May 31, 2005
Taking Lessons from Bush on Amnesty's Condemnation Is Like Taking Lessons from Bush on the English Language
from - smijer
And you can do both, here.
On Amnesty:
I'm aware of the Amnesty International report, and it's absurd. It's an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that is -- promotes freedom around the world. When there's accusations made about certain actions by our people, they're fully investigated in a transparent way. It's just an absurd allegation.
On the English Language:
It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth.
... People who hate America and went through the "extra-legal" internment camp, held without charge, even though many were innocent, and in the company of whom were over a hundred that died under interrogation... Sheesh... they should love America and quit "disassembling" about everything.
I get this via the Moderate Voice, who also criticizes the Amnesty report for not properly contextualizing American offenses against human rights. Well, I disagree. I think they are merely missing the context. The Soviet Gulag was a place for political prisoners who were held without charge by one of the most powerful superpowers on the planet. The context is America as superpower. Camp X-ray, Abu Ghraib, various detention facilities in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan (not to mention Syria, Iran)... these are abuses of Absolute Power. Stalin was vile when he purged the Party of dissenters. But the Stalag was not just Stalin's... it was an instrument of a burgeoning Soviet empire...
So, maybe America's offenses don't stack up numerically to those in Korea and in which Americans had no hand in Syria or Iran... yet. Amnesty is telling a hard truth about American abuse of power. We would do well to listen to them, instead of listening to Bush "catapult the propaganda".
That would go, also, for the propaganda you might hear from Dick Cheney or the Cheerleading Master.
Next week, see Bushco and Boortz go after the Red Cross. It seems there's Blues under every bed.
::Posted by smijer at May 31, 2005 09:28 PM