Posted on 11/27/2005 9:49:40 PM PST by Nasty McPhilthy
For those who believe Amnesty International is a non-partisan organization, perhaps a closer look at the organization's actions in Britain will provide some enlightenment.
Amnesty International is accusing British Prime MinisterTony Blair of undermining decades of British campaigning for international human rights by using the war on terror to give, what they call, a "green light" to torture.
Amnesty is planning to initiate a global campaign against the British government as a result of ministers saying they would use information gained by torture to prevent attacks on the United Kingdom. The ministers, however, never said they condoned torture. They said that the use of torture by interrogators would not preclude them from using the information to save lives.
One Labour Party member of Parliament used the Amnesty allegations as an opportunity to strike out at the government after Ian Pearson, the Foreign Office minister responsible for human rights, said evidence or information that would prevent a terrorist attack would not be ignored merely because it was obtained as a result of torture by interrogators from another country.
Many law enforcement officials believe this is only common sense. "Are we supposed to ignore information information that could save lives just because some interrogator from Jordan or other country used abusive techniques to get it? That's ridiculous," says a police chief whose superior supports the Amnesty International position.
Amnesty International is employing tactics it used in the past against dictators and dictatorships against British anti-terror laws at the forefront of the organization's global fight for human rights. It's over two million members are being urged to join a letter-writing campaign against Tony Blair and they hope to build an international consensus to oppose plans to deport terror suspects to countries that are suspected of using torture.
Kate Allen of the United Kingdom's Amnesty office claims Britain's position posed one of the greatest threats to human rights in the West. She condemned Britain for requesting written agreements from other countries that would allow extradition of terrorist suspects. When representatives of Amnesty International were asked if they were monitoring the actions of terrorists or militants in countries such as the Sudan, they complained such questions were a smokescreen.
Many observers have noticed that Amnesty International targets countries that are democracies with enormous freedoms, but it ignores the horrors that occur in rogue nations.
As part of its role in the global war on terrorism, the British government has signed agreements with Jordan and Libya. They are working to secure similar agreements with several other countries, especially those in the Middle East. Part of these agreements is a stipulation that terrorism suspects will not be mistreated.
However, Amnesty and its supporters say that these deals are "not worth the paper they are written on" and undermine the global ban on torture.
Political observers believe Amnesty's campaign is designed to assist Britain's Labour Party, and is politically motivated rather than a result of real concerns of abusive tactics. Their plans for a rally outside of Blair's 10 Downing Street residence smacks of politics, not human rights.
"When we get to the situation where there is evidence that might prevent a future atrocity and we have suspicions that evidence might be obtained from torture, well I think we have to use that evidence. I don't think you can completely ignore what might turn out to be vital evidence that will save the lives of UK citizens," said a Blair supporter.
In response to the Amnesty allegations, which are laced with hyperbole, Tony Blair stated, "Of course there are absolute rules that we have about torture, or about the death penalty for example ... I do not accept that the anti-terrorist measures that we have been introducing transgress that."
In fact, torture is useless for anything but getting your jollies off, if you're one of those warped individuals who is inclined to sadism.
Torture as a method of interrogation is pointless.
However, the threat of torture is an extremely effective method of interrogation. Now why would we want to make it impossible to put the fear of God in those who plot to murder our people while our people sleep in their beds?
It sounds to me like AI ceased to be a apolitical group concerned about human rights and to all intents and purposes became just another radical left mouthpiece spewing manure. Kind of like the NAACP.
Ain't that the truth.
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