Human Rights as a Propaganda Tool

[Russman]

http://english.intelligent.ru

HUMAN RIGHTS AS A PROPAGANDA TOOL AGAINST RUSSIA

By Michael Averko

If American foreign policy elites have one major flaw, it's the notion among many of them that the U.S. merging of human rights with international affairs is done with a purely altruistic objective. This sits well with many of America's leading media elites like Chris Matthews of MSNBC, who said that America "invented" human rights.

Jimmy Carter's administration is a classic study of how human rights was disingenuously utilized. During this period, the human rights abuses in the Soviet Union were highlighted as the greater abuses in China and Romania were significantly downplayed. The geo-strategic objective of getting Beijing and Bucharest closer to the American orbit was behind such an unctuous human rights advocacy.

It was the Carter administration that aided the most backward thinking elements in Afghanistan before the USSR had militarily intervened in support of those Afghan Communists seeking to overthrow Hafizullah Amin. Back then in America, it was "Soviet propaganda" to raise the issue of American subversive activity in Afghanistan. Years later, Carter's mistake of a National Security Adviser (Zbigniew Brzezinski) revealed the specifics of the covert operations which helped pave the way for the Khmer Rouge of Islam to establish a base in Afghanistan.

Mind you, I'm well aware of some Soviet actions in Afghanistan which were every bit as criminal to what the U.S. had undergone in southeast Asia. I wonder if John McCain is earnest enough to be as straight forward?

The American foreign policy elites who backed the Afghan adventure against the Soviets can't claim ignorance on the retrogressive views of the "freedom fighters" they supported. Buried in the back pages of The New York Times, I specifically recall an article from the early 19 eighties acknowledging how many of the anti-Soviet Afghans had present day Al Qaeda views of the West, Israel and the role of women in society. All this was underreported because the great issue then was bludgeoning the evil empire. The "payback" mindset for the earlier Soviet support of America's adversaries in southeast Asia served as a prime motivator.

When compared to the pro-Soviet Afghans, we now see how the Taliban didn't prove to be a better alternative for the U.S., Russia and the rest of the world. Beware when an American foreign policy elite declares that anything in place of a bad situation is by default better. Yet, these fiends continue an underserved political existence in the limelight of media venues not taking them to task.

When the Red Army withdrew from Afghanistan in then late 19 eighties, up to one million Afghans fled to the USSR. Many of these people were the most modernist of Afghans.

Just months before 911, American officials were openly entertaining the idea of an alliance with the Taliban as that regime blew up centuries old Budhist ravine sculpted art to the dismay of the international community (at the time, Charlie Rose of PBS hosted the Taliban's emissary to Washington). As this was happening, some Brzezinskiites were screaming "Russian imperialism," relative to Moscow's support for the anti-Taliban Afghan Northern Alliance.

No part of the world is free of this politicized human rights adventurism. The last decade saw much hoopla about a much over dramatized "Serb aggression" as NATO member Turkey brutally suppressed Kurds. Whereas Turkey belongs to an American club (NATO) and Israel has the lobbying clout of AIPAC on Capital Hill, the historically Russocentric Serbs had neither in addition to being too cozy with Russia. The large scale grievances and suffering of the Serbs doesn't get the same play in American mass media unlike the nationalist violence suffered by Turks and Israelis.

Present day realities continues the grotesque implementation of human rights. The American State Department headed by the unimaginative Condoleeza Rice distorts the political and media situation in Russia while falsely suggesting that Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine and Georgia are freer. Rice publicly insulted the Belarussian government in stark contrast to the more tame State Department criticism of the recent crackdown in Uzbekistan. Anyone with a clear political conscience knows that the human rights situation in Belarus (though far from being perfect) is much better than Uzbekistan. The American military base in Uzbekistan, the American supplying of the Uzbek military (note the American issued helmets and military fatigues of that army), combined with Uzbekistan being less Russocentric than Belarus determines the State Department spin between those two former Soviet republics.

Not to be overlooked is the role of anti-Russian Americans of central and eastern European ethnic background like Paula Dobriansky and Michael Kozak. Those two articulate the State Department's human rights position. Dobriansky is the daughter of Lev Dobriansky, a leading anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalist fanatic with ties to such neo-Nazi extremist organizations like the Captive Nations Committee. Ms. Dobriansky has a lengthy history of hob nobing with the Russia unfriendly likes of Radek Sikorski, Adrian Karatnycky and Zbigniew Brzezinski. There's no Russia friendly equivalent of her at the State Department. The less well known Michael Kozak has the same bias as Dobriansky. I refer to his unsubstantiated slurring of the Russian Orthodox Church (at a formal hearing, Kozak brazenly claimed that the ROC backs skinheads in Belarus). One will be hard pressed to find Kozak saying anything negative about the Uniate Church in western Ukraine, which has a lengthy past and present of lauding the genocidal actions of west Ukrainian nationalists during World War II.

The politically oppressed Russocentric people of North America are all too aware of this chicanery. Johnson's Russia List ( http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson ) recently had a post about the formation of a Russian based 24 hour news program to be broadcast in English to the United States. If done properly, this project can help better inform the American public at large.

Notes:

For Zbigniew Brzezinski's admission about American covert funding to Afghan guerillas prior to Soviet military action see http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html

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A nice reply to the sort of revisionist back pedaling when it comes to what's said about Russia (in this instance, it' post Soviet activity in Afghanistan) is to be found in http://www.exile.ru/2002-November-13/sic.html

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Regarding the Captive Nations Committee, Paula Dobriansky and her father Lev see

http://g.msn.com/9SE/1?http://www.ru...2&CS=AWP&SR=2;

http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2001/110107.shtml

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For comments made by Michael Kozak about the Russian Orthodox Church (refer to the very end of the link) see

http://g.msn.com/9SE/1?http://www.st...=1&CS=AWP&SR=1

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Johnson's Russia List announcement about a new English language television network to be broadcast from Russia to the U.S. is in post 33 of number 9166 on June 2.

[dobko]

What does this have to do with Ukraine?

[Petro_moskal]

dobko
Note that the section is called "International Human Rights".

[dobko]

Originally posted by Petro_moskal
dobko
Note that the section is called "International Human Rights".

You're right, Petro.

But I do believe Mike is still banned and has no place here. Didn't you have to click on "Ukraine discussions" to get here?

[Edited by dobko on 22nd June 2005 at 13:57]

[Petro_moskal]

dobko

But I do believe Mike is still banned and has no place here.

You're the moderator. I'm just here to get irritated when you edit my posts.

[dobko]

[Russman]

Petro:

Thanks for setting the record straight on what this thread is supposedly about INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS.

The posted article touches on human rights in Ukraine as well.

Note that the "moderator" Dobko offers nothing of substance on this topic.

He earlier deleted the contents of this particular post of mine.

I have reposted it again.

Let's see if it stays this time.