Which jailers would you prefer?
Posted on 06/09/2005 7:44:39 PM PDT by wagglebee
The human rights group Amnesty International - which accuses America of running a "gulag" at Guantanamo Bay - apparently aided in the escape of a key al Qaeda member who's suspected of helping plan the 9/11 attacks.
Just two months after the World Trade Center was destroyed, Amnesty issued one of its "URGENT ACTION" reports on behalf of Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who was then being detained by Jordanian security forces in connection with a planning session for the 9/11 attacks.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Amnesty complained that Shakir was being held in "incommunicado detention and is at risk of torture or ill-treatment." Saddam Hussein - the only Mideast leader to publicly praise the 9/11 attacks - also weighed in on Shakir's behalf.
"Pressure from Amnesty and Saddam Hussein worked," the Journal said. "Mr. Shakir was released and hasn't been seen since."
Shakir was present at a January 2000 al Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where the 9/11 plot was reviewed. Two of the actual 9/11 hijackers were also at the same meeting.
When he was arrested in Qatar not long after the 9/11 attacks, Shakir had telephone numbers for the safe houses of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers.
But for the intervention of Amnesty International, Shakir might be in Guantanamo today - undergoing a grilling by U.S. interrogators about al Qaeda's plans for the next 9/11.
I loved the episode in 24 this season when the terroist Jack Bauer picked up had Amnesty Int'l (not that but close)on speed dial.
Which jailers would you prefer?
I hadn't thought of old digital remnants. I still think scraps of paper in the pocket. I'm old school.
But I don't think they had PDAs is 1993 and not many people keep the same cell phone for that long. A 1993 cell phone would be the size of kid's shoebox!
I suppose its all possible, but it still strikes me as unlikely. Maybe some old computer files survived a few computer upgrades and were lurking forgotten in some corner of his laptop.
That's just what I was thinking! The writers of 24 were right on the mark.
btt
It could have been in a text file of numbers or in a bunch of old emails. I'm not blaming you for being skeptical, but it is possible.
So...she's a Muslim? That explains her obvious anti-American focus.
Funny no mention of the Christian genocide and the slave trade of Christians by Muslims in the Sudan, or Robert Mugabe's trashing of his country using roving death gangs routing white farmers from their land.
Yeah, it's possible. I'd love to hear more. I love reading about scumbags getting nailed for boneheaded moves. I think having old worthless files on your computer that link you definitivly to a major international terrorist incident you got away with 9 years earlier would certainly count as boneheaded. Hope it's true!
Maybe they shoved a LoJack up his ass first.
Link?
"So...she's a Muslim? That explains her obvious anti-American focus.
Funny no mention of the Christian genocide and the slave trade of Christians by Muslims in the Sudan, or Robert Mugabe's trashing of his country using roving death gangs routing white farmers from their land."
Amnesty International - existing only to support the islamic agenda. They can go cap in hand to any one of the 55 islamic countries for donations, they won't get a cent from me.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=irene_khan
May 26, 2004 Torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere
In its annual report, titled “Why human rights matter,” Amnesty International says that America's war on terrorism has “made the world a more dangerous place.” This is the consequence of “the US seeking to put itself outside the ambit of judicial scrutiny,” the organization says. Furthermore, “[s]acrificing human rights in the name of security at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad, and using pre-emptive military force where and when it chooses, have neither increased security nor ensured liberty,” the report adds. Practicing and apparently condoning torture, according to Amnesty International's Secretary General Irene Khan, has resulted in the US having “lost its high moral ground and its ability to lead on peace and elsewhere.” The practice of violating human rights and the war in Iraq is believed to have a broader influence than on the immediate victims. “The war in Iraq,” the report says, “has diverted global attention from other human rights abuses around the world.” [BBC, 5/26/2004 Sources: ACLU et al. v. Department of Defense et al., 7/6/2004]
People and organizations involved: Amnesty International, Irene Khan
I just checked Amnesty Int'l's web site. They have reports of human rights abuses from all over the globe reaching back a couple of years for many countries. I checked their catalogue of human rights violations, real and imagined for three countries, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.
