http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/35465

 

 

WASHINGTON — Near the end of the 2014 documentary “Watchers of the Sky,” which chronicles the origins of the legal definition of genocide, Samantha Power grows emotional. At the time, Ms. Power was President Barack Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, and, she said, had “great visibility into a lot of the pain” in the world.

From that perch, preventing mass atrocities abroad required “thinking through what we can do about it, to exhaust the tools at your disposal,” Ms. Power said in the film. “And I always think about the privilege of, you know, of getting to try — just to try.”

Few doubt Ms. Power’s zeal — given her career as a war correspondent, human rights activist, academic expert and foreign policy adviser — even if it has meant advocating military force to stop widespread killings.

Now, as President Biden’s nominee to lead the United States Agency for International Development, she is preparing to rejoin the government as an administrator of soft power, and resist using weapons as a means of deterrence and punishment that she has pushed for in the past.

A Senate committee is expected to vote Thursday on her nomination to lead one of the world’s largest distributors of humanitarian aid.

If she is confirmed, Mr. Biden will also seat her on the National Security Council, where during the Obama administration she pressed for military invention to protect civilians from state-sponsored attacks in Libya in 2011 and Syria in 2013. (However, she also opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq.)

That she will be back at the table at the council — and again almost certain to be debating whether to entangle American forces in enduring conflicts — has concerned some officials, analysts and think tank experts who demand military restraint from the Biden administration. Mr. Biden appears to be leaning that way: He has embraced economic sanctions as a tool of hard power and is expected to announce a full withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, ending the United States’ longest war.

“If you’re talking about humanitarianism, famine, the wars — really, other than natural causes, war is the No. 1 cause of famine around the world,” Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, told Ms. Power last month during her Senate confirmation hearing. “Are you willing to admit that the Libyan and Syrian interventions that you advocated for were a mistake?”

Ms. Power did not. “When these situations arise, it’s a question almost of lesser evils — that the choices are very challenging,” she said.

By its very nature, the U.S. aid agency takes a long-term view of the world compared with the immediacy of military action. Beyond the roughly $6 billion in humanitarian aid it is delivering this year to disaster-ridden nations, the agency seeks to prevent conflict at its roots, largely bolstering economies, countering state corruption and fostering democracy and human rights.

That mission is central to Mr. Biden’s foreign policy, and will perhaps prove nowhere more pivotal than in his global competition with China.

Last month, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken assured allies that they would not be backed into an “‘us-or-them’ choice with China” as the two superpowers vie for economic, diplomatic and military advantage.

 

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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/us/politics/samantha-power-biden.html

 

 

One wonders if the hypocrisy of Samantha Power is greater or lesser than that of this soft piece of crap written in the New York Times... One shall see... Power should be rejected by the Senate... In a big way, USAID is also a "controller" of other people's countries, making sure they fall under the dominance of the US empire. It's complicated, though USAID can do good work in places, it has too many strings attached to be declared "benevolent"...

 

 

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FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW !!!!!!

EARLIER THIS MONTH, Samantha Power, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, tweeted in celebration about Sudan moving to join the International Criminal Court at the Hague.

 

Sharing BIG news from Khartoum: the Council of Ministers in #Sudan—yes, Sudan!—has voted unanimously to join the @IntlCrimCourt. A joint transitional govt Sovereign Council session votes next. A revolution for “Freedom Peace & Justice” just took a key step toward ending impunity.

— Samantha Power (@PowerUSAID) August 3, 2021

 

Power’s words were extraordinarily cynical in several ways. “They make clear that much of what we call the rule-based order is just an order in which we rule,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “Ultimately it is much more about continued American domination than actually having a world in which the rules are such that they protect us as well as others.”

The first issue with Power’s sentiments is obvious: The U.S. itself has not joined the International Criminal Court. Moreover, in 2002, President George W. Bush signed into law a bill authorizing the U.S. military to invade the Netherlands to free any American being held by the court.

Second, the Biden administration has strenuously opposed ICC investigations into the actions of Israel (and Palestinians) in the West Bank and Gaza and of the U.S. (and the Taliban and the former Afghan government) in Afghanistan.

