And if someone asks AI about issues that do not involve Human Rights abuses then they will say that’s not what we’re about.
And if you consider their biggest concerns as trivial then that’s your opinion. All things considered, I know who has the expertise in the field.
OK. Change my original post to be restricted to human right issues. That’s what I meant, although I did leave it kind of vague.
Tell you what, when a UNbiased Agency, like the International Red Cross comes out & says something like this, I’ll listen. AI is a meaningless parody of itself, listing a few random acts of rogue police officers as “torture and abuse” while downplaying organized & institutionalized REAL torture & abuse by such nations as Saddam’s Iraq. The AI has had, or still has ties to the Communists, and seems to exist not to “protect human rights worldwide” but to give those nations who REALLY do systematically abuse human rights a place to piont a finger at and say “See AI says they are as bad as we are”. :rolleyes: In fact by downplaying real abuses, and putting a spotlight on the Western democracies (and their very real, but sporadic & infrequent lapses), AI does the exact opposite of what its stated goals are.
Sure- the USA has had “human rights violations”- and as long as Police Officers are human beings it will continue to do so. Big deal. When we find these, we work to stop them, and put the violators in prison. When other nations find them, they are given medals, and allowed to participate in gang-rapes of their prisoners wife & children. If you can’t see the difference, you are blind. And AI can’t see it, or refuses to see it. Or, IMHO- doesn’t want to see it.
Have you actually read the report by AI? They certainly don’t say that the western countries are as bad as authoritarian countries when it comes to human rights. If you don’t believe me, take a look at their page on Iraq under Saddam or their page on Iran. In fact, take a look at their summaries on a few different countries, they’re all available from this page. They try to draw attention to human rights abuses in all countries, and the ones that make the news are of course the ones closer to home that people wouldn’t expect - the ones in the liberal democracies. Just because the media choose to concentrate on certain parts of the report while ignoring others isn’t their fault. I’m sure AI would agree that countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia are in more urgent need of action on human rights, but does that mean they shouldn’t try to do anything at all to stop human rights abuses in countries like the US and UK?
I hate to say it, but… cite? Do you mean old Soviet communists, Chinese communists, the British Communist Party, or what?
Got a cite for that?
You know, I’m so tired of this whole attitude that the US is somehow above criticism or can do no wrong. It’s attitudes like THAT that leads a nation to commit wrong in the first place.
As a general principle, yes, a world/city/place where anyone can be incarcerated without due process would be less “safe”. But I’m not talking about generalities- I’m talking specifically about letting loose guys who were in an Al Qaeda camp who still threaten to kill people. I still don’t see how letting this specific group of people out makes the world safer.
I never allowed, condoned, or encouraged torture and neither has the Canadian government. What’s been inferred is that if you’re a non-citizen in Canada giving support to terrorists, there’s a very good chance you’ll be deported to your country of origin. I agree with this policy while at the same time abhor torture- I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive.
How do you know they are Al Qaeda if no court has reviewed their cases? A few that have been let go after a year have turned out to be completely innocent. How do you know they are Al Qaeda if we do not even know who they are or how many they are? That is what due process is for and countries which deny due process to people are not good countries. That is what due process is for: to determine if the government has a valid reson to hold a person or not.
I donot know about Canada but the USA has sent people back to countries where they knew those people would be tortured and that is totally unacceptable from a civilized country. Torture is totally unacceptable and sending a person to be tortured is also totally unacceptable.
Could the “fault” be that AI did not have as much access to witness these abuses by authoritarian and dictator states and more access to liberal democratic states, therefore, more issues to write about? Would this not be the source of the biased reporting? I would say yes. We have learned recently that Uday and Qusay Hussein as INDIVIDUALS have caused numerous and excessively shocking human rights violations in their years of power and AI documented none of it for 2002. Well, maybe Uday and Qusay had a “quiet year” last year…
While AI does good and important work in terms of documenting rights abuses (I do feel there’s some bias on their part, but not enough to undermine the whole org), policy statements such as this are well out of their purview and undermine their credibility as a human rights organization. It is not their place to judge whether or not the world is more “dangerous” because of a particular policy, as the term “dangerous” includes security as well as human rights and other considerations. It is also not in their mandate to defend “international law”, which protects, for example, national sovereignty and thus can contradict human rights.