I was wondering how firm AI was in standing up for religious freedom. I looks very much as if AI does not believe in religious freedom, and if murder, torture and harrassment occur with anti-religious motive, then AI does not seem to bother with mentioning it. In Saudi Arabia, AI is very concerned that some al-Qaeda associated people are in prison without charges and "perhaps" undergoing torture. The recent crackdown and jailing of Christians is not mentioned.
In Indonesia, AI lists several complaints that accused murderers are faced with the death penalty and may not have had full proper legal representation. The 22 Christians murdered in a church burning on Sulawesi last month is not mentioned.
In Egypt, religious persecution does not exist, or at least is unworthy of mention to go by AI's reporting of human rights abuses.
If someone wanted to spend a day or two researching this fully, I believe they would find that AI systematically ignores religious persecution and violence. And you have to wonder why.
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.21419,filter.all/pub_detail.asp
Terrorism's Silent Partner at the United Nations: (snip)
This month, the United Nations Security Council voted to condemn terrorism. The resolution was introduced by Russia, still grieving over the terrorist attack on a school in Beslan, and perhaps the unanimous vote will give it a measure of solace. But the convoluted text and the dealings behind the scenes that were necessary to secure agreement on it offer cold comfort to anyone who cares about winning the war against terrorism. For what they reveal is that even after Beslan and after Madrid and after 9/11, the UN still cannot bring itself to oppose terrorism unequivocally.
Terrorism As a Right
The reason for this failure is that the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which comprises fifty-six of the UN's 191 members, defends terrorism as a right.
After the Security Council vote, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John C. Danforth tried to put the best face on the resolution. He said it "states very simply that the deliberate massacre of innocents is never justifiable in any cause. Never."
But in fact it does not state this. Nor has any UN resolution ever stated it. The U.S. delegation tried to get such language into the resolution, but it was rebuffed by Algeria and Pakistan, the two OIC members currently sitting on the Security Council. (They have no veto, but the resolution's sponsors were willing to water down the text in return for a unanimous vote.)
True, the final resolution condemns "all acts of terrorism irrespective of their motivation." This sounds clear, but in the Alice-in-Wonderland lexicon of the UN, the term "acts of terrorism" does not mean what it seems.
For eight years now, a UN committee has labored to draft a "comprehensive convention on international terrorism." It has been stalled since day one on the issue of "defining" terrorism. But what is the mystery? At bottom everyone understands what terrorism is: the deliberate targeting of civilians. The Islamic Conference, however, has insisted that terrorism must be defined not by the nature of the act but by its purpose. In this view, any act done in the cause of "national liberation," no matter how bestial or how random or defenseless the victims, cannot be considered terrorism.
This boils down to saying that terrorism on behalf of bad causes is bad, but terrorism on behalf of good causes is good. Obviously, anyone who takes such a position is not against terrorism at all-but only against bad causes.
No Closer to Progress
The United States is not alone in failing to get the Islamic states to reconsider their pro-terror stance. Following 9/11, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan pushed to break the deadlock on the terrorism convention. He endorsed compromise language proscribing terrorism unambiguously while reaffirming the right of self-determination, but the Islamic Conference would not budge.
Far from giving ground on terrorism, the Islamic states have often gotten their way on the issue, with others giving in to them. As early as 1970, for instance, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution "reaffirm[ing] . . . the legitimacy of the struggle of the colonial peoples and peoples under alien domination to exercise their right to self-determination and independence by all the necessary means at their disposal."
Everyone understood that this final phrase was code for terrorism. Similar formulas have been adopted repeatedly in the years since. Originally, the Western European states joined the United States in voting against such motions. But in each of the last few years the UN Commission on Human Rights has adopted such a resolution with regard to the Palestinian struggle against Israel, with almost all the European members voting in favor...read more...
"If someone wanted to spend a day or two researching this fully, I believe they would find that AI systematically ignores religious persecution and violence. And you have to wonder why."
Because it's not a crime when islam does it? (sarc)
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The article's missing just a slightly pertinent fact here. Where does it say that AI was calling for his release?
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