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| Fifth Column | |
| Amnesty: ’War on Terror’ Has Made World Worse | |
| 2003-05-28 | |
| Hey, it's all our fault. But we already knew that, right? Washington's "war on terror" has made the world more dangerous by curbing human rights, undermining international law and shielding governments from scrutiny, Amnesty International said on Wednesday. Releasing its annual report into global human rights abuses in 2002, the London-based watchdog made one of its fiercest attacks yet on the policies pursued by the United States and Britain in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. I believe this year's report is titled: "America Still Sucks... and the British Do Too." If the war on terror was supposed to make the world safer, it has failed, and has given governments an excuse to abuse human rights in the name of state security, it said. "What would have been unacceptable on September 10, 2001, is now becoming almost the norm," Amnesty's Secretary-General Irene Khan told a news conference, accusing Washington of adopting "a new doctrine of human rights a la carte. The United States continues to pick and choose which bits of its obligations under international law it will use, and when it will use them," she said, highlighting the detention without charge or trial of hundreds of prisoners in Afghanistan and in a U.S. military camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Oh, the humanity!!! "By putting these detainees into a legal black hole, the U.S. administration appeared to continue to support a world where arbitrary unchallengeable detention becomes acceptable." Maybe if these assholes weren't trying to kill us they wouldn't be in a legal black hole. I'd prefer they were just in a hole...with 6 feet of dirt on top.
This is in this month's issue of "Duh", the official publication of Amnesia International. Amnesty's 311-page report was not concerned solely with the crises triggered by the attacks of September 11. It said the intense media focus on Afghanistan and Iraq in 2002 meant human rights abuses in Ivory Coast, Colombia, Burundi, Chechnya and Nepal had gone largely unnoticed. Oh, don't worry, the UN's handling all that. Any mention on the wonders they're doing for human rights in your little screed? Amnesty said the human rights situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo remained "bleak, with continuing fighting and attacks on civilians." The UN's on that too. Don't worry, they got it covered. "In Burundi, government forces carried out extrajudicial killings, 'disappearances', torture and other serious violations," it said. Amnesty said the Colombian government had "exacerbated the spiraling cycle of political violence" by introducing new security measures. It accused Israel of committing war crimes in the occupied territories and the Palestinians of committing crimes against humanity by targeting civilians in suicide bombings." At least 1,000 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli army (in 2002), most of them unlawfully," it said. "Palestinian armed groups killed more than 420 Israelis, at least 265 of them civilians..." Those Palestinan killings? Lawful or unlawful? They don't say. I'm shocked that they actually mentioned them. Khan said it was vital that the world "resist the manipulation of fear and challenge the narrow focus of the security agenda. The definition of security must be broadened to encompass the security of people, as well as states," she said. Irene, isn't that the same thing? What a ditz! | |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #2 "The United States continues to pick and choose which bits of its obligations under international law it will use, and when it will use them" Nope. See, there is no such thing as "International Law", albeit there are the Maritime Laws and the Geneva Conventions, to which we adhere - but they are "gentlemen's agreements", not actual laws. "Afghanistan does not present a record of which the international community can be proud." Well, not since the UN and EU said they'd handle it. First the EU's German cops threatened to leave when they found out they might actually be shot at, and then in respect to the Northern Warlords taking control of large areas the UN declined to send troops because "it is a problem of the central government, not ours." Good thing we still have troops there... |
| Posted by: John Anderson 2003-05-28 18:32:01 |
| #1 Now if were all impoverished, pacifistic citizens of a socialist world government everything would be a-ok, right Irene? |
| Posted by: Secret Master 2003-05-28 14:58:47 |