In fact, their refusal to take a position on important policy issues which concern rights, such as Libya’s chairing of the UNHRC, undermines their credibility with respect to human rights.
Heres a biased website, but the info is probably sound.
http://www.chuckmorse.com/amnesty_international.html
I can’t speak for others, but its not that people criticize the US. its the fact that isolated incidents that are condemned by the legal system recieve the same airtime as widespread events that are supported by the legal system obtain. Its like labeling both someone who spits on the sidewalk and someone who rapes old women as ‘criminals’ w/o considering the nature of the crimes.
How come AI never talks about Castro’s gulag? There is NEVER any pretence of fair trials in Cuba-you can be branded an “enemy of socilaism” and locked away for life!
I’d feel a wholelot more respect for AI if it truly exposed the BAD actors in terms of human rights…but to criticise the USA (while ignoring Cuba) makes no sense to me!
Thanks Calc. You know, if somebody started a thread that was entitled: “The International Communist Party says USA has made the world a more DANGEROUS place”…oh, wait, they did . :smack:
http://web.amnesty.org/report2003/cub-summary-eng
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR250142003
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR250222000
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR250162000
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR250152001
These are just a few of the very many AI reports on Cuba.
You hhave just shown your absolute ignorance and disqualified yourself totally. Please acquire some knowledge before posting again.
Absolutely. Russia is behaving absolutely abominably in Chechnya, and since 9/11 they have begun to spin their extreme human rights abuses there as “anti-Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.”
Here’s a link to an Amazon review I wrote about a book on the subject (I’m “A Reader from Chicago, Illinois”):
Didn’t you follow what happened in Cuba recently? While world attention was focused in Iraq Cuba executed a few dissidents and jailed another bunch of them. Now any country who wants to come down heavy handed only has to use the label “terrorism” to get away with anything they want.
Sailor. My question was meant to fuel debate, not necessarily indicate my level of knowledge or my feelings on the subject.
This is so goofy. Let’s try some other “debates”[ul][li]Did US opposition to fascism in WW2 cause an increase in world fascism? []Did US opposition to Communism in the Cold War cause an expansion of Communism?[]Did US opposition to Jim Crow cause an increase in racism?Did the War on Cancer cause an increase in cancer?[/ul]It seems natural that a war on terrorism would reduce terrorism. No doubt it’s conceivable that it could backfire, but it would take an awful lot of evidence to convince me, and AI hasn’t remotely made the case. Of course, we won’t really know the impact of the war on terror for some time. But, so far, we haven’t seen an increase in world terror.[/li]
In effect, all AI’s statement really means is that they don’t like the war on terror. That’s their privilege, but they don’t really know what’s going to happen.
Did Jim Crow laws make blacks just passively submit to whites? The KKK?
The fact is that the invasion and occupation of Iraq are ruffling feathers around the world and tensions are growing. i do not know how far the USa intends to go in invading more countries but it is possible that one day suddenly things get out of hand and there is a general revolt in the several occupied countries, the USA has to put it down with lots of blood, other countries get involved, and you have the recipy for disaster. Not to mention low level terrorism all along as has happened recently.
the honest answer is yes. It wasn’t until brown vs. board of education that things started changing. about 90 years of submission, then brown, then 15 years of rebellion.
i fail to see that happening. Assume we overthrow North Korea next. Do you think the populations of people who have had to live in a religious tyranny and two cult of personality dictatorships, all 3 consistenly labeled among freedom houses 10 worst of the worst governments on earth every year in regards to human rights and individual liberties, will become enraged just because people in western europe are pissed that we are violating their status quo? I don’t see it. As long as our reforms are functional and respectful i doubt people who actually live in those countries will hate the US very much.
The US, to my knowledge, doesn’t deal with revolt by killing lots o’ people. I’m sure they will try to deal with it as non lethally as possible. The US barely killed thousands in overthrowing Iraq in general, let alone in some small ass rebellion.