“Responsibility to Protect” The End of National Sovereignty
Posted: December 21st, 2011, 10:30 am
The “Responsibility to Protect” was used in Libya and soon in Syria (see article 2nd article). Where else will it be used? Glenn beck believes it will be used to go after Israel. I believe it could even be used against the US down the road. OMD
“Responsibility to Protect” – The End of National Sovereignty As We Know It?
Cross-posting from the New Zeal blog
Why Did U.S. President Barack Obama order a military attack on Libya? Why did he seek the permission of the United Nations Security Council, but not that of the U.S. Congress – as he is constitutionally obliged to do?
Glenn Beck has explained President Obama’s decision to attack Libya in terms of the United Nations’ “Responsibility to Protect Doctrine”
Mr Beck is right.
http://www.glennbeck.com/2011/03/30/the ... n-america/
According to Radio Free Europe
Those who justify the Libyan intervention on humanitarian grounds draw much of their logic from a concept which has dramatically gained ground over recent decades. The concept is known as “R2P,” shorthand for the world’s “Responsibility to Protect” civilians.
But what does this catchy little phrase mean? Where did it come from? What are its implications?
The United Nations reported in July 2009;
The Obama administration is supporting moves to implement an U.N. doctrine calling for collective military action to halt genocide. In a week-long debate on implementing the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine, the U.S. joined a majority of U.N. countries, including Russia and China, in supporting implementation of the policy. The doctrine itself was approved in 2005 by more than 150 states including the U.S.
The doctrine specifies that diplomatic options such as internal conflict resolution, sanctions, and prosecution by the International Criminal Court, should be used first. If they don’t work, then a multi-national force approved by the Security Council would be deployed.
In other words, if the United Nations does not approve of a certain government’s behavior, and that government’s leaders will not respond to sanctions and the threat of prosecution, they will be attackeded militarily.
The U.S. organization supporting this concept, named unsurprisingly Responsibility to Protect is affiliated to a financial planning firm, General Welfare Group LLC, based in Oak Brook Illinois.
According to the Responsibility to Protect website
The doctrine of the responsibility to protect was first elaborated in 2001 by a group of prominent international human rights leaders comprising the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Under their mandate, the Commission sought to undertake the two-fold challenge of reconciling the international community’s responsibility to address massive violations of humanitarian norms and ensuring respect for the sovereign rights of nation states.
Led by Gareth Evans, former Foreign Minister of Australia, and Mohamed Sahnoun, Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General, the Commission issued its report in December 2001. Focusing on the “right of humanitarian intervention”, this report examined when, if ever, it is appropriate for states for take coercive – and in particular military – action, against another state for the purpose of protecting populations at risk. In essence, the group concluded that when a group (or groups) of people is suffering from egregious acts of violence resulting from internal war, insurgency, repression or state failure, and the state where these crimes are taking place is unable or unwilling to act to prevent or protect its peoples, the international community has a moral duty to intervene to avert or halt these atrocities from occurring.
Gareth Evans, an Australian Fabian Socialist and Mohamed Sahnoun both worked with leftist financier George Soros in the highly influential International Crisis Group.
The “responsibility to protect” doctrine received renewed emphasis in 2004 when the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan created the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change. The Panel was established to “identify major threats facing the international community in the broad field of peace and security and to generate new ideas about policies and institutions aimed at preventing or confronting these challenges”.
Panelists included;
•Mary Chinery-Hess (Ghana), Vice-Chairman, National Development Planning Commission of Ghana and former Deputy Director-General, International Labour Organization;
•Gareth Evans (Australia), President of the International Crisis Group and former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia;
•Amre Moussa (Egypt), Secretary-General of the League of Arab States;
•Yevgeny Primakov (Russia), former Prime Minister of the Russian Federation;
•Qian Oichen (China), former Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China;
•Nafis Sadik (Pakistan), former Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund;
•Salim Ahmed Salim (United Republic of Tanzania), former Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity; and
•Brent Scowcroft (United States), former Lt. General in the United States Air Force and United States National Security Adviser.