Third, in 2014 when Power was U.S. ambassador to the U.N. during the Obama administration, she personally attempted to prevent the Palestinian Authority from joining the ICC — that is, exactly what she now praises Sudan for doing. At the same time, she loudly supported an attempt by the U.N. Security Council to refer Syria to the ICC for an investigation into atrocities on all sides during the country’s civil war.

Power’s glowing words today about the court are therefore certainly on brand for her: She made her reputation with the book “A Problem From Hell,” decrying the failure of the world to stop genocides in the 20th century, and went on to become the founding director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School. They just have nothing to do with her own history, the stance of the Biden administration, or the actions of the U.S. government.

The relationship between the U.S. and the ICC is long, vexatious, and occasionally contradictory.

The rationale for the creation of the ICC was simple and obvious: Governments frequently commit horrifying crimes, including war, torture and genocide, yet almost never punish themselves. Therefore justice will often only be available at an international level.

At a conference in Italy in 1998, the U.N. General Assembly passed what came to be known as the Rome Statute, which established the basis for the ICC. Only seven countries voted against the treaty: the U.S., Israel, China, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya, Qatar, and Yemen.

Nonetheless, Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute just before he left office, stating that “we do so to reaffirm our strong support for international accountability and for bringing to justice perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.” Clinton’s action, however, had no legal force. Moreover, he also said that he would not submit the treaty to the Senate for ratification nor recommend that Bush, his successor, do so. Rather, he suggested that the U.S. “observe and assess the functioning of the court over time” and then decide what to do.

The Bush administration was unwilling even to say nice words about the ICC. As the treaty’s 60-country ratification threshold was reached in 2002, John Bolton, then undersecretary of state, informed the United Nations that the U.S. was withdrawing its signature and that we did not intend to become a party to the Rome Statue. Then Congress passed the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, which authorized the president to use “all means necessary” to prevent any prosecution of Americans by the ICC. This led to the bill being nicknamed the “Hague Invasion Act.”

With the arrival of Barack Obama in the White House, the pendulum swung back slightly, with the State Department announcing that the U.S. attitude toward the ICC was changing “from hostility to positive engagement.” In practice this meant only that the Obama administration would make several small gestures of support for the court. But Obama did not re-sign the treaty and never considered sending the Rome Statute to the Senate.

Most significantly, the Obama administration — with Power directly involved — fervently opposed a 2014 bid by the Palestinian Authority to join the Rome Statute. America’s concern was that if the PA succeeded, Israeli violence in the West Bank and Gaza might be found to fall under the ICC’s jurisdiction. “The ICC is of course something that we have been absolutely adamant about,” Power told Congress at the time. “Secretary [of State John] Kerry has made it very, very clear to the Palestinians. … I mean, this is something that really poses a profound threat to Israel.”

 

Read more:

https://theintercept.com/2021/08/23/samantha-power-icc-sudan/

 

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assange

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXvDx_lqGEs

 

The TRUTH About Trump's War on USAID & the Decline of US Empire | Larry Wilkerson & Andrei Martyanov

 

 

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson exposes Trump's war on USAID from an insider's perspective, serving years under Colin Powell in Bush's Secretary of State. A foremost analyst on empire, Col. Wilkerson explains why the US empire is in worse shape under Trump than ever before despite the bluster. Andrei Martyanov weighs in and his conclusions will shock you.

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE SINS OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

 

 

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME AMERICA.

 

Samantha Power secretly colluded with Israel to enhance UN role, leaked emails show

BY WYATT REED

 

Behind closed doors, the noted ‘humanitarian interventionist’ successfully lobbied for Israel’s inclusion on important UN committees even after the Human Rights Council accused it of targeting civilians in Gaza.

The leaked emails also reveal that Israel furnished Power with a dodgy dossier on Syrian chemical weapons as she pushed regime change in Damascus.

Former US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power secretly coordinated with a top Israeli diplomat to secure Israel’s access to multiple prestigious UN committees, leaked files show.

