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Thursday, May 26, 2005
We're not #1 but it's not for lack of trying....
The aptly named Wretchard burbles:
I'd have to say that Amnesty International's Report claiming the US is the world's worst human rights violator condemns itself far more than it does the United States. Anyone who has lived in the Third World or any of the places which Amnesty International purports to care about knows -- and I mean knows for a fact -- what police abuse, torture, arbitrary detention, etc. really are and that it cannot be compared in any wise to the "Gulag" in Guantanamo Bay. Moreover, anyone who has lived in such places knows that the last place where victims can find practical help is from Amnesty International(my emphasis)
The worst?
From AI's Secretary General's statement:
In 1973 AI published its first report on torture. It found that: “torture thrives on secrecy and impunity. Torture rears its head when the legal barriers against it are barred. Torture feeds on discrimination and fear. Torture gains ground when official condemnation of it is less than absolute.” The pictures of detainees in US custody in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, show that what was true 30 years ago remains true today.
Despite the near-universal outrage generated by the photographs coming out of Abu Ghraib, and the evidence suggesting that such practices are being applied to other prisoners held by the USA in Afghanistan, Guantánamo and elsewhere, neither the US administration nor the US Congress has called for a full and independent investigation.
Instead, the US government has gone to great lengths to restrict the application of the Geneva Conventions and to “re-define” torture. It has sought to justify the use of coercive interrogation techniques, the practice of holding “ghost detainees” (people in unacknowledged incommunicado detention) and the "rendering" or handing over of prisoners to third countries known to practise torture. The detention facility at Guantánamo Bay has become the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law. Trials by military commissions have made a mockery of justice and due process.
The USA, as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power, sets the tone for governmental behaviour worldwide. When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity and audacity. From Israel to Uzbekistan, Egypt to Nepal, governments have openly defied human rights and international humanitarian law in the name of national security and “counter-terrorism”.
Here's the full listing of countries mentioned, but you'll notice, unlike say the BCS College Football Rankings, there is no ranking for #1 and #2 to see who gets to torture politial prisoners in the Orange Bowl next January. So it's seems the Wretch (can I call you Wretch?) is a bit thin-skinned on this point.
As for Wretchard's comment that "Moreover, anyone who has lived in such places knows that the last place where victims can find practical help is from Amnesty International" is, well, pretty stupid when you get right down to it.
Amnesty International is an independent human rights watchdog that issues reports on abuses in every country in the hope that bringing these abuses to light will facilitate change or international pressure to change.
Wretchard is a jingoistic chickenhawk with a well-thumbed copy of Su Tzu who gets off on war just as long as others are fighting it. You have to admit that this is 'practical' for Wretchard, but not so much for the ones who die for America and the ones who die because of America.
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