U.S. Gulag

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London-based group Amnesty International made headlines today, but the organization also made a major blunder. When Amnesty Secretary General Irene Khan said, "Guantanamo has become the gulag of our time," Amnesty lost so much credibility that it can now be counted among other leftist, wacko organizations.

Claims that the U.S. has shirked its responsibility to set the bar for human rights protections reveals Amensty as a propaganda disseminator in the "hate America" movement.

From AP:

In a statement, the Defense Department said that "the detention of enemy combatants is not criminal in nature, but to prevent them from continuing to fight against the United States in the War on Terrorism."

It also said that it continued to evaluate whether detainees should be sent home and that review tribunals "provided an appropriate venue for detainees to meaningfully challenge their enemy combatant designation."

"This is an unprecedented level of process being provided to our enemies in a time of war," the statement said.

...Amnesty has frequently criticized U.S. detention policies instituted after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, but its latest report takes a harsher tone. It accuses Washington of trying to 'sanitize' abuse of detainees and failing to give prisoners legal recourse to challenge their detentions. "


The White House spokesman reacted to Amnesty's complaints as well. Scott McClellan said its claims were "ridiculous and unsupported by the facts." Prisoner mistreatment allegations are under investigation.

McClellan said, "We hold people accountable when there's abuse. We take steps to prevent it from happening again. And we do so in a very public way for the world to see that we lead by example and that we do have values that we hold very dearly and believe in."

Amnesty's comparison of Guantanamo to the gulags of the former Soviet Union, with its legacy of thousands of prisoners dying from hunger, cold, harsh treatment and overwork, is irreponsible. Such reckless, unfounded rhetoric serves to inflame the already heightened anti-Americanism around the world.

Of course, the harsh rebuke by Amnesty is no surprise. Although its annual report cited other human rights problem areas around the world, such as Sudan, Israel, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Vietnam, Nepal, Thailand, and Indonesia, Amnesty called the U.S. one of the biggest disappointments "after evidence came to light that the U.S. administration had sanctioned interrogation techniques that violated the U.N. Convention against Torture."

Sudan was cited by Amnesty as last year's worst violator of human rights for the devastation caused by conflict in its Darfur region. "At least 180,000 people have died, many from hunger and disease, and about 2 million have fled their homes to escape fighting among rebels, militias and government troops."

I don't take lightly, nor do I excuse, prisoner abuse. Neither does the U.S. government. But, even if ALL the allegations of rough treatment and Koran desecration turned out to be true, that would constitute just a drop in the bucket in terms of human rights violations when compared to other areas of the world.

Amnesty International's gleeful condemnation of the U.S. for its "gulag" reveals its anti-American mindset. I used to believe Amnesty was apolitical. Not anymore.