Several unsolicited emails sent by Power to the then ambassador of Israel to the UN, Ron Prosor, show the diplomat celebrating her role in polishing Israel’s image on the global stage.

The emails between the two diplomats reveal how the US-Israeli special relationship operates at a granular level, and help map out the personal interactions which ensure Israel enjoys constant diplomatic cover at an international level. They are among the latest batch of hacked files belonging to Israeli government officials which were leaked by the Handala hacking collective.

A November 2013 email exchange between Power and Prosor reveals how the US ambassador helped secure Israel entry to the UN’s Western European and Others Group (WEOG). Three days before the vote succeeded, Prosor predicted “a Hanukkah miracle,” telling Power, “I know what [a] crucial role you played in making this happen. This success will last way beyond our time and will always carry your figure [sic] print on it.” 

Power replied by thanking him for sending “such a nice note,” and agreed that Israel’s ascension to WEOG was “so overdue and so ridiculous that it has taken this long.”

When Tel Aviv was accepted into WEOG days later, the pro-Israel Jewish Virtual Library hailed the vote as “an important move that allows Israel to join WEOG meetings in Geneva and exert some influence on the Human Rights Council.”

On October 29, 2015, two weeks after Prosor stepped down from his role as Israeli ambassador to the UN, Power boasted to her former colleague that she had gotten Israel onto another UN body — “our last plot,” as she described it.

“117-1 vote today for Israel to get into copuos!” Power wrote, referring to Tel Aviv’s entrance to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. She described the achievement as “HUGE!!” In the subject line, Power told Prosor she had led the push “in your memory.” A day later, Prosor emailed back, telling Power: “I am so happy that with your unwavering support we got it through the UN system.”

“Big hug from the holy land,” Prosor continued, telling Power: “You have to come and visit.” He urged Power to call him on his private cell phone, writing, “i have a nice academic venue that will trigger your visit.” 

Power was evidently rewarded with an invitation to a lucrative speaking gig in Israel. The next February, she appeared in Tel Aviv as a featured speaker at the national model UN conference, where she promptly blasted the UN for its supposed anti-Israel bias. “Bias has extended well beyond Israel as a country, Israel as an idea,” she claimed, complaining, “Israel is just not treated like other countries.”

Israel tailored a Syrian chemical weapons dossier for Power’s “non-technical brain”

Power used her platform at the UN to thunder for military intervention in Syria, frequently exploiting the US-backed opposition’s questionable claims of chemical attacks to make her case. And from almost the moment she entered her position, Israel was feeding her cooked intelligence apparently alleging that Syria held a vast arsenal of WMD’s.

An email chain beginning on Sept. 12, 2013 – just one month into Power’s UN tenure – suggests Prosor instrumentalized his American counterpart as a conduit for Israel’s dubious intelligence on Syrian chemical weapons. “I wanted to let you know that today we have transferred… technical information” to the US side, he wrote to Power, adding, “I know it is of significant value in dealing with the Syrian chemical arsenal.”

Prosor noted that he also distributed the report to Thomas Countryman, then the State Department’s top official in charge of non-proliferation.

Power responded that she was “hugely grateful” for the questionable intel, and said that she “[looked] forward to catching up with it.”

Two days prior, Power appeared to thank Prosor for presenting her with a dumbed-down intelligence dossier. “For my non-technical brain, this is extremely helpful,” she wrote. “I know that these options are being worked aggressively,” she continued — a reference to her ongoing crusade to enforce Obama’s ‘Red Line’ policy by bombing Syria and assisting the Al Qaeda-led armed opposition.

A momentary rift over the Iran deal

One missive from Prosor to Power hints at the extent to which Israel came to rely on US backing at the UN. On February 13, 2014 — one day before Israel’s ever-expanding settlements were heavily criticized during a closed-door briefing by UN Security Council members, — a seemingly perturbed Prosor reached out to Washington’s representative in New York.

“Hi Samantha, I have been trying to reach you for a couple of days now. I would really appreciate if you can call me back as soon as you can.” It’s unclear whether Power responded to the email.

