…Between 2004 and 2006 Ford worked closely under US Ambassador John Negroponte at the US embassy in Baghdad. During his previous tenure as ambassador to Honduras, Negroponte devised and implemented the policy of funding and training death squads to combat leftist insurgencies in the region. In Iraq, Negroponte charged Ford with a similar task: funding and training militias to carry out sectarian violence aimed at a largely Sunni resistance. In late January of 2011, during the same time that the first protests in the country occurred, Ford arrived in Syria to serve as the newly-appointed ambassador. Since, violence has racked the country and Ford has been accused of recruiting and arming foreign fighters from the region to destabilize and possibly overthrow the Syrian government…
…Amnesty International is widely supported by many for the work it supposedly does in supporting human rights. Much of its time is spent championing minor reforms in places like the United States. However, rather than effecting any fundamental change in this regard, Amnesty International uses its supposed legitimacy to build public support for regime change in various Third World countries to the inevitable effect of promoting a neo-liberal imperialist agenda. In this regard, Amnesty International is the part of the “left wing of imperialism,” and groups like Amnesty International are a crucial link between Western public opinion and Western-led foreign intervention. Besides Amy Goodman, who has a sizable support base among the US “left,” AI’s annual meeting also featured “one of the organizers of the Occupy Movement” presenting on “how you can Rise Up and become a key player in the international human rights movement.” Of course, they are not talking about rising up against the United States government, the primary human rights offender. Instead, their keynote address is by the former US ambassador to Syria, who helped initiate the civil conflict occurring there today…
*****
Death Squad Coordinator Robert Ford Keynotes Amnesty International Annual Meeting
Posted by nikolaibrown
The former US Ambassador to Syria, Robert S. Ford, presented part of the keynote address during the 2012 Amnesty International Annual General Meeting, held in Denver, Colorado between March 30th and April 1st. While AI made sure to keep the appearance of Ford under wraps from the public, it was mentioned by supporting media prior to the event. As well, Ford was listed in the program as a keynote speaker during the second day of the conference. Among others, AI’s annual conference also featured “progressive” radio host Amy Goodman.
Between 2004 and 2006 Ford worked closely under US Ambassador John Negroponte at the US embassy in Baghdad. During his previous tenure as ambassador to Honduras, Negroponte devised and implemented the policy of funding and training death squads to combat leftist insurgencies in the region. In Iraq, Negroponte charged Ford with a similar task: funding and training militias to carry out sectarian violence aimed at a largely Sunni resistance. In late January of 2011, during the same time that the first protests in the country occurred, Ford arrived in Syria to serve as the newly-appointed ambassador. Since, violence has racked the country and Ford has been accused of recruiting and arming foreign fighters from the region to destabilize and possibly overthrow the Syrian government.
Amnesty International is widely supported by many for the work it supposedly does in supporting human rights. Much of its time is spent championing minor reforms in places like the United States. However, rather than effecting any fundamental change in this regard, Amnesty International uses its supposed legitimacy to build public support for regime change in various Third World countries to the inevitable effect of promoting a neo-liberal imperialist agenda. In this regard, Amnesty International is the part of the “left wing of imperialism,” and groups like Amnesty International are a crucial link between Western public opinion and Western-led foreign intervention. Besides Amy Goodman, who has a sizable support base among the US “left,” AI’s annual meeting also featured “one of the organizers of the Occupy Movement” presenting on “how you can Rise Up and become a key player in the international human rights movement.” Of course, they are not talking about rising up against the United States government, the primary human rights offender. Instead, their keynote address is by the former US ambassador to Syria, who helped initiate the civil conflict occurring there today.
It is not surprising that Amnesty International has omitted Ford’s appearance from their official online public record. His appearance is likely aimed to help mold the opinions of hard-core AI supporters in attendance during the meeting, who can then as “progressives” be used to further shape public opinion in regards to the US’s civil conflict in Syria. “Progressives” like Amy Goodman and the unnamed organizers of the Occupy Movement play into and further this agenda.
