Michael K. Trimble, an archaeologist, and Gregory W. Kehoe, an American lawyer working with the Iraqi tribunal investigating abuses by Saddam Hussein and others, at a mass grave near Hatra, in northern Iraq.
Posted on 06/07/2005 5:26:35 AM PDT by OESY
It's good to see that Amnesty International has had to backtrack from its comparison of Guantanamo Bay to the Soviet "gulag." Less than two weeks after making that analogy, Amnesty's U.S. boss issued what amounted to a full retraction on "Fox News Sunday" this weekend.
"Clearly, this is not an exact or a literal analogy," said William Schulz. "In size and in duration, there are not similarities between U.S. detention facilities and the gulag.... People are not being starved in those facilities. They're not being subjected to forced labor."...
And what about Mr. Schulz's description of Donald Rumsfeld and others as "apparent high-level architects of torture" who ought to be arrested and prosecuted?... "Do you have any evidence whatsoever that he ever approved beating of prisoners, ever approved starving of prisoners, the kinds of things we normally think of as torture?" Mr. Schulz's response: "It would be fascinating to find out. I have no idea...."
In other words, Mr. Rumsfeld and the other U.S. officials Mr. Schulz maligned could probably now win a libel suit in many jurisdictions, were they inclined to press the issue. Natan Sharanksy--a man who actually spent time as a Soviet political prisoner--described Amnesty's gulag analogy as "typical, unfortunately," for a group that refuses to distinguish "between democracies where there are sometimes serious violations of human rights and dictatorships where no human rights exist at all."...
We don't recount this story to suggest Amnesty was actively in league with Saddam. But... Amnesty still didn't think terrorism was a big deal. In its eagerness to suggest that every detainee with a Muslim name is some kind of political prisoner, and by extension to smear America and its allies, Amnesty has given the concept of "aid and comfort" to the enemy an all-too-literal meaning.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
By Amnesty, they mean for the terrorists. Their agenda is exposed
As much as I loved the live roasting Wallace gave "I know nothing" Schultz last Sunday, I hardly think Schultz was issuing any retractions. He was simply backed into a factless corner.
The deathblow was delivered with the admission of support for Kerry and other Dems, and the fact that he receives his orders from his European masters.
How much Arab bribe money do Amnesty International and its leaders receive? (As is well-known, bribery is the traditional way of getting support in Arab/Muslim lands.)
Now that, my friend, is what we call an excellent question. Too bad we don't have a truly independent media who would chase this answer down as ravenously as they reported the Deep Throat trivia answer.
Follow the Money at Amne$ty International
June 6, 2005
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Steve in Marquette, Michigan. Glad you waited, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Thank you very much, sir. How are you?
RUSH: Fine. Never better.
CALLER: Yes, my question to you was: You've been besmirching [sic] Amnesty International lately for their comments on Abu Ghraib, and I was just wondering, you know, when Don Rumsfeld was citing some of the reasons to go into Iraq, he cited reports by Amnesty International that, you know, were at least I guess legitimate at that point. Don't those two things kind of conflict in your mind?
RUSH: When did Rumsfeld quote Amnesty International? Do you remember the date?
CALLER: No, sir, I don't. It must have been before we went to war, however, I would imagine.
RUSH: Yeah. I mean, Amnesty International -- no, I don't think it's conflicting at all. When Amnesty International says the US is the modern equivalent of a gulag, I don't care what they've said before, they're wrong. It's absolutely absurd. Now, Amnesty International did say, they do say, they do cite some other places around the world where there are terrible human rights violations. They'd be silly if they didn't. If they want to have any credibility whatsoever, they've got to site places like the Sudan, they've got to cite places like North Korea, they have to cite Saddam, particularly after all of the intelligence gathering that was produced to show just what kind of human rights violations were going on in Iraq. So I don't blame Rumsfeld for citing them. He was trying to persuade the left to go along with this. The [] real question is, why isn't the left listening to Amnesty International when they're honestly critical about Saddam? How come the left only cares about Amnesty International when they're criticizing the United States? I mean, the burden of proof is on you guys. I continually am amazed here. You try to shift the premise on me. I've been doing this for 16 years and you think you can pull this trick. You can't put me on the defensive anymore. You're the ones that have explaining to do as far as I'm concerned. You guys are out there saying Iraq was worthless, we needn't have gone in there, the people under Saddam were better off than they are now, yet you call here and quote me, Rumsfeld, quoting Amnesty International how bad Saddam was. Seems to me you guys are the ones that have to do the explaining here. You want to accept them when they call us a gulag, you ignore them when they're accurate about Iraq and Saddam Hussein, but don't try this anymore. You might have used to be able to get away with this with other hosts, but not me!
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
[]
RUSH: "Hey, Rumsfeld cited Amnesty International. How come you got a problem with it?" That's not the question. When they're right, they're right. You ever heard me rip Amnesty International on a regular basis on this program? They are a bunch of leftists but when they're right, they're right -- and they were right about Iraq. So Rumsfeld quotes them. If they're right about (Git'mo), how come the left isn't out there agreeing with what Amnesty International said about Iraq and Saddam? You talk about selective application! It is the left that wants to believe Amnesty International when they accuse the US of being a gulag, which is preposterous. The only thing, the only possibility that can explain why that kind of criticism would work is a horrible public education system in this country which has not properly explained the Soviet Union and what a real gulag is because we've never had a real gulag. We are not capable of it, and we're never even close to one. But to say that what we have at G'itmo is a modern day gulag, I mean, I'm telling you, Amnesty International is trying to please some big-time leftist contributors with this to keep their money rolling in. Never forget the words of Mark Felt, ladies and gentlemen, "Follow the money." Never, ever, ever forget the words of Deep Throat. "Follow the money." He should have followed his own advice. He didn't get diddly-squat. Woodward is a multimillionaire. Bernstein is. He tagged along at the right time, but Bernstein is only a multimillionaire because they sold their Watergate papers last week to the University of Texas at Austin for five mil - and Woodward admitted they did it because Bob needed some money! Woodward admitted that's why they sold their papers. "Yeah, Bob needed some money."
