Amnesty International & Hypocrisy

The Most Offensive Defence is A Spun Offence.

Published on June 8, 2005 By kingbee In Politics

gulag.

amazing that one small word can be so powerful or evoke such a horrific response.

i first became familiar with the concept while reading 'one day in the life of ivan denisovich' by alexander solzhenitsyn when i was still in grade school (clearly my recreational reading tastes were a bit precocious as well as extreme). for a week during the summer between 7th and 8th grade, i shivered in the heat and humidity of late july in da motah city as ivan and i--convict slave laborers--endured the frozen extremes of siberia and the brutally inhumane excesses of a pitiless totalitarian state that had nullified our lives.

why were we there? for how long would we remain? there was no way of knowing. worst of all, no one--least of all our former families and friends-- except those who kept us here and our fellow slaves knew for sure we even existed.

amnesty international's international report, released on may 25, 2005, characterizes as a gulag the facility at guantanamo, cuba where the us holds some of those captured in its war on terrorism. not surprisingly, the current administration refutes that designation. according to bush, it's an obvious case of disassembly (which he defines as lying).

not surprisingly, there are more than a few ju bloggers who are outraged by the amnesty international report.

the war on terror is an honorable endeavor being waged against those who hate us and are willing to go to any length to destroy us because--as our president has proclaimed--they hate freedom.

finally amnesty international has revealed its true agenda and shown it hates us and our freedom as well.

how could we have been so foolish as to believe that an organization which has, for years, despised the freedom enjoyed in north korea, china, vietnam, algeria, myanmar, the maldives, turkey, morroco, today's russia, the former soviet union and its eastern european colonies, chile (under pinochet), argentina, cuba, the sudan and dozens of other bastion of freedom countries wouldn't eventually add us to the list.?

fortunately we have plenty of examples on which to base our response---thanks to those nations for which this whole thing is old hat.

before we go there, let's clear something up. guantanamo isn't a network of slave labor camps in the wilds of siberia into which millions of our own citizens disappear, most never to return. hell, it's not even cold there.

on the other hand, perhaps amnesty international meant it figuratively. after all, there are 500 people who've been locked up in gitmo for nearly 3 years without ever having been charged with any crime. as far as they know, it could be another 20 years before they'll have a day in court. their families have no clue as to their status. no one except the force that's detaining them knows whether they're well or ill or alive.

nawwww. that couldn't be it.

ai has a lotta nerve. after all, didn't the president pledge in his 2nd inaugural address that the us was dedicated to spreading democracy and freedom. aren't we spending billions and putting our military into harm's way to do just that in iraq? if you can't trust our government, who can you trust?

(who better to answer that question than those of you who join heston in announcing that they'll have to pry your gun outta your cold dead hands. but then again, amnesty international doesn't own any guns huh?)

so anyway we're busy spreading freedom and democracy not only by deed but by example--certainly there's no better advertisement than good example--and all amnesty international can do is criticize us.

no wonder cheney took offense and won't take ai seriously. he's a flexible guy and just because he, the president and rumsfeld used to take them seriously enough to cite them multiple times in white house position papers on hussein's iraq Link (In August 2001 Amnesty International released a report entitled Iraq -- Systematic Torture of Political Prisoners, which detailed the systematic and routine use of torture against suspected political opponents and, occasionally, other prisoners. Amnesty International also reports "Detainees have also been threatened with bringing in a female relative, especially the wife or the mother, and raping her in front of the detainee. Some of these threats have been carried out." ) , don't mean he cant change his mind. or maybe his mind is the same but amnesty international is different. ( i can hear him singing along with joe walsh...'everybody's so different, i'm still the same.' )

fact is, amnesty international provided a good deal of the source material used by bush, cheney and rumsfeld to justify their planned invasion of iraq. so having ai slam em now must really not bother them a bit because the organization just doesn't have any credibility

not that everything ai had to say about america was bad. they approved the supreme court ruling that requires a court hearing for prisoners of the 'war on terror'. big deal huh?