With respect to “Responsibility to Protect”, the Panel endorsed this “emerging norm”, stating that:
There is a growing recognition that the issue is not the “right to intervene” of any State, but the “responsibility to protect” of every State when it comes to people suffering from avoidable catastrophe mass murder and rape, ethnic cleansing by forcible expulsion and terror, and deliberate starvation and exposure to disease. And there is a growing acceptance that while sovereign Governments have the primary responsibility to protect their own citizens from such catastrophes, when they are unable or unwilling to do so that responsibility should be taken up by the wider international community… ”
We endorse the emerging norm that there is a collective international responsibility to protect, exercisable by the Security Council authorizing military intervention as a last resort, in the event of genocide and other large scale killing, ethnic cleansing or serious violations of international humanitarian law which sovereign Governments have proved powerless or unwilling to prevent.”
In September 2005, “Responsibility to Protect” “was once again enlivened”, this time with the “full support of the international community”. At the 60th session of the U.N. General Assembly gathering, 191 heads of state and government representatives unanimously endorsed a resolution supporting the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. This resolution laid the foundations for a new global moral compact between every State and every population on earth. As adopted, atrocity crimes “ genocide, crimes against humanity (including ethnic cleansing) and war crimes” – were considered a universal concern and therefore were responsibility of the international community.
During the 2005 General Assembly World Summit, world leaders stated:
Each and individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it. The international community should, as appropriate, encourage and help States to exercise this responsibility and support the United Nations in establishing an early warning capability.
The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In this context, we are prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
The support of the U.S. was of course crucial for this radical new approach to international relations. The U.S. under President George Bush would not even sign up to the International Criminal Court, a key component of the proposed new order.
Therefore the U.S. Responsibility to Protect organization re-committed itself to its goals. The mission of Responsibility to Protect is
•To convince the American people and its leaders to embrace the norm of the responsibility to protect as a domestic and foreign policy priority.
•To convince our political leadership that the US must join the International Criminal Court.
•To convince our political leadership to empower the UN and the ICC with a legitimate and effective deterrent and enforcement mechanism – an International Marshals Service – a standing international police force to arrest atrocity crimes indictees.
Responsibility to Protect knew they would get nowhere under Bush, but viewed the 2008 elections as an opportunity for change.
The upcoming 2008 presidential election and the general debate that will precede provide an opportunity to bring this new norm in the public and leaders’ discourse over America’s domestic and foreign policy, and to get our nation to take the necessary bold steps that are called for to implement this bold principle.
Clearly, the Obama Administration has proven far more sympathetic to Responsibility to Protect’s agenda than was that of President Bush.
While few seem to realize the significance of the new doctrine, Responsibility to Protect co-inventor Richard H. Cooper fully understands its transformational potential.
Cooper writes on the Responsibility to Protect website
Yet as I write, a quiet revolution is under way. In September 2005, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a declaration – the World Summit Outcome – whereby each and every State in the world accepted its responsibility to protect populations from genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and war crimes. The declaration also emphasizes that if a State relinquishes its responsibility to protect – whether by will or lack of capacity – this responsibility must be borne by the international community that can decide to intervene as a last resort. In the face of mass atrocities, every nation and thus every people on earth have pledged to be our brothers’ keepers. Without fanfare and with little notice, the obsolete principles underlying the Westphalian ordering of world affairs have been dramatically rewritten. We can no longer hide behind State sovereignty, a 400-years old shield, to excuse the shameful reflex and ongoing practice of remaining passive in the face of the most outrageous behaviors…
“We can no longer hide behind state sovereignty.”
Let that sink in reader. That is what this is all about.
“Responsibility to Protect” means the end of national sovereignty. It mandates the surrender of any nation state’s legal authority over their own citizenry and armed forces to a supra-national body, with the power to sanction or destroy any deemed “rogue” nation – does Israel spring to mind?
“Responsibility to Protect” – three little words, that should strike terror into the heart of every patriot in every free nation of the world.
http://keywiki.org/blog/?p=1928
Russia inspecting missile bases, fearing NATO attack: Syria accused of atrocities in clamp down on insurgency.
