Shamnesty International
By William A. Mayer
Last year on October 29, Irene Khan, Secretary General [why do these people insist on titles which sound like they were coined by Joseph Stalin?] of Amnesty International, made a speech regarding human rights violations.
The location – Moscow.
Just a few days previous, a squad of 50 Chechen Islamic terrorists took over a Moscow theater, holding 700 civilians hostage and eventually killing at least 90 of them before Russian Special Forces ended the siege.
Yet in Ms. Khan’s 1,200 word declaration, precious little space was devoted to the theater atrocity – lip service really [and absolutely no mention of the religious affiliation of the attackers] - which took place a brief hop, skip & jump across town from where she was speaking.
Undeterred by reality, she castigated the Russian government for all manner of abuses, imagined or real – domestic violence against women, overzealous prosecution of the young, religious bigotry etc.
“The so-called "war against terrorism" must not be used to divert attention from the denial of justice which permeates all aspects of Russian society. It must not be used as an excuse to encourage more human rights violations in Chechnya. It must not lead to a racist backlash, victimizing innocent Chechens and other ethnic and religious minorities.”
On the morrow of the single most brazen terrorist action ever taken against the Russian central government, Amnesty International seemed to question its very existence, instead re-directing its attention on the alleged abridgement of rights against the very perpetrators of terror in Chechnya - unbelievable.
This is all too typical behavior by the organization which bills itself as “working to protect human rights worldwide” but in actuality acts as an agent of leftist internationalist activism.
The 2003 report is a perfect example, no opportunity to bash America, Israel, Western ideals or capitalism is spared while governments with long human rights records escape.
Indeed, the report vents most of its spleen on the war against terror, characterizing it seemingly as a ploy to give Western nations a free hand in abusing ethnic minorities using police state tactics.
“The blatant disregard and virtual contempt which many governments displayed for international human rights and humanitarian obligations were a major setback. While governments prepared to spend billions of dollars on war…The USA continued to detain prisoners from the war in Afghanistan in defiance of international humanitarian law, turned a blind eye to reports of torture or ill-treatment of suspects by its officials and allies, and sought to undermine the International Criminal Court through bilateral agreements. In the process, it undermined its own moral authority to speak out against human rights violations in other parts of the world.”
Another capsule regarding the US:
“More than 600 foreign nationals – most arrested during the military conflict in Afghanistan – were detained without charge or trial or access to counsel or family members in the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The USA refused to recognize them as prisoners of war or allow their status to be determined by a "competent tribunal" as required under the Geneva Conventions. There were concerns about the situation of others taken into US custody outside the USA, some of whom were held in undisclosed locations. Many of the 1,200 foreign nationals detained in the USA during investigations into the 11 September 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center were also deprived of safeguards under international law, as were two US nationals held incommunicado in military custody in the USA as "enemy combatants". Death sentences continued to be imposed and carried out under state and federal law. There were reports of police brutality, deaths in custody and ill-treatment in prisons and jails.”
In point of fact, the 600 “foreign nationals” referred to above are AL Qaeda terrorists - captured in the Afghan campaign not "arrested" - and are officially classified as "irregulars" thus exempting them from the protection of the Geneva Accords.
Regarding domestic terrorism suspects, it is AI’s position that, in time of war, citizens of foreign terrorist states, who currently reside – often illegally – in this country deserve the same rights as US citizens.
Capital punishment is referred in AI literature as “judicial killing.” There is no crime heinous enough, in their view, to require the perpetrator’s life to be surrendered as punishment.
Set in stark contrast with Amnesty’s indictment of the US is this relatively glowing report on one of the Western Hemisphere’s most grievous human rights abusers, Cuba:
“Cuba's relations with some sectors of the international community improved over 2002. A November meeting with representatives of the European Union indicated a positive shift in relations with Cuba….US relations with Cuba remained difficult. Although calls in the US for a lifting of the embargo reached an unprecedented level, US President George W. Bush indicated that he would veto any legislative attempt to remove the embargo or other restrictions on Cuba unless a multi-party system was established and elections held. His position was criticized by former US President Jimmy Carter, whose visit to Cuba in May marked the highest-level mission from the USA since 1959.”
A Republican president criticized by Jimmy Carter?
Case settled - in AI's mind at least.
Incredibly, Sudan - whose slave trade flourishes - is not even mentioned in the report. Mauritania, another slave trading state is given the slightest slap on the wrist while so-called prisoners of conscience within its borders are bathed in a positive limelight.
Amnesty International’s MO is a strange mix of pernicious diversity, multiculturalism and anti-capitalism wrapped in the banner of officious, sneering, continental arrogance.
Iraq is a case in point - AI’s pre-war whitewash of Saddam’s totalitarian state, inexplicably does not even mention the word torture. Yet Iraq’s near universal employment of the most horrendous methods of that practice were known far and wide among anyone willing to inquire and the abolition of torture is purportedly one of Amnesty International's founding principles.