the final straw has to be ai's outrageous demands that the us stop secretly holding prisoners incommunicado (ghost prisoners), permit the international red cross access to all prisoners, ensure due process for all prisoners, implement an independent investigation of all allegations of torture and prosecute all who cause detainees to be brutalized or tortured while in the custody of the us.

if that sounds familiar, it's probably cuz those damn amnesty international freedom-haters stole it directly from past presidents who demanded the soviet union do the same thing at their gulags.

if all of this pisses you off, you're not alone.

i'm pissed off too. pissed off really badly that my country has engaged in the type of thing for which we used to condemn rogue states like north korea and the soviet union. pissed off that my president says he wants to promote democracy and freedom throughout the world while eroding the essentials of democracy and freedom at home. pissed off that such blatant hypocrisy is ignored and--even worse--approved by those who claim to be the most stalwart advocates of the rule of law and our constitution.

one final note: in another thread, one commentor said he was dismayed because amnesty international had diminished the horror of the gulag in its report. after all, there's no comparison. this same commentor claims to be a student of history. not a very good student in my opinion or he'd remember that gulags--like rome--aren't built in a day. once you lay the first stone, the next one is a little easier.

Comments (Page 11)

151

kingbee

on Jun 10, 2005

But those are still after-the-fact investigations. Someone has already robbed banks or sold drugs. You are being investigated for conspiracy in an extant crime.

someone obviously robbed a bank somewhere. you may have been a suspect in a previous bank robbery a decade ago or you may live in the same building as a convicted robber. that association is more than sufficient to justify following you around for a few days to see what turns up.

you may not actually be manufacturing drugs but if you associate with someone who does--unbeknownst to you--you'll definitely receive some unwanted attention.

if you're a registered child molestor, it's very likely you'll be monitored even if you're no longer under anyone's jurisdiction.

several of the 911 hijackers were suspected terrorists and someone shoulda been keeping tabs on them. on at least one occasion afghans working for the cia were dispatched to provide coordinates so bin laden could be taken out--but they were called back and the mission was scrubbed.

the problem with trawling for terrorists is obvious to anyone who's ever trawled fish. you can't target only the catch you want.

even if you manage to somehow pull in 500+ suspected terrorists and hold them til they turn to dust, that doesnt protect you against the 500 or 5000 you didn't catch.

furthermore, each of those 500 men has relatives and friends who may feel bound to avenge them. no matter how many prisons you build, you're not safe. you may even be less safe.

152

drmiler

on Jun 11, 2005

#143 by kingbee
Friday, June 10, 2005

it seems we have officially been keeping tabs on Bin Laden since the Spring of 1996, yet he was able to destroy two skyscrapers, part of pentagon and take a swipe at the White House all while killing everyone aboard four airliners.

Gee, it's a good thing we were keeping tabs on him, otherwise he might have gotten five buildings.

i'm guessing you were so busy heaping scorn on those who had the nerve to suggest the bush administration was too caught up in the fun of playing 'whitehouse' to pay sufficient attention to a buncha nuts with towels on their head. the last thing they wanted to hear was clinton's unsolicited advice or richard clarke's paranoid delusions.

Before you start talking more trash about the current (Bush) administration, just maybe you should ask the questions about why the former (clinton) administration didn't take care of business.

153

kingbee

on Jun 11, 2005

Before you start talking more trash about the current (Bush) administration, just maybe you should ask the questions about why the former (clinton) administration didn't take care of business.

it's clinton's fault bush didnt catch bin laden even tho the bush family has a long-standing relationship with the family and dubya's got musharraf in his corner?

154

drmiler

on Jun 11, 2005

#153 by kingbee
Saturday, June 11, 2005

Before you start talking more trash about the current (Bush) administration, just maybe you should ask the questions about why the former (clinton) administration didn't take care of business.

it's clinton's fault bush didnt catch bin laden even tho the bush family has a long-standing relationship with the family and dubya's got musharraf in his corner?

