Amnesty International, a Complete Embarrassment

There is only one thing worse than human rights atrocities. That is fabricating human rights atrocities and not only making an ass out of yourselves but demeaning and trivializing the deaths of millions of people who actually suffered real brutality.

Such was the case when Amnesty International reported last week that the prisons at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay Cuba were a kin to Soviet-era gulags. President Bush’s called the comments by Amnesty International, “absurd“.

The president, addressing a news conference at the White House, said the Amnesty document was an “absurd report.”

“It’s absurd. It’s an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world,” Bush said of the report, which compared Guantanamo to a Soviet-era gulag.

He said the Amnesty allegations were based on interviews with detainees, who hated America and were trained to lie.

President Bush’s Q&A on topic from his Rose Garden news conference can be seen here via Trey Jackson

The idea that Amnesty International would compare abuse allegations made by detainees who wish to kill Americans to the millions that were killed in the gulags is completely irresponsible.

One day earlier in an interview with CNN’s Larry King Vice President Dick Cheney made similar comments: Video of Dick Cheney’s interview can be seen here via Trey Jackson.

“Frankly, I was offended by it,” Cheney said in the videotaped interview with CNN’s Larry King. “For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don’t take them seriously.”

I am offended that a so-called human rights group would grossly misinterpret possible abuse or torture to get information to the actual deliberate goal of murder that took place in the Russian gulags. It is a slap in the face to the individuals that died in the gulags. Amnesty International has decided to forget history and make this ridiculous comment to further there anti-American agenda.

One would think that a group that proclaims to be concerned about human rights violations would have a sense of relativism and an understanding of history. How does one compare abuse within a prison of relatively few the the abject death of millions? Amnesty International better start doing their homework and tell us how many died in Saddam Hussein’s prisons? Prisons in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and many other countries before they start making such inflammatory statements.

UPDATE: Rusty at The Jawa Report has a masterpiece on “The Gulag Archipelego vs. Amnesty International’s ‘Gulags’”. This should be required reading for Amnesty International that they comprehend the difference between a gulag and a detention center.