Underlying the conflict in Syria is US funding, recruitment and training, and various attempts by media outlets and “progressive” organizations to build public support for increased intervention. In many ways, this illustrates how imperialist countries such as the US can utilize nominally left politics to further their global agendas. Organizations such as Amnesty International are part of this agenda. By loudly mentioning a fraction of the human rights abuses committed by the United States, they are able to legitimately promote a global neo-liberal agenda to a “progressive” base of support and go so far as to host a death squad coordinator as the keynote to their annual conference. So-called “progressives” (Amy Goodman, et al) are also part of this scam. Focused primarily on reforms to more equally divide a stolen pie of imperialist profits among Amerikans, they become easy patsies for the promotion of State Department-sponsored civil conflicts and color revolutions against recalcitrant anti-hegemonic Third World states.
The CIA Terrorist Network, part 1 of 6
It is not hyperbole to describe the CIA network, which includes the interests it serves and those through which it operates, as the world’s most wide-spread, sophisticated and well-funded terrorist network today. Particularly, the CIA promotes violence and other tactics internationally as part of efforts to sway opinion in ways that enshrine policies favorable to the commercial interests of the United States and its allies. The CIA could be described as a US-centered terrorist group in service to capital. (5) Using assassination, sabotage and inciting violence, what the CIA and Amerikan policy makers have described as “low intensity conflict,” the CIA network has been among the dominant active agents maintaining the vast majority of humanity in a state of disparity and conflict. (6) (7)
The terrorism of the CIA network is that to preserve the extant social relations which define contemporary global economy. The CIA has been a primary actor in maintaining the US as a hegemonic power into the first decade of the 21st century. The CIA network is vast and includes the United States government (which controls and funds the CIA) and many nominal third parties such as foreign officials and governments, dictators and military officials, prominent civil society members and organizations, trained ‘dissidents’ and armed militants.
Status-quo terrorism such as the CIA’s and its overall goals have been extensively researched, including by notable researcher and commentator, Edward S Herman…
http://anti-imperialism.com/2012/04/30/the-cia-terrorist-network-part-1-of-6/
The Empire versus Iran and Syria: A New World War for a New World Order?
A terrifying scenario emerges from the ceaseless escalation of pressures and threats against Syria and Iran, pitting, for the first time since the NATO-OECD Empire won the Cold War two decades ago, the Western trio of the UN veto club (U.S., U.K., France) against its non-Western duo (Russia and China)…But the march of the NATO-OECD Empire is becoming less and less triumphal. With support from most of the non-Western countries of the Non Aligned Movement and the G77, Russia and China are reasserting the primacy of international law and UN diplomacy in tackling the Syria and Iran issues, hobbling further the Western propensity to drown every “crisis,” real or fabricated, under a carpet of bombs, missiles and boots on the ground — with dire unintended consequences for all!…
http://www.4thmedia.org/2012/05/04/the-empire-versus-iran-and-syria-a-new-world-war-for-a-new-world-order/
…One major error encountered in this situation even by radicals and revolutionaries is assuming a movement can be conjured up in the US which can overturn dominant social relations absent a wider anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle globally. The death of Trayvon Martin, and the freedom of his killer, is part of the same system that massacres Afghan families, bombs infrastructure, supports insurrections in anti-hegomonic Third World states, cripples traditional regional economies and imposes ever-increasing exploitation and destitution, and is destroying the natural world we depend on. The struggle for justice in the case of Trayvon Martin is systemic and global…
*****
No justice for Trayvon Martin under this system
Posted by nikolaibrown ⋅
Throughout the United States, public outcry and mass outrage have grown over the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by ‘Neighborhood Watch Captain’ George Zimmerman. Martin, a Black youth in Sanford, Florida, was killed by Zimmerman, 28, as he walked home from a convenience store. City and state officials have thus far refused to arrest or charge Zimmerman, and a federal grand jury is scheduled to take place on April 10th to determine whether or not criminal investigation should carried out.
The murder of Trayvon Martin on February 27th and the state’s refusal to arrest Zimmerman has elicited a widespread response. So far, professional athletes, celebrities, media activists and even Democratic Party politicians (including US President Obama) have been vocal on the issue. In cities throughout the United States, demonstrations are being held to raise awareness on the issue.