Like I said before you talk MORE trash about current, ask the questions of the former! The following is from MSNBC and here's the link: Link
Now do you want to try yet again?
Clinton had his chance and blew it!

Osama bin Laden: missed opportunities
The CIA had pictures. Why wasn’t the al-Qaida leader captured or killed?
By Lisa Myers
Senior investigative correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 6:40 p.m. ET March 17, 2004As the 9/11 commission investigates what Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush might have done to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, one piece of evidence the commission will examine is a videotape secretly recorded by a CIA plane high above Afghanistan. The tape shows a man believed to Osama bin Laden walking at a known al-Qaida camp.

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The question for the 9/11 commission: If the CIA was able to get that close to bin Laden before 9/11, why wasn’t he captured or killed? The videotape has remained secret until now.

Over the next three nights, NBC News will present this incredible spy footage and reveal some of the difficult questions it has raised for the 9/11 commission.

In 1993, the first World Trade Center bombing killed six people.

In 1998, the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa killed 224.

Both were the work of al-Qaida and bin Laden, who in 1998 declared holy war on America, making him arguably the most wanted man in the world.

In 1998, President Clinton announced, “We will use all the means at our disposal to bring those responsible to justice, no matter what or how long it takes.” INTERACTIVE

NBC News has obtained, exclusively, extraordinary secret video, shot by the U.S. government. It illustrates an enormous opportunity the Clinton administration had to kill or capture bin Laden. Critics call it a missed opportunity.

In the fall of 2000, in Afghanistan, unmanned, unarmed spy planes called Predators flew over known al-Qaida training camps. The pictures that were transmitted live to CIA headquarters show al-Qaida terrorists firing at targets, conducting military drills and then scattering on cue through the desert.

Also, that fall, the Predator captured even more extraordinary pictures — a tall figure in flowing white robes. Many intelligence analysts believed then and now it is bin Laden.

Why does U.S. intelligence believe it was bin Laden? NBC showed the video to William Arkin, a former intelligence officer and now military analyst for NBC. “You see a tall man…. You see him surrounded by or at least protected by a group of guards.”

Bin Laden is 6 foot 5. The man in the video clearly towers over those around him and seems to be treated with great deference.

‘It’s dynamite. It’s putting together all of the pieces, and that doesn’t happen every day.’

— William Arkin
NBC military analyst

Another clue: The video was shot at Tarnak Farm, the walled compound where bin Laden is known to live. The layout of the buildings in the Predator video perfectly matches secret U.S. intelligence photos and diagrams of Tarnak Farm obtained by NBC.

“It’s dynamite. It’s putting together all of the pieces, and that doesn’t happen every day.… I guess you could say we’ve done it once, and this is it,” Arkin added.

The tape proves the Clinton administration was aggressively tracking al-Qaida a year before 9/11. But that also raises one enormous question: If the U.S. government had bin Laden and the camps in its sights in real time, why was no action taken against them?

“We were not prepared to take the military action necessary,” said retired Gen. Wayne Downing, who ran counter-terror efforts for the current Bush administration and is now an NBC analyst.

INTERACTIVE

• Global dragnet
Key figures and developments in the hunt for al-Qaida

“We should have had strike forces prepared to go in and react to this intelligence, certainly cruise missiles — either air- or sea-launched — very, very accurate, could have gone in and hit those targets,” Downing added.

Gary Schroen, a former CIA station chief in Pakistan, says the White House required the CIA to attempt to capture bin Laden alive, rather than kill him.

What impact did the wording of the orders have on the CIA’s ability to get bin Laden? “It reduced the odds from, say, a 50 percent chance down to, say, 25 percent chance that we were going to be able to get him,” said Schroen.

A Democratic member of the 9/11 commission says there was a larger issue: The Clinton administration treated bin Laden as a law enforcement problem.

