Shamnesty International - on Tech Central, this boggles my mind

[DS1]

http://www.techcentralstation.com/060305B.html

(snip)
Which is why it's partly up to the U.S. public to keep some perspective on the torture and abuse issue.

First and foremost, torture, abuse, killing, good guys running amok, these are all standard features of war. They occurred in the past and will again in the future. "War is cruelty," Civil War Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman said, and its cruelty is part of the reason the U.S. tries to avoid going to war in the first place. But of course, we are at war.

Second, human-rights watchdogs and lawyers are a veritable cottage industry these days. Whatever the international conflict, there is always a group of them around, wringing their hands, making their names known to newspapers, and pointing out, as if for the first time, that war is hell (another Sherman quotation). They're often well-meaning. But they may be getting wagged by the Al Qaeda training handbook without even knowing - or refusing to believe - it could be so.

Third, it's essential to know the messenger. In this case, Amnesty, the hand-wringer of the week, is no friend of American foreign policy. The group, whose roots lie with early 20th century leftists both here and in Britain, has always bent over backwards to make the capitalist U.S. look bad. Consider that the "Americas Regional Overview" in this 2005 annual report goes on at length about the U.S. and its detention camp, the U.S. and its horrible friend the government of Colombia, the U.S. and its evil counter-narcotics efforts in the region, yet makes not one mention of communist Fidel Castro's abominations in Cuba. Also, the report bends over backwards to blame the human-rights abuses of the quasi-communist Venezuelan government on those trying to unseat President Hugo Chavez.

(more)

[fjc]

1. If it's so important to know the messenger,

then it would behoove the author of that article to know something about Amnesty. That last paragraph is nothing short of a smear, as though defending human rights is somehow discredited with the use of the term "leftist." Combine that with the attempt to trivialize the whole effort by calling it a "cottage industry," and we have much of what is needed to know about the author's point of view. Amnesty made a mistake in its use of hyperbole here with the gulag comparison. After all, don't they know that this is what their opponents will focus upon? They've been effectively dismissed in the same manner as most criticism of this administration, and they did it to themselves.

[DS1]

2. Torture? Everyone does it, so it's okay

Stop whining, there's dead people in New York, or did you forget that already?

/channeling author

[kansasblue]

3. that's out of line

Amnesty International is a quality org

[getmeouttahere]

4. Of course they are no friend of U.S. Foreign Policy...

especially when your foreign policy history includes staging coups to replace democratically-elected governments with dictatorships (i.e. Allende in Chile for one). Hugo Chavez' government, whether socialist or communist or whatever stripe, is also a democratically-elected government. Whether you or anyone else here in our corporatocracy agrees with it or not, Chavez is doing some amazing things for his people...ask the average Venezuelan if he feels his rights are being abused! When we stop doing business with communist and human-rights abusers like China, or Uzbekistan, or even Saudi Arabia, and when we allow outside scrutiny of a place like Gitmo, then maybe we can pontificate on the human rights record of others. Otherwise, it is the height of hypocrisy!

www.handsoffvenezuela.org

[drdtroit]

17. It's the 1850's again for this vicious cabal in power

except this time they have a global reach.
How do you like your "Manifest Destiny"?

[Tigress DEM]

5. Here's my sound bite...

Fact - Torture is happening in America's name

Fact - Geneva convention dismissed as "quaint" by US

Fact - Even by our own reports of the events we are guilty of human rights violations, but these reports in main are hidden from the public and the whistleblowers are being persecuted, not praised.

Fact - Cheney dismisses fact as fiction because the facts are inconvienent, and likely to gain him prison time as a war criminal.

Fact - The war in Iraq has been one "shoot first ask questions later (if at all) party" for the this administration.

[lostnfound]

6. TechCentral is a rightwing corporate propaganda site...

masquerading as simply a technology site.
No surprise there.
Published by DCI Group, "a high-powered Washington lobbying and public relations firm".
Top guy is contributer to Townhall.

[getmeouttahere]

8. Good work, lostnfound!

[youspeakmylanguage]

13. They attack Open Source software and Linux on a regular basis...

They serve up nothing but corporate propaganda.

[zbdent]

7. In Gulf I, remember when the US put up such a fuss about the three

US pilots(?) shot down/captured in Iraq (I remember something about that)?

There was a lot of outrage, because the video/pictures showed the troops with cuts on their faces and kinda banged up.

Turns out that those injuries came when they crashed, and they received good medical treatment at the hands of their captors, despite being the enemy.

Boy, the fanatics of the Right were screaming about the mistreatment of our boys then, eh?

And don't forget the rumors that Gulf II's poster girl (Jessica Lynch) was repeatedly raped at the hands of the Iraqi troops who took her to the hospital and the doctors who treated her (and gave her t-shirts and feminine supplies). And that there was no evidence of any of that abuse.

[wallwriter]

9. Kindergarten-level ethics here: It does not matter what the other kids do.

Wrong is wrong is wrong.

Torture is wrong. Detaining people without charges is wrong. Detaining people for indefinite periods is wrong. Abusing people on the basis of religious beliefs and practices is wrong. Sending people to other countries to be tortured is wrong.

It does not matter what else happens in war. It does not matter what Castro does.

[hatrack]

10. TechCentral Station? Puh-leeze!

The most pathetic right-wing swill imaginable, all dressed up in shiny digital Emperor's clothes. :puke:

[DS1]

12. Today was the first I'd heard of it, saw the link and the website's name

on Google News

It's not my fault! :hide:

[youspeakmylanguage]

14. Google News is worthless when it comes to filtering news...

I love Google's philosophy and almost all of their services, but searching Google News for accurate and professional news and commentary without checking the source is about as effective as searching their Usenet archives and believing every post you read. You have to verify that the source of the story is unbiased and trustworthy - neither of which applies to "techcentralstation.com".

[hatrack]

15. Didn't mean to rake you personally, DS1!

My gorge rose at the thought of HackCentral Station, not at your post regarding them! :hi:

[Boo Boo]

11. Believe it or not...

This harebrained partisan hack used to sit on the editorial board of USA Today.

I love the logic of not taking Amnesty seriously because they "no friend" to US policy. That Amnesty International, they're so French. They're no friend to our policy of torture, that's for sure. If they supported torture I might take them a little more seriously.

[atommom]

16. Of course, it's impossible that Amnesty International might have

had a POINT, all those times it criticized US foreign policy. Just because those in power consider themselves the good guys, that doesn't make them immune to criticism when they make decisions that harm other people.