“Responsibility to Protect” The End of National Sovereignty

For discussion of liberty, freedom, government and politics.
Post Reply
User avatar
Oldemandalton
captain of 1,000
Posts: 2226
Location: Las Vegas
Contact:

“Responsibility to Protect” The End of National Sovereignty

Post by Oldemandalton »

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?

Image

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.

Image

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.

Image

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.

Image

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.

Image

“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/

User avatar
Oldemandalton
captain of 1,000
Posts: 2226
Location: Las Vegas
Contact:

Re: “Responsibility to Protect” The End of National Sovereig

Post by Oldemandalton »

First Libya, next Syria and now Egypt?


Soros fingered in Egypt unrest
Groups accused of sparking civil war so foreign forces can impose regime


Posted: December 22, 2011
12:00 am Eastern
By Aaron Klein
© 2011 WND

JERUSALEM – Egypt's ruling military council of generals yesterday accused foreign elements of fueling unrest and civil war in the country with the goal of imposing a new regime, possibly using foreign military intervention.

While not fingering any particular group, Egypt's Justice Minister Adel Abdel-Hamid accused around 300 non-governmental organizations of channeling money from unauthorized foreign sources to some of the protesters.

According to sources in the Egyptian military, one prime group being looked at is Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, which is run in partnership with billionaire George Soros' Cairo-based Open Society Justice Initiative.

WND previously documented Soros' funding of other nongovernmental organizations based in Egypt and tied to the ongoing unrest there as well as in other parts of the Middle East and North Africa.

WND further documented how Soros is a primary funder of the same Responsibility to Protect global doctrine used to justify the U.S.-NATO airstrikes in Libya. Currently, opposition movements in Egypt and Syria are calling for the doctrine to be deployed in those countries.

Yesterday, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces claimed in a statement issued on its official Facebook page that there were "continuing plots to try to overthrow the state by accelerating protests."

The state news agency MENA further quoted an Egyptian official saying authorities uncovered a plot to turn peaceful protests planned for the first anniversary of the Jan. 25 mass uprising against Hosni Mubarak into a "civil war" meant to pave the way for foreign military intervention.

"The plot is to drag the pure youth and losers of parliamentary elections into foiling the parliament elections and toppling the army and the state," MENA reported, quoting an unidentified high-ranking official.

The official said authorities discovered "communications and moves" aimed at "sending the country in chaos, and a civil war between the people and the army to pave the way for foreign forces to separate between the people and the army."

Justice Minister Hamid, meanwhile, accused so-called human rights groups of instigating violent unrest.

"The early threads shows that some people have received foreign funding ... particularly among the NGOs and rights groups and distributed these funds on individuals," Abdel-Hamid told reporters.

An Egyptian official said that among the nongovernmental groups being investigated by Hamid's office is the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, which has been widely quoted in the news media claiming atrocities and human rights abuses at the hands of the military.
That group is partnered with Soros' Open Society offices in Egypt.

Soros also has other ties to opposition groups in Egypt.

His Open Society Institute's Middle East and North Africa Initiative has provided numerous grants to a wide range of projects that promote so-called democratic issues across the region, including in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood has been gaining in the parliamentary elections.
In September, Soros' group was looking to expand its operations in Egypt by hiring a new project manager for its Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.

The group was seeking to develop a national network of legal empowerment actors for referral of public-interest law cases. Such organizations in the past have helped represent Muslim Brotherhood leaders seeking election or more authority in the country.

Also, an international "crisis management" group led by Soros long has petitioned for the Egyptian government to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks an Islamic caliphate.

The International Crisis Group, or ICG, also released a report urging the Egyptian regime to allow the Brotherhood to establish an Islamist political party.

The ICG includes on its board Mohamed ElBaradei, one of the main opposition leaders in Egypt, as well as other personalities who champion dialogue with Hamas, a violent offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In a June 2008 report titled "Egypt's Muslim Brothers Confrontation or Integration," Soros' ICG urges the Egyptian regime to allow the group to participate in political life.

The report dismisses Egypt's longstanding government crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood as "dangerously short-sighted."

The ICG report called on then-President Hosni Mubarak's regime to "pave the way for the regularization of the Muslim Brothers' participation in political life," including by allowing for the "establishment of a political party with religious reference."

Several times in its 2008 report, the ICG specifically stressed allowing the Brotherhood to serve as an Islamist party.

The ICG and its personalities also long have petitioned for the Muslim Brotherhood to be allowed to join the Egyptian government.

Soros is one of eight members of the ICG executive committee.

