The Grotesque and Disturbing Ideology at the Helm of Avaaz

Image: U.S. President Barack Obama with Avaaz co-founder and former U.S. Representative Tom Perriello.

Imperialism under the guise of humanitarianism – the 21^st Century Theme within the Non-profit Industrial Complex

 “As far as America’s war against terrorism is concerned [the] senator provides unequivocal support to Barrack Obama.” – The Perriello of Congress website 

In the 2012 winter issue of ‘Democracy Journal’ Avaaz Co-founder and former U.S. Representative Tom Perriello penned a grotesque and delusional article (below) titled “Humanitarian Intervention: Recognizing When, and Why, It Can Succeed”.

The views within the article are a complete reflection and validation of the U.S. administration’s rhetoric intended to justify the annihilation and occupation of sovereign states under the false pretense of “humanitarian intervention” and “responsibility to protect”.

Make no mistake, this is the ideology of the world’s most powerful NGO, that of Avaaz, and the matrix of NGOs within the non-profit industrial complex.

Next week we will begin publication of our investigative report on Avaaz, the Avaaz co-founders, the Avaaz corporate media partners, the Avaaz strategy, and finally, the role Avaaz played in the NATO-led annihilation of Libya, which, prior to the strategically planned and unprovoked invasion by Imperialist states, held the highest standard of living in Africa. This slaughter has left as many as 150,000 Libyans dead. NGOs must be held accountable for paving the way for these crimes against humanity.

Humanitarian Intervention: Recognizing When, and Why, It Can Succeed

Tom Perriello

The use of force always entails grave dangers and human costs, and progressives have been leery particularly since the Vietnam era of supporting it, even to prevent or end mass atrocities, repression, and other systematic human suffering. Wise leaders will always remain wary of war. But wisdom also requires us to acknowledge two dramatic changes in our ability to use force for good. First, in a single generation, our ability to intervene without heavy casualties has improved dramatically. Second, the range of diplomatic and legal tools for legitimizing such interventions has likewise expanded. During this same period, we have been reminded tragically of the real and staggering human cost of inaction, most notably in the 800,000 lives lost in Rwanda. The tendency to feel less moral responsibility for the results of inaction and to overvalue the risks of acting in difficult situations is natural, but it is ultimately indefensible.

These new conditions present progressives today with a historic opportunity—to embrace a slight tipping of the scales toward action in the age-old balance between the horrors of the world and the horrors resulting from the military actions that might prevent them. This shift should be seen more as a marginal adjustment than as a dramatic ideological recalibration, but this new-generation understanding can mean the difference between paralysis and action. →

The Ambiguous Avaaz

Originally published in Italian by il manifesto

TERRA TERRA – Marinella Correggia

2012.03.06

In 2011 the organization Avaaz, which calls itself the “global civic organization” and promotes activism on the Internet, has stood for two highly successful initiatives: the demand for international intervention “to protect civilians” in Libya and the ‘ support for the struggle of some indigenous groups in Bolivia against government plans to build a road in Tipnis (National Park Isidore Secure Indigenous Territory).

In the Libyan case, Avaaz has acted very quickly, good for taking the media lies about the “massacre of thousands of civilians by Gaddafi.” We have not seen subsequently make appeals to stop the war or NATO to protect civilians and Tawergha of Sirte. (It is now very active – even how to request funds – the demonization of the Syrian regime). →

“Responsibility to Protect” as Imperial Tool

The left should support an active peace policy through international cooperation, disarmament, and non-intervention of states in the internal affairs of others. … Moreover, the left should strive towards strict respect for international law on the part of Western powers, implementing the UN resolutions concerning Israel, dismantling the worldwide US empire of bases as well as NATO, ceasing all threats concerning the unilateral use of force, stopping all interference in the internal affairs of other States, in particular all operations of “democracy promotion”, “color” revolutions, and the exploitation of the politics of minorities.

February 20, 2012

The Case for a Non-Interventionist Foreign Policy

by JEAN BRICMONT

Louvain-la-Neuve

The events in Syria, after those in Libya last year, are accompanied by calls for a military intervention, in order to “protect civilians”, claiming that it is our right or our duty to do so. And, just as last year, some of the loudest voices in favor of intervention are heard on the left or among the Greens, who have totally swallowed the concept of “humanitarian intervention”. In fact, the rare voices staunchly opposed to such interventions are often associated with the right, either Ron Paul in the US or the National Front in France. The policy the left should support is non-intervention.

