Amnesty International and The Bush Administration

In the interest of identifying my potential biases, I am, and have been for a number of years, a proud member of Amnesty International. To be sure the reports issued by Amnesty International receive world wide distribution and, except for those countries accused of abuses, their work is highly respected as accurate and objective, free from political bias. Indeed, until the recent report, members of the Bush Administration, including George himself, have frequently quoted from the Amnesty reports. As the record so clearly demonstrates, Amnesty International reports were used by Bush, Cheney, and Rummy to justify the rush to war against Iraq. The following article from the Washington Post nicely summarizes the Administrations hypocrisy in using or trashing Amnesty Reports depending upon political expediency.

The Bush people talk reverentially about the importance of democracy and freedom in the world; yet, do not hesitate to lock people away in prison, incommunicado, held without charges, denied access to the legal system. In some instances, those arrested have been shipped to friendly countries where they’ve subsequently been subjected to the worst kind of physical abuses, apparently at the behest of our government.

To vilify the Amnesty report because it is so highly critical of US abuses in the prisons used to house suspected terrorists is shameful. We are told that Defense Department self investigation indicates that they’ve behaved in an angelic fashion; therefore the Amnesty Reports aren’t true. What simple minded bull shit! I can understand the importance of self analysis on a psychiatric couch, but deference to the accused in criminal matters is like asking the fox to guard the hen house. Weren’t we advise in kindergarten against such folly?

We heard the Bush White House endlessly vilify Newsweek for reporting that military prison guards defiled the Koran. Never mind that the International Red Cross issued a report noting that the Newsweek report was consistent with their reports, reports that had been forwarded to the Defense Department on numerous occasions. And, of course, yesterday (4 June) the Defense Department released a report verifying the discovery of abuses of the type reported in Newsweek.

But, let the facts speak for themselves, i.e., read the Washington Post article by Dana Milbank.

Davy Crockett


From the Washington Post
An Administration's Amnesty Amnesia

By Dana Milbank
Post
Sunday, June 5, 2005; A04

The folks at Amnesty International are practically begging for a one-way ticket to Gitmo. After the human rights group issued a report late last month calling the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "the gulag of our times," top officials raced to condemn Amnesty.

President Bush: "It's absurd. It's an absurd allegation."

Vice President Cheney: "I don't take them seriously. . . . Frankly, I was offended by it."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld: "Reprehensible . . . cannot be excused."

Funny -- these officials had a different view of Amnesty when it was criticizing other countries.

Rumsfeld repeatedly cited Amnesty when he was making the case against Saddam Hussein, urging "a careful reading of Amnesty International" and saying that according to "Amnesty International's description of what they know has gone on, it's not a happy picture."

The White House often cited Amnesty to make the case for war in Iraq, using the group's allegations that Iraq executed dozens of women accused of prostitution, decapitated victims and displayed their heads, tortured political opponents and raped detainees' relatives, gouged out eyes, and used electric shocks.

Regarding Fidel Castro's Cuba, meanwhile, the White House joined Amnesty and other groups in condemning Castro's "callous disregard for due process."

And the State Department's most recent annual report on worldwide human rights abuses cites Amnesty's findings dozens of times.

"This administration eagerly cites Amnesty International research when we criticize Cuba and extensively quoted our criticism of the violations in Iraq under Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the war," protested William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA.

But Schulz isn't protesting too much. In the past week, traffic on Amnesty's Web site has gone up sixfold, donations have quintupled and new memberships have doubled.