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AI Responds, Senate to Hold Hearings on Detainees

By TChris, Section War on Terror
Posted on Sat Jun 04, 2005 at 10:16:11 AM EST
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by TChris

The Bush administration and its cheerleaders have criticized Amnesty International's use of the term "gulag" to describe Guantánamo Bay. AI gives the administration a nice slap in response:

Kate Gilmore, the group's executive deputy secretary general, said the administration's response was "typical of a government on the defensive," and she drew parallels to the reactions of the former Soviet Union, Libya and Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini, when those governments were accused of human rights abuses.

It hasn't escaped AI's notice that the administration relies on AI reports of human rights abuses when those reports focus on countries the administration looks upon with disfavor. Nor does AI mind the publicity it receives when one government official after another talks about its findings.

Long used to biting criticism, the group said this was the first time one of its reports had drawn the public wrath of the United States president and vice president, its secretary of defense, its secretary of state and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Ms. Gilmore said the response was telling. "When we see a government at this level engaging in rhetorical attacks and avoiding dealing with the details or the facts," she said, "we interpret that as being a sign that we are starting to have an impact."

An impact, indeed:

On the heels of Amnesty International calling the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "the gulag of our time," Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., will hold hearings this month on the treatment of foreign terrorism suspects there.

Specter's hearing will focus on the detention of enemy combatants at both Guantanamo and in the United States, and whether trying them before military tribunals provides them adequate due process, the senator's aide said.

< Ward Churchill: New Investigation By Media | Air Force Academy: We Have No Respect >

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    AI Responds, Senate to Hold Hearings on Detainees | 11 comments (11 topical)
    Re: AI Responds, Senate to Hold Hearings on Detain (none / 0) (#1)
    by Randinho on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:41 PM EST
    Kate Gilmore, the group's executive deputy secretary general, said the administration's response was "typical of a government on the defensive," and she drew parallels to the reactions of the former Soviet Union, Libya and Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini, when those governments were accused of human rights abuses. Yes, it is all too typical.

    Re: AI Responds, Senate to Hold Hearings on Detain (none / 0) (#2)
    by Linkmeister on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:41 PM EST
    One of their folks (named Schulze, I think) acquitted himself well on the News Hour last night; it was rather interesting that the opposing view was represented not by an Administration or Pentagon person but by some guy from one of the ubiquitous "security" firms surrounding this activity (Global Options, Inc.). The Pentagon was offered a chance to participate and "declined."

    Re: AI Responds, Senate to Hold Hearings on Detain (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:41 PM EST
    TL, your piece made the Blaghdad Café's "Fozad" of the day...many thanks for bringing it to our attention!!

    Re: AI Responds, Senate to Hold Hearings on Detain (none / 0) (#4)
    by Randinho on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:41 PM EST
    Linkmeister, William Schulz is the Executive Director of AIUSA.

    Re: AI Responds, Senate to Hold Hearings on Detain (none / 0) (#5)
    by The Heretik on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:41 PM EST
    I have been trying to digest all of this only to be served up another heaping serving of lies by this Misadministration. This relentless tide of lies and deceit has the clear intent of wearing down any critics. The tactics are age old in service to the diabolical concept that language itself has no meaning. When one hears Bush say critical reports are absurd, what he is saying is that such reports against his policies and actions are out of the ordinary. The problem is that the reports are ordinary. Reports of misconduct are daily affairs, mostly unreported. What is ordinary for this Bush Misadministration is its contempt for truth and decency. These too are daily affairs. Cynicism rules. Yet our leaders claim to be men of principle. The world is turned on its head. My stomach turns as well.

    Re: AI Responds, Senate to Hold Hearings on Detain (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:41 PM EST
    They probably put Condi up to issuing that "human trafficking" report in order to deflect attention away from this. The US criticizing other countries for human rights abuses? At this point? Don't make me laugh!

    Re: AI Responds, Senate to Hold Hearings on Detain (none / 0) (#7)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:41 PM EST
    Donald Rumsfeld runs the largest weapons trafficking organization on the planet.

    Re: AI Responds, Senate to Hold Hearings on Detain (none / 0) (#8)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:41 PM EST
    Ayatollah Bush must consult the imams before responding to these absurd allegations. But I sense a another fatwa being declared against these terrorist-coddling infidels.

    Re: AI Responds, Senate to Hold Hearings on Detain (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:41 PM EST
    Randy, great link; loved this latest piece of the Bushfuhrer's reverse hyperbole: ""If you denounce Sudan as genocidal, what next? Don't you have to arrest the president? The solution doesn't lie in making radical solutions...." No, we MUSTN'T make radical solutions. Radical solutions buttressed by lies, blatant corruption, conspiracy, religious racism, and in total violation of American democracy -- OK. Radical solutions that involve arresting the president? That's just the start for genocide, George. "Article 2 In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: • (a) Killing members of the group; CHECK • (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; CHECK • (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; CHECK • (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; CHECK -- See subsection, Depleted Uranium dispersal and birth defects, and also destroying and not repairing civilian water supplies, leading to cholera outbreak and rapidly increasing child deathrate from infectious illness and malnutrition. Quacks like a duck, Donald. Somebody tell Incurious George that IGNORING the law is no defense.

    Re: AI Responds, Senate to Hold Hearings on Detain (none / 0) (#10)
    by Linkmeister on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:42 PM EST
    Randy, I'd forgotten what the title was so I avoided trying. ;)

    Re: AI Responds, Senate to Hold Hearings on Detain (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:42 PM EST
    To those who've followed PPJ and Blaghdaddy's running fued over what "real patriotism" entails, Blaghdaddy's had a "Letter to the Editor" published in the right-leaning Toronto Sun... Blaghdaddy puts his money where his mouth is... And notice how Blagh, even in Canada, can't escape being called "smug" for simply saying, "Fozad to me? Fozad right back at ya, Righties" To even the Toronto Sun, Canadians should be lining up to kiss GW's butt- Blagh says "You first..."

    AI Responds, Senate to Hold Hearings on Detainees | 11 comments (11 topical)