The main target of the humanitarian interventionists is the concept of national sovereignty, on which the current international law is based, and which they stigmatize as allowing dictators to kill their own people at will.  The impression is sometimes given that national sovereignty is nothing but a protection for dictators whose only desire is to kill their own people.

But in fact, the primary justification of national sovereignty is precisely to provide at least a partial protection of weak states against strong ones. A state that is strong enough can do whatever it chooses without worrying about intervention from outside. Nobody expects Bangladesh to interfere in the internal affairs of the United States.  Nobody is going to bomb the United States to force it to modify its immigration or monetary policies because of the human consequences of such policies on other countries. Humanitarian intervention goes only one way, from the powerful to the weak. →

A Mistaken Case For Syrian Regime Change

“In the effort to inflate figures of casualties, the public relations-activist group AVAAZ has consistently outstripped even the UN”

By Aisling Byrne

05 January, 2012
Asia Times Online

“War with Iran is already here,” wrote a leading Israeli commentator recently, describing “the combination of covert warfare and international pressure” being applied to Iran.

Although not mentioned, the “strategic prize” of the first stage of this war on Iran is Syria; the first campaign in a much wider sectarian power-bid. “Other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself,” Saudi King Abdullah was reported to have said last summer, “nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria.” [1]

By December, senior United States officials were explicit about their regime change agenda for Syria: Tom Donilon, the US National Security Adviser, explained that the “end of the [President Bashar al-]Assad regime would constitute Iran’s greatest setback in the region yet – a strategic blow that will further shift the balance of power in the region against Iran.” →

The truth about Avaaz’s favourite Syrian “activist”: Danny Dayem

THERE ARE MANY AVAAZ VIDEOS FEATURING/PROMOTING DANNY –   JUST TWO OF THEM ARE LISTED BELOW. DANNY IS FEATURED EXCLUSIVELY ON THE AVAAZ CAMPAIGN “SMUGGLE HOPE INTO SYRIA”. (Intro by Ricken Patel, Executive Director and co-founder of Avaaz)

http://youtu.be/R0m3QJokx48

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/smuggle_hope_into_syria_q/

AVAAZ HAS BEEN INTEGRAL IN FRAMING WHAT IS A WELL-DOCUMENTED  DESTABILIZATION PROJECT OF SYRIA BY IMPERIALIST STATES. THIS IS DONE UNDER THE GUISE OF, YET ANOTHER “REVOLUTION” BEING “CRUSHED” BY A “TYRANT” LEADER. THIS STRATEGY IS STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO THE ONE WE JUST WITNESSED IN LIBYA WHICH HAS LEFT AS MANY AS 100,000 OR MORE LIBYANS SLAUGHTERED. AVAAZ WAS INTEGRAL IN CAMPAIGNING BEHIND THE LIBYAN “HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION” AS WELL. WHAT IS UNDERWAY IN SYRIA ALSO BARES RESEMBLANCE TO THE STRATEGY UNDERTAKEN AND EXECUTED BY THE COUP ENGINEERS WHO USED THE SAME SNIPER TACTIC IN AN ATTEMPT TO INCITE VENEZUELANS AND OVERTHROW CHAVEZ IN 2002.

Just one of many Avaaz petitions calling for foreign intervention against Syria: http://www.avaaz.org/en/arab_league_save_syria_3/

Just one of many Avaaz peitions calling for foreign intervention against Libya: http://www.avaaz.org/en/libya_no_fly_zone_3/. What Avaaz, the non-profit industrial complex and the corporate-media complex did not share with the world: The July 1, 2011 pro-Gaddafi mass-rally in Tripoli, Libya protest where 1.7 million people (approx. 1/3 of Libya’s entire population) rallied against foreign intervention. Their voices went unheard.

