The human right to freedom of expression has different parts or aspects: The right to freedom of opinion, the right to freedom of speech, the right to freedom of association and peaceful assembly.
These rights are inseparably linked with the public’s right to receive objective and comprehensive, accurate, factual and impartial information.
The right to freedom of expression doesn’t mean the freedom of the rich and the mighty to publish what they want. The freedom of press, the freedom of mass media doesn’t mean the freedom of trade, of business; it’s not an economic freedom. It’s not the right of the 1% to impose their opinion on the 99%.
The greatest threats to our right to freedom of information are the wars and the war propaganda, the manipulation by the lies of war. We all know the saying that the first casualty of war is truth. Defending the right to freedom of expression doesn’t mean the freedom of the warmongers or the racists. This means: we must get rid from so-called “embedded journalism”. We must get rid from all so-called journalists who are on the payroll of the warmongers.
The balance of Western Wars in the last two decades is disastrous. One million dead, several millions injured, tens of millions displaced persons. Instead of the promised “democracy” the destruction of any state order and secure life. USA sided by NATO and other war coalitions left behind scorched earth.
The terrorist attacks are a direct result of these wars. The destruction of nations by military and intelligence activities is now having its revenge. We are well aware: As well as the terrorist groups were built up, adviced and controlled by secret services, these services are involved in the actual terrorist attacks.
We know from history that Wars are always started with lies and blackmail: WW I – the blackmailing Austrian ultimatum against Serbia, WW II – the so-called attack on the Gleiwitz radio transmitter; Vietnam – the fabricated incident in the Gulf of Tonking. NATO-Aggression against Yugoslavia – the so-called Massacre of Racak, followed up by the Rambouillet-Ultimatum; Iraq – the lie up weapons of mass destruction; Libya and Syria – the alleged murder of “their own people”.
The coup d’état in Ukraine 2014 has significant similarities with the Syrian scenario. The shots fired at the Maidan in Kiev, when snipers fired on demonstrators and the police still haven’t been cleared up.
And the beginning of uprising in Syria was not a “peaceful protest” as claimed by the Western media.
AP, March 23, 2011, wrote:
“The violence in Daraa, a city of about 300,000 near the border with Jordan, was fast becoming a major challenge for President Bashar Assad”. – (in fact its population is 75,000 )
“Syrian police launched a relentless assault Wednesday on a neighborhood sheltering anti-government protesters [Daraa], fatally shooting at least 15 in an operation that began before dawn, witnesses said.”
Another story was told two days before, by Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, March 21, 2011:
“Police opened fire on armed protesters killing four and injuring as many as 100 others, seven police officers were killed, and the Baath Party Headquarters and courthouse were torched.”
According to Israeli intelligence sources (Debka, August14, 2011):
NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. … NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011).
Michel Chossudovsky wrote in Global Research, May 3, 2011:
“The Daraa “protest movement” on March 18 had all the appearances of a staged event involving, in all likelihood, covert support to Islamic terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence. Government sources point to the role of radical Salafist groups (supported by Israel)
Syria is a secular Arab country, a society of religious tolerance, where Muslims and Christians have for several centuries lived in peace. Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation) is a radical political movement committed to the creation of an Islamic caliphate. In Syria, its avowed objective is to destabilize the secular state.
Since the Soviet-Afghan war, Western intelligence agencies as well as Israel’s Mossad have consistently used various Islamic terrorist organizations as “intelligence assets”. Both Washington and its indefectible British ally have provided covert support to “Islamic terrorists” in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Libya, etc. as a means to triggering ethnic strife, sectarian violence and political instability.
The staged protest movement in Syria is modelled on Libya. The insurrection in Eastern Libya is integrated by the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which is supported by MI6 and the CIA. The ultimate objective of the Syria protest movement, through media lies and fabrications, is to create divisions within Syrian society as well as justify an eventual “humanitarian intervention”.”
The emergence of Daesh in Iraq and Syria was not a surprise for US- and NATO strategists, not a “collateral damage”, but a consequence which was completely calculated.
May 22 2015 Nafeez Ahmed wrote on https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/
“Pentagon report predicted West’s support for Islamist rebels would create ISIS – Anti-ISIS coalition knowingly sponsored violent extremists to ‘isolate’ Assad, rollback ‘Shia expansion’:
A declassified secret US government document , Judicial Watch, reveals that in coordination with the Gulf states and Turkey, the West intentionally sponsored violent Islamist groups to destabilize Assad, and that these “supporting powers” desired the emergence of a “Salafist Principality” in Syria to “isolate the Syrian regime.”
