Hypocritical NGOs like to blame US while turning blind eye to terror

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, talks to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon prior to the Syrian peace talks in Montreux, Switzerland, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014. Ban made a rare effort at solo diplomacy this week when he invited Iran to join this weeks Syria peace talks, but it backfired, raising questions about the effectiveness of a U.N. secretary-general better known _ and often criticized _ for his reserved and scripted style. (AP Photo/Arnd Wiegmann, Pool) (AP2014)

The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is an ambiguous, inherently flawed treaty. It’s also the creation of liberal non-governmental organizations (NGOs) whose attitude is simple: blame America first.

When Secretary of State John Kerry signed the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) on September 25,  he paid tribute to these NGOs, groups like Amnesty International and Oxfam. They were, he said, "absolutely vital to winning support for this treaty."

Kerry was right. Without incessant campaigning by the NGOs, the ATT would not exist.

Supposedly, the treaty is about cutting off the supply of arms to terrorists and dictators. But the evidence shows that the NGOs are, in practice, more interested in the supposed misdeeds of the United States and other democracies than they are in stopping terror and dictators.

Take Egypt. When the Islamist government of Mohamed Morsi was overthrown in July, Amnesty International USA condemned the U.S. sale of small arms to Egypt. But after the U.S. cut military aid, Egypt turned to Russia, signing a $2 billion arms deal in December that reportedly included weapons that can be used to "disperse demonstrations."

U.S. arms sales to Egypt were part of a broader relationship that helped bring peace between Israel and Egypt after 1973, so the Russian contract also threatens renewed war with Israel. Yet the NGOs were silent about the deal.

Or Bahrain. The NGOs have been patting themselves on the back because they stopped South Korea from selling tear gas to Bahrain, the home of the U.S. 5th Fleet. But they have waged no such campaign against Iran, even after the Bahraini authorities seized a massive shipment of Iranian arms that was apparently destined for opposition groups in Bahrain.

It seems they are more concerned about South Korea's role in the Gulf than Iran's.

Iran itself offers another example. Last week, Iranian President Rouhani pledged Tehran would pursue nuclear research “forever,” test-fired two long-range missiles and announced it planned to send warships to U.S. shores.

The response from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a strong ATT supporter, was to downplay Iran’s actions by stating that there “are plenty of reasons to question the weapons’ capabilit y and their impact on the strategic situation in the region” and to imply that it was U.S. and European arms sales to Saudi Arabia that had forced Iran’s hand.

Then there is South Sudan. In late December, government forces used tanks to destroy houses. The New York Times reported three years ago that those tanks were smuggled to South Sudan by Kenya, but the NGOs have never condemned this, likely because Kenya is one of their best friends in Africa. Instead, in response to the fighting, Amnesty International issued a press release calling for a UN peacekeeping force.

The pattern is clear. When the arms come from the U.S., in particular, the NGOs gasp in horror. But when the Palestinian ambassador to the Czech Republic died in early January after his safe exploded, and Czech authorities found a "significant quantity" of weapons and explosives in an embassy building, the NGOs said nothing.

The NGOs like to claim they have more foresight than everyone else. As one Amnesty International researcher put it in 2011, "arms embargoes are usually a case of 'too little, too late' when faced with human rights crises." But in reality, it’s the NGOs that are slow to speak up against anyone but the democracies. They neglect cases like Bahrain, which promise violence in the future, preferring to chase the ambulance of today's crises.

The question is why. One possibility is that the NGOs have more information about open societies like the U.S. than closed ones like Iran. But Iran's arms smuggling is no secret. Another is that liberal NGO donors like hearing bad things about the U.S., but don't want to justify conservative concerns about Tehran. A third is that the NGOs genuinely believe that the U.S. and South Korea deserve more blame than Iran and Russia.

Whatever the reason, the problem is that the NGOs did not just drive the creation of the ATT. They will help drive its interpretation, and its implementation. And their track record shows that when they start pointing fingers, it’s usually the U.S. that they’re pointing at.