But Ms. Felt, the daughter, is out there now having to justify why her family wants some pocket change out of all of this. We covered all this last week. I don't want to go through it again, but I find it hilarious. But I'm telling you, you follow the money on Amnesty International you will find, I'll bet you, some big-time contributors, and Amnesty International needs the money rolling in, pure and simple, so you give them what they want. An e-mail from a subscriber to my website. "Dear Rush. It's me again the guy from G'itmo. I was there from 2003 in February to June of 2004. Referring to Brigadier General Hood's comments about Koran mishandling, I'm very familiar with one of the incidents that occurred [] nearly two years ago. My boss and I counseled him regarding the incident. The detainee sort of bragged that when he prayed, bad things would happen to the MPs: illness, sprained wrist, etcetera. The interrogator took his own personal Koran, not the detainee's, and stood on it, and said, 'Well, let's see what happens to me now, to the detainee.' Word got out; it put the camp in an uproar for a while. To the detainees it was denied that it ever happened because it was the interrogator's personal Koran. The military didn't even need to mention it. This was a stupid decision on someone's part. Not only that, the military inferred that the Koran issue had something to do with his firing. It's not true. This guy I'm talking about was fired within the past couple of months for other reasons unrelated to the Koran incident that occurred about two years ago. I thought that you might like to know." I'm sorry. So you've got this wacko terrorist saying that every time he prays bad things are going to happen to his captors, and so the captor said, "Oh, yeah? Let me stand on my Koran here. Let's see what happens to me now," and apparently the camp was in an uproar over this, but it was the guard's own Koran. It was not the detainee's.
END TRANSCRIPT bttt!
More here: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com
Also read this Article...
(Washington Times: Amnesty Concedes No Hard Evidence)
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20050606-123303-2127r.htm
The same thing can be said of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, especially Kerry. The list of America bashers and terrorist appeasers is long -it is the same battle Kerry waged during Viet Nam and helped along by a MSM so blind and a congress so willing (for votes) to dash any victory in that country that it caused the deaths of millions and the demise of our brave men and women who fought to free those desperate people from the chains of Communism.
The attempt to repeat the same ugly propaganda for an unpopular war (when was war ever popular) is having a devastating effect. That dishonest propaganda from Senators etc. must be stopped – every time Pelosi, Reid or the rest of the blind and stupid left make one of their un-American, un-patriotic remarks, call their office and register your disgust.
I think it can safely be said that……
Stand together Americans, we are winning the war on terrorism and bringing a more democratic government and freedom to many of the worlds oppressed. Be proud of America and be proud of our efforts to stop terrorism. Be very proud of our brave men and women who are doing this for us; support them in anyway possible.
!!!
BTTT
As Dennis Prager noted in an astute essay for RealClearPolitics.com,
Calling Guantanamo "Gulag" smears America and trivializes the suffering and deaths of millions upon millions of innocent people. But this does not matter to leftist organizations and their defenders in the mainstream media. What matters is hatred of President Bush.
The apotheosis of liberal moral confusion, The New York Times editorial page, wrote: "What Guantanamo exemplifies . . . may or may not bring to mind the Soviet Union's sprawling network of Stalinist penal colonies." Guantanamo "may or may not" be compared to Gulag! What a courageous stand. . . .
Leftist moral confusion and animosity toward America and President Bush are not the only reasons for the widespread acceptance of the Amnesty International libel of America and its trivialization of Stalin's horrors. The other is the simple ignorance of history -- especially concerning Communist atrocities -- among many of the world's journalists. An Associated Press report of May 26th (printed in The Washington Post and countless other newspapers) described the Gulag thus: "Thousands of prisoners of the so-called gulags died from hunger, cold, harsh treatment and overwork."
Thousands? This is our mainstream news media. I am certain the average journalist has little idea about how many people Stalin murdered in the Gulag.
Mr. Prager then furnishes us with this admirable summary (taken from an article by David Bosco in The New Republic) of what went on in the real Gulag as compared to what is going on at Guantanamo Bay:
Individuals detained:
Gulag: 20 million.
Guantanamo: 750 total.
Number of camps:
Gulag: 476 separate camp complexes comprising thousands of individual camps.
Guantanamo: five small camps on the U.S. military base in Cuba.
Reasons for Imprisonment:
Gulag: Hiding grain; owning too many cows; need for slave labor; being Jewish; being Finnish; being religious; being middle class; having had contact with foreigners; refusing to sleep with the head of Soviet counterintelligence; telling a joke about Stalin.
Guantanamo -- Fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan; being suspected of links to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
Red Cross Visits:
Gulag: none that Bosco could find.
Guantanamo: regular visits since January 2002.
Deaths as a Result of Poor Treatment:
Gulag: at least two to three million (Bosco understates). Guantanamo: no reports of prisoner deaths.
Mr. Prager concludes: "If Amnesty International does not fire Irene Khan and retract her obscene comparison, it is unworthy of respect or support. A new non-leftist anti-torture organization must be built." To which I can only add, "Amen."
Source: newcriterion.com/weblog/armavirumque.html
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