Posted on 06/02/2005 9:18:52 PM PDT by quidnunc
The torture and abuse of terrorist suspects is very much in the news these days, so it's interesting to note the advice on the topic found in an Al Qaeda training manual seized some time ago in the U.K. The manual says that when captured or facing trial, "brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by State Security." Noting the utility of the open U.S. media, the manual also calls "spreading rumors and writing statements that instigate people against the enemy" one of the top-five missions of the terrorist organization.
This is not to say that torture and abuse at the hands of American troops is always a figment of Al Qaeda propaganda: The Abu Ghraib prison scandal proves otherwise. But the manual sure puts Amnesty International's newest annual report, as well as recent claims of torture, Koran desecration, and other abuse, in perspective.
Al Qaeda knows better than any organization that its success depends on peeling both Muslim-world support and U.S. public support away from the Bush administration's war on terrorism. Consider the quasi-reasoned tone Osama bin Laden adopted in a recording he allegedly made last November, calling on the "people of America" to drop their support for the president. The recording was full of contemporary and historical allusions, as is the training manual. If Al Qaeda's savvy enough for that, it's savvy enough to know that civil liberties — even the civil liberties of accused bad guys — are a hot-button issue in the U.S.
-snip-
Didn't I just hear on FOX that AI donated money to the DNC?
Did I hear someone say Amnesty International?
Information for Journalists
Irene Khan - Biography
Irene Zubaida Khan joined Amnesty International as the organization’s seventh Secretary General in August 2001.
Taking the helm in Amnesty International as the first woman, the first Asian and the first Muslim to guide the world’s largest human rights organization, Irene brought a new perspective to the organization. As an individual, she brought experience and enthusiasm for putting people at the heart of policy.
Irene took up the leadership of Amnesty International in its 40th anniversary year as the organization began a process of change and renewal to address the complex nature of contemporary human rights violations, and confronted the challenging developments in the wake of the attacks of 11 September.
In her first year in office, Irene reformed AI’s response to crisis situations, personally leading high level missions to Pakistan during the bombing of Afghanistan, to Israel/Occupied Territories just after the Israeli occupation of Jenin, and to Colombia before the Presidential elections in May 2003. Deeply concerned about violence against women, she called for better protection of women’s human rights in meetings with President Musharraf of Pakistan, President Lahoud of Lebanon and Prime Minister Khaleda Zia of Bangladesh. She has initiated a process of consultations with women activists to design a global campaign by Amnesty International against violence on women.
Irene has been keen to draw attention to hidden human rights violations. In Australia, she drew attention to the plight of asylum seekers in detention. In Burundi, she met with victims of massacres and urged President Buyoya and other parties to the conflict to end the cycle of human rights abuse. In Bulgaria, she led a campaign to end discrimination of those suffering from mental disabilities.
Interested in working directly with people to change their lives, Irene helped to found the development organization, Concern Universal, in 1977, and began her work as a human rights activist with the International Commission of Jurists in 1979.
Irene joined the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 1980, and worked in a variety of positions at Headquarters and in field operations to promote the international protection of refugees. From 1991-95 she was Senior Executive Officer to Mrs. Sadako Ogata, then UN High Commissioner for Refugees. She was appointed as the UNHCR Chief of Mission in India in 1995, the youngest UNHCR country representative at that time, and in 1998 headed the UNHCR Centre for Research and Documentation. She led the UNHCR team in Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia during the Kosovo crisis in 1999, and was appointed Deputy Director of International Protection later that year.
Irene studied law at the University of Manchester and Harvard Law School, specialising in public international law and human rights. She is the recipient of several academic awards, a Ford Foundation Fellowship, and the Pilkington "Woman of the Year" Award 2002.
Yes, and the maximum allowed to John Kerry specifically.
>>>Didn't I just hear on FOX that AI donated money to the DNC?
AI-USA's big-wigs did...
September 14, 2004
Toledo, OH – John Kerry issued the following statement in response to the release of Amnesty International USA's report - "Threat and Humiliation: Racial Profiling, Domestic Security and Human Rights in the U.S.":
http://tinyurl.com/crrac
Nam Vet
Amnesty International Destroys Itself
Count the once-respectable organization Amnesty International as another globalist supporter of John Kerry. The outfit recently obliterated any iota of credibility that might still have clung to it by comparing President Bush unfavorably to Osama bin Laden and genocidal maniac Pol Pot.
Amnesty's secretary general, Irene Khan, claimed that she wasn't condoning al-Qaida but that America's war on terrorism was the most sustained erosion of human rights in 50 years.
"As a strategy, the war on terror is bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle," Khan fretted. "Sacrificing human rights in the name of national security, turning a blind eye to abuse abroad and using pre-emptive military force where and when the powerful choose to act has damaged justice and freedom, and made the world a more dangerous and divided place."
Amnesty's annual report also criticized such nations as Britain, Spain and even France for passing anti-terrorism laws that the group deems "regressive."
Khan moaned: "There were terrible abuses in the past - Rwanda, Cambodia, in the Balkans.... But what we are now seeing is a pervasive culture of abuse that has spread like a cancerous growth, and that is what is so dangerous today."