ElBaradei suspended his board membership in the ICG last January after he returned to Egypt to lead the anti-Mubarak protests.

U.S. board members include Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser to Jimmy Carter; Samuel Berger, Bill Clinton's national security adviser; and retired U.S. ambassador Thomas Pickering, who made headlines in 2009 after meeting with Hamas leaders and calling for the U.S. to open ties to the Islamist group.

Another ICG member is Robert Malley, a former adviser to Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. He resigned after it was exposed he had communicated with Hamas. WND reported Malley long had petitioned for dialogue with Hamas.

The ICG defines itself as an "independent, non-profit, multinational organization with 100 staff members on five continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict."

Soros himself last February made public statements in support of the protests in Egypt.

In a Washington Post editorial titled "Why Obama Has to Get Egypt Right," Soros recognized that if free elections were held in Egypt, "the Brotherhood is bound to emerge as a major political force, though it is far from assured of a majority."

He stated the U.S. has "much to gain by moving out in front and siding with the public demand for dignity and democracy" in Egypt.

He claimed the "Muslim Brotherhood's cooperation with Mohamed ElBaradei … is a hopeful sign that it intends to play a constructive role in a democratic political system."

Soros did not mention his ties to ElBaradei.

Soros did, however, single out Israel as "the main stumbling block" in paving the way toward transition in the Middle East.

"In reality, Israel has as much to gain from the spread of democracy in the Middle East as the United States has. But Israel is unlikely to recognize its own best interests because the change is too sudden and carries too many risks," he wrote.

Soros tied to Mideast, North African unrest

Egypt is not the only country where Soros has ties to opposition groups that have been stirring unrest.

One of the main groups organizing protests against the pro-Western king of Morocco is funded by philanthropist Soros and the U.S. State Department.

The Human Rights Education Associates opened its offices in Morocco in 2004 with funds provided by both the State Department and the Open Society Institute.

It was a key supporter of recent protests in Morocco demanding that King Mohammed VI's powers be limited while pushing for constitutional reforms that would allow opposition parties to join the government.

The banned Islamist Justice and Charity is believed to be the country's biggest opposition force. It joined together last Sunday with a coalition of leftist parties that held mass protests in cities across Morocco that turned violent.

The Open Society also funded the main opposition voice in Tunisia, Radio Kalima, which championed the riots there that led to the ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Also, WND reported the ICG led by Soros long 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.

Algeria has been the site of violent anti-regime protests.

Soros-funded military doctrine

If international force is indeed used in Egypt it will most likely come on the form of the deployment of the same "Responsibility to Protect" global doctrine used to justify the U.S.-NATO airstrikes in Libya.

Besides Egypt, currently, the Syrian opposition has been demanding the doctrine be used to halt civil unrest in Syria.

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."

In his address to the nation in April explaining the NATO campaign in Libya, Obama cited Responsibility to Protect 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 WND reported, 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.

WND 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.

As WND 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 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 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.

WND 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 and other personalities who champion dialogue with Hamas, a violent offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

WND 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'

WND 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://www.wnd.com/?pageId=379785#ixzz1hNCVK2Hr

User avatar
Fairminded
captain of 1,000
Posts: 1956

Re: “Responsibility to Protect” The End of National Sovereig

Post by Fairminded »

keiranval wrote:Make no mistake: we're entering a new world of military planning. Admittedly, the latest proposed Pentagon budget manages to preserve just about every costly toy-cum-boondoggle from the good old days when MiGs still roamed the skies, including an uncut nuclear arsenal. Eternally over-budget items like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, cherished by their services and well-lobbied congressional representatives, aren't leaving the scene any time soon, though delays or cuts in purchase orders are planned. All this should reassure us that, despite the talk of massive cuts, the US military will continue to be the profligate, inefficient, and remarkably ineffective institution we've come to know and squander our treasure on.
God bless America.

User avatar
gr8ideas
captain of 100
Posts: 272

Re: “Responsibility to Protect” The End of National Sovereig

Post by gr8ideas »

Old Man has the good sense of Old Men.

jonesde
captain of 1,000
Posts: 1294
Location: Albany, MO
Contact:

Re: “Responsibility to Protect” The End of National Sovereig

Post by jonesde »

This all goes to show that all law and governing institutions eventually reduce to the simple principle that "might makes right", and the close second of the modern golden rule: "he who has the gold makes the rules".

These days it means you have a whole bunch of guns and lawyers, and the gang with the most of those is the one that not only rules, and makes their tyranny look legitimate and popular.

Post Reply