Amnesty International Stokes Syrian War
http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=174885#174885
February 11, 2017
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/02/11/amnesty-international-stokes-syrian-war/
The West’s vast propaganda machine has pulled in
many formerly respectable groups, such as Amnesty
International, which just released a dubious
“human rights” report aimed at stoking the war in Syria, reports Rick Sterling.
By Rick Sterling
Amnesty International (AI) has done some good
investigations and reports over the years, which
has won the group widespread support. However,
less well recognized, Amnesty International has
also carried out faulty investigations with bloody and disastrous consequences.
[]
Emacs!
U.S.-backed Syrian “moderate” rebels smile as
they prepare to behead a 12-year-old boy (left),
whose severed head is held aloft triumphantly in
a later part of the video. [Screenshot from the YouTube video]
One prominent example is in Iraq, where AI
“corroborated” the false story that Iraqi
soldiers were stealing incubators from Kuwait,
leaving babies to die on the cold floor. The
deception was planned and carried out in
Washington to influence the U.S. public and Congress.
A more recent example is from 2011 where false
accusations were being made about Libya and
Muammar Gaddafi as Western and Gulf powers sought
to overthrow his government. AI leaders joined
the campaign claiming that Gaddafi was using
“mercenaries” to threaten and kill peacefully
protesting civilians. The propaganda was
successful in muting criticism of what became an invasion and “regime change.”
Going far beyond a United Nations Security
Council resolution to “protect civilians,” NATO
launched sustained air attacks and toppled the
Libyan government leading to chaos, violence and
a flood of refugees. AI later refuted the
“mercenary” accusations but the damage was done.
Now, on Feb. 7, Amnesty International released a
new report titled “Human Slaughterhouse: Mass
Hangings and Extermination at Saydnaya Prison,”
which accuses the Syrian government of executing
thousands of political prisoners, a set of
accusations that has received uncritical
treatment in the mainstream news media.
Like the Iraq/Kuwait incubator story and the
Libyan “mercenary” story, the “Human
Slaughterhouse” report is coming at a critical
time. It accuses and convicts the Syrian
government of horrible atrocities against
civilians – and AI explicitly calls for the
international community to take “action.” But the
AI report is deeply biased and amounts to a
kangaroo-court conviction of the Syrian government.
AI’s Standards Ignored
The Amnesty International report violates the
organization’s own research standards. As
documented by Professor Tim Hayward here, the
Secretary General of Amnesty International, Salil
Shetty, claims that Amnesty does its research “in
a very systematic, primary, way where we collect
evidence with our own staff on the ground. And
every aspect of our data collection is based on
corroboration and cross-checking from all
parties, even if there are, you know, many
parties in any situation because of all of the
issues we deal with are quite contested. So it’s
very important to get different points of view
and constantly cross check and verify the facts.”
A heart-rending propaganda image designed to
justify a major U.S. military operation inside
Syria against the Syrian military.
But the Amnesty report fails on all counts: it
relies on third parties, it did not gather its
information from different points of view, and it
did not cross-check with all parties. The
report’s conclusions are not based on primary
sources, material evidence or AI’s own staff; the
findings are solely based on the claims of
anonymous individuals, mostly in southern Turkey
from where the war on Syria is coordinated.
Amnesty gathered witnesses and testimonies from
only one side of the conflict: the Western- and
Gulf-supported opposition. For example, AI
consulted with the Syrian Network for Human
Rights, which is known to seek NATO intervention
in Syria. AI “liased” with the Commission for
International Justice and Accountability, an
organization funded by the West to press criminal
charges against the Syrian leadership. These are
obviously not neutral, independent or nonpartisan organizations.
If AI were doing what its Secretary General
claims the organization always does, AI would
have consulted with organizations within or
outside Syria to hear different accounts of life
at Saydnaya Prison. Since the AI report has been
released, the AngryArab has published the account
of a Syrian dissident, Nizar Nayyouf, who was
imprisoned at Saydnaya. He contradicts many
statements in the Amnesty International report,
the type of cross-checking that AI failed to do for this important study.
Amnesty’s accusation that executions were
“extrajudicial” is exaggerated or false. By
Amnesty’s own description, each prisoner appeared
briefly before a judge and each execution was
authorized by a high government leader. We do not
know if the judge looked at documentation or
other information regarding each prisoner. One
could argue that the process as described was
superficial, but it’s clear that even if AI’s
allegations are true, there was some kind of judicial process.
