Human Security Centre

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(Website: Human Security Centre)

“The HSC aims to promote and help create an international society in which individuals and communities everywhere are able to live free from fear, free from want and free from indignity.”

A mix of the Henry Jackson Society’s new colonialism, the UK Defence Journal’s arms industry porn and Breitbart’s divisive exclamations of prejudice, the Human Security Centre (HSC) promotes worldwide imperialist economic control via the use of military force.  

In its Mission Statement HSC says it believes that “the international community must be willing and prepared to protect the lives of innocent people with all necessary means, including force as the last resort.”  However, “innocent people” doesn’t include all innocent people in every country.  

Yemen
In Yemen, thousands of civilians have been killed by deliberate targetting of homes, schools and hospitals by the Saudi Arabian air force and hundreds of thousands of people are facing starvation and fatal diseases due to the Saudi Arabian navy’s blockade of food and medical supplies.  The Saudi armed forces are receiving assistance from UK and USA.  The British government is using the carpet bombing of Yemeni civilians and infrastructure as an opportunity for lucrative arms deals.  The recently departed foreign secretary Michael Fallon complained to a parliamentary select committee a few weeks ago that

“I have to repeat, sadly, to this committee that obviously other criticism of Saudi Arabia in this parliament is not helpful and … I’ll leave it there, but we need to do everything possible to encourage Saudi Arabia towards batch two [of aircraft sales]. I believe they will commit to batch two.”

However, these innocent civilians in Yemen do not appear to be within the caring remit of HSC.  In August in Lenarz on Yemen the HSC executive director Julie Lenarz tried to justify the continuous targetting of Yemeni civilians by stating that every act against them was a response to actions taken by or sponsored by Iran.  Her main source of (dis)information for the recent history of the conflict in Yemen was Benjamin Weinthal from Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an extremely biased and discredited far-right think-tank in the USA.  Nowhere in the article did Lenarz criticise the Saudi tactic of targetting civilians and civilian infrastructure.  She noted coldly the direct involvement of the US air force:

“Underscoring what appears to be a major escalation of U.S. involvement in Yemen, the U.S. military, on orders of the President, carried out 70 airstrikes in the country in March 2017 – more than twice the number for all of 2016.”

The entire article was purposeful misinformation that erased the slaughter of the Yemeni civilians by Saudi Arabia and used the conflict as a tool to politicise against Iran.  Pure unashamed criminal propaganda.

In their HSC bios both Lenarz and fellow director Dwayne Menezes are described as “lead Coordinator of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Yemen in the UK Parliament.”  The good servants of Saudi money in the Tory government are, of course, capable of choosing to reach an extremely biased opinion and conclusion on Yemen without outside assistance but it is an intrusion on democracy that the APPG is advised by members of a partisan think-tank of puppets operated by US neocons.

YemenDestruction
Consequence of UK arms profits in Yemen

HSC political philosophy
Both HSC directors expressed their political philosophies in articles presented as (fake) interviews.  

In Lenarz speaks to Clarion she said “the HSC believes that the practice, promotion, toleration and relativisation of terrorism or otherwise the intentional killing of civilians should be vigorously challenged.”  This belief doesn’t apply to all civilians, as the analysis on Yemen shows.  

Lenarz’s description of what she calls “Islamism” is straight from the hard right handbook.  “Do not get intimidated by charges of Islamophobia” she advised, rather than asking people not to be Islamophobic.  Without proof Lenarz claimed that “a significantly larger minority [of Muslims] than we had originally anticipated sympathizes with and supports non-violent and violent-Islamism.”  Her response to the question ‘What do you see as the biggest obstacle to defeating Islamism?’ was to accuse the then US president Obama of “denial.”  This is the same US president that bombed the middle east and north Africa more than any US president in history but, because he didn’t use the inflammatory language that Lenarz wanted him to use, she accused him of denial.

“We have to be more confident and stop apologizing for our own position. The West’s perpetual sense of guilt, the absurd notion that we are somehow to blame for Islamist extremism, is playing right into their hands.”

Who is the “we” here?  It couldn’t be the arms dealers and the gimps in government because they never feel any “guilt.”  Perhaps, Lorenz is worried about liberal guilt.  Clearly, humanity and intelligence are not qualities that HSC admires.  

HSC’s diktat is that everyone must join in with its blinkered dogmatic perspective: “This [HSC ideology] is what every ordinary citizen must internalize because only if that thinking takes hold in our collective mindset, we will stand a chance of defeating the ideology of Islamism.”  Apparently, “think tanks can provide expertise and policy advice in areas not available within government,” concluded Lorenz.  Think-tanks like HSC provide nothing positive whatsoever and their presence in government analysis is very destructive.

“For too long, we have been simply too afraid to call a spade a spade” explained HSC director Dwayne Menezes in Menezes on “Islamism.”  There is no need to read anymore in another fake interview.  He espoused the same rhetoric as his colleague.  

In Persecution of Christians Paul Adams said “this postmodern secularist pose of Western elites approves of every culture but its own, and values, in the name of diversity, every religion except those at the heart of its own culture and civilization, Christianity and Judaism.”  The HSC’s division of the world is faith-based.

“Most of the more extreme objections to the ships can be readily dismissed as the work of cranks and the poorly informed,” declared Rowan Allport in his Aircraft carrier porn PR piece.

When Israeli soldiers fired across a border at peaceful Palestinian protesters, injuring hundreds and killing many, Lenarz absolved the Israeli government of blame alongside a photograph showing chemical weapons being deployed against the Palestinians.

LenarzGazaTweet

The HSC could be dismissed as just a mob of bog-standard right-wing screaming heads and professional trolls but its infestation at the APPG on Yemen means it must be challenged constantly and aggressively.

Links to brief descriptions of other right-wing think-tanks

 

Human Security Centre

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