The email, which coincided with a lull in communication between the pair, suggests ties may have frayed slightly amid efforts by the Obama administration to achieve a nuclear deal with Iran — a prospect which Tel Aviv loudly and publicly opposed well before the terms of the bargain had even been decided upon. 

Another email sent during Israel’s July 2014 Gaza invasion shows Prosor sent Power a report disparaging her boss, then Secretary of State John Kerry. That article was an analysis published by Israel’s liberal Haaretz daily which was headlined, “Reckless Kerry Risks Causing Escalation.” It blamed Kerry for having “forced [Israel] to undertake an expanded ground operation” in Gaza. Prosor declared the essay “worth reading,” telling Power it was written by an author “who is branded as ‘leftist’ in Israel, the kind you like.”

But the next year, with that war over, and negotiations with Tehran wrapping up in June, Power was back to business as usual with the Israelis.

Whitewashing Israel’s atrocities against civilians, including children

One email forwarded by Power to Prosor on June 8, 2015, which was clearly intended to convey reassurance to Israeli diplomats, was originally written by a State Department official. Describing an upcoming UN report on Children and Armed Conflict, the US functionary confirmed that the Israeli military had not “been listed in the annex of the report” despite its well-documented abuses and rampant killings of minors in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

One week later, career US ambassador Michele Sison issued a personal invitation to Prosor: “We are having a special event next Tuesday — the kind of event that is unique to New York — and Ambassador Power and I hope you can join us.” The American diplomats requested Prosor take part in a panel discussion there, with Sison insisting, “Ambassador Power… and I would be honored if you could participate.”

Elsewhere, Prosor urges Power to personally lobby the head of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in order to secure a coveted position for an Israeli, who he claims was “only [kept] from getting the job” due to his “nationality.”

“I know you are sensitive to the discrimination at large towards Israel and specifically at this organization thus I ask you to personally speak with UNFPA Executive Director, Babatunde, and convey US support,” Prosor explains. “Dr. Babatubde [sic] knows [the candidate] and his work personally but needs support to reach the right decision,” he continues.

Power’s complicity in Gaza genocide spurs staff revolt

After working for much of the ’90s as a Soros-funded journalist in post-communist states, Power shot to fame upon publishing a book called “America and the Age of Genocide,” which hammered State Department leadership in the Bill Clinton administration for not taking more forceful action to intervene in the Rwandan civil conflict. During Obama’s second term, she enlisted Rabbi Shmuley Boteach as her personal liaison to the Zionist lobby, whose support she required to secure the position of UN Ambassador, as documented in a Foreign Policy article headlined “How Michael Jackson’s Rabbi Made Samantha Power Kosher.”

Most recently, Power served as the director of USAID under President Joe Biden. As Israel’s genocide in Gaza unfolded, she faced a growing wave of dissension from staffers in the organization. During a stormy meeting in February 2024, current and former USAID staffers confronted Power over her support for Israel’s assault on Gaza, and refusal to push for a ceasefire. Several staffers expressed outrage that Power had apparently covered up Israel’s killing of a USAID staffer inside Gaza in November 2023, according to the Washington Post. She pushed back by deploying debunked Israeli propaganda accusing Hamas of “sexual assault” on October 7.

Since leaving her office at the helm of USAID, Power has attempted to distance herself from Israel’s ongoing war crimes, and has criticized Israel for failing to provide sufficient aid to Palestinians. In January of 2025, Power offered up her best Oscar Schindler impersonation and complained, “I wish we could have ended the war in Gaza far sooner… and done more to end this hell that the people of Gaza have experienced.”

But the emails show that, even after the UN Human Rights Council publicly accused Israel of deliberately targeting children when it killed over 2,000 Palestinians during its last attack on Gaza in 2014, Power played a secret but seminal role in furthering Israel’s influence on the world stage while shielding it from accountability for its documented atrocities.

A 2015 message shows that Power organized a going-away party for Israel’s ambassador prior to his retirement. An email from David Harris, the longtime leader of the American Jewish Committee, referred explicitly to a “luncheon hosted by Amb. Samantha Power in [his] honor.”

https://thegrayzone.com/2025/10/09/sam-power-colluded-israel-committees/

 

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.