RUTHFULLY YOURS

Human rights abroad are not of real concern to President Obama. This is clearly signaled by the potential nominations of John Kerry and Chuck Hegel to be Secretary of State and Defense, respectively, two men who throughout their careers have buddied up to tyrants and downplayed oppression.
None are arguing for direct armed intervention in every case of brutality toward human rights, or the US would be invading at least half the members of the United Nations. But, where US foreign policy interests are aligned with defense of the human rights within a country, there is no justification to ignore or excuse or downplay the gross denial of basic rights, nor for that matter not to aid those aligned with Western values.
This is not a new concern unique to the current administration, but it is a heightened problem in the Obama lead-from-behind or the Obama skedaddle-from-town foreign policy.
The major human rights organizations have a spotty record of holding this administration’s feet to the fire. Should Kerry and Hegel be the policy-making and public face of US foreign policy, the major human rights organizations either better rise to their pretenses or be self-labeled as frauds.
Michael Rubin describes the issue:

It is no secret that when it comes to staffing, the most famous U.S.-based human rights organizations are skewed more toward Democrats than even universities. The most professional organizations try not to allow partisanship to corrupt analysis, but they are seldom successful….
The coming four years, however, should force real soul searching among the human rights community. President Obama’s reported pick of John Kerry to be secretary of state and the looming choice of Chuck Hagel to be secretary of defense will cement in his cabinet two figures that lack a moral compass in international affairs. If Kerry considered Bashar al-Assad “a dear friend” and a genuine reformer because they had a nice coffee and bike ride together, sympathizes with Latin America’s new populist dictators, and believes human rights should be shunted aside because Vladimir Putin is a sincere democrat, dictators will understand they have a free pass and democratic dissidents will realize they have no friend in the U.S. government.Hagel’s gut instincts are even worse: He is not naïve like Kerry, but rather cold and callous when it comes to human rights. His instincts are to dismiss his opponents’ worst excesses as a domestic affair. Hagel embraces traditional appeasement, unaware that rather than satiate dictators, it only emboldens them. It won’t take long for dictators to understand that, with both Kerry and Hagel at the helm, they will have carte blanche to repress and murder their own people in a manner unseen for decades
.…The question for the human rights community will be if they will hold water for such men and confirm the political corruption which infuses the professional human rights community.

A prime example of the hypocrisy of a leading human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, is 9/11 truther, virulent anti-Israel pro-Hamas apologist Richard Falk’s membership on its Board of Directors. The anti-Israel animus in President Obama’s potential appointments of Kerry and/or Hegel are described by Caroline Glick.