order to engage in massive human rights abuses.
AN OBJECTIVE REPORT?
The USHMM, the American Academy of Diplomacy and the US Institute for Peace are all virtual government organizations. All of them were founded
during roughly the same time period. The USHMM was established following a task force put out by Jimmy Carter in 1979 and agreed to by Congress in 1980. Opened in 1993, its board consists of 55 presidential appointees, 10 congressional representatives, and three members of the Departments of State, Interior and Education. The US Institute for Peace was established in 1984, as an instrument of soft US power by an act of Congress. As has been documented elsewhere it has consistently served to control and co-opt the rhetoric of peace, democracy and human rights. It is closely connected to the US government and the US intelligence community.
The American Academy of Diplomacy was founded in 1983 by ambassadors Ellsworth Bunker, John J. McCloy and U. Alexis Johnson and is loaded with a who's who of American diplomats, military and government personnel, past and present. Its board of directors includes Anthony Zinni, George Moose (Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the Clinton administration during the 1994 Rwanda genocide), Daniel Simpson (US Ambassador to the Congo 1995-1998, during the U.S. backed coup).
Their report will be the US government's legitimization of its right to intervene, pressure, bully and attack other groups and countries. The report's language will surely make mention of stopping atrocities, ending the reign of impunity, never again and other lofty sentiments along with talk of national security, American interests, US leadership and possibly blood and treasure.
The reality will be an escalation of violence and aggression masked beneath a cloak of self-righteousness, denial of US crimes and moral indignation at the crimes committed by others.
The supreme crime according to the Nuremburg trials, namely planning and waging wars of aggression, is legitimized (as with NATO's 1999
bombing of Yugoslavia) in the name of stopping genocide. Walter Rockler, a prosecutor at the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials, wrote in The
Chicago Tribune (May 10, 1999) that the attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the most brazen international aggression since the Nazis attacked Poland to prevent Polish atrocities against Germans. The United States has discarded pretensions to international legality and decency and embarked on a
course of raw imperialism run amok.
His words were ignored by the powerful interests that continually invoke WWII, the Nazis and Nuremburg to justify their actions. History is turned on its head and double standards are enshrined into law as the US and its allies are granted the power of democratic immunity.
DEMOCRATIC IMMUNITY (3)
The double standards (and blindness to them) have reached such a height that the US and its allies are even granted immunity from charges of genocide on the grounds that they are democratic.
In April 2003 the Belgian parliament changed a 1993 law which called for a prosecution of war crimes and genocide wherever they occurred. The
LA Times reported (April 3, 2003):
The changes should bring an end to lawsuits against President Bush and others including then Secretary of State Colin Powell and then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. The revised law would apply only to crimes in countries lacking democratic credentials and unable to provide fair trials.
Apparently, we are to conclude either that democratic countries are incapable of committing war crimes or genocide or else we are to conclude, that they are allowed to do so with impunity. It is fair to ask what is meant by democratic credentials but the answer is obvious:
The US and its allies are deemed democratic and those out of favor with the powerful are not.
By any serious standard the U.S. had lost a good deal of its democratic credentials by 2003. After the well-documented electoral irregularities and fraud committed during the 2000 elections; the clear unreliability of electronic voting machines; and an exposure of the clearly undemocratic nature of the electoral college, the US system looked bad enough. The use of military tribunals, open endorsement of torture, and detention of thousands without charge would shatter the illusion of democracy in a people not overwhelmed by propaganda and information warfare.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