Posted on December 21, 2011 at 12:13 AM EST
By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM — Russian military technicians were in Syria in recent days to inspect the country’s missile and army installations, a top Egyptian security official told KleinOnline.
The move comes amid Syrian fears a Turkish-backed NATO military campaign may try to target the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, who is widely accused of human rights abuses in attempting to quell a four month long insurgency.
The Egyptian security official said Russia and Syria both backed an Arab League deal, signed by Damascus yesterday, that called for observers to oversee Syrian troop withdrawals from insurgent strongholds. The deal also requires Assad to implement democratic reforms, including the holding of elections.
The opposition Syrian National Council, however, claimed the Syrian regime will not adhere to the peace plan.
Opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun dismissed the announcement as a “ploy,” saying the country’s leaders had no plans to implement “any initiative.”
“The Syrian regime is maneuvering to try to prevent the Syrian file being submitted to the UN Security Council,” Ghalioun said, on the heels of an opposition conference in Tunisia.
The opposition is looking for diplomatic recognition as Syria’s government-in-exile.
On Sunday, opposition leaders called for foreign military intervention to end Assad’s bloody crackdown.
Yesterday, tens of thousands of Syrians reportedly rallied in Saba’a Bahrat Square in Damascus to express their rejection of foreign interference in Syrian affairs while expressing support for Assad’s signing of the Arab League deal.
Arab League diplomats previously told reporters they may recognize the opposition as the sole representative of the Syrian people in a move that would symbolically isolate Assad’s regime.
If such a step is taken it would mimic the diplomatic initiatives recently utilized to isolate Muammar Gadhafi’s regime before the NATO campaign in Libya.
Damascus officials claimed to KleinOnline last month that NATO troops were training in Turkey for a Turkish-led NATO invasion of Syria.
Any deployment would come under the banner of the same “Responsibility to Protect” global doctrine used to justify the U.S.-NATO airstrikes in Libya.
Responsibility to Protect, or Responsibility to Act, as cited by President Obama, is a set of principles, now backed by the United Nations, based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege but a responsibility that can be revoked if a country is accused of “war crimes,” “genocide,” “crimes against humanity” or “ethnic cleansing.”
A Turkish-U.S.-NATO strike could have immediate implications for Israel.
The Syrian president warned in a recent interview with a U.K. newspaper that foreign intervention in Syria would cause an “earthquake” across the region and create another Afghanistan, while directly threatening the Jewish state.
Assad reportedly made similar comments in a meeting in early October with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmad Davutoglu. He was quoted stating, “If a crazy measure is taken against Damascus, I will need not more than six hours to transfer hundreds of rockets and missiles to the Golan Heights to fire them at Tel Aviv.”
Assad also reportedly warned that “all these events will happen in three hours, but in the second three hours, Iran will attack the U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf and the U.S. and European interests will be targeted simultaneously.”
George Soros-funded doctrine with White House ties
The Libya bombings have been widely regarded as a test of a military doctrine called “Responsibility to Protect.”
In his address to the nation in April explaining the NATO campaign in Libya, Obama cited the doctrine as the main justification for U.S. and international airstrikes against Libya.
The Global Center for Responsibility to Protect is the world’s leading champion of the military doctrine.
As KleinOnline reported, billionaire activist George Soros is a primary funder and key proponent of the Global Center for Responsibility to Protect. Several of the doctrine’s main founders also sit on boards with Soros.
KleinOnline reported the committee that devised the Responsibility to Protect doctrine included Arab League Secretary General Amre Moussa as well as Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi, a staunch denier of the Holocaust who long served as the deputy of late Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat.
Also, the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy has a seat on the advisory board of the 2001 commission that originally founded Responsibility to Protect. The commission is called the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. It invented the term “responsibility to protect” while defining its guidelines.
The Carr Center is a research center concerned with human rights located at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Samantha Power, the National Security Council special adviser to Obama on human rights, was Carr’s founding executive director and headed the institute at the time it advised in the founding of Responsibility to Protect.
