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Title: Soros fingerprints on Libya bombing (big bucks to erase borders)
Source:
WorldNetDaily
URL Source: http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=278685#ixzz1HUHYJM3v
Published: Mar 24, 2011
Author: Aaron Klein
Post Date: 2011-03-24 18:04:36 by Hondo68
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Keywords: Responsibility to Protect doct, promoting global governance, sovereignty can be overrun
Views: 8538
Comments: 3
Philanthropist billionaire George Soros is a primary funder and key proponent of the global organization that promotes the military doctrine used by the Obama administration to justify the recent airstrikes targeting the regime of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. The activist who founded and coined the name of the doctrine, "Responsibility to Protect," sits on several key organizations alongside Soros. Also, the Soros-funded global group that promotes Responsibility to Protect is closely tied to Samantha Power, the National Security Council special adviser to Obama on human rights. Power has been a champion of the doctrine and is, herself, deeply tied to the doctrine's founder. According to reports, Power, who is married to Obama regulatory czar Cass Sunstein, was instrumental in convincing Obama to act against Libya. The Responsibility to Protect doctrine has been described by its founders and proponents, including Soros, as promoting global governance while allowing the international community to penetrate a nation state's borders under certain conditions. Libya regarded as test of global doctrine The joint U.S. and international air strikes targeting Libya are widely regarded as a test of Responsibility to Protect – which is a set of principles, now backed by the United Nations, based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege, but a responsibility. According to the principle, any state's sovereignty can be overrun, including with the use of military force, if the international community decides it must act to halt what it determines to be genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or ethnic cleansing. The term "war crimes" has at times been indiscriminately used by various U.N.-backed international bodies, including the International Criminal Court, or ICC, which applied it to Israeli anti-terror operations in the Gaza Strip. There has been fear the ICC could be used to prosecute U.S. troops. An organization calling itself the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect is the world's leading champion of the doctrine. Activist Gareth Evans, who sits on the global group's advisory board, is widely regarded as the founder of the Responsibility to Protect principle. Soros' Open Society Institute is one of only three nongovernmental funders of the Global Centre 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." During his tenure as Australia's foreign minister, Evans served as co-chair of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which invented the term "responsibility to protect." In his capacity as co-chair, 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. Soros: Right to 'penetrate nation-states' borders' Soros himself outlined the fundamentals of Responsibility to Protect in a 2004 Foreign Policy magazine article entitled "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, 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." Evans sits on multiple boards with Soros, including the Clinton Global Initiative. 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, as well as other personalities who champion dialogue with Hamas, a violent offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. WND also reported the crisis group has also 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. Power pushes doctrine Doctrine founder Evans, meanwhile, is closely tied to Obama aide Samantha Power, who reportedly heavily influenced Obama in consultations leading to the U.S. president's decision to bomb Libya. Evans and Power have been joint keynote speakers at events in which they have championed the Responsibility to Protect principle together, such as the 2008 Global Philanthropy Forum, also attended by Tutu. In November, at the International Symposium on Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities, Power, attending as a representative of the White House, argued for the use of Responsibility to Protect alongside Evans.
Poster Comment: We ar da wurld, we iz de sheeplz....
Leftist mastermind puts up big bucks to erase borders
George Soros
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#1. To: hondo68 (#0)
The Power of Samantha Power Barack Obama seems to have outsourced foreign policy and national security issues to Samantha Power. John Podhoretz noted her influence with the President when she played a key role in his decision to bomb Libya-pursuant to a trendy concept among foreign policy elites called Responsibility to Protect (R2P for Blackberry texters): The Tuesday-evening meeting at the White House at which the president decided to move on Libya was "extremely contentious," according to a report in Josh Rogin's excellent blog, The Cable. Power and a few others took the position that the United States couldn't stay on the sidelines as Moammar Khadafy murdered his own people and snuffed out the people-power revolt in the Middle East in its infancy. They were opposed by Power's own boss, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Samantha Power's opinions eclipsed the views of her nominal boss, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and those of Obama's Defense Secretary (who, at least, had to pass confirmation by the Senate, unlike Power). Her influence is long-lasting and deep. She also probably played a role in nominating Mary Robinson to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, despite a checkered record involving international efforts towards our ally, Israel People should not be surprised at her outsized influence. Barack Obama has made a mockery of the concept of organizational charts and traditional power arrangements in the executive branch (Czars and Czarinas, "advisers" such as Elizabeth Warren who, along with a bevy of recess appointments, escape Senate scrutiny. Stanley Kurtz sees more moves afoot as the Soros-linked Samantha Power continues to work with Barack Obama to weaken the concept of American sovereignty and empower the international community at the expense of American independence. He also notes that Obama has always been clever about hiding his motives behind a façade of pragmatism. Yet for years, Samantha Power, a prominent advocate of humanitarian intervention and a key backer of our action in Libya, has been a powerful member of Obama's foreign policy team. In 2005, Obama contacted Power after reading her book on genocide. There followed a long conversation, after which Power left Harvard to work for Obama, quickly emerging as his senior foreign policy advisor. It seems reasonable to conclude from his long-term relationship with Power that Obama shares her interest in making humanitarian military interventions more common. Yet the president has said little about this, and the obvious policy implications of his ties with Power are rarely drawn. What Samantha Power and her supporters want is to solidify the principle of "responsibility to protect" in international law. That requires a "pure" case of intervention on humanitarian grounds. Power's agenda would explain why Obama acted when he acted, and why the public rationale for action has not included regime change. Yet Obama has so far been reluctant to fully explain any of this to either Congress or the American public, perhaps because he realizes that the ideological basis of his actions would not be popular if openly admitted. If Obama were a different sort of president, we would have all heard about "responsibility to protect" long ago. The country would have thoroughly debated Power's ideas, and the public would have quickly recognized the core motives of the president's actions in Libya. But transparency is not President Obama's modus operandi. Nor does he care to have discussions with Congress or the American people regarding his policies. He defers to the international community and the Arab League and -seemingly-to Samantha Power. As Douglas Feith notes in today's Wall Street Journal op-ed, Obama is intent on substituting international law for American law, skipping the pesky process of Congressional voting and ignoring that piece of parchment known as the Constitution. This is part and parcel of his desire to internationalize our policies , both foreign and domestic. No wonder he "won" the Nobel Peace Prize. Those Norwegian selectors knew his type of person-they share cocktails with them at any number of soirees. The White House has been pushing back from the idea that women have been in charge of our foreign and military policy. But at least one woman seems to have a great deal of influence in these areas -- unelected, unconfirmed, but very powerful. Samantha Power is one to monitor-particularly because she has some views that might offend many Americans (as outlined in this article, linked above).
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