Monday, May 30, 2005

Amnesty International Offends Cheney

From AP:

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney says he's offended by a human rights group's report criticizing conditions at the prison camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay.

The report Amnesty International released last week said prisoners at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba had been mistreated and called for the prison to be shut down. Cheney derided the London-based group in an interview set to be broadcast Monday night on CNN's "Larry King Live."

"Frankly, I was offended by it," Cheney said in the videotaped interview. "For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously."

Cheney is the latest Bush administration official to object to the report. On Sunday, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers called the Amnesty International report "absolutely irresponsible."

...Cheney said detainees at Guantanamo "have been well treated, treated humanely and decently."

"Occasionally there are allegations of mistreatment," Cheney said. "But if you trace those back, in nearly every case, it turns out to come from somebody who had been inside and released to their home country and now are peddling lies about how they were treated."

...Pentagon officials say they have substantiated five cases where copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, were mistreated, although the military has refused to offer details other than to say none was ever flushed down a toilet.
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It's very telling that so-called human rights organizations and the MSM are so quick to believe the stories of former Guantanamo detainees. The seem to automatically lend credence to those allegations.

Can you imagine the mainstream press and other organizations with liberal agendas ever giving the American military the benefit of the doubt?

Why do they accept the claims of released detainees as gospel, while they continually question the integrity of Americans?

Dick Cheney should be offended by Amnesty's report. Every American should be offended by it. Putting the U.S. in the same league as China in terms of human rights abuse destroys the credibility of Amnesty International.

It's unfortunate that the organization chooses to put politics ahead of its mission to promote human rights. It's also hypocritical.

Its
website claims:

AI is independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion. It does not support or oppose any government or political system, nor does it support or oppose the views of the victims whose rights it seeks to protect. It is concerned solely with the impartial protection of human rights.

I don't buy the "independent of any political ideology" part.

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