With Power’s center on the advisory board, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty first defined the Responsibility to Protect doctrine.
Power reportedly heavily influenced Obama in consultations leading to the decision to bomb Libya.
Two of the global group’s advisory board members, Ramesh Thakur and Gareth Evans, are the original founders of the doctrine, with the duo even coining the term “responsibility to protect.”
As KleinOnline reported, Soros’ Open Society Institute is a primary funder and key proponent of the Global Center for Responsibility to Protect. Also, Thakur and Evans sit on multiple boards with Soros.
Soros’ Open Society is one of only three nongovernmental funders of the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect. Government sponsors include Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Rwanda and the U.K.
Board members of the group include former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former Ireland President Mary Robinson and South African activist Desmond Tutu. Robinson and Tutu have recently made solidarity visits to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip as members of a group called The Elders, which includes former President Jimmy Carter.
Annan once famously stated, “State sovereignty, in its most basic sense, is being redefined – not least by the forces of globalization and international co-operation. States are … instruments at the service of their peoples and not vice versa.”
Soros: Right to ‘penetrate nation-states’
Soros himself outlined the fundamentals of Responsibility to Protect in a 2004 Foreign Policy magazine article titled “The People’s Sovereignty: How a New Twist on an Old Idea Can Protect the World’s Most Vulnerable Populations.”
In the article Soros said, “True sovereignty belongs to the people, who in turn delegate it to their governments.”
“If governments abuse the authority entrusted to them and citizens have no opportunity to correct such abuses, outside interference is justified,” Soros wrote. “By specifying that sovereignty is based on the people, the international community can penetrate nation-states’ borders to protect the rights of citizens.
“In particular,” he continued, “the principle of the people’s sovereignty can help solve two modern challenges: the obstacles to delivering aid effectively to sovereign states, and the obstacles to global collective action dealing with states experiencing internal conflict.”
More George Soros ties
“Responsibility” founders Evans and Thakur served as co-chairmen with Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corp. Charitable Foundation, on the advisory board of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which invented the term “responsibility to protect.”
In his capacity as co-chairman, Evans also played a pivotal role in initiating the fundamental shift from sovereignty as a right to “sovereignty as responsibility.”
Evans presented Responsibility to Protect at the July 23, 2009, United Nations General Assembly, which was convened to consider the principle.
Thakur is a fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation, which is in partnership with an economic institute founded by Soros.
Soros is on the executive board of the International Crisis Group, a “crisis management organization” for which Evans serves as president-emeritus.
KleinOnline previously reported how the group has been petitioning for the U.S. to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition in Egypt, where longtime U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak was recently toppled.
Aside from Evans and Soros, the group includes on its board Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, as well as other personalities who champion dialogue with Hamas, a violent offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
KleinOnline also reported the crisis group has petitioned for the Algerian government to cease “excessive” military activities against al-Qaida-linked groups and to allow organizations seeking to create an Islamic state to participate in the Algerian government.
Soros’ own Open Society Institute has funded opposition groups across the Middle East and North Africa, including organizations involved in the current chaos.
‘One World Order’
KleinOnline reported, that doctrine founder Thakur recently advocated for a “global rebalancing” and “international redistribution” to create a “New World Order.”
In a piece last March in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, “Toward a new world order,” Thakur wrote, “Westerners must change lifestyles and support international redistribution.”
He was referring to a United Nations-brokered international climate treaty in which he argued, “Developing countries must reorient growth in cleaner and greener directions.”
In the opinion piece, Thakur then discussed recent military engagements and how the financial crisis has impacted the U.S.
“The West’s bullying approach to developing nations won’t work anymore – global power is shifting to Asia,” he wrote.
“A much-needed global moral rebalancing is in train,” he added.
Thakur continued: “Westerners have lost their previous capacity to set standards and rules of behavior for the world. Unless they recognize this reality, there is little prospect of making significant progress in deadlocked international negotiations.”
