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Most recently, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organizations at the
U.S. Department of State, where she was responsible for multilateral human rights,
humanitarian affairs, women’s issues, public diplomacy, press and Congressional relations. At
the State Department, Nossel played a leading role in U.S. engagement at the U.N. Human
Rights Council, including the initiation of groundbreaking human rights resolutions on Iran, Syria,
Libya, Cote d’Ivoire, freedom of association, freedom of expression and the ‡rst U.N. resolution
on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons. Prior to that, Nossel served as
Chief Operating Of‡cer for Human
Suzanne Nossel
Rights Watch, where she was responsible for organizational management and spearheaded a
strategic plan for the global expansion of the organization. During the Clinton administration she
served as deputy to the Ambassador for U.N. Management and Reform at the U.S. Mission to
the United Nations, where she was the lead U.S. representative to the U.N. General Assembly
negotiating a deal to settle the U.S. arrears to the world body. During the early 1990s Nossel
worked in J ohannesburg, South Africa, on the implementation of South Africa’s National Peace
Accord, a multi‑party agreement aimed at curbing political violence during that country’s
transition to democracy; she has also done election monitoring and human rights documentation
in Bosnia and Kosovo. Nossel is the author of a 2004 article in Foreign Affairs magazine entitled
“Smart Power” and coined the term that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made a de‡ning
feature of U.S. foreign policy.
Fundamental to understanding the thinking behind the new leadership at Amnesty International is an understanding of how Nossel
conceives ‘Smart Power’ and her understanding of US foreign policy.
must reclaim the legacy of Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy with a foreign policy that
will both bolster U.S. power and unite the world behind it.
So before having a closer look at what Nossel means by ‘Smart Power’, lets look have a quick look at Nossel’s heroes’ foreign
policies.
It was President Wilson who took the US into the First World War and who, despite his splendid internationalist rhetoric, imposed the
humiliating Versailles Settlement on Germany, a major factor in the rise of authoritarianism and eventually the Nazi Party. This was a
man whose racism is evident from his writing:
“Self-preservation [forced whites] to rid themselves, by fair means or foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the
votes of ignorant negroes.”
It was under Roosevelt’s watch that the USAF participated in the firebombings of Dresden and other German cities which resulted in
the deaths of thousands of civilians, refugees, innocent women and children.
FDR (and Truman) were also responsible for Operation Keelhaul under which Soviet POWs and refugees were returned to face
internment, torture and in many case immediate execution by firing squads.
It was President Truman, another of Nossel’s heroes, who ordered the annihilation of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki via experimental
terror weapons resulting in the massacre and maiming of some 200,000 Japanese women, children and old people.
He also took the United States to war against North Korea without consulting congress.
It was President Truman who participated in the McCarthy era witch hunts against American communists calling them “traitors .”
It was President Truman who set forth the Truman Doctrine in order to justify intervening in Greece on the side of the forces of the
right against the anti-Nazi partisans saying:
At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative
ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.
One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions,
representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech
and religion, and freedom from political oppression.
The second way of life is based upon the will of the minority forcibly imposed upon the majority.
It relies upon terror and oppression of controlled press and radio; ‡xed elections, and the
suppression of personal freedoms.
I believe it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting
attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.
In the campaign against the Greek leftists, President Truman authorised the first use of napalm in warfare using ten spitfires and 200
German-made drop tanks.
The Truman Doctrine was of course a cloak for American imperialism and provided the theoretical justification for the support of
repressive regimes, military dictatorships and terrorist gangs the world over.
President John F Kennedy saw Vietnam as an opportunity forth USA to show its “smart power” and by the time he was assassinated
6,000 US military were in the country (up from 900). It was this hero of Nossel who instituted the notorious program (Operation
Ranch Hand) using chemical defoliants on the Vietnamese jungle and on farmers’ crops.
It was also Kennedy who on November 30, 1961 authorised aggressive covert operations against the communist government of
Fidel Castro known as Operation Mongoose. Operation Mongoose was a secret program of terrorism against Cuba the ultimate
objective of which was to be able to provide adequate justification for a US military intervention in Cuba.
Under President Kennedy, Operation Northwoods was formulated by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Lemnitzer. This
operation has been described by James Banford:
Operation Northwoods, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of
the J oint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats
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carrying refugees ∙eeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be
launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings
they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed
on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and
international backing, they needed to launch their war
Apparently Kennedy didn’t care for this scheme nor Lemnitzer’s other suggestion which was for the launch of a surprise nuclear war
on the Soviet Union. He was so disgusted with him, in fact, that he subsequently appointed him NATO Supreme Allied Commander
Europe.
Suzanne Nossel succinctly explained what she means by smart power in an interview on the Council of Foreign Affairs web site:
Just to reiterate, the Executive Director of Amnesty International USA believes that the USA needs to use military force and
diplomacy, in concert, in order to make American power stronger.