Many of those speaking out on the case or participating in public actions donned hoodies, the type of jacket Martin was wearing when he was killed. Zimmerman, who wants to be a cop, said Martin’s dress caused him to be suspicious of the youth and led to the fatal altercation.
A common slogan for those rallying in the wake of Martin’s murder has been, ‘Justice for Trayvon Martin.’ Incensed by Zimmerman’s continuing freedom, many are demanding his immediate arrest.
The demand for Zimmerman’s arrest is certainly understandable given the circumstances of the case. Zimmerman approached Martin in the streets and shot him in the chest. As well, the incident may be prosecutable under US law as a “hate crime,” a term used when ethnic or other prejudice in part motivates a crime. Zimmerman was recorded as having uttered a racist epithet immediately prior to shooting Martin.
Yet the demand for the arrest and prosecution of George Zimmerman as justice for Trayvon Martin has real limitations. Notably, it is the demand that the same system which perpetuates this type of racist oppression be utilized to implement justice. While this type of demand should be expected by the mass movement, dominated as it is by liberal and petty-bourgeois influence, it is primarily this issue which divides everyday radicals and revolutionaries from the masses.
Along the fringes of protest to this most recent incident of condoned racist violence, various elements have advocated a different kind of justice.
A spokesperson for the New Black Panther Party, a more militant derivative of the Nation of Islam, offered a $10,000 reward for Zimmerman’s capture and called on “10,000 black men” to carry out justice by finding Zimmerman and subjecting him to a public “street” trial.
Others have noted that the sort of racist violence which resulted in Martin’s death is endemic in Amerika today. So long as the system remains intact, socialistic-minded commentators have noted, more black youth will be gunned down on the streets for “looking suspicious.” Therefore, the answer lies not in the state arresting Zimmerman or any particular action against him. Rather, the solution to the problem of violent oppression is revolution: a complete alteration of power relations in which oppressed peoples would themselves exercise political and economic control over their own communities. Insofar as that is not an immediate possibility, another suggestion has been offered: using mass riots to demand Zimmerman’s arrest and serve notice that further racist violence will have real social repercussions beyond tame protests and civil disobedience.
Compared to the dominant demand that justice for Trayvon equals prosecution in US courts of Zimmerman, these more radical ideas are an advancement and should be broadly disseminated. There can be no justice in this present system. Even if George Zimmerman is arrested and convicted of murder, the system which enabled the murder to occur in the first place will continue, and there will be more Trayvon Martins, more Oscar Grants, and more Shaima Alawadis.
One major error encountered in this situation even by radicals and revolutionaries is assuming a movement can be conjured up in the US which can overturn dominant social relations absent a wider anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle globally. The death of Trayvon Martin, and the freedom of his killer, is part of the same system that massacres Afghan families, bombs infrastructure, supports insurrections in anti-hegomonic Third World states, cripples traditional regional economies and imposes ever-increasing exploitation and destitution, and is destroying the natural world we depend on. The struggle for justice in the case of Trayvon Martin is systemic and global.
It is important for radicals and revolutionaries to transcend the mass-oriented demands of judicial justice in the case of Trayvon Martin, highlight the systemic factors in his murder and its handling by the state, and call for a new basis of social relations based on self-determination and collective liberation. Equally so, it is important to tie the struggle sparked by this killing into the wider global struggle against US-led militarism and imperialism. It is necessary to unite the struggle of people oppressed in the US to the struggle of those exploited under imperialism globally, to the advancement of both.
Only through successfully struggle against national oppression inside the US can racist violence and state terror be brought to a halt, and only with the successful struggle of Third World people against US-led imperialism can this become reality.
http://anti-imperialism.com/2012/03/30/no-justice-for-trayvon-martin-under-this-system/#more-2514
…The Yankee transnationals will never give up their control over the land, the water, the mines and the natural resources of our countries. Their soldiers should vacate the military bases; their troops should be withdrawn from each and every one of our territories…
Fidel Castro Ruz
To Sleep with Open Eyes
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31143.htm
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