Richard Falk - a top "expert" appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to justify the Council's anti-Israel bias - characterized the Boston Marathon terrorist bombings as an understandable reaction to the "American global domination project."
For Falk, it was all about "resistance in the post-colonial world” that produced a predictable “blowback.” Worse is yet to come, Falk warned, "if there is no disposition to rethink US relations to others in the world, starting with the Middle East." In other words, Falk concluded, America should blame itself for the alleged evil actions of the two Tsarnaev brothers, not these jihadists themselves and their evil Islamist ideology.
In his April 19th Foreign Policy Journal online article, entitled " A Commentary on the Marathon Murders," Falk wrote that "America’s military prowess and the abiding confidence of its leaders in hard power diplomacy makes the United States a menace to the world and to itself... We should be asking ourselves at this moment, 'How many canaries will have to die before we awaken from our geopolitical fantasy of global domination?'”
Falk revisited 9/11, which he has theorized in the past was an inside job. He claimed that America was reaping what it sowed from its embrace of "Islamophobic falsehoods." He approvingly cited comments made on a PBS radio program, just hours after the bombings, justifying the Boston Marathon bombings as “retribution” for the actions of the U.S. military in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. Summing up his moral relativism, Falk quoted "W.H. Auden’s haunting line: 'Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return.'”
Falk's hatred of Israel also found its way into his diatribe
Falk's hatred of Israel also found its way into his diatribe. “As long as Tel Aviv has the compliant ear of the American political establishment, those who wish for peace and justice in the world should not rest easy,” Falk wrote. And he took verbal shots at Israel's "belligerent leader, Bibi Netanyahu" and at President Obama for "succumbing to the Beltway ethos of Israel First."
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon declared last year, in response to an anti-Muslim video and the violence it supposedly sparked, that freedom of expression should only be guaranteed and protected when "used for common justice, common purpose." He said that using freedom of expression to provoke "cannot be protected in such a way."
Yet the initial response by a spokesperson for Ban Ki-moon regarding the Secretary General's reaction to Falk's incendiary remarks was that "Richard Falk speaks independently; he is not a representative of the Secretary-General, so he is free to say what he wants to say. The Secretary-General doesn’t comment on everything everybody says."
Ban Ki-moon's displeasure with previous comments made by Richard Falk
In fairness, the Secretary General was participating in a two day offsite closed door retreat with members of the Security Council when the news of Falk's article broke. This may help explain the delay in issuing a more direct criticism of Falk's remarks. Today the Secretary General Spokesperson's Office sought to remedy this situation with the following statement regarding Falk's "commentary":
"The Secretary-General rejects Mr. Falk's comments. The Secretary-General immediately condemned the Boston Marathon bombing and he strongly believes that nothing can justify such an attack.
Professor Falk is appointed by the Member States of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, not by the Secretary-General. The Secretary-General is hopeful that Special Rapporteurs such as Mr. Falk understand that – while they have an independent status – their public comments can undermine the credibility and the work of the United Nations."
I was also informed on background that senior UN officials have noted Ban Ki-moon's displeasure with previous comments made by Richard Falk and that the Secretary General made his displeasure with Falk's latest comments known again.
Better late than never.
