What exactly those last two sentences of Avaaz's statement mean is anyone's guess. Someone ostensibly speaking for the organization is really speaking only for himself? The buck stops with John Tye and not with executive director Ricken Patel and others in the Avaaz hierarchy? And, curiously, the Q and A link cited above was disabled sometime in March and no longer worked as of this writing.
Interestingly, Tye himself is a former U.S. State Department official who upon leaving the agency in April 2014 filed a whistleblower complaint. The complaint alleged, as The New York Times reported, that the National Security Agency's practices abroad -- as authorized by Reagan-era Executive Order 12333 permitting the NSA to gather and use U.S. citizens' communications overseas -- "violated Americans' Fourth Amendment rights" to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. While at the State Department from 2011-2014, Tye "worked on Internet freedom issues and had top-secret clearance." Unlike whistleblower Edward Snowden, Tye wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Post that he had gone through channels in making his complaint and had not disclosed any classified information.
Greenberg's response did not address my questions about the generals' warnings about a no-fly zone in Syria. Instead, she stated: "In addition, as with all of our campaigns, the emails about this campaign included links to articles with multiple viewpoints to support deliberative discussion of the issue and provide resources for members to fact check and do more research on their own."
Contrary to this statement, I found no link in the Avaaz materials to any article quoting the generals or other critics of imposing a no-fly zone in Syria. Nor did I see even a generic statement, suggesting this is a controversial issue that might merit further research before an Avaaz member would consider signing.
Avaaz Involved on the Ground in Syrian Conflict; Without Proof, Blamed Russians for 'Coordinating Atrocities' Against Journalists
It's important to note that Avaaz's past activities regarding Syria have gone far beyond petitions calling for a no-fly zone. In 2011-2012 (and perhaps beyond), Avaaz interjected itself into the Syrian conflict in a controversial manner not usually associated with on-line activism -- spiriting several dozen western journalists in and out of Syria; helping rescue trapped journalists and other civilians; smuggling in medical supplies; training and then providing "citizen journalists" with cameras to document Syrian government forces' war crimes; and serving as a major conduit of war information from inside Syria to western journalists outside the country.
As The New Republic's Simon van Zuylen-Wood reported, Avaaz's Wissam Tarif, a Lebanese activist, "helped smuggle medical supplies into Syria, as well as more than 35 western journalists" He also oversaw the training of ordinary Syrians who subsequently re-entered their country to report on what was going on. As Syria became increasingly dangerous and difficult to penetrate, Western journalists came to rely ever more on Avaaz's daily e-mail briefings, which compiled information from 200 such Syrian 'citizen journalists.'"
Several hundred reporters were reportedly receiving Avaaz's email briefings at the time, putting the organization in a unique position of being the major source of anti-regime news and propaganda coming out of Syria. For example, as NPR's Deborah Amos reported, Avaaz's "citizen journalists" provided casualty figures that "Many media organizations, as well as United Nations officials" relied on "to track the violence inside the country."
Amos reported in March 2012 that Avaaz "has given crucial support to the uprising and the Syrian activist networks that aim to topple the regime of President Bashar Assad." Amos's piece raised the question of whether Avaaz had overstepped its role by engaging in operations in which a large number of Syrian activists had been killed (as many as 23, Avaaz's executive director Ricken Patel subsequently said).
Amos's report appeared shortly after Avaaz, in February 2012, announced that it had coordinated the rescue of British photographer Paul Conroy of the London Sunday Times, who had been wounded when government security forces attacked the Baba Amr neighborhood in the city of Homs. Two journalists -- Marie Colvin, also of the London Sunday Times, and French photographer Remi Ochlik -- were killed in the attack. Conroy was evacuated by his rescuers to Lebanon. Thirteen Syrian activists were initially reported killed in the rescue operation, and Avaaz's Patel told the BBC at the time that seven others were arrested by government forces and then "shot in the back of the head with their hands tied behind their backs."
The Avaaz press release on the rescue said: "This operation was carried [out] by Syrians with the help of Avaaz. No other agency was involved" -- a claim that Avaaz later had to retract.
Around the same time, in another interview with the BBC4 radio program PM, Patel stated that more than 50 Syrian activists had agreed to participate in the rescue operation -- and 23 of them had been killed (a slightly higher number than initially cited.)
In that interview, Patel asserted that repeated attacks on the Homs media center by Assad's forces were "targeted assassinations" of journalists -- and he contended on the flimsiest of information that either the Russians or Iranians -- most likely the Russians -- "were coordinating these atrocities." Asked about his evidence for this, Patel said that a drone constantly positioned over Baba Amr conducted surveillance of the area. --(T)o our knowledge," Patel said, "the Syrians certainly have not been able to build a drone themselves or own one, so it's got to be coming from Russia or from Iran, actually coordinating these atrocities."
Patel said he assumed the drone was Russian operated because the Russians were providing large amounts of military assistance to Assad. Patel said "common sense would suggest there is some sort of cooperation going on" between Russia and Syria's government and the Russians would have to know the Syrians are "targeting citizens and civilians."
The New Republic's Zuylen-Wood subsequently challenged Avaaz's initial claim of being the sole coordinator of the Conroy rescue, and got Patel to back off to correct both his earlier statement and the Avaaz press release. Patel said that he and Avaaz had made an honest mistake in the confusion and chaos of the rescue, and that the opposition Free Syria Army "played a significant role" in the operation but with substantial planning, input and backing from Avaaz. Although guilty of over-hype in claiming sole credit, Avaaz in its back-and-forth with The New Republic certainly showed that it had, indeed, played an important part in the rescue operation.
Whether this was an appropriate role for an activist organization is another question. Amos's NPR piece raised the issue, stating: Given the deaths "of so many Syrian activists in the operation" this might suggest that "Avaaz has crossed a line, not just a border."
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