Amnesty’s suggestion that all Saydnaya prisoners
are convicted is false. Amnesty quotes one
witness who says about the court: “The judge will
ask the name of the detainee and whether he
committed the crime. Whether the answer is yes or
no, he will be convicted.” But this assertion is
contradicted by a former Saydnaya prisoner who is
now a refugee in Sweden. In this news report, the
former prisoner says the judge “asked him how
many soldiers he had killed. When he said none,
the judge spared him.” This is evidence that
there is a judicial process of some sort and there are acquittals.
The Amnesty report includes satellite photographs
with captions which are meaningless or erroneous.
For example, as pointed out by Syrian dissident
Nizar Nayyouf, the photo on page 30 showing a
Martyrs Cemetery is “silly beyond silly.” The
photo and caption show that the cemetery doubled
in size. However, this does not prove hangings of
prisoners who would never be buried in a “martyrs
cemetery” reserved for Syrian army soldiers. On
the contrary, it confirms the fact which Amnesty
International otherwise ignores: Syrian soldiers have died in large numbers.
The Amnesty report falsely claims — based on data
provided by one of the groups seeking NATO
intervention — “The victims are overwhelmingly
ordinary civilians who are thought to oppose the
government.” While it’s surely true that innocent
civilians are sometimes wrongly arrested, as
happens in all countries, the suggestion that
Saydnaya prison is filled with 95 percent
“ordinary civilians” is preposterous. Amnesty
International can only make this claim without
facing ridicule because AI and other Western
organizations have effectively “disappeared” the reality of Syria.
Missing Facts
Other essential facts, which are completely
missing from the Amnesty report, include:
King Salman of Saudi Arabia and his entourage
arrive to greet President Barack Obama and First
Lady Michelle Obama at King Khalid International
Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 27, 2015.
(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
–Western powers and Gulf monarchies have spent
billions of dollars annually since 2011 to
recruit, fund, train, arm and support with
sophisticated propaganda a violent campaign to overthrow the Syrian government;
–As part of this operation, tens of thousands of
foreign fanatics have invaded Syria and tens of
thousands of Syrians have been radicalized and
paid by Wahhabi monarchies in the Gulf to overthrow the government;
–More than 100,000 Syrian Army and National
Defense soldiers have been killed defending their
country. Most of this is public information yet
ignored by Amnesty International and other
mainstream media in the West. This “regime
change” operation has been accompanied by a
massive distortion and cover-up of reality.
–Without providing evidence, Amnesty
International accuses the highest Sunni religious
leader in Syria, Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddin
Hassoun, of authorizing the execution of
“ordinary civilians.” While the Grand Mufti is a
personal victim of the war’s violence – his son
was murdered by terrorists near Aleppo – he has
consistently called for reconciliation. Following
the assassination of his son, Grand Mufti Hassoun
gave an eloquent speech expressing forgiveness
for the murderers and calling for an end to the violence.
What does it say about Amnesty International that
it makes specific personal accusations, against
people who have personally suffered, yet provides no evidence of guilt?
In the report, Amnesty uses sensational and
emotional accusations in place of factual
evidence. The title of the report is “Human
Slaughterhouse.” And what goes with a
“slaughterhouse”? A “meat fridge.” So, the report
uses the expression “meat fridge” seven separate
times, presumably in an attempt to strengthen the
central metaphor of a slaughterhouse.
Even the report’s opening quotation is
hyperbolic: “Saydnaya is the end of life – the
end of humanity.” The report is in sharp contrast
with fact-based objective research and
investigation; it appears designed to manipulate
emotions and thus create new public support in
the West for another escalation of the war.
Yet, Amnesty International’s accusations that the
Syrian government is carrying out a policy of
“extermination” are contradicted by the fact that
the vast majority of Syrians prefer to live in
government-controlled areas. When the “rebels”
were finally driven out of East Aleppo in
December 2016, 90 percent of civilians rushed
into areas under government control.
In recent days, civilians from Latakia province
who had been imprisoned by terrorists for the
past three years have been liberated in a
prisoner exchange. [This video shows Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad and his wife meeting with some of the civilians.]
A Video
The Amnesty report is accompanied by a
three-minute propaganda cartoon that reinforces
the narrative that Syrian civilians who protest
peacefully are imprisoned and executed. Echoing
the theme of the report, the animation is titled
“Saydnaya Prison: Human Slaughterhouse.” Amnesty
International appears to be in denial that there
are tens of thousands of violent extremists in
Syria, setting off car bombs, launching mortars
and otherwise attacking civilian areas every day.
Journalist James Foley shortly before he was
executed by an Islamic State operative in August 2014 somewhere in Syria.
Given the national crisis – with so many violent
jihadists to confront – it makes little sense
that Syrian security or prison authorities would
waste resources on non-violent civilians although
that does not mean that the Syrian government has
clean hands either. Mistakes and abuses surely
happen in this war like all wars.