VIDEO BELOW: Syria: coup engineers used the same sniper tactic to incite Venezuelans in 2002: “It’s unfortunate to see so many decent people duped into legitimizing disinformation and front organizations that exist solely to destabilize Syria and that benefit the 1% elite while destroying the lives of ordinary Syrians and Libyans. Out of all the writing on the wall, some of the most explicit is the fingerprint left by the cruel strategy being employed to overthrow sovereign regimes.”

SEE EXCLUSIVE LIZZIE PHELAN ARTICLE WHICH FOLLOWS THIS AVAAZ VIDEO:

Thanks Avaaz (French subtitles)

http://youtu.be/Zto2pL2fx0Y

22 Feb 2012
The truth about western media’s favourite Syrian “activist”…

EXCLUSIVE TO lizzie-phelan.blogspot.com

By Kevork Elmassian, Hiba Kelanee, Feeda Kardous and Zoubaida al Kadri

Danny Abdul Dayem is a 22 year old British citizen, of Syrian descent, from Cambridge. In the summer of 2011 he escaped the Syrian city of Homs to Egypt; and then moved to London for a few months. In December of 2011, he secretly returned to Syria through Lebanon. While in London, Danny performed many interviews with some media agencies, as an “eyewitness” from Homs, allegedly shot upon by the Syrian security forces. Clearly, he was on a mission to take full advantage of the air time given him, to transmit propaganda of the idea of a “Syrian revolution”.  Instead of the reasonable quizzing and healthy skepticism, expected of a professional news entity, on Newsnight, Danny was given free reign to speak, unchallenged. The different accounts gave to numerous news channels, including Sky News, al Hiwar, Alarabiya (in Arabic) and the Guardian were somewhat alarming. Here are some of inconsistencies:

BBC interview September 7 2011

1. (At 00.08) Danny’s answer to the first question summed the intended message all up: “Yes, I’ve seen EVERYTHING”.

2. (At 00.35 ) He shows a video that proves absolutely nothing

3. (At 01.48)  He claims that: “three quarters of the shots are aimed and one quarter is just to scare people”. If this was true, tens of thousands of Syrian protesters would have lost their lives, rather than the reported, but unsubstantiated figure of 6000 provided by the western and GCC media.

4. (At 02.34)  He tells Newsnight anchor Jeremy Paxman that a car stopped two meters behind him, and someone inside shot him. Yet, the bullet managed to “come right in his waist and out of his back”?

5. (At 03.08)  Danny tells Jeremy that he was shot by a SINGLE bullet that went through his body and presumably left two scars.

This Sky News report, clearly shows a single scar in the middle of Danny’s back.

In this al Hiwar interview (at 13.50) (7) he tangles himself in even more knots when he shows the presenter TWO dressed wounds to the sides of his back.

Adding even further confusion to the picture, the Guardian reported that Dayem had five stitches, in the hospital, on EACH wound!

In his latest interview, on al Alarabiya, Danny reverts to the story of the single bullet that went through his waist and out his back.

http://youtu.be/JdTqL6YkyUM

But at 00.15,  Danny speaks of his friend throwing him on the floor and then “standing up” in front of him to take three bullets!! We find it hard to imagine anybody who would do such a thing. Standing up in front of a car, two meters away, with “security/ shabeeha” inside it, most probably “aiming” at the two of them.

Back to the Newsnight interview at 02.36 he tells Paxman that a  bomb exploded before he was shot. Then in the al Hiwar interview at 10.39 he told the presenter a bomb exploded before he was shot and another bomb exploded after he was shot. During the al Alarabiya interview at 00.50 Dayem adds that one person (from the al Khaznadar family) died, when the bomb exploded – something he did not mention in previous interviews.

At 03.25:  There was no explanation offered as to why the mentioned car managed to drive away, although it took a mere five minutes for people to get to Dayem and his friend despite the sound of the shooting and the explosion of the grenade(s) he claimed was thrown at them. This suggests the alleged incident occurred in an isolated area. If those armed men were army or security personnel, what would frighten them in an isolated area after they had injured Dayem and his friend? Why were Dayem and his friend shot at in the first place? Why would they be shot at by security forces?

According to Dayem, protesters were shot at when they went out on the streets, but  in his story this was not the case.
At 03.58 if the aim of security/ “shabeeha” is to kill injured protesters who go to hospital for treatment; driving away in an isolated area does not seem like a better option than stopping and killing their victims.