Thakur contended “the demonstration of the limits to U.S. and NATO power in Iraq and Afghanistan has left many less fearful of ‘superior’ Western power.”
http://kleinonline.wnd.com/2011/12/21/r ... nsurgency/
“Responsibility to Protect” – The End of National Sovereignty As We Know It?
Cross-posting from the New Zeal blog
Why Did U.S. President Barack Obama order a military attack on Libya? Why did he seek the permission of the United Nations Security Council, but not that of the U.S. Congress – as he is constitutionally obliged to do?
Glenn Beck has explained President Obama’s decision to attack Libya in terms of the United Nations’ “Responsibility to Protect Doctrine”
Mr Beck is right.
http://www.glennbeck.com/2011/03/30/the ... n-america/
According to Radio Free Europe
Those who justify the Libyan intervention on humanitarian grounds draw much of their logic from a concept which has dramatically gained ground over recent decades. The concept is known as “R2P,” shorthand for the world’s “Responsibility to Protect” civilians.
But what does this catchy little phrase mean? Where did it come from? What are its implications?
The United Nations reported in July 2009;
The Obama administration is supporting moves to implement an U.N. doctrine calling for collective military action to halt genocide. In a week-long debate on implementing the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine, the U.S. joined a majority of U.N. countries, including Russia and China, in supporting implementation of the policy. The doctrine itself was approved in 2005 by more than 150 states including the U.S.
The doctrine specifies that diplomatic options such as internal conflict resolution, sanctions, and prosecution by the International Criminal Court, should be used first. If they don’t work, then a multi-national force approved by the Security Council would be deployed.
In other words, if the United Nations does not approve of a certain government’s behavior, and that government’s leaders will not respond to sanctions and the threat of prosecution, they will be attackeded militarily.
The U.S. organization supporting this concept, named unsurprisingly Responsibility to Protect is affiliated to a financial planning firm, General Welfare Group LLC, based in Oak Brook Illinois.
According to the Responsibility to Protect website
The doctrine of the responsibility to protect was first elaborated in 2001 by a group of prominent international human rights leaders comprising the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Under their mandate, the Commission sought to undertake the two-fold challenge of reconciling the international community’s responsibility to address massive violations of humanitarian norms and ensuring respect for the sovereign rights of nation states.
Led by Gareth Evans, former Foreign Minister of Australia, and Mohamed Sahnoun, Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General, the Commission issued its report in December 2001. Focusing on the “right of humanitarian intervention”, this report examined when, if ever, it is appropriate for states for take coercive – and in particular military – action, against another state for the purpose of protecting populations at risk. In essence, the group concluded that when a group (or groups) of people is suffering from egregious acts of violence resulting from internal war, insurgency, repression or state failure, and the state where these crimes are taking place is unable or unwilling to act to prevent or protect its peoples, the international community has a moral duty to intervene to avert or halt these atrocities from occurring.
Gareth Evans, an Australian Fabian Socialist and Mohamed Sahnoun both worked with leftist financier George Soros in the highly influential International Crisis Group.
The “responsibility to protect” doctrine received renewed emphasis in 2004 when the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan created the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change. The Panel was established to “identify major threats facing the international community in the broad field of peace and security and to generate new ideas about policies and institutions aimed at preventing or confronting these challenges”.
Panelists included;
•Mary Chinery-Hess (Ghana), Vice-Chairman, National Development Planning Commission of Ghana and former Deputy Director-General, International Labour Organization;
•Gareth Evans (Australia), President of the International Crisis Group and former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia;
•Amre Moussa (Egypt), Secretary-General of the League of Arab States;
•Yevgeny Primakov (Russia), former Prime Minister of the Russian Federation;
•Qian Oichen (China), former Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China;
•Nafis Sadik (Pakistan), former Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund;
•Salim Ahmed Salim (United Republic of Tanzania), former Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity; and
•Brent Scowcroft (United States), former Lt. General in the United States Air Force and United States National Security Adviser.
