Get off my case, Instafool!
Posted by Allen Iverson at June 2, 2004 12:23 PMBreak down his fake libertarianism with your killer crossover, son!
Posted by jesse at June 2, 2004 12:27 PMThe full text, pour vous:
DAILY EXPRESS
Maul of America
by Frida Ghitis
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 05.28.04
In the last year, worldwide conflict has brought turbulence, trauma, and abuse to millions of lives. From the bombed out checkpoints in Kabul and Baghdad, to the interrogation chambers in Saudi, Syrian, and American prisons, to the increasing scrutiny into the daily lives of innocent civilians the world over, the actions of extremists and the reactions of governments have resulted in an atmosphere that conspires against human rights. In the words of Amnesty International, we are living through "the most sustained attack on human rights and international humanitarian law in 50 years." Given this situation, it's a shame that Amnesty, the most venerable of human rights organizations, has decided to stop doing its job. In fact, it could be argued that one of the most serious emerging threats to human rights today is Amnesty's decision to spend a disproportionate share of its limited resources attacking the United States--at the opportunity cost of focusing attention on governments that are slaughtering, enslaving, torturing, and imprisoning millions of people around the world.
While the organization's 2004 report, released this week, documents human rights abuses taking place the world over, the press release announcing its publication makes clear where Amnesty's priorities lie. After a quick condemnation of Al Qaeda and other armed groups, the announcement moves on to its principal target: America, according to Amnesty, is guilty of "[v]iolating rights at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad and using pre-emptive military force." The U.S., Amnesty continues, has "made the world a more dangerous place" with a security agenda that is "bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle." At a time when hundreds of thousands of people are being pushed from their homes in Africa, when freedom of expression is little more than a dangerous dream in much of the Middle East, when thousands of political prisoners lie nearly forgotten in prisons in Asia, it is amazing that Amnesty remains so focused on the faults of U.S foreign policy while glossing over more serious abuses.
Amnesty bemoans Washington's campaign to exempt Americans from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and Washington's willingness to dismiss multilateral institutions, as well as its mistreatment of prisoners and infringements on individual rights at home. And, to be sure, some of these specific charges against the U.S. are legitimate and important. But the emphasis on American transgressions--at the expense of other situations that are leading tens of thousands of people to their deaths at the precise moment of the report's release--is a sign that the organization's antipathy towards the U.S. has clouded its judgment and threatens to derail its important mission.
The report itself begins with a letter from Amnesty's secretary general, Irene Khan. The letter opens with the events of August 19, 2003, when the United Nations envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, was killed in an attack on United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. Khan wonders why the "legitimacy and credibility of the UN could have eroded to such a fatal degree," noting that the UN was marginalized by America's march to war. That is supposed to explain the bombing of UN headquarters in Iraq? This peculiar bit of reasoning defies logic. Later on in the letter, Khan condemns "unequivocally" the actions of terrorist groups. But this hardly makes up for her earlier implication that America's rocky relationship with the UN somehow led to the August 19 attacks.
Khan worries that Washington is trampling on human rights in its search for security, and muses about lost opportunities to correct social injustice and inequality as increased funding goes to the Pentagon's budget rather than to poverty-alleviation programs. While condemning "armed groups and individuals," she doesn't delve into much detail about the enormous harm wrought on the lives and rights of untold millions living under the intolerant tenets of religious extremism.
The United States is named five times in her opening letter, and indirectly alluded to on several other occasions. No other country merits such sustained criticism. Certainly not the government of Sudan, which is guilty of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in what is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today. As many as a million Sudanese in the Darfur region have been driven from their homes and tens of thousands have been slaughtered by militias loyal to the government. Khan does not mention the government of North Korea, which keeps a population of 25 million living in abject poverty and isolation, with more than 6 million Koreans depending on international handouts to avoid starvation while the regime spends scarce resources to build nuclear weapons. Khan mentions only in passing the human rights problems in the Congo, where more than 3 million people have died in a war nobody pays much attention to. Egypt merits a brief mention, but Khan does not bother criticizing Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya, or any of the other Arab countries where jails are filled with political prisoners who often linger behind bars even after their sentences are completed. The millions of Burmese living under the heel of military dictatorship also fail to garner a mention in Khan's letter, as do the populations of increasingly repressive Central Asia regimes. And, of course, Khan declined to write about the travesty of the UN Human Rights Commission, which has lost all credibility by counting among its members some of the world's worst human rights violators.
Yes, the details of each country's abuses appear inside the report. But the overarching views and priorities of Amnesty International take shape in Khan's introductory letter and in the press release. After all, those are the sections of the report that most readers are likely to see.
And Amnesty's bias isn't just reflected in who it condemns; it's also revealed in where it directs praise. Amid the desolate landscape allegedly created by Washington, Amnesty takes solace in the emergence of what it calls a "global justice movement"--comprising the millions who, according to Amnesty, "took to the streets around the world in solidarity with the Iraqi people." That's an amazingly simplistic characterization of anti-war marches--it's not clear how a movement that urges the abandonment of Iraq stands in "solidarity with the Iraqi people"--and one that makes Amnesty sound more like a left-wing activist group than the rational, analytical organization it claims to be. Human rights are indeed under attack, and victims of abuse need staunch--and serious--defenders more than ever. Amnesty International could be at the forefront of this work, if it weren't so busy carrying out a narrow political agenda.
Frida Ghitis is the author of The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live
Posted by DZ at June 2, 2004 12:33 PMMuch the same way that all of the Administration's scandals seem to have fallen down the same endless hole as Ozzie Smith.
Perhaps you should found the Nerd Party and run on "embiggening the common man."
