Amnesty’s Absurdity

Amnesty’s Absurdity The United States needs to reclaim the language of international human rights.

Amnesty International’s deliberate use of the word “gulag” to describe U.S. actions at Guantanamo should not have been a surprise. As has been widely reported, Irene Khan, the secretary general of Amnesty, used the description in the foreword to the organization’s 2005 annual report. According to Khan, “The detention facility at Guantánamo Bay has become the gulag of our times….” It is only the latest in a multi-year slide by the organization away from universal human-rights standards toward a politicized and anti-American agenda.

The change became abundantly clear at the U.N. World Conference Against Racism that took place in August and early September 2001. The final declaration of the forum of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) said Zionism, or the self-determination of the Jewish people, equals racism and went downhill from there. On the final day prior to the adoption of this declaration, international NGOs, including Amnesty, deliberated about their position as one caucus. As a representative of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists I was about to enter our meeting place along with the president of Amnesty, Irene Khan, when the chief representative of Human Rights Watch, Reed Brody, turned to me in the presence of the others and told me I was not welcome and had to go. Said Brody, to the objection of no one (although I had worked professionally with many of them for years), I represented Jews and therefore could not be trusted to be objective.

At Durban, Amnesty led the international NGO assault on universal standards. According to Khan, what mattered were “the voices of the victims.” In her words, “The victims of racism and related intolerance have described their own realities of racism and related intolerance as they experience it…This Declaration and Programme of Action is an inclusive text which enables our various perspectives to be presented at the World Conference.”

However, despite the rhetoric of “inclusiveness,” the Amnesty International chief sat on her hands when a motion to delete the voices of Jewish victims of racism was put to the vote and adopted. Every Jewish NGO from around the world walked out. Amnesty and company stayed.

Durban ended three days before 9/11. It is no surprise that the cowards and hate-mongers of Durban should be on the wrong side of history in the war against the violence that racism and intolerance breed. International human-rights organizations, with Amnesty at the helm, have cast the war on terror on one side and protection of human rights on the other. The preferred phraseology in U.N. lingo is “the protection of human rights while countering terrorism.” Mere lip service is paid to the rights violated by terrorism: There are no detailed global reports emanating from Amnesty International on the abominations of terrorists. Searching Amnesty’s website for “terrorism” elicits 25 reports — all on violations by those combating terrorism.

Amnesty International’s spokesman, William Schulz, responded this past week to criticism of the Soviet “gulag” comparison by saying, “The administration never thinks Amnesty International is absurd when we criticize Cuba, China, North Korea…” In other words, the fact that Amnesty is quoted sometimes means the group should be above criticism always. This is the arrogance of an international human-rights organization — and they are not alone — that for years has operated without serious accountability. How sad that the strengths of a major civil-society organization have been progressively diminished by overreaching, ever-increasing claims of expertise, and an irresponsible belief in their infallibility.

Amnesty is, however, correct in one important respect. For far too long Americans have ceded the language of international human rights to just about everyone else on the planet. The failure to make the case for key elements of American foreign policy in human-rights terms has left the field wide open to the haters of America and of democracy, allowing them to appropriate and subvert the political currency of human rights. Every American kid on campus knows that the local human-rights club is an America-bashing hangout. If they are caring, compassionate, and full of energy to assist their brothers and sisters in all corners of the globe, they have nowhere to go — at least until they take the pledge of non-allegiance. Maybe Amnesty’s absurdity will help sound a long overdue alarm bell.

Knowing how Arab and other third world governments operate, I'm sure that bribes are being used to influence opinion leaders like Amnesty Int. I know that the oil producers have made substantial "contributions" to environmental groups to protest and prevent drilling in the U.S.A. Leftists are cheaper than hookers.

Khan no longer used this by now faded term of:
Konzentratsionslager (concentration camp) with this fresh replacement: Gulag.
By the way, Mr Putin happened to be secret service boss at at a time when gulags were still active.
Have yet to hear from Khan about interviewing Putin.

Chris Wallace did a superb job of destroying the credibility of Amnesty International USA's director William Schultz, who said Amnesty has no political agenda, when he asked if it was true that Schultz had given Kerry $2K and Ted Kennedy $1K. Schultz had no recourse but to admit that he had. He also made the ridiculous statement that the Republicans loved Amnesty when they came out with statements against abuse in places like Darfur and China, etc. Do we really need AI to tell us what we already know?

Schultz had to admit, also, that there was no proof to back up the gulag claim or that Rumsfeld is the architect of torture. He kept referring to all these secret American prisons of which AI has no real knowledge or proof. In short, he looked like the jerk with a leftist agenda that he is - one who will make up anything to take Bush and the U.S. down.

The left in this country has become a joke. Dems who try to distance themselves from the rhetoric of Dean adored that rhetoric prior to the election. They are all the same. The left IS mainstream Democrats, whether they abuse with hate-filled words and outright lies or whether they are quiet obstructionists using organizations like Amnesty to be their mouthpiece. They superglued themselves together. Let them rip each other apart.

I agree: Wallace handed Schultz (am I feeling a "I know noooothing!" joke coming on, a la Sgt. Schultz if Hogan's Heroes fame?) his head.

I was cheering when Wallace listed Schultz's donations only to liberals, the let him hoist himself on his own petard with his ridiculous statements that AI is not politically minded!! Even better, or worse, depending on how you look at it, was his "defense" that all directives come from a bunch of Europeans. The "America hating" modifier was unspoken but understood.

I would love to see any gulag that treats its prisoners as humanely as "ours" do! I bet the terrorists are living better than they ever have when free, with showers, clean clothes, delousing, and regular healthy food. If they were getting massages, AI would probably complain that the terrorists were being bruised!

It is nice to see that these blatantly biased organizations are associating themselves with liberals. It is almost as good as the resmeblance our liberal MSM is taking of Al Jazeera!

"...arrogance of an international human-rights organization..."

The arrogance of Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy and the ravenous vultures at the MSM & MSP who are feeding on this regardless of the phoniness of the Gitmo reports and the danger it poses to our Military.

Seems to me the vocal McCain, Clinton, Reid and Pelosi should step forward and correct the misinformation – that will never happen. The Koran, the Jihadist’s bible, has been handled by ‘un-clean’ hands from the printer on down. It is so laughable, the detainees own rule book tells them to make all the waves they can AND they are! AND Joe Biden has walked right into their war-room web of propaganda, giving them aid through his stupidity and lack of interest in seeing America in anything but a black light.

Call this Socialist Senator’s Washington, D.C. office right now!

Phone: 202-224-5042
Fax: 202-224-0139

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