At 04.19: Dayem’s statements seems to change as he recounts his story: “They shoot at night and wait at hospitals in the morning… [and]… actually go at night to the hospitals too”.

During the al Hiwar interview at 20.05:  he says that at first he was not asked about his wound, in the airport, and if he was then he would have told them it was a kidney operation. Seconds later, he goes on to say he told them it was an operation and that they let him go without any trouble.

At 05.15 during his interview with Paxman, Dayem claims he told officials at the airport that he had a kidney operation.

At 06.17 he says that the protests can’t stop because, “Bashar al Assad has got videos for every protester that is going out and will catch them one at a time”

If the President and his security have videos of all protesters, how was it so easy for Dayem and his family to leave the country without harassment or hindrance by security?

When Dayem was in London, a conversation happened between him and other Syrian youth on Facebook where he was told: “be careful Danny, the news channels are using you, this is their job, and they search for people like you to make some interviews! I’m telling you this, because I know how things work and I don’t want you to fall in this trap. You are the owner of yourself, don’t let the media plays with you, at the end, this is your country, and we are all Syrians, but the media has their own agendas and they are all pressured and directed by lobbies.” Dayem replied, “Thanks for the advice, but a friend is helping and he’s a lobbier”

Danny describes his “political views” on Facebook as: “I think we should live peacefully like a fish”. However, he is certainly involved in helping and supporting the terrorist militia of the so-called “Free Syrian Amy”, who have conducted many terrorist attacks upon public and private entities including orchestration many explosions of oil pipelines bringing blackouts to large parts of the country, suicide attacks in Damascus and Aleppo and hung and beheaded many supporters of the government who spoke to observers from the Arab League. All of these incidents have been documented by this blog.

Dayem hasn’t hidden his political agenda, and he clearly states that he wants US and Israel to intervene militarily in Syria to overthrow the Syrian regime.

FOR CONTINUOUS UPDATES ON WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING IN LIBYA AND SYRIA WE RECOMMEND SUBSCRIBING TO LIBYA360 AND THE LIZZIE PHELAN BLOG.

http://lizzie-phelan.blogspot.com/2012/02/truth-about-western-medias-favourite.html

Egypt Leads Fight Against NGO Agitators | A real revolution may be about to follow

Feb 20, 2012

by Tony Cartalucci | Land Destroyer Report

Neo-Conservative Max Boot is a certified warmonger, an elitist policy wonk sitting on the Fortune 500-funded Council on Foreign Relations, has signed his name to letters that called for sidestepping both national and international law to militarily intervene further in Libya, as well as call for troops on the ground even after Tripoli fell last year. He is a man you would least expect to champion NGOs and their liberal-progressive agendas.

However NGOs are not “liberal-progressive.” They are the system administrators of modern empire, an empire being forged by the wars and covert operations Boot is a chief proponent of. The absence of NGOs in any given nation, means a nation free from the influence of Wall Street & London’s networks and meddling. That is why Boot feverishly penned, “Obama’s Egyptian Hostage Crisis,” in an attempt to spur a more vigorous response to what would seem like a very minor event in the context of greater global conflicts. Egypt’s arrest and trying of 19 Americans, all of whom are directly involved in Wall Street’s network of National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funded NGOs, including the head of the International Republican Institute (IRI) office in Egypt, signifies a potential turning point not just in Egypt, but around the world. →

Empire’s Double-Edged Sword: Global Military + NGOs

Feb 19, 2012

Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer Activist Post 

Tearing down sovereign nations and replacing them with global system administrators

Colonial Southeast Asia circa 1850s. Thailand/Siam was never colonized but made many concessions.

Part 1: Imperialism is Alive and Well

“HUMAN RIGHTS” WARRIORS FOR EMPIRE | Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch

 

“Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have chosen sides in the Washington-backed belligerency – the side of Empire.” Syria has no choice but to secure every square foot of its territory. “Faced with the certainty of superpower-backed attack under the guise of ‘protecting’ civilians in “liberated” territory, Syria cannot afford to cede even one neighborhood of a single city – not one block! – or of any rural or border enclave, to armed rebels and foreign jihadis.”

