The Shame of Amnesty International
This essay by Dennis Byrne in the Chicago Tribune states it well. The “moral equivalency” game Amnesty plays is as pathetic as it is adolescent.
I’ll quote at length:
By labeling the U.S. anti-terrorism prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the “gulag of our times,” the people of Amnesty International must think we’re stupid or ignorant.
Stupid or ignorant enough to fall for the assertion that whatever is happening at Guantanamo is the legal and moral equivalent of what happened in the hundreds of slave labor and concentration camps scattered throughout the former communist Soviet Union. Equivalent to a system that brutalized tens of millions, of which untold millions died of starvation, exposure, exhaustion, torture, illness or execution.
OK, maybe in light of this generation’s dismal ignorance of history, we deserve to be treated like dummies. But Amnesty International, which purports to speak on behalf of human rights everywhere, ought to know better. And if we let it get away with this historical obscenity, then we are stupid.
Amnesty International might as well have compared the treatment of a few hundred detainees at Guantanamo to the Holocaust. To review the gulag’s history: Millions of political dissenters, victims of police state terror, assorted “undesirables,” ethnic minorities (e.g. Chechens and Crimean Tartars) and others guilty of doing nothing wrong were shipped to the gulag to mine, build railroads, dig canals, toil in factories, clear forests and perform other slave labor. Until they were too sick to continue or just dropped dead, left to become a part of the permafrost. Millions more were shot or died in Holocaust-style cattle cars before getting there.
Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum, in her Pulitzer-Prize winning book, “Gulag: A History,” figures that from 1928 through 1953, about 24 million people passed through the various camps, many in brutal Siberia or other remote regions. That’s more than twice Cuba’s entire population. Among them were hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of prisoners of World War II. She estimated that 600,000 were Japanese, who were kept in the slave camps for years after the end of the war. Few ever made it home.
Either Amnesty International isn’t aware of this history, or it knows of it but is lying for the sake of a good sound bite. In either case, the group has lost credibility to speak on behalf of the victims of human-rights violations. Moreover, Amnesty International has dishonored millions of gulag victims…
Byrne adds this:
…Am I making too much of the misuse of a single word? First, the group’s use of gulag wasn’t a casual slip of the tongue; it was calculated. As the left is pleased to often remind everyone, “words have consequences.” And the unacceptable consequence of the gulag comparison is the debasement of the word “atrocity” and a general desensitizing of moral outrage.
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: Criminal action by US troops, intelligence agents, and government workers needs to be punished. When murder and torture are discovered, prove murder and torture in court and send the guilty to jail. I support capital punishment for murderers and torturers. Ultimately, Amnesty is guilty of a self-inflicted wound. Documenting evil, barbarity, and cruelty is to be lauded. But –just like Hitler comparisons cheapen the Holocaust, “gulag” comparisons cheapens the grand, immense, state-directed evil of Stalinism. Amnesty uses “gulag” to get a headline and to energize KosKidz — it’s a tawdry act of PR, a carny gimmick. FWIW, I belong to Amnesty International. It’s one of the few organizations that tries to keep poets out of political prisons.
The really sad thing about the use of the word “gulag” (which Amenesty International personnel must know is absurd) is that it was likely done for fund-raising purposes. That such an absurdity would prompt donations-or even be believed apppropriate for attracting donations-is very unfortunate.
Comment by Owen — 5/30/2005 @ 9:58 am
Interestingly, even though the media gave plenty of play to the irresponsible “gulag” comment. They downplayed, or ignored altogether, their US AI head’s comments that foreign governments should investigate US leaders on his “list” and arrest them and prosecute. Apparently, President Bush is on AI’s list. I found the fact that the media downplayed these comments interesting. It reminded me a little of the Italian journalist shot by US troops and how the media downplayed her documented communist and anti-American affiliation.
Comment by Kate — 5/30/2005 @ 11:10 am
Amnesty International lost any speck of credibility or respectability with its attack on the US and its decision to compare our facilities to gulags. I would support any and all efforts to deny them access to US facilities or funds.
Comment by E. T. — 5/30/2005 @ 12:48 pm
Here is an excellent comment on this situation: http://www.nypost.com/seven/05292005/postopinion/opedcolumnists/44601.htm
Comment by E. T. — 5/30/2005 @ 1:53 pm
Sadly enough, I used to be a “member” of Amnesty International. I canceled that arraignment in the Fall of 2001 when they decided that people who fly airplanes into buildings, people who have women flogged to death for “allowing” themselves to be raped, and people to bind these types securely in transit to detention facilities are all morally equivalent. Just thinking of the money that I sent them, money that a poor student such as myself could have made good use of, makes me want to vomit.
Comment by Jason — 5/30/2005 @ 7:50 pm
Amnesty International’s Guantanamo Bay Fiasco Read Austin Bay’s post regarding Amnesty International calling the U.S. anti-terrorism prison at Guantanamo Bay the “gulag of our times.†A few paragraphs from a Dennis Byrne essay that Austin quotes: Amnesty International might as well have co…
Trackback by nospeedbumps.com — 5/30/2005 @ 8:14 pm
Congratulations on deflecting from the crux of the story (USA guilty of mistreating ‘detainees’) to a discussion of the term gulag. Too bad ya’ll don’t have the wherewithall to address Amnesty’s report instead of deflecting from it.