Despite anticipating that Western, Gulf state and Turkish support for the “Syrian opposition” — which included al-Qaeda in Iraq — could lead to the emergence of an ‘Islamic State’ in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the document provides no indication of any decision to reverse the policy of support to the Syrian rebels. On the contrary, the emergence of an al-Qaeda affiliated “Salafist Principality” as a result is described as a strategic opportunity to isolate Assad.”
It’s not a surprise that the Imperialism discovers so-called “rogue states” again and again.
Wesley Clark, NATO Commander in Chief during the Aggression against Yugoslavija 1999, published his “Memories” 2007: “A Time to Lead: For Duty, Honor and Country”.
“A Senior Official from Pentagon showed him a Document: ‘Here’s the paper from the Office of the Secretary of Defense [then Donald Rumsfeld] outlining the strategy. We’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran”.”
That policy is not a “new concept”, linked for example to President George W. Bush. It has a long tradition, regardless of who is president.
Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998, published a famous Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser:
“According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.
That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire?”
This explanation from Brzezinski makes it very clear which principles guide the imperialist foreign policy. But it’s not a real surprise, because just in the days of Potsdam conference in July and August 1945 the western participants made a radical change of course, and the new direction was confrontation and Cold War. The new US-President Truman threatened Stalin with a “powerful new weapon”, and four days after the end of the conference the first nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
This policy didn’t come to an end when the Soviet Union and the Socialist States in Europe collapsed 25 years ago.
The reason for that is explained by Brzezinski again in his book “The Grand Chessboard”:
“… Five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power. … In the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. …The three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.”
The bombing of Yugoslavia should bring “democracy” to this country, and President Clinton defined what “democracy” is: “Free elections and free flow of capital”. Therefore the “Crusade for Free Trade” started, no alternative, no “Third way” was accepted. Therefore Yugoslavia must perish.
The followings Wars were aimed to break the resistance against that economic model and to cut the ties of Russia from its allies.
Treaties like TTIP, CETA, TISA and others are aimed for the same objective. The Study “Great Power Politics in a Global Economy” (University of California, Berkeley):
“The BRICs’ (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) economic structures and ideology, where the state is a central economic actor, were and are not consistent with the Washington Consensus vision of a limited role for the state in a primarily market driven economy. With increasing power in the WTO and interests that diverge from that of the Transatlantic players, the BRICs prevented further liberalization in the WTO on Western terms and resisted attempts by the US to leverage its bilateral trade deals into the WTOs’ multilateral architecture.
Those treaties were also motivated for some by significant geo-economic objectives, and for others by geo-strategic ambitions…
Geo-strategically, the emergence of these two mega-FTAs has been framed by some as an attempt to contain rising powers, particularly China, or an attempt to re-cement traditional security alignments.”
The economic motives indicate that there is still a continued version of “Cold War” – without socialist states. The US-Secret-Service-Report “Global Trends 2025“ mentions the problem, that China, Russia and India don’t follow the “liberal western economic model”, but use another model: State Capitalism.
Adrian Woldridge, The Economist, 21.01.2012:
“The crisis of Western liberal capitalism has coincided with the rise of a powerful new form of state capitalism in emerging markets.
… State capitalism, which tries to meld the powers of the state with the powers of capitalism. State companies make up 80% of the value of the stock market in China, 62% in Russia and 38% in Brazil”
Wooldridge calls the “defining battle of the 21th century will be the battle between liberal and state capitalism.”
As we know, that battle would not only fight out economic means. The encirclement of Russia continues with the further NATO enlargement, with the continuous military build-ups, wars, and the policy of confrontations.
We must object hatred between peoples, we must promote international and intercultural understanding. We must promote a policy of understanding, cooperation and friendship with Russia.
The imperialist wars are the main reason for the refugee crisis.
The imperialist wars are the main reason for the growing terrorism and religious extremism.
Combating the main Causes for Migration and Flight means combating the Imperialist Wars.
To defend the freedom of expression means at first to defend the peace and to reject the threats against peace.
What are our main issues now:
The Western States must be forced to end their murderous policies, first in Ukraine and Syria.
They must end the economic sanctions against Syria and Russia.
They must stop financing the Terrorists and arms supplies for the godparents of Terror – like the German Government just delivered tanks and guns to Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
They must improve their financial support United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
And in principle:
We must develop public pressure in our countries for a withdrawal from the NATO. (The actual Appeal of German Freethinkers Association “Germany out of NATO – NATO out of Germany” is supported by 60 Organizations)
We must fight to defend UN-Charter, to reinstall the authority of UN and to realize the principles of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE.
Together we can overcome the imperialist warmongers; together we can overcome the enemies of our right to freedom of expression.
Paris, 12.02.2016
Klaus Hartmann
President of World Union of Freethinkers