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

“NATO wants desperately to identify some sliver of Syrian soil on which to plant the ‘humanitarian’ flag of intervention.”

The largest imperial offensive since the Iraq invasion of March, 2003, is in full swing, under the banner of “humanitarian” intervention – Barack Obama’s fiendishly clever upgrade of George Bush’s “dumb” wars. Having failed to obtain a Libyan-style United Nations Security Council fig leaf for a “humanitarian” military strike against Syria, the United States shifts effortlessly to a global campaign “outside the U.N. system” to expand its NATO/Persian Gulf royalty/Jihadi coalition. Next stop: Tunisia, where Washington’s allies will assemble on February 24 to sharpen their knives as “Friends of Syria.” The U.S. State Department has mobilized to shape the “Friends” membership and their “mandate” – which is warlord-speak for refining an ad hoc alliance for the piratical assault on Syria’s sovereignty.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are swigging the ale with their fellow buccaneers. These “human rights” warriors, headquartered in the bellies of empires past and present, their chests shiny with medals of propagandistic service to superpower aggression in Libya, contribute “left” legitimacy to the imperial project. London-based Amnesty International held a global “day of action” to rail against Syria for “crimes against humanity” and to accuse Russia and China of using their Security Council vetoes to “betray” the Syrian people – echoing the war hysteria out of Washington, Paris, London and the royal pigsties of Riyadh and Doha. New York-based Human Rights Watch denounced Moscow and Beijing’s actions as “incendiary” – as if it were not the empire and its allies who were setting the Middle East and Africa on fire, arming and financing jihadis – including hundreds of veteran Libyan Salafists now operating in Syria.

“Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch contribute ‘left’ legitimacy to the imperial project.”

Under Obama’s “intelligent” (as opposed to “dumb”) imperial tutelage, colonial genocidaires like France now propose creation of “humanitarian corridors” inside Syria “to allow NGOs to reach the zones where there are scandalous massacres.” NATO flatly rejected such a corridor in Libya when sub-Saharan Africans and black Libyans were being massacred by militias armed and financed by the same “Friends” that now besiege Syria.

Turkey claims it has rejected, for now, the idea of setting up humanitarian “buffer zones” along its border with Syria – inside Syrian territory – while giving arms, training and sanctuary to Syrian military deserters. In reality, it is Syrian Army troop and armor concentrations on the border that have thwarted the establishment of such a “buffer” – a bald euphemism for creating a “liberated zone” that must be “protected” by NATO or some agglomeration of U.S.-backed forces.

NATO, which bombed Libya non-stop for six months, inflicting tens of thousands of casualties while refusing to count a single body, wants desperately to identify some sliver of Syrian soil on which to plant the “humanitarian” flag of intervention. They are transparently searching for a Benghazi, to justify a replay of the Libyan operation – the transparent fact that prompted the Russian and Chinese vetoes.

Faced with the certainty of superpower-backed attack under the guise of “protecting” civilians in “liberated” territory, Syria cannot afford to cede even one neighborhood of a single city – not one block! – or of any rural or border enclave, to armed rebels and foreign jihadis. That road leads directly to loss of sovereignty and possible dissection of Syria – which western pundits are already calling a “hodge-podge” nation that could be a “failed state.” Certainly, the French and British are experts at carving up other people’s territories, having drawn the national boundaries of the region after World War One. It is an understatement to say that Israel would be pleased.

“It is the Libya formula, and might as well have come straight from Barack Obama’s mouth.”

With the Syrian military’s apparent successes in securing most of Homs and other centers of rebellion, the armed opposition has stepped up its terror tactics – a campaign noted with great alarm by the Arab League’s own Observer Mission to Syria, leading Saudi Arabia and Qatar to suppress the Mission’s report. Instead, the Gulf States are pressing the Arab League to openly “provide all kinds of political and material support” to the opposition, meaning arms and, undoubtedly, more Salafist fighters. Aleppo, Syria’s main commercial and industrial city, which had seen virtually no unrest, was struck by two deadly car bombs last week – signature work of the al-Qaida affiliate in neighboring Iraq.