But the AI report is more like the propaganda
that has surrounded the Syrian conflict from the
beginning, lacking in balance and reminiscent of
the “perception management” used to justify the
U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the West’s
assault on Libya in 2011. AI’s hyperbole is also
contradicted by the fact that Syria has many
opposition parties that compete for seats in the
National Assembly and campaign openly for public
support from both the right and left of the Baath Party.
AI’s claim that Syrian authorities brutally
repress peaceful protests further ignores the
Syrian reconciliation process. For the past
several years, armed opposition militants have
been encouraged to lay down their weapons and
peacefully rejoin society, a program largely
unreported in Western media because it
contradicts the “black hat” narrative of the
Syrian government. [A recent example is reported here.]
The Amnesty report cites the “Caesar” photographs
as supporting evidence for its “slaughterhouse”
accusations but ignores the fact that nearly half
those photographs show the opposite of what was
claimed. The widely publicized “Caesar
photographs” was a Qatari-funded hoax designed to
sabotage the 2014 Geneva negotiations as documented here.
While the Amnesty report makes many accusations
against the Syrian government, AI ignores the
violation of Syrian sovereignty being committed
by Western and Gulf countries. It is a curious
fact that big NGOs such as Amnesty International
focus on violations of “human rights law” and
“humanitarian law” but ignore the crime of
aggression, also called the crime against peace.
According to the Nuremberg Tribunal, aggression
is “the supreme international crime, differing
only from other war crimes in that it contains
within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
Former Nicaraguan Foreign Minister and former
President of the U.N. General Assembly, Father
Miguel D’Escoto, is someone who should know. He
says, “What the U.S. government is doing in Syria
is tantamount to a war of aggression, which,
according to the Nuremberg Tribunal, is the worst
possible crime a State can commit against another
State.” Amnesty International ignores this reality.
Background and Context
The co-author of this Amnesty International
report is Nicolette Waldman (Boehland), who was
uncritically interviewed on DemocracyNow on Feb.
9. The background and previous work of Waldman
shows the inter-connections between influential
Washington “think tanks” and the billionaires’
foundations that fund “non-governmental
organizations” – NGOs – that claim to be independent but are clearly not.
Waldman previously worked for the “Center for
Civilians in Conflict,” which is directed by
leaders from George Soros’s Open Society, the
Soros-funded Human Rights Watch, Blackrock
Solutions and the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).
Billionaire currency speculator George Soros. (Photo credit: georgesoros.com)
CNAS may be the most significant indication of
political orientation since it is led by Michele
Flournoy, who was expected to become Secretary of
Defense if Hillary Clinton had won the election.
CNAS has been a leading force behind
neoconservative and liberal-interventionist plans
to escalate the war in Syria. While past work or
associations do not always define new or future
work, in this case the sensational and dubious
accusations seem to align with those political
goals. [Soros’s Open Society has also provided funds to Amnesty International.]
So what to make of Amnesty International’s new
report? The once widely respected human rights
organization has, in the recent past, let itself
be used as a propaganda tool to justify Western
aggression against Iraq and Libya, which seems to
be the role that AI is playing now in Syria.
The Amnesty International report is a mix of
hearsay accusations and sensationalism that
tracks with the Western propaganda themes that
have surrounded the Syrian war from the start.
Because of Amnesty’s undeserved reputation for
independence and accuracy, the report has been
picked up and broadcast widely. Liberal and
supposedly progressive media outlets have joined
in dutifully echoing the questionable accusations.
Little or no skepticism is applied when the
target is the Syrian government, which has faced
years of foreign-sponsored aggression. If this
report justifies another escalation of the
conflict, as Amnesty International seems to want,
the group will again be serving as a rationalizer
for Western aggression against Syria, just like it did in Iraq and Libya.
Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist
based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be reached at rsterli...@gmail.com
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Please consider seriously the reason why these elite institutions are not discussed in the mainstream press despite the immense financial and political power they wield?
There are sick and evil occultists running the Western World. They are power mad lunatics like something from a kids cartoon with their fingers on the nuclear button! Armageddon is closer than you thought. Only God can save our souls from their clutches, at least that's my considered opinion - Tony
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--
--
Please consider seriously the reason why these elite institutions are not discussed in the mainstream press despite the immense financial and political power they wield?
There are sick and evil occultists running the Western World. They are power mad lunatics like something from a kids cartoon with their fingers on the nuclear button! Armageddon is closer than you thought. Only God can save our souls from their clutches, at least that's my considered opinion - Tony
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