Bob Kerry, a former senator and current 9/11 commission member, said, “The most important thing the Clinton administration could have done would have been for the president, either himself or by going to Congress, asking for a congressional declaration to declare war on al-Qaida, a military-political organization that had declared war on us.”

In reality, getting bin Laden would have been extraordinarily difficult. He was a moving target deep inside Afghanistan. Most military operations would have been high-risk. What’s more, Clinton was weakened by scandal, and there was no political consensus for bold action, especially with an election weeks away.

NBC News contacted the three top Clinton national security officials. None would do an on-camera interview. However, they vigorously defend their record and say they disrupted terrorist cells and made al-Qaida a top national security priority.

“We used military force, we used covert operations, we used all of the tools available to us because we realized what a serious threat this was,” said President Clinton’s former national security adviser James Steinberg.

One Clinton Cabinet official said, looking back, the military should have been more involved, “We did a lot, but we did not see the gathering storm that was out there.”

155

kingbee

on Jun 11, 2005

If you felt safe before 9/11 it was a misguided notion

i'd been expecting something of at least that magnitude since the late 80s. i'd sorta relaxed about it until sharon hadda stir the shit up again in 2000 (even tho in hindsight i'll agree his foolishness prolly didnt factor into it much). to me the most surprising thing was they hadnt capped it off by bringing some smallpox along.

156

kingbee

on Jun 11, 2005

In reality, getting bin Laden would have been extraordinarily difficult. He was a moving target deep inside Afghanistan. Most military operations would have been high-risk. What’s more, Clinton was weakened by scandal, and there was no political consensus for bold action, especially with an election weeks away.

i was aware of the drone thing. according to the guy who headed the afghanistan desk at cia, there was also an occasion when the cia had one of their friendly warlords send out two guys with gps equipment to a gathering bin laden was supposed to attend. the cia--on advice from an agency lawyer--decided to scrub the mission cuz they didnt wanna kill innocent people if the info was wrong.

it was a considerably different situation after we invaded afghanistan and bin laden went to tora bora. the friendly warlords told their us counterparts he was gonna try to escape and offered to show us where to find him but the command didn't trust em. the afghans took that reluctance to mean we werent serious bout getting him.

when the administration chose to foolishly proclaim victory in afghanistan and turn its focus to iraq, i hadda agree with the afghans.

hell considering all the technology available, if we put 100,000 military people into the area, in less than 4 years even you coulda prolly caught a 6'+ arab whose face has been posted all over the world.

157

kingbee

on Jun 11, 2005

Naval Officer Assassinated in El Salvador, May 25, 1983: A U.S. Navy officer was assassinated by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front.

Attack on a Restaurant in El Salvador, June 19, 1985: Members of the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) fired on a restaurant in the Zona Rosa district of San Salvador, killing four Marine Security Guards assigned to the U.S. Embassy and nine Salvadorean civilians.

i wasn't aware the fmln had any radical muslim members. nor are they i think. shame on that damn 'commander abdullah sheik yirbuoti' for sneaking into their midst when nobody was looking

Pan Am 103 Bombing, December 21, 1988: Pan American Airlines Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, by a bomb believed to have been placed on the aircraft by Libyan terrorists in Frankfurt, West Germany. All 259 people on board were killed.

Attempted Iraqi Attacks on U.S. Posts, January 18-19, 1991: Iraqi agents planted bombs at the U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia’s home residence and at the USIS library in Manila.

the stuff done by libya or saddam's iraq had nothing to do with al quaeda or any other radical islamists. you musta thought nobody was gonna read your list?

158

kingbee

on Jun 11, 2005

Bin Laden hates us also because of our presence in Saudi Arabia, he wants to execute the entire monarchy as convert Saudi Arabia to a Muslim state. Again, we won't let him do that.

youre gonna have a difficult time preventing saudi arabia from being converted to a muslim state seeing as how the royal family are strict wahabbis who enforce sharia and hold the throne by by virtue of being the self-proclaimed protectors of the holy cities of mecca and medina.

