Amnesty International and atrocity

American Thinker ^

[hipaatwo]

I'm confused. The left, in the personage of Amnesty International, is claiming that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp is as bad as the old Soviet Gulag camps. They called it "the gulag of our time." Notice that they artfully avoid using the words "Soviet" or "Russian" or "Siberian" before the word Gulag. Why even Al Jazeera quoted them saying that.

Didn't New York Times writer Walter Durranty win a Pulitzer Prize in the 1930s, despite covering up the intentional famine in Ukraine? Could it be that the New York Times misinformed its readers about the truth of conditions in the Soviet Union? Now, however, the New York Times casually speaks about the Gulag as if "everyone knows of that evil." If we know of that evil, it is no thanks to the New York Times, but rather to Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Natan Sharansky.

(snip)

Speaking of inhumane prison camps, do any of you remember John Kerry speaking at televised Amnesty International rallies in the 1970s about the mistreatment of American military prisoners in North Vietnam, such as the abuse suffered by Admiral Stockdale and Sen. John McCain at the "Hanoi Hilton?" Neither do I. How about Kerry testifying in Congress about abuses against American servicemen in North Vietnam? What? He didn't mention that? Why I am shocked. Shocked, but not surprised.

[T.L.Sink]

Yes, you are absolutely correct about Times' reporter
Walter Duranty being a shill for Stalin's collectivization
and gulags. This is described in detail by the eminent
Soviet historian Robert Conquest - among others. Want a
more outrageous contemporary account of another Times
scandal? The May issue of Commentary gives a review of
a new book: "Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and
America's Most Important Newspaper" by Laurel Leff. It
tells the lurid tale of how Arthur Sulzberger and the
Times management deliberately suppressed facts that they
had about the NAZI holocaust. It's on my reading list.
Relative to the "Gulag" comment of Amnesty Internnational,
it's not just over the top. It trivializes and insults
the memory of the millions who perished in Stalin's
camps over decades. It seems that for the Left language
and history no longer have any serious meaning.

[David Lane]

" It tells the lurid tale of how Arthur Sulzberger and the
Times management deliberately suppressed facts that they had about the NAZI holocaust."

To be fair, 'suppressed' is perhaps not the right word.

The Times did print the stories but usually on or around page 71. They have now offically apologised, but that has done little for the millions of dead Jews.


The funny thing is that of the *743 stories published, *234 were on a page opposite a lingerie advertisement (that attracted all the attention).


NOTE> * Figures are from memory and are 'ball park' if not exactly correct.