With respect to “Responsibility to Protect”, the Panel endorsed this “emerging norm”, stating that:
There is a growing recognition that the issue is not the “right to intervene” of any State, but the “responsibility to protect” of every State when it comes to people suffering from avoidable catastrophe mass murder and rape, ethnic cleansing by forcible expulsion and terror, and deliberate starvation and exposure to disease. And there is a growing acceptance that while sovereign Governments have the primary responsibility to protect their own citizens from such catastrophes, when they are unable or unwilling to do so that responsibility should be taken up by the wider international community… ”
We endorse the emerging norm that there is a collective international responsibility to protect, exercisable by the Security Council authorizing military intervention as a last resort, in the event of genocide and other large scale killing, ethnic cleansing or serious violations of international humanitarian law which sovereign Governments have proved powerless or unwilling to prevent.”
In September 2005, “Responsibility to Protect” “was once again enlivened”, this time with the “full support of the international community”. At the 60th session of the U.N. General Assembly gathering, 191 heads of state and government representatives unanimously endorsed a resolution supporting the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. This resolution laid the foundations for a new global moral compact between every State and every population on earth. As adopted, atrocity crimes “ genocide, crimes against humanity (including ethnic cleansing) and war crimes” – were considered a universal concern and therefore were responsibility of the international community.
During the 2005 General Assembly World Summit, world leaders stated:
Each and individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it. The international community should, as appropriate, encourage and help States to exercise this responsibility and support the United Nations in establishing an early warning capability.
The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In this context, we are prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
The support of the U.S. was of course crucial for this radical new approach to international relations. The U.S. under President George Bush would not even sign up to the International Criminal Court, a key component of the proposed new order.
Therefore the U.S. Responsibility to Protect organization re-committed itself to its goals. The mission of Responsibility to Protect is
•To convince the American people and its leaders to embrace the norm of the responsibility to protect as a domestic and foreign policy priority.
•To convince our political leadership that the US must join the International Criminal Court.
•To convince our political leadership to empower the UN and the ICC with a legitimate and effective deterrent and enforcement mechanism – an International Marshals Service – a standing international police force to arrest atrocity crimes indictees.
Responsibility to Protect knew they would get nowhere under Bush, but viewed the 2008 elections as an opportunity for change.
The upcoming 2008 presidential election and the general debate that will precede provide an opportunity to bring this new norm in the public and leaders’ discourse over America’s domestic and foreign policy, and to get our nation to take the necessary bold steps that are called for to implement this bold principle.
Clearly, the Obama Administration has proven far more sympathetic to Responsibility to Protect’s agenda than was that of President Bush.
While few seem to realize the significance of the new doctrine, Responsibility to Protect co-inventor Richard H. Cooper fully understands its transformational potential.
Cooper writes on the Responsibility to Protect website
Yet as I write, a quiet revolution is under way. In September 2005, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a declaration – the World Summit Outcome – whereby each and every State in the world accepted its responsibility to protect populations from genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and war crimes. The declaration also emphasizes that if a State relinquishes its responsibility to protect – whether by will or lack of capacity – this responsibility must be borne by the international community that can decide to intervene as a last resort. In the face of mass atrocities, every nation and thus every people on earth have pledged to be our brothers’ keepers. Without fanfare and with little notice, the obsolete principles underlying the Westphalian ordering of world affairs have been dramatically rewritten. We can no longer hide behind State sovereignty, a 400-years old shield, to excuse the shameful reflex and ongoing practice of remaining passive in the face of the most outrageous behaviors…
“We can no longer hide behind state sovereignty.”
Let that sink in reader. That is what this is all about.
“Responsibility to Protect” means the end of national sovereignty. It mandates the surrender of any nation state’s legal authority over their own citizenry and armed forces to a supra-national body, with the power to sanction or destroy any deemed “rogue” nation – does Israel spring to mind?
“Responsibility to Protect” – three little words, that should strike terror into the heart of every patriot in every free nation of the world.
http://keywiki.org/blog/?p=1928
Russia inspecting missile bases, fearing NATO attack: Syria accused of atrocities in clamp down on insurgency.