Too bad Khan is so ignorant about the communists' murder of millions of Cambodians. If she's too lazy to read about Pol Pot, she should watch the video of "The Killing Fields," Hollywood's only notable anti-communist movie.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan put Khan in her place by noting: "The war on terrorism has protected the human rights of some 25 million people in Afghanistan and some 25 million people in Iraq. The war on terror has led to the liberation of some 50 million people in those countries, and the United States is a leader when it comes to protecting human rights, and we will continue to be."
Amnesty takes aim at Gitmo
BY JOHN RILEY
STAFF WRITER
May 25, 2005, 8:01 PM EDT
Amnesty International Thursday called the U.S. military's anti-terror prison at Guantanamo Bay the "gulag of our times" and warned that American leaders may face international prosecution for mistreating prisoners.
"When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a license to others to commit abuse with impunity and audacity," said Amnesty Secretary General Irene Khan at a London news conference releasing the group's annual report on global human rights, a blistering, 308-page survey.
The influential human-rights monitoring group has criticized U.S. detention practices before. But Tuesday marked its first call to close Guantanamo, and the group used unusually sharp language in demanding an independent investigation of torture and abuse of prisoners there and at detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If U.S. officials don't act, other countries will, warned Amnesty's U.S. director, William Schultz. "The apparent high-level architects of torture should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera, because they may find themselves under arrest," he said.
MORE
http://tinyurl.com/ctlga
lame America
Investor's Business Daily ^ | May 26, 2005 | Editorial
Posted on 05/26/2005 9:35:49 AM PDT by quidnunc
Human Rights: Selective outrage has reached a new height — or low — with Amnesty International calling Guantanamo Bay the "gulag of our times."
That's just one group's opinion, of course, but AI gets plenty of ink, and it has always seemed a reliable indicator of elite opinion overseas, especially in Europe.
So when it compares Guantanamo explicitly to the vast prison-camp network of Stalin's Soviet Union, and when it essentially calls the U.S. the world's leading abuser of human rights, we wonder if anti-Americanism hasn't driven some people a bit mad.
And we don't exaggerate when we say AI pegs America as the world leader in abuse. If America isn't actually beating, torturing, unjustly imprisoning and otherwise repressing the most people, AI says it is doing the most to encourage such practices. This is how Irene Khan, AI's secretary general, puts that case:
"The USA, as the unrivaled political, military and economic hyperpower, sets the tone for governmental behavior worldwide. When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a license to others to commit abuse with impunity and audacity."
In other words, don't blame Kim Jong Il in North Korea, the Sudanese officials behind the ethnic cleansing of Darfur, the authorities in Uzbekistan and the world's many other bad actors. The devil — George W. Bush — made them do it. AI accuses the U.S. of setting a bad example by condoning torture — with Abu Ghraib as Exhibit A — and holding prisoners indefinitely at Guantanamo.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
http://tinyurl.com/bmhhl
"White House spokesman Scott McClellan put Khan in her place by noting: "The war on terrorism has protected the human rights of some 25 million people in Afghanistan and some 25 million people in Iraq. The war on terror has led to the liberation of some 50 million people in those countries, and the United States is a leader when it comes to protecting human rights, and we will continue to be."
Did me loads of good to read that, thanks!
"In other words, don't blame Kim Jong Il in North Korea, the Sudanese officials behind the ethnic cleansing of Darfur, the authorities in Uzbekistan and the world's many other bad actors. The devil — George W. Bush — made them do it. AI accuses the U.S. of setting a bad example by condoning torture — with Abu Ghraib as Exhibit A — and holding prisoners indefinitely at Guantanamo."
Well, what else can we expect from Amnesty International - it's Secretary General is a MUSLIM!
(if you send the fox to guard the chickens what else can you expect but a whole lot of dead natives in Dafur?)
this one re AI
What an idiot.
Here's a news flash regarding Abu Ghraib prison. Those were terrorists. They blow innocent people (including fellow moslems) to bits for no other reason than to instill fear. The same ilk are incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay.
Lets see, who treats their prisoners worse? Western prisoners are beheaded. Terrorists were made to put panties on their heads and pose for the camera.
I know you know this, but the media and Shamnesty Irrational sure don't.
You know, the media, Shamnesty Irrational and the ACLU are the trifecta of terrorist enablers. We might just as well add the democrat party to the pack.
I think I'll start refering to these orgs as TICs. They're the Terrorist's Ideological Companions. They leach on to any world body and suck the life blood right out of it.
Absolutely dilusional...
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18291 (snip)
‘A "human rights" group that can’t distinguish between…death camps and detention centers for terrorists who kill civilians can’t be taken that seriously." A pox on Amnesty International for abrogating its responsibility to the suffering people of the world in order to further its hard left political agenda. We have seen more than enough hypocrisy and anti-Americanism from Amnesty for us to take counter action: as a start AI ought to have its IRS status investigated for improper behavior by a so-called educational, charitable group. Concomitantly American media needs immediately to pull all Amnesty public service announcement fundraising appeals off the air. Our charity can better go to organizations like the Defense Forum Foundation and the North Korea Freedom Coalition that are legitimately working to free the oppressed peoples of North Korea.
"Take a few pics and post on the net of the Islamofascists being executed in front of a wall and buried with a pig."
Poor pig. Now what did he do to deserve that? ;)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.