Lets look at some other aspects of Nossel’s published writings so that we have an even clearer idea of where she is taking the
organisation.
Defense of Israel
IDF soldier holds a Palestinian child as her mother is arrested and driven off for protesting against the theft of the village well by
illegal settlers on the West Bank.
The third area we focused on is defense of core principles. At the top of our list is our defense of
Israel, and Israel’s right to fair treatment at the Human Rights Council. This is the most
challenging issue we face. It is not something by any means that is unique to the human rights
council, and I know this has been discussed by Hillel and others who have looked at what is
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happening across the UN System and across the international system. Israel faces a degree of
isolation that is heightened, and we certainly see that at the Human Rights Council. We have
been very consistent in standing up and calling votes on resolutions that are biased or one‑sided
or non‑constructive. We will do that even if we are the only one voting against; we don’t hesitate.
Just to be clear, the Head of Amnesty International USA pledges to defend Israel and the settlers against complaints at the Human
Rights Council regarding Palestinian human rights, the ongoing occupation and theft of Palestinian land. Hillel in the above quote is
Hillel Neuer of UN Watch whom Nossel describes as a “colleague” and who played a role in setting up the Libyan intervention as
well as defending zionist interests at the UN.
Suzanne Nossel has been seeking to justify a pre-emptive war against Iran since at least January 2006:
So if, in a debate in Spring of 2006 let’s say, the UNSC opts against quarantining Iranian oil, if
Tehran’s nuclear program is proceeding apace, peaceful means should be considered
exhausted even if the SC members claim willingness to revisit the question of broader sanctions
at a later time.
American Exceptionalism
For Suzanne Nossel, Americans and Israelis count, Iraqis and Arabs are not worthy of mention. This is what she wrote in
the Washington Monthly in 2006 comparing the Israeli attack on Lebanon and the American attack on Iraq:
“Whereas 157 Israelis were killed in a month‑long operation, the Iraq war has lasted three and a
half years and resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths at a cost of hundreds of billions.”
Iraq War
In 2003 Nossel fully supported the invasion of Iraq albeit she wanted a delay to allow the US to get more international support in the
UN.
Given that Suzanne Nossel is an advocate for war, particularly against Israel’s enemies, and a firm believer in NATO and US power,
what has this meant for Amnesty in the last few months?
Well not surprisingly Nossel has used her platform as Executive Director to focus on the State Department’s current main concerns
which are Syria and Iran as well as China and Russia, who through their membership of the UN Security Council and insistence on
the principles of national sovereignty and non-aggression towards other member states constitute obstacles to US foreign policy.
Pro-NATO campaigns
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Amnesty Billboard. “NATO: Keep the Progress Going”
She has also sought to mobilise Amnesty members behind NATO objectives in Afghanistan by presenting the NATO mission there
as one of liberating women.
During the recent NATO Summit in Chicago she invited Madeleine Albright to speak on women’s rights at the Amnesty Shadow
Summit held in the four-diamond luxury Swissotel in Chicago.
Madeleine Albright is an excellent representative of liberal intervention in the tradition of Nossel’s presidential heroes: a kind of
interventionism for which the believers, in the name of “human rights, democracy and freedom” are prepared to deceive their own
people, commit human rights abuses, devastate nations and commit murder up to and including infanticide. Albright was asked by
Lesley Stahl about U.S. sanctions against Iraq:
We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in
Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.
Nossel seems to completely fail to understand that her role as Amnesty International Executive Director means she should be seen
as independent of the US State Department. A good example of this is in her May 2012 Council on Foreign Relations article on the
various machinations at the UN Human Rights Council to get US foreign policy objectives met.
Most likely Nossel actually sees little distinction between her two roles, just as she sees no conflict between her current role and
having been a member of the executive staff whilst her President and Secretary of State bosses were carrying out war crimes such
as drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan and shielding torturers and their enablers in the Bush administration from prosecution.
Given the above, it is clear that the appointment of Suzanne Nossel represents the capture of Amnesty International USA by those
whose primary interest is the extension of American power by all means, including military. The lady has instituted a purge of the
organisation and it remains to be seen if AI members fight back to retake their organisation, if a new organisation will rise up to take
the place of AI USA or if the activities of genuine human rights activists will be dissipated throughout a number of smaller
organisations closer to the original ideals of Amnesty.
What is sure is that with Suzanne Nossel in place, this once noble institution has lost its credibility as an independent organisation
and instead become a propaganda vehicle for the State Department and for NATO military intervention in strategic areas around the
globe.
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Human Rights Investigations (HRI) believes genuine human rights organisations should refuse to be used by powerful and
wealthy governments to justify waging war or imposing sanctions which harm civilians and children.
At HRI we reject U.S.-NATO governments’ national interest agendas and reliance on military force. The world’s greatest
problems, and in particular the massive inequalities in wealth and power between the rich and poor, are only exacerbated
by war and can only be solved by smart, ethical action based on solidarity with the poor, powerless and oppressed.
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