Posted on December 21, 2011 at 12:13 AM EST
By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM — Russian military technicians were in Syria in recent days to inspect the country’s missile and army installations, a top Egyptian security official told KleinOnline.
The move comes amid Syrian fears a Turkish-backed NATO military campaign may try to target the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, who is widely accused of human rights abuses in attempting to quell a four month long insurgency.
The Egyptian security official said Russia and Syria both backed an Arab League deal, signed by Damascus yesterday, that called for observers to oversee Syrian troop withdrawals from insurgent strongholds. The deal also requires Assad to implement democratic reforms, including the holding of elections.
The opposition Syrian National Council, however, claimed the Syrian regime will not adhere to the peace plan.
Opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun dismissed the announcement as a “ploy,” saying the country’s leaders had no plans to implement “any initiative.”
“The Syrian regime is maneuvering to try to prevent the Syrian file being submitted to the UN Security Council,” Ghalioun said, on the heels of an opposition conference in Tunisia.
The opposition is looking for diplomatic recognition as Syria’s government-in-exile.
On Sunday, opposition leaders called for foreign military intervention to end Assad’s bloody crackdown.
Yesterday, tens of thousands of Syrians reportedly rallied in Saba’a Bahrat Square in Damascus to express their rejection of foreign interference in Syrian affairs while expressing support for Assad’s signing of the Arab League deal.
Arab League diplomats previously told reporters they may recognize the opposition as the sole representative of the Syrian people in a move that would symbolically isolate Assad’s regime.
If such a step is taken it would mimic the diplomatic initiatives recently utilized to isolate Muammar Gadhafi’s regime before the NATO campaign in Libya.
Damascus officials claimed to KleinOnline last month that NATO troops were training in Turkey for a Turkish-led NATO invasion of Syria.
Any deployment would come under the banner of the same “Responsibility to Protect” global doctrine used to justify the U.S.-NATO airstrikes in Libya.
Responsibility to Protect, or Responsibility to Act, as cited by President Obama, is a set of principles, now backed by the United Nations, based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege but a responsibility that can be revoked if a country is accused of “war crimes,” “genocide,” “crimes against humanity” or “ethnic cleansing.”
A Turkish-U.S.-NATO strike could have immediate implications for Israel.
The Syrian president warned in a recent interview with a U.K. newspaper that foreign intervention in Syria would cause an “earthquake” across the region and create another Afghanistan, while directly threatening the Jewish state.
Assad reportedly made similar comments in a meeting in early October with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmad Davutoglu. He was quoted stating, “If a crazy measure is taken against Damascus, I will need not more than six hours to transfer hundreds of rockets and missiles to the Golan Heights to fire them at Tel Aviv.”
Assad also reportedly warned that “all these events will happen in three hours, but in the second three hours, Iran will attack the U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf and the U.S. and European interests will be targeted simultaneously.”
George Soros-funded doctrine with White House ties
The Libya bombings have been widely regarded as a test of a military doctrine called “Responsibility to Protect.”
In his address to the nation in April explaining the NATO campaign in Libya, Obama cited the doctrine as the main justification for U.S. and international airstrikes against Libya.
The Global Center for Responsibility to Protect is the world’s leading champion of the military doctrine.
As KleinOnline reported, billionaire activist George Soros is a primary funder and key proponent of the Global Center for Responsibility to Protect. Several of the doctrine’s main founders also sit on boards with Soros.
KleinOnline reported the committee that devised the Responsibility to Protect doctrine included Arab League Secretary General Amre Moussa as well as Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi, a staunch denier of the Holocaust who long served as the deputy of late Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat.
Also, the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy has a seat on the advisory board of the 2001 commission that originally founded Responsibility to Protect. The commission is called the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. It invented the term “responsibility to protect” while defining its guidelines.
The Carr Center is a research center concerned with human rights located at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Samantha Power, the National Security Council special adviser to Obama on human rights, was Carr’s founding executive director and headed the institute at the time it advised in the founding of Responsibility to Protect.
With Power’s center on the advisory board, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty first defined the Responsibility to Protect doctrine.
