Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Mercenaries for Empire: Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch
06 Jun 2012

 

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Human rights” has become a tortured term. The most prominent names in the western human rights business behave, essentially, as “weapons in the imperial arsenal. Their value to the empire increased exponentially when Barack Obama adopted humanitarian intervention as a pillar of American war doctrine.” Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch spend much of their energies “advocating that the U.S. and its friends trample on the national sovereignty of weaker states – as if human rights can exist outside the framework of international law.”

 

Mercenaries for Empire: Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Who better than self-styled human rights activists to justify humanitarian wars?”

Under President Obama, U.S. imperialism masquerades as the protector of the planet’s peoples. Each American aggression, every violation of centuries of international law, is couched in the rhetoric of humanitarian intervention – a gift from the strong to the weak. Wars of pure pillage and conquest are heralded as acts of nobility and service to humankind. The former colonizers from Europe and their cousins from the United States, the nation that grew rich from indigenous genocide and African slavery, have assumed a Responsibility to Protect the very same Asians, Africans and Latin Americans they were slaughtering…it seems like only yesterday.

But, if yesterday, these Europeans and Americans had no regard for the lives and liberties of any of the colored or non-Christian peoples of the world, in today’s geopolitical configuration human rights has become the imperial watchword. And, therefore, the western so-called human rights organizations take on strategic importance.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are, essentially, weapons in the imperial arsenal. Their value to the empire increased exponentially when Barack Obama adopted humanitarian intervention as a pillar of American war doctrine. Who better than self-styled human rights activists to justify humanitarian wars?

“They provided much of the propaganda ammunition for the U.S. and European war against Libya.”

In mid-May, as thousands of anti-war activists protested the NATO summit meeting in Chicago, Amnesty International hosted a so-called “Shadow Summit” of apologists for the U.S. war in Afghanistan. They were joined by the ghoulish Madeline Albright, the former Clinton Secretary of State who said “the price [was] worth it”, when questioned about the death of thousands of children as a result of U.S. sanctions against Iraq. Albright, the warmonger, and Amnesty International agree that the U.S. should remain in Afghanistan as long as it takes, for the sake of Afghan women. Of course, it was the United States that spent billions of dollars in a joint venture with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to empower Islamists to overthrow the left-wing, Soviet-backed government that had pursued full equality for Afghanistan’s women. Yet, only a few decades later, Amnesty International trumpets the Americans as great defenders of Afghan women’s rights.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch denounce Russia and China as enemies of human rights in Syria, because they have resisted a catastrophic western military assault on that country. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch actively campaign for wars – and they always turn out to be the same wars that Washington is planning to wage. They provided much of the propaganda ammunition for the U.S. and European war against Libya, giving credibility to lies about an imminent massacre in Benghazi. Both organizations are imposters on the world scene, pretending to care for human rights while advocating that the U.S. and its friends trample on the national sovereignty of weaker states – as if human rights can exist outside the framework of international law. As far as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are concerned, human rights are whatever the empire says they are.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are simply mercenaries for empire, and sworn enemies of international law.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected].



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20120606_gf_HumanRightsMercenaries.mp3

Trending

Elizabeth Warren Wants Green Bombs, not a Green New Deal
Parallels Between Black and Palestinian Struggles
Cory Booker Hates Public Schools
Bill Cosby Should Have Been Denounced by Black America Long Ago
The Black Wall Around Barack Obama: Who Does It Protect Him Against?
How Complacency, Complicity of Black Misleadership Class Led to Supreme Court Evisceration of the Voting Rights Act

More Stories


  • The Great White Heist
    Michael Harriot
    The Great White Heist
    16 Sep 2020
    Just because enslaving and stealing labor from Black people was perfectly legal prior to 1868, America should not get to ignore descendants of the people who supplied this nation with 246 years of
  • Freedom Rider: Democrats’ Climate Change Lies
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Democrats’ Climate Change Lies
    16 Sep 2020
    The Republicans lie about the harm they do to the planet, and the Democrats lie and pretend they’re not doing the very same things.
  • Tribute to Kevin Zeese: Life and Loss in the Struggle for Liberation
    Danny Haiphong , BAR contributor
    Tribute to Kevin Zeese: Life and Loss in the Struggle for Liberation
    16 Sep 2020
    Zeese never wavered in his opposition to the corporate duopoly, white supremacy, and the forces of militarism.
  • Will a Biden Foreign Policy Make a Difference for the World?
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Will a Biden Foreign Policy Make a Difference for the World?
    16 Sep 2020
    For the people of the world the real fascism of anti-democratic, brutal regimes supported by the U.S., murderous sanctions, and right-wing coups will continue unabated. 
  • Fourteen Martyrs in the Struggle Against Racist Terror and Trumpism-Fascism
    Paul Street
    Fourteen Martyrs in the Struggle Against Racist Terror and Trumpism-Fascism
    16 Sep 2020
    Their names are not as familiar as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, but these victims have paid the ultimate price, dying in the line of anti-racist and anti-fascist citizenship duty.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us