alone. We
are standing with you,” only not with protesters at the Chicago NATO summit
or with the Occupy Wall Street protesters, or anywhere else in the US where
there are protests.
The State Department stands with the protesters
funded by the US in the countries whose governments the US wishes to
overthrow. Protesters in the US stand alone as do the occupied
Palestinians who apparently have no human rights to their homes, lands, olive
groves, or lives.
Here are some
arrest numbers for a few recent US protests. The New York Daily News
reports that as of November 17, 2011, 1,300 Occupy Wall Street protesters
were arrested in New York City alone. Fox News reported (October 2,
2011) that 700
protesters
were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge. At the NATO summit in Chicago
last week, 90 protesters were arrested.
In the US
some protesters are being officially categorized as “domestic extremists” or
“domestic terrorists,” a new threat category that Homeland Security announced
is now the focus of its attention, displacing Muslim terrorists as the number
one threat to the US. In September 2010, federal police raided the homes of
peace activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. The FBI is trying to concoct a
case against them by claiming that the peace activists donated money to the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. As demanded by Israel,
the US government has designated the PFLP as a terrorist group.
In Chicago
last week, among the many arrested NATO protesters with whom the State
Department does not stand are three young white americans arrested for
“domestic terrorism” in what Dave Lindorff reports was “a warrantless house
invasion reminiscent of what US military forces are doing on a daily [and
nightly] basis in Afghanistan.” If the US government, which stands with
protesters everywhere except in America, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and
Palestine, can make this into a terrorism case, the three americans can be convicted on the basis of secret evidence or simply be incarcerated for the rest of their lives without a trial.
Meanwhile the
three american “domestic terrorists” are being held in solitary confinement.
Like many of the NATO protesters, they came from out of town. Brian
Church, 20 years old, came from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Jared Chase, 27,
came from Keene, New Hampshire. Brent Betterly, 24, came from Oakland Park,
Florida. Charged with providing material support for terrorism, the
judge set their bail at $1.5 million each.
These three are not charged with actually throwing a Molotov cocktail
at a person or thing. They are charged with coming to Chicago with the idea
of doing so. Somehow the 16 federal intelligence agencies plus those of our
NATO puppets and Israel were unable to discover the 9/11 plot in the making,
but the Chicago police knew in advance why two guys from Florida and one from
New Hampshire came to Chicago. The domestic terrorism cases turn out to be
police concoctions that are foiled before they happen, so we have many
terrorists but no actual terrorist acts.
Two other
young americans are being framed by their Human Rights Government. Sebastian
Senakiewicz, 24, of Chicago is charged with “falsely making a terrorist threat,”
whatever that means. His bail was set at $750,000. Mark Neiweem, 28, of
Chicago is charged with “solicitation for explosives or incendiary
devices.” His bail is set at $500,000.
This is human rights in america. But the
State Department’s human rights report never exams the US. It is a
political document aimed at Washington’s chosen enemies.
Meanwhile,
Human Rights America continues to violate the national sovereignty of Pakistan,
Yeman, and Afghanistan by sending in drones, bombs, special forces and in
Afghanistan 150,000 US soldiers to murder people, usually women, children and
village elders. Weddings, funerals, children’s soccer games, schools and
farmers’ houses are also favorite targets for Washington’s attacks. On
May 25 the Pakistani Daily Times reported that Pakistani Foreign Office
spokesman Moazzam Ali Khan strongly condemned the drone attacks: “We regard
them as a violation of our territorial integrity. They are in contravention
of international law. They are illegal, counter productive and totally
unacceptable.” http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012%5C05%5C25%5Cstory_25-5-2012_pg7_14
The US
reportedly funnels money to the Iranian terrorist group, MEK, declared
terrorists by no less than the US State Department. But it is OK as
long as MEK is terrorizing Iran. Washington stands with MEK’s protests
delivered via bombs and the assassin’s bullet. After all, we have to bring
freedom and democracy to Iran, and violence is Washington’s preferred way to
achieve this goal.
Washington is
desperate to overthrow the Syrian government in order to get rid of the
Russian naval base. On May 15 the Washington Post reported that Washington is
coordinating the flow of arms to Syrian rebels. Washington’s justification
for interfering in Syria’s internal affairs is human rights charges against
the Syrian government. However, a UN report finds that the rebels are no more
respectful of human rights than the Syrian government. The rebels
torture and murder prisoners and kidnap civilians wealthy enough to bring a
ransom. http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/un-report-says-both-sides-in-syria-abuse-rights/
NATO, guided
by Washington, went far outside the UN resolution declaring a no-fly zone
over Libya. NATO in blatant violation of the UN resolution provided the air
attack on the Libyan government that enabled the CIA-supported “rebels”
to overthrow Gadhafi, killing many Libyan civilians in the process.
Under the Nuremberg standard, it is a war crime
to launch a war of aggression, which is what Washington and its NATO puppets
launched against Libya, but, no sweat, Washington brought Libya freedom and
democracy.
*Assassinating foreign opponents is the West’s
preferred diplomacy. The British
were at ease with it, and Washington picked up the practice. In his book,
The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, Cambridge University historian
Piers Brendon, the Keeper of the Churchill Archives, reports from the
documents he has at hand, that in the build up to the “Suez Crisis” in 1956,
British Prime Minister Anthony Eden told Foreign Office minister Anthony
Nutting, “I want him [Nasser, Egypt’s leader] murdered.”
Brendon goes
on to report: “Doubtless at the Prime Minister’s behest, the Secret
Intelligence Service did hatch plots to assassinate Nasser and to topple his
government. Its agents, who proposed to pour nerve gas into Nasser’s office
through the ventilation system, were by no means discreet.” The secret agents
talked too much, and the scheme never came to fruition.
Last week in
Malaysia a war crimes tribunal found George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld and their legal advisers, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William
Haynes II, Jay Bybee, and John Choon Yoo guilty of war crimes.
But don’t
expect Washington to take any notice. The war crimes convictions are
merely a “political statement.”
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