The various “Friends of Syria,” all nestled in the U.S./NATO/Saudi/Qatar cocoon, now openly speak of all-out civil war in Syria – by which they mean stepped up armed conflict financed and directed by themselves – as the preferred alternative to the protracted struggle that the regime appears to be winning. There is one caveat: no “Western boots on the ground in any form,” as phrased by British Foreign Secretary William Hague. It is the Libya formula, and might as well have come straight from Barack Obama’s mouth.

Syria is fighting for its national existence against an umbrella of forces mobilized by the United States and NATO. Of the 6,000 or so people that have died in the past 11 months, about a third have been Syrian soldiers and police – statistical proof positive that this is an armed assault on the state. There is no question of massive foreign involvement, or that the aim of U.S. policy is regime change, as stated repeatedly by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (“Assad must go,” she told reporters in Bulgaria).

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have chosen sides in the Washington-backed belligerency – the side of Empire. As groups most often associated with (what passes for) the Left in their headquarters countries, they are invaluable allies of the current imperial offensive. They have many fellow travelers in (again, what passes for) anti-war circles in the colonizing and neo-colonizing nations. The French “Left” lifted hardly a finger while a million Algerians died in the struggle for independence, and have not proved effective allies of formerly colonized people in the 50 years, since. Among the European imperial powers, only Portugal’s so-called Carnation Revolution of 1974, a coup by young officers, resulted in substantial relief for the subjects of empire: the withdrawal of troops from Portugal’s African colonies.

“Of the 6,000 or so people that have died in the past 11 months, about a third have been Syrian soldiers and police – statistical proof positive that this is an armed assault on the state.”

The U.S. anti-war movement lost its mass character as soon as the threat of a draft was removed, in the early Seventies, while the United States continued to bomb Vietnam (and test new and exotic weapons on its people) until the fall of Saigon, in 1975. All that many U.S. lefties seemed to want was to get the Republicans off their backs, in 2008, and to Hell with the rest of the world. Democrat Barack Obama has cranked the imperial war machine back into high gear, with scarcely a peep from the “Left.”

There was great ambivalence – the most polite word I can muster – among purported leftists in the United States and Europe to NATO’s bombardment and subjugation of Libya. Here we are again, in the face of existential imperial threats to Syria and Iran, as leftists temporize about human rights while the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” blazes new warpaths.

There is no such thing as an anti-war activist who is not an anti-imperialist. And the only job of an anti-imperialist in the belly of the beast is to disarm the beast. Absent that, s/he is useless to humanity.

As we used to say: You are part of the solution – or you are part of the problem. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are part of the problem.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com

FLASHBACK: Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International fan the flames of conflict in Syria

A major thread running through the story of the Libyan conflict has been the information war – propaganda spread by intelligence agencies, military, media and political groups designed to encourage hatred, conflict, war, foreign intervention, death and destruction.

One sad aspect of the propaganda war has been the role played by Amnesty International and – as we will see -the heavily compromised Human Rights Watch (HRW), organisations which used to be highly regarded (and still employ some decent, well-intentioned and brave individuals.)

The daily output of propaganda is difficult to keep up with, let alone dispel. With fabricated stories describing camel bones as mass graves containing 1270 bodies, Moussa Ibrahim reportedly being found in women’s clothing and viagra apparently being distributed as a weapon of mass destruction in order to “rape children as young as EIGHT” the propaganda is beyond parody.

Human Rights Watch – infiltrated

HRW has always been a somewhat dodgy organisation, largely funded by billionaires such as George Soros and the Rausing family whose fortune comes from Tetra Paks, exploiting cheap labor in China and (allegedly) tax dodging on an industrial scale. According to its 2010 financial statements, HRW’s annual spend on fundraising was $8,042,326 and $2,344,370 on management and general costs. →

Human Rights Groups & Media Responsible for Lies and Mass Murder in Syria and Libya

In Depth interview with Lizzie Phelan regarding the ongoing media conspiracy against Syria (Arabic subtitles)

Feb 7, 2012

http://youtu.be/HKZ8ozlzGNM

Lizzie Phelan Interview in NY times

Feb 1, 2012

http://lizzie-phelan.blogspot.com →