Amnesty International And Moral Idiocy (The Left's Subversion Of Human Rights To Bash America Alert)

Sometime in the 1970s, I sent a donation to Amnesty International. As soon as I heard that a group had been formed to combat torture, I knew I had to support it.

Unfortunately, like almost all international and most domestic groups, the Left took over Amnesty International, and it devolved into another predictably anti-American, morally destructive organization.

That devolution was most apparent years ago when Amnesty International listed the United States as a major violator of human rights because it executed murderers. The organization's inability to morally distinguish between executing murderers and executing innocent people means that Amnesty International is worse than ineffectual; the good it has done notwithstanding, it is becoming harmful to the cause of human rights.

Amnesty International reached its nadir two weeks ago when the secretary general of the organization, Irene Khan, branded the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay "the gulag of our times." And rather than fire her, Amnesty International has defended her. Among her defenders is the American head of Amnesty International, William Schultz, who apparently loves America as much as he loves moral clarity. He said on Chris Matthews' "Hardball" that he acknowledges that there is a difference "in scale" between Gulag and Guantanamo, but otherwise the comparison is apt.

For the record, at Guantanamo there are about 520 prisoners, the vast majority, if not all, of whom have been rounded up in anti-terror warfare. They were non-uniformed terrorists who are not subject to Geneva Convention rules on prisoners. But even if they did wear uniforms, they would await release at the end of hostilities. They are, even according to Schultz, provided with medical care and a fine diet that honors their religious codes, and they are allowed to practice their religion.

Now compare the estimated 20-30 million prisoners sent to the string of camps across the Soviet Union. They obtained no medical care, were served portions of food inadequate to human survival, and were frozen and worked to death by the millions. Moreover, virtually everyone sent there was entirely innocent of any crime. Every prisoner of the Gulag would have given anything to be a prisoner in Guantanamo.

Calling Guantanamo "Gulag" smears America and trivializes the suffering and deaths of millions upon millions of innocent people. But this does not matter to leftist organizations and their defenders in the mainstream media. What matters is hatred of President Bush.

The apotheosis of liberal moral confusion, the New York Times editorial page, wrote: "What Guantanamo exemplifies . . . may or may not bring to mind the Soviet Union's sprawling network of Stalinist penal colonies." Guantanamo "may or may not" be compared to Gulag! What a courageous stand.

The rare exception to the mainstream media silence (other than the Wall Street Journal editorial page -- the one major conservative editorial page) was the Washington Post. And the reason the Post condemned Amnesty International was that Anne Applebaum, author of the most definitive work yet on the Gulag, sits on the Post's editorial board. She knows how immoral the comparison is.

She knows what happened at Gulag. But I believe that most members of the press do not. Leftist moral confusion and animosity toward America and President Bush are not the only reasons for the widespread acceptance of the Amnesty International libel of America and its trivialization of Stalin's horrors. The other is the simple ignorance of history -- especially concerning Communist atrocities -- among many of the world's journalists. An Associated Press report of May 26th (printed in the Washington Post and countless other newspapers) described the Gulag thus: "Thousands of prisoners of the so-called gulags died from hunger, cold, harsh treatment and overwork."

Thousands? This is our mainstream news media. I am certain the average journalist has little idea about how many people Stalin murdered in the Gulag.

So, for the record, here are some comparisons between the Gulag and Guantanamo, courtesy of David Bosco and published in The New Republic:

Number of camps: Gulag -- 476 separate camp complexes comprising thousands of individual camps. Guantanamo -- five small camps on the U.S. military base in Cuba.

Reasons for Imprisonment: Gulag -- Hiding grain; owning too many cows; need for slave labor; being Jewish; being Finnish; being religious; being middle class; having had contact with foreigners; refusing to sleep with the head of Soviet counterintelligence; telling a joke about Stalin. Guantanamo -- Fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan; being suspected of links to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Red Cross Visits: Gulag -- none that Bosco could find. Guantanamo -- regular visits since January 2002.

Deaths as a Result of Poor Treatment: Gulag -- at least two to three million (Bosco understates). Guantanamo -- no reports of prisoner deaths.

If Amnesty International does not fire Irene Khan and retract her obscene comparison, it is unworthy of respect or support. A new non-leftist anti-torture organization must be built.

Amnesty International was one the world's premiere and most prestigious human rights organization. That was before the Left took it over as a front to promote American-bashing and defend terrorists. As in its head Irene Khan's morally obscene comparison of America's holding terrorists in Gutanamo Bay to the late Soviet Union's imprisonment, torture and execution of millions of innocent people in its Gulag. Every decent person knows the difference between the two societies. The moral relativists at AI don't care. As long as America can be vilified, historical truth can be trashed and human rights subverted to further its anti-American initiative. Its time to take a stand against the Left.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

Did I hear someone say Amnesty International? The Secretary General is a MUSLIM!

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.

I don't know how long AI has been a left wing commie pinko front but I know that according to them I was a brutal prison guard. After desert storm I had the privilege to be the Platoon Sargent for all the USMCR consciences objectors and deserters. Prisoners of conscience to AI. According to AI's propaganda these sweet guys were being held in chains and not allowed any freedoms and just plain being treated nasty by the bad old Marine Corp. Of Course my platoon of conscience thought this was hilarious. These guys had all the perks of any non-convicted Marine. They had leave, pay, food, freedom of movement, and they didn't have any jobs to do and no working parties to speak of. Of course they were mad as the Marine Corp, unlike the other branches, did not just boot their sorry butts but court martialed and jailed everyone of them. Of course they all only served a small portion of their sentence before the Corp let them out of the brig and sent them off to their future careers as professional protesters or permanent college radicals. Or homeless. Of course they were so upset that The Corp saw fit to give most of them Dishonorable Discharges which would effect their financial aid and future job prospects. Of course for all of this nastiness the Corp perpetrated on these "prisoners of conscience" AI insinuated we were as bad as KGB OR Saddam's secret police. AI is is a purposely delusional organization. They know whats real and not, they just use their commie pinko colored glasses to see everything.

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