Comment by Ed — 5/31/2005 @ 1:34 am
I pretty much figured Amnesty International jumped the shark when they sued the CIA so that they could investigate possible violations of Pablo Escobar’s human rights. http://www.november.org/razorwire/rzold/21/21000.html Yes, that Pablo Escobar… formerly head of the Medellin drug cartel. And his record on human rights was probably as bad, if not worse, than what Amnesty International is upset with Los Pepes about. And Pablo Escobar is not the only dubious person to have attracted the solicitude of Amnesty International. Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, the “greeter” for Malaysian Airlines who escorted one of the 9/11 hijackers through customs and then attended the January 2000 al-Qaeda summit, is another one. Those are just the two that I came up with off the top of my head. Might be worth seeing who else Amnesty International is intervening on behalf of…
Comment by Harold C. Hutchison — 5/31/2005 @ 10:04 am
On a somewhat related note, read Christopher Hitchens in Slate on Abu Ghraib/Guernica comparisons. http://www.slate.com/id/2118306 Money quote: “How shady it is that our modern leftists and peaceniks can detect fascism absolutely everywhere except when it is actually staring them in the face.” First comment above nails it. AI and other ngos are competing for donations. Calling Camp Gitmo a gulag strikes a chord with donors, while shining a light on real ones e.g. N Korea does not. But as with any business that resorts to deceptive marketing for a short-term gain, AI is risking their long-term viability. And that is a shame.
Comment by paul — 5/31/2005 @ 12:15 pm
“Congratulations on deflecting from the crux of the story (USA guilty of mistreating ‘detainees’) to a discussion of the term gulag. Too bad ya’ll don’t have the wherewithall to address Amnesty’s report instead of deflecting from it.” Congratulations on deflecting from the crux of Austin’s post (AI’s using the very worst of historical revisionism) to avoid the fact that AI’s true agenda is anti-Americanism, rather than protecting human rights as they claim. Too bad you have neither the historical knowledge nor ethical standards neccessary to see this farce for what it is. Oh, wait, no congratulations are in order. You failed to do even that. See, Ed, anyone can be snarky…
Comment by Captain Wrath — 5/31/2005 @ 12:42 pm
I believe that people are inherently bad, it’s our sin nature. Many of us however don’t act inherently evil all the time. Don’t our enemies have evil in their hearts in that they want to murder us simply for being Americans? That said, we do have some bad apples in our bunch as well, sadists and what not. That, however doesn’t spoil the entire bunch as Amnesty wants you to believe. It’s quite obvious that everywhere there are bad even evil people. But in our forces that is the exception and not the rule. With our enemies in this war, the evil people are the rule and not the exception.
Comment by Ryan Scott — 5/31/2005 @ 2:43 pm
Historically Illiterate Amnesty International Driving through the Sierra tonight, I caught a blurb on the radio tonight that almost did what no deer has been successful in doing to date: drive me off the road. Guantanamo has become the gulag [of] our time. . . . One might expect this from s…
Trackback by Sierra Faith — 5/31/2005 @ 8:50 pm
If you’re a member of Amnesty International why don’t you demand that they go to the real Gulags in the Sudan and Cuba and tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Instead of being a member of a group of intellectual prostitutes, just give them the finger and quit in disgust.
Comment by Mescalero — 5/31/2005 @ 9:38 pm
So why do we let this prisoners of the “gulag” sit around all day long reading the Qu’ran and praying when Amnesty International has pretty much given the clearance to use them as forced laborers and drive them until about a half or more drop over dead. If we’re going to have a “gulag”, it should be up to proper “gulag” standards for beatings, torture and death.
Comment by Neo — 6/1/2005 @ 1:07 am
#16 is definitely NOT Mr. Hutchison’s writing; he is much more literate than that.
Comment by Ken Prescott — 6/2/2005 @ 11:43 am
No aspect of the war on terror has been blown more out of context than the issues surrounding prisoner detention. Here’s what the critics of the effort want you to remember: Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, U.S. Marine shooting unarmed insurgent, car bombs, beheadings, and Iraqi civilian deaths. Forget about the fact that al Qaeda has managed to accomplish non of their strategic goals, tens of thousands of terrorists and Ba’athist thugs have been arrested or killed, an Iraqi election took place that put an elected government in place, and the insurgency has no popular support. The Qur’an abuse or detainees claims of abuse that are proliferated around as facts…it’s a total joke. The truth is, no detainees have ever been treated better than these people, many of whom would relish the opportunity to turn a U.S. city into a mushroom cloud. Culturally appropriate meals, Qur’ans, prayer time, and on and on. You’ll have to forgive me if I have a hard time buying into the idea that detainees placed in stress positions amounts to torture. Equally deserving forgiveness is my unwillingness to give these detainees credibility on their claims, since the al Qaeda manual spells out for them to resist interrogations and proclaim abuse, even when none has taken place. Clearly the jihadists, enabled by the likes of Amnesty International, ICRC and the western media, are winning the propaganda war. They’ve got half the people in the west concerned about whether or not forcing them to stand for two hours is torture, and beyond the realm of reasonable methods for interrogation. Now, critics of the war sit around waiting for scraps of meat to be tossed on the floor, never bothering to consider the source’s reliability or credibility, and leap to conclusions. There’s been no context,no perspective and outrageous exaggurations all in the name of painting a complete picture of a U.S. administration that doesn’t care about human rights or those of detainees, and are thus abusing them. It’s total B.S. and a mischaracterization of what is going on to the worst degree.
Comment by Mixed Humor — 6/2/2005 @ 4:24 pm
guantanamo is worse than a holocaust. In holocaust, people were starved to death, and killed (which takes a few minutes of pain in a gas chamber). I agree holocaust was definitely painful and very evil, but as compared to guantanamo, not Guantanamo does not allow prisoners to starve to death, and tortures for more than two years by force feeding prisoners with tubes drawn till their intestines. This has never been done in history. Probably the nazis who escaped german justice after fall of hitler told cia to start this in their country in their next war
Comment by anonymous — 9/4/2007 @ 9:32 pm