The 2003 report, instead makes the understated point that “scores of people, including possible prisoners of conscience, were executed.”
Far more space was devoted to what, from their perspective, were more serious human rights abuses. The violator - not so unexpectedly - the US and the UK.
“Civilian deaths resulting from increased air strikes by US and United Kingdom (UK) forces against Iraqi targets inside the "air exclusion zones" were reported during the year. The Iraqi government said that four civilians were killed when US and UK aircraft attacked Iraqi targets in the Mosul area in the north in February. In July the government stated that five people, including a family of four, were killed when US planes bombed an area in al-Diwaniya in the south.”
Regarding, the UK, AI’s lead paragraph reads as follows:
“Serious human rights violations took place in the context of the United Kingdom (UK) authorities' response to the 11 September 2001 attacks in the USA. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK had violated the right to life.”
Amnesty International knows violations - intimately - it has been participating in one now for 43 years. Like other "progressive" scams it's business is ginning up contributions - in AI’s case from over 1 million soft-headed do-gooders with more disposable income than intuition - trading on a reputation wholly undeserved.
They talk a good game on the surface – as most lefty 501c3s do - clothing themselves in lofty and noble sounding goals, while in reality they serve mainly as the oompah-pah band for the blame American crowd
Belying their idealism, out of budget exceeding $20 million, the UK division of Amnesty International could only manage to eke out a miserly $110,000 in direct assistance to what it calls “victims of human rights violations and their families.”
AI USA currently has about $30 million idly sitting fallow in bank accounts that could be used to reduce the suffering they so self righteously talk others to death with. The truth is that they are not about actually solving problems but rather using their existence to further fundraise.
Despite its reliance on free market capitalism to separate the rubes from their rubles, Amnesty International is strongly anti-capitalistic, but couches it in such moderate sounding language that it has to nearly be decoded to fully assess its import.
"The ability of companies to continue to operate, to provide goods and services, and to create financial wealth will ultimately depend on their being acceptable to the vigilant international community, which increasingly regards protection of human rights as a major condition of the corporate license to operate."
The final arbiter of that "corporate license to operate" most likely sounds like another job for the UN or perhaps the Hague's World Court.
Gimme That New Age Religion
Dr. William F. Schultz is the Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. He is also an ordained minister in the traditionally lefty Unitarian Universalist Church, having served for 8 years as president of its Association of Congregations. Amnesty International pays him $190,000 a year to preach its anti-American dogma.
On Wednesday May 28, Schultz held a press conference as a consequence of the release of AI's 2003 report. During his hour behind the podium, he made it clear that from his group's perspective, the US was the planet's most significant human rights violator.
Schultz laid nearly every trouble in the world at the door of the United States. It was a remarkable tour-de-force of feckless anti-US fire and brimstone punctuated with a heavy dose of Bush bashing.
Just a few quotes to set the tone, it doesn’t take much.
"on the state of human rights around the world. It is sadly not a very good state, in significant measure because the United States has chosen to defend freedom by abandoning many of our founding principles…throwing the baby out with the Baath party...the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan are beset by daily violation of human rights…the war did not end with a calculatedly telegenic landing of a fighter jet off the coast of San Diego…coalition of the purchased…in what only could be described as petulance, the Bush administration…the Bush administration defies the law outside its borders… equally if not more troubling…is the so called Patriot Act, it reflects Attorney General John Ashcroft's willingness to sacrifice American principals in the so-called interest of national security…the Bush administration's war in Iraq has contributed to diminishing human rights for millions of others worldwide…"
Enough, already.
No condemnation of radical Islam [as a matter of fact during Shultz’s 59 minute indictment, when asked a question regarding the human rights record of the Muslim world he specifically refused to criticize it] no nits to pick with France, Germany and Russia who aided Saddam throughout his reign of terror, no perspective offered regarding 9 -11, our 3,000 dead and why a war on terror is being fought in the first place, no mention of slavery in Northern Africa - nothing but the sound of Schultz’s high pitched nasal whine admonishing America.
What emerges from public forums such as these is that Schultz, Irene Kahn and the rest of the guiding lights of Amnesty International are doctrinaire left-wing ideologues - inveterate believers in a one-world solution - firmly lodged under the boot of the UN.
The Bush administration’s courageous actions in formulating - not to mention carrying out - a brilliant and ever expanding war against Islamic terror outside the purview of the United Nations is what sticks in the craw of AI.
Unlike previous American administrations, even those as hallowed as Reagan’s, this Bush team charts its own course irrespective of world opinion.
Seen in this light, the current Bush team is truly dangerous and rightly perceived as a serious threat to the “progressive” establishment comprised of Eastern academic intellectuals, uber government think tanks, 501c3s, foundations and the permanent liberal bureaucracy that has ruled DC with an iron fist since the days when FDR and Truman looked the other way when confronted by monumental breaches in national security.
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