159

kingbee

on Jun 11, 2005

Actually, less than. Their status is akin to a spy. The GC does not apply to them since they were not wearing the uniform of a soveriegn country

you misunderstood my point. when i said they were more than mere combatants, i meant they were supposedly selected to be transported to cuba because they were either proven or believed to be al quaeda members or affiliates as opposed to being your garden variety taliban grunt.

160

kingbee

on Jun 11, 2005

You should try a whole blog on Ms Cleo.!

glad ya liked it. really a shame yall can't hear me doin ms cleo doing wilfred brimley's diabetic testing supplies schtick (me test me sugahs and me test dem often as da spirit coammond. mebbe two mebbe tree times. so cawwwwwhhhhlllll me noawwwwwwww)

161

kingbee

on Jun 11, 2005

ericseba

your list reminded me of something i found a couple years ago. it appears to be online and intact still so i'm providing a link. it's a fairly detailed timeline from 1948 to 9/11/01 listing hundreds of what surely seemed at the time unrelated events and decisions...yet taken together it becomes apparent each of them is another part of the puzzle.

everyone else is, of course, invited to check it out for themselves.

Link

162

ericseba

on Jun 11, 2005

kingbee:

I'll not try to argue with you any longer. The way I see it is very simple. We are two different people.

Your a lamb. You walk around with your high ideals and you keep our country as honest and just as the utopia that resides in your head.

I am a monster, I am willing to do what it takes, no matter how grotesque, to maintain your ability to reside in your utopia.

You see king, it's this simple, I am sure that you would not be able to sit back and watch the Arab world utterly destroy Israel. Therefore they want you dead. I am here to do what it takes to protect you from them. No thanks necessary lamb.

on Jun 11, 2005

on Jun 11, 2005

your list reminded me of something i found a couple years ago. it appears to be online and intact still so i'm providing a link. it's a fairly detailed timeline from 1948 to 9/11/01 listing hundreds of what surely seemed at the time unrelated events and decisions...yet taken together it becomes apparent each of them is another part of the puzzle.

everyone else is, of course, invited to check it out for themselves.

While the link is certainly intriguing, it is rife with opinion rather than fact. My list is merely dates, names and places and of course body counts and while 2 out of the 36 were errors on my part that had nothing to do with the middle east or muslim radicals (I guess I went crazy with the copy/paste), it stuck to the facts.

here is a quote from your link:

The state of Israel is proclaimed. The name ‘Israel’ is chosen only at the last minute

What is the last minute? Was it literally the last minute? was someone checking their watch? Was that comment even necessary or just trying to make some point?

how bout this:

Soviet influence begins to penetrate the Middle East, which becomes a major theater of the Cold War.

Soviet fucking influence? What the fuck about the middle east is Soviet influenced? Yeah I trek to the middle east every year to see their fine examples of Soviet Architecture. I then go to the Soviet Union, the birthplace of Islam that was later passed on as part of the Soviet influence of the middle east.

John F. Kennedy rather reluctantly makes Hawk missiles available to Israel. The United States begins to align with Israel - warily under Kennedy, more openly under Johnson, enthusiastically under Nixon and Kissinger.

Warily under Kennedy? More openly under Johnson? Enthusiastically under Nixon and Kissinger? Sounds kind of like someone's opinion rather than fact. And when the fuck did Kissinger serve as the fucking president?

Okay, I'll stop there, the more I read the more I realize that you are firmly set on two ideals, you hate the right and you hate Jews. Next time counter my link with facts, not some fruitcake's ramblings that happen to agree with your's.

165

ericseba

on Jun 11, 2005

One last thought king, going back to the due process and detaining stuff. here's a link showing what your ACLU buddies create.

Link

A guy with a bloody chainsaw can't be held at the border. It appears even a bloody chainsaw is not enough evidence to deny someone their rights for a while if they have no warrants.

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