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. (ref)
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 (Chicago
Journal).
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 examines 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, Yemen, 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.”
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.
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 (principle
VI.a.i), 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. (ref)
But don’t
expect Washington to take any notice. The war crimes convictions
are merely a “political statement.”
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of
the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the
Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps
Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many
university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a
worldwide following.
www.paulcraigroberts.org
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