Power reportedly heavily influenced Obama in consultations leading to the decision to bomb Libya.
Two of the global group’s advisory board members, Ramesh Thakur and Gareth Evans, are the original founders of the doctrine, with the duo even coining the term “responsibility to protect.”
As KleinOnline reported, Soros’ Open Society Institute is a primary funder and key proponent of the Global Center for Responsibility to Protect. Also, Thakur and Evans sit on multiple boards with Soros.
Soros’ Open Society is one of only three nongovernmental funders of the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect. Government sponsors include Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Rwanda and the U.K.
Board members of the group include former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former Ireland President Mary Robinson and South African activist Desmond Tutu. Robinson and Tutu have recently made solidarity visits to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip as members of a group called The Elders, which includes former President Jimmy Carter.
Annan once famously stated, “State sovereignty, in its most basic sense, is being redefined – not least by the forces of globalization and international co-operation. States are … instruments at the service of their peoples and not vice versa.”
Soros: Right to ‘penetrate nation-states’
Soros himself outlined the fundamentals of Responsibility to Protect in a 2004 Foreign Policy magazine article titled “The People’s Sovereignty: How a New Twist on an Old Idea Can Protect the World’s Most Vulnerable Populations.”
In the article Soros said, “True sovereignty belongs to the people, who in turn delegate it to their governments.”
“If governments abuse the authority entrusted to them and citizens have no opportunity to correct such abuses, outside interference is justified,” Soros wrote. “By specifying that sovereignty is based on the people, the international community can penetrate nation-states’ borders to protect the rights of citizens.
“In particular,” he continued, “the principle of the people’s sovereignty can help solve two modern challenges: the obstacles to delivering aid effectively to sovereign states, and the obstacles to global collective action dealing with states experiencing internal conflict.”
More George Soros ties
“Responsibility” founders Evans and Thakur served as co-chairmen with Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corp. Charitable Foundation, on the advisory board of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which invented the term “responsibility to protect.”
In his capacity as co-chairman, Evans also played a pivotal role in initiating the fundamental shift from sovereignty as a right to “sovereignty as responsibility.”
Evans presented Responsibility to Protect at the July 23, 2009, United Nations General Assembly, which was convened to consider the principle.
Thakur is a fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation, which is in partnership with an economic institute founded by Soros.
Soros is on the executive board of the International Crisis Group, a “crisis management organization” for which Evans serves as president-emeritus.
KleinOnline previously reported how the group has been petitioning for the U.S. to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition in Egypt, where longtime U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak was recently toppled.
Aside from Evans and Soros, the group includes on its board Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, as well as other personalities who champion dialogue with Hamas, a violent offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
KleinOnline also reported the crisis group has petitioned for the Algerian government to cease “excessive” military activities against al-Qaida-linked groups and to allow organizations seeking to create an Islamic state to participate in the Algerian government.
Soros’ own Open Society Institute has funded opposition groups across the Middle East and North Africa, including organizations involved in the current chaos.
‘One World Order’
KleinOnline reported, that doctrine founder Thakur recently advocated for a “global rebalancing” and “international redistribution” to create a “New World Order.”
In a piece last March in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, “Toward a new world order,” Thakur wrote, “Westerners must change lifestyles and support international redistribution.”
He was referring to a United Nations-brokered international climate treaty in which he argued, “Developing countries must reorient growth in cleaner and greener directions.”
In the opinion piece, Thakur then discussed recent military engagements and how the financial crisis has impacted the U.S.
“The West’s bullying approach to developing nations won’t work anymore – global power is shifting to Asia,” he wrote.
“A much-needed global moral rebalancing is in train,” he added.
Thakur continued: “Westerners have lost their previous capacity to set standards and rules of behavior for the world. Unless they recognize this reality, there is little prospect of making significant progress in deadlocked international negotiations.”
Thakur contended “the demonstration of the limits to U.S. and NATO power in Iraq and Afghanistan has left many less fearful of ‘superior’ Western power.”
http://kleinonline.wnd.com/2011/12/21/r ... nsurgency/