Posted by The Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth at June 2, 2004 12:35 PMHere's the opening letter, which isn't a summary of the report, but rather her take on the general state of the fight for human rights. I'm sorry, but we're basing Amnesty's work on that?
Please.
Posted by jesse at June 2, 2004 12:45 PMDamn that Amnesty International, putting any focus on a free and open society that has a chance to change and make their efforts worthwhile! AI, you know your job should be to harangue meaninglessly against dictators who don't care!
Maybe she doesn't spend any time on North Korea because her goal isn't to tell us about the worst things in the world so we can feel better about ourselves, but to try to make realistic change for the better in the world. NK is about as responsive to criticism as my pillow, and short of the unacceptable options of bribing one of the worst countries in the world to be somewhat better, or else solving the human rights problems by nuking them and eliminating all the people, there doesn't seem to be a hell of a lot the free world can do about it.
If anything, making the people of the U.S. listen to Amnesty, and affecting real change here, is the best first step toward actually doing something about Sudan, because most genocidal bastards aren't about to be shamed into changing their ways. God, it's so fucking offensive when those guys try to tell the professionals their business, with the clear goal of whitewashing over the bad things we've done.
Posted by ThatGuy at June 2, 2004 01:07 PMThatGuy - exactly. And the undertone of all of AI's criticism is that it's up to the more advanced nations to bear some moral responsibility for what happens in Sudan and Eritrea and elsewhere, and that we've got to deal with our own problems, too.
But, they hate America.
Posted by jesse at June 2, 2004 01:15 PMWhat Instashitface and this retarded monkey child of an author fail to realize is that AI, HRW, and ICG depend on the United States to exert moral leadership in the world. Once, say, Islam Karimov gets signals from the US that it's okay to boil people alive as long as they're "terra-ists," he will feel more free to do so.
Not only that, but her central allegation -- that AI is spending the bulk of its resources against the United States, simply isn't supported by any facts in here article.
Posted by asdf at June 2, 2004 01:33 PMAmnesty has chapters in each country. These chapters announce the report for each one. When the AI report came out, I first heard of it through LeMonde or le Nouvel Obs, and--shockingly--read that it was describing France as betraying its vision of itself as a strong voice for human rights in the world. Why, dammit, didn't the American papers report the AI release with the same headline about France?
Well, um, possibly because the American chapters' release of the international report focused on, you know, America and its effect on human rights, and the newspapers followed that lead. France was left to the French AI chapters.
The whole TNR-Instapundit argument is shaped to American exceptionalism. We're the only ones who get criticized. A big war breaks out in Iraq, and an older one winds down into warlordism in Afghanistan, and America gets the blame from AI for the current human rights situation in those two places. It's big news, internationally and, man, is it ever unfair to single out the United States for a responsible role in those two places. Like we had anything to do with those big stories, there.
What's worse about this is that the Amnesty Report is dismissed in order to excuse the breaking of American law and the rightness of our general hopes for human rights in the world. In the "your're with the terrorists, or you're with us" meme, these two authors respond with, "we're with the terroriss, only with the better sort of them."
Posted by Brian C.B. at June 2, 2004 01:56 PMSorry about the poorly-written post above. I've got to stop commenting from work, where I rush things.
Posted by Brian C.B. at June 2, 2004 02:00 PM"Yes, what is it, Smithers?"
"Prof. Reynolds, most of the players you selected for Team Strawman have retired and, er, passed on. Your left fielder has been dead for 130 years."
"All right then, find new some new strawmen. Specious strawmen. Scour the best stupid generaliazations: the French leagues, the Rall leagues, the Negro leagues!"
What is really offensive about both Ghitis' and Reynolds' screeds is the fact that if they merely signed up to receive urgent actions and other updates from AI, they would have found out exactly what AI is doing on a broad range of issues.
Instead they probably find it preferable to continue cursing the darkness.
Posted by Randy Paul at June 2, 2004 02:11 PMThis crap is never ending...
Ok, so the USA is guilty of many, many war-crimes and atrocities. Therefore, those who point this out are merely anti-American. After all, there are thousands being killed in Sudan!
Remember, America is the greatest country in the world as long as there's at least one that's worse!
Posted by Jrod at June 2, 2004 04:11 PMThis crap is never ending...
Ok, so the USA is guilty of many, many war-crimes and atrocities. Therefore, those who point this out are merely anti-American. After all, there are thousands being killed in Sudan!
Remember, America is the greatest country in the world as long as there's at least one that's worse!
Posted by Jrod at June 2, 2004 04:13 PMGold medal goes to Scott for that Simpsons ode.
Posted by DZ at June 2, 2004 04:16 PMYawn. The standard response to those who say 'Amnesty spends all of its time criticising America' is 'you only take interest in what Amnesty says when it criticises America, and ignore the other 95% of what the organisation does and publishes.'
It's like people saying that there's no good music being made these days, then admitting that they only every listen to the FM pop station.
Posted by nick at June 2, 2004 04:16 PMAnd like Randy Paul says, the quickest way to rid yourself of the stupid conception that Amnesty spends all its time and money criticising the USA is to put down your fucking cash and sign up as a member.
But that would hurt Insty's brain. 'Too complex! Amnesty's telling me to write letters to ambassadors of countries I've never heard of!'
And frankly, the true hypocrisy is that Insty is more concerned about participating in a painless, thoughtless, heartless defence of the US than giving a shit about people being tortured, imprisoned and subject to human rights abuses around the world.
Posted by nick at June 2, 2004 04:21 PMNick,
You don't even have to put down any cash. You can simply sign up at the sign up at the Online Action Center and start receiving actions to take on behalf of human rights issues that AI addresses.
Posted by Randy Paul at June 2, 2004 07:33 PM