The Western Onslaught Against International Law ~ Paul Craig Roberts
A new
film,
“Compliance,” examines “the human desire to follow and obey authority.”
Liberal institutions, such as the media, universities, federal courts,
and human rights organizations, which have traditionally functioned as
checks on the blind obedience to authority, have in our day gone over to
power’s side. The subversion of these institutions has transformed them
from checks on power into servants of power. The result is the
transformation of culture from the rule of law to unaccountable
authority resting on power maintained by propaganda.
Propaganda is important in the inculcation of trust in authority.The
Pussy Riot case shows the power of Washington’s propaganda even inside
Russia itself and reveals that Washington’s propaganda has suborned
important human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Chatham
House, and Amnesty International.
Pussy Riot is described in the western media as a punk rock group,
but seems in fact to be a group known as Voina (War) that performs lewd
or scandalous unannounced public performances such as the one in the
Russian cathedral, a sexual orgy in a museum, and events such as
this and also
this.
Three of the cathedral performers were apprehended, indicted, tried,
convicted of breaking a statutory law, and given two-year prison
sentences. The Voice of Russia recently broadcast a discussion of the
case from its London studio. Representatives from Human Rights Watch and
Chatham House argued that the case was really a free speech case and
that the women were political prisoners for criticizing Russian
President Putin.
This claim was disingenuous. In the blasphemous performance in the
Russian cathedral, Putin was not mentioned. The references to Putin were
added to the video posted on the Internet after the event in order to
turn a crime into a political protest.
The human rights representatives also argued that the women’s
conviction could only happen in Putin’s Russia. However, the program
host pointed out that in fact most European countries have similar laws
as Russia’s and that a number of European offenders have been arrested
and punished even more severely. Indeed, I recently read a news report
from Germany that a copycat group of women had staged a similar protest
in support of Pussy Riot and had been arrested. An analysis of these
issues is available
here.
The human rights representatives seemed to believe that Putin had
failed the democratic test by failing to stop the prosecution. But a
country either has the rule of law or doesn’t have the rule of law. If
Putin overrides the law, it means Putin is the law.
Whether Washington had a hand in the Pussy Riot event via the Russian
protest groups it funds, Hitlery Clinton was quick to make propaganda.
Free expression was threatened in Russia, she said.
Washington used the Pussy Riot case to pay Putin back for opposing
Washington’s destruction of Syria. The overlooked legal issue is
Washington’s interference in internal Russian affairs. The close
alignment of human rights organizations with Washington’s propaganda
hurts the credibility of human rights advocacy. If human rights groups
are seen as auxiliaries of Washington’s propaganda, their moral
authority evaporates.
The prevalence of the English language, due to the British domination
of the world in the 18th and 19th centuries and American domination in
the 20th and first decade of the 21st century, makes it easy for
Washington to control the explanations. Other languages simply do not
have the reach to compete.
Washington also has the advantage of having worn the White Hat in the
Cold War. The peoples who were constituent parts of the Soviet empire
and even many Russians themselves still see Washington as the wearer of
the White Hat. Washington has used this advantage to finance “color
revolutions” that have moved countries from the Russian sphere of
influence into Washington’s sphere of influence.
Tony Cartalucci
concludes
that “Amnesty International is US State Department Propaganda.”
Cartalucci notes that Amnesty’s executive director is former State
Department official Suzanne Nossel, who conflates “human rights
advocacy” with US global hegemony.
Amnesty does seem like an amplifier for Washington’s propaganda.
Amnesty’s latest email to members (August 27) is: “As if the recent
trial and sentencing of three members of Pussy Riot wasn’t shameful
enough, now Russian police are hunting down others in the band. Make no
mistake about it: Russian authorities are relentless. Just how far are
the Russian authorities willing to go to silence voices of dissent? Tell
the Russian government to stop hunting Pussy Riot!”
Amnesty International’s August 23 email to its members, “Wake Up
World,” is completely one-sided and puts all blame for violence on the
Syrian government, not on al Qaeda and other outside groups that
Washington has armed and unleashed on the Syrian people. Amnesty is only
concerned with getting visual images damning to the Syrian government
before the public: “We are working to get this damning footage into the
hands of journalists around the world. Support our work and help ensure
that our first-hand video is seen by influential members of the media.”
At least Pussy Riot got a trial. That’s more than US Marine, Brandon
Raub, a veteran of two tours of combat duty, got. Raub posted on
Facebook his opinion that he had been misused by Washington in behalf of
an illegal agenda. Local police, FBI, and Secret Service
descended upon his home, dragged him out, and on the authority of a social worker, committed him to a mental hospital for observation.
I did not see any protests from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty
International, or Chatham House. Instead, a Virginia circuit court
judge, W. Allan Sharrett, demanded Raub’s immediate release, stating
that there was no reason to detain and commit Raub except to punish him
for exercising his free speech right.
Americans are increasingly punished for exercising free speech
rights. A number of videos of police violence against the occupy
movement are available on youtube. They show the goon thug gestapo cops
beating women, pepper spraying protestors sitting with their heads
bowed, truncheons flashing as American heads are broken and protestors
beat senseless are dragged off in handcuffs for peacefully exercising a
constitutionally protected right.
There has been more protest over Pussy Riot than over the illegal
detention and torture of Bradley Manning or the UK government’s threat
to invade the Embassy of Ecuador and to drag out WikiLeaks’ Julian
Assange.
When a Chinese dissident sought asylum in the US embassy in China,
the Chinese government bowed to international law and permitted the
dissident’s safe passage to the US. But “freedom and democracy” Great
Britain refuses free passage to Assange who has been granted asylum, and
there is no protest from Clinton at the State Department.
In “China’s Rise, America’s Fall,” Ron Unz makes a compelling
argument
that the Chinese government is more respectful of the rule of law and
more responsive to the people it governs than is Washington. Today it is
Russia and China, not the UK and Europe, that challenge Washington’s
claim that the US government is above international law and has the
right to overthrow governments of which it disapproves.
The lawlessness that now characterizes the US and UK governments is a
large threat to humanity’s finest achievement–the rule of law–for which
the British fought from the time of Alfred the Great in the ninth
century to the Glorious Revolution of the 17th century.
Where are the protests over the Anglo-American destruction of the rule of law?
Why Aren’t Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Chatham House on the case?
