RSSAmnesty International; Who Said Gulag?
Amnesty International further embarrassed itself today by appearing to back track on much of their inflammatory remarked they had made this past week comparing US prisons in Guantanamo Bay as Gulags. Nor did the head of the Amnesty International USA defend most of his irresponsible statements from this past week.
Despite highly publicized charges of U.S. mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, the head of the Amnesty International USA said on Sunday the group doesn’t “know for sure” that the military is running a “gulag.”
Executive Director William Schulz said Amnesty, often cited worldwide for documenting human rights abuses, also did not know whether Secretary Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved severe torture methods such as beatings and starvation.
Schulz recently dubbed Rumsfeld an “apparent high-level architect of torture” in asserting he approved interrogation methods that violated international law.
“It would be fascinating to find out. I have no idea,” Schulz told “Fox News Sunday.”
A dispute has raged since Amnesty last month compared the prison for foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the vast, brutal Soviet gulag system of forced labor camps in which millions of prisoners died.
A leading Democratic U.S. senator on Sunday repeated his call for a full investigation and said the detention center should be closed.
The fascinating aspect of this interview is that Amnesty International released a report about human rights violations committed by the US and that its prisons were “gulags” then AI USA Executive Director William Schulz went on to say:
Schulz recently dubbed Rumsfeld an “apparent high-level architect of torture” in asserting he approved interrogation methods that violated international law.
“It would be fascinating to find out. I have no idea,” Schulz told “Fox News Sunday.”
Schulz said, “We don’t know for sure what all is happening at Guantanamo and our whole point is that the United States ought to allow independent human rights organizations to investigate.”
He also said he had “absolutely no idea” whether the International Red Cross had been given access to all prisoners and said the group feared others were being held at secret facilities or locations.
If Amnesty International has no idea about the allegations they made and want to find out and have no idea for sure what is going on inside of Guantanamo; how do they make a report not based on any facts?
Then Schultz was asked about the “gulag” comment and further lost credibility.
Asked about the comparison, Schulz said, “Clearly this is not an exact or a literal analogy.” (You certainly meant it to be until the heat got too much.)
“… But there are some similarities. The United States is maintaining an archipelago of prisons around the world, many of them secret prisons into which people are being literally disappeared … And in some cases, at least, we know that they are being mistreated, abused, tortured and even killed.”
He then went on to say,
The American head of Amnesty International admits his group did not pick the best analogy when it compared detainee conditions at Guantanamo Bay to the Soviet-era “gulag” forced-labor system.
“There are only about 70,000 in U.S. detention facilities, and to the best of our knowledge, they are not in forced labor, they are not being denied food.
Gee Mr. Schultz wouldn’t that by definition not be a gulag? One of the most telling comments by Chris Wallace during the interview was when he asked Schultz whether making such irresponsible comments that are so over the top actually hurt Amnesty International and their cause. Chris, you would be correct.
The Captain’s Quarters does a great job of shredding the intellectual honesty of AI:
No wonder the American media loves Amnesty International — they use the same editorial thresholds for publication. Just like Newsweek, AI apparently feels that any rumor that matches the preconceived notion of its publisher merits reporting as fact to its readers.
Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday pretty much hammered Schulz most of the interview pointing out the irresponsible rhetoric used by AI and the hypocrisy. Chris Wallace even went so far as to ask whether it was a practice of AI to make irresponsible statements for media reaction? By the looks of these numbers and reaction of the left, I guess it is.
But Schulz isn’t protesting too much. In the past week, traffic on Amnesty’s Web site has gone up sixfold, donations have quintupled and new memberships have doubled.
What’s a little irresponsible rhetoric with world wide implications in the Muslim world when it gets AI some PR and donations? That’s responsible.
Then there was the conflict of interest. The Hedgehog Report nails it head on.
The head of Amnesty International USA, William Schulz, admitted on Fox News Sunday that he is a heavy Democratic supporter.
WALLACE: Mr. Schulz, if I can get a couple of final questions in. Last year, didn’t you contribute $2,000, the maximum, to John Kerry’s presidential campaign?
SCHULZ: I did indeed, yes.
WALLACE: Isn’t it a fact that you have already contributed $1,000 to Ted Kennedy’s next campaign?
SCHULZ: I have contributed, yes.
(Full Transcript from Fox News Sunday can be seen here)
Chicago Sun Times adds,
Amnesty International, which set off a storm by calling the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay “the gulag of our times,” backed away from the label Sunday.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had ripped as “reprehensible” the description, made last month when the human rights group’s secretary general, Irene Khan, issued its annual report.
Previous Posts: Amnesty International and John Kerry; No Agenda Here
One Year Later and Ronald Reagan Is Still In Our Hearts and Minds
It hardly seems that a year has passed since the passing of one a the greatest Presidents of the 20th Century. It seems just yesterday that Ronald Wilson Reagan died and everyone got to remember the man for all his amazing accomplishment and a legacy for the ages.
A year has passed since former President Ronald Reagan died, leaving America to ponder both the man and his legacy. But Mr. Reagan has not faded into the historical shadows, and the nation’s heart is still with him.
“I am, as I speak, on my way to my father’s grave,” said Michael Reagan, the president’s elder son, speaking by cell phone, his words punctuated by the sounds of a California highway. “And you know, in the past year I’ve found out anew that people still love my dad — because he loved them.”
The younger Reagan was intent on spending some private time Friday at the hilltop burial site of his father, located on the rolling grounds of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, some 45 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
Few can fault a son seeking some quiet solace beforehand. But today belongs to the public.
Ronald Reagan had a positive vision and a manner in which he communicated to us like no other. He may be gone but he will never be forgotten. I will remember him as the greatest President of my lifetime. Let’s see how President Ronald Reagan wished to be remembered.
Mr. Reagan had some thoughts about how he wanted to be remembered. “Whatever else history says about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence, rather than your doubts,” Mr. Reagan told the nation in 1992. “My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way.”
Trey Jackson has a great piece and a video tribute to Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Missing Texas A&M University Student Found Alive After 7 Years
Here is a heartening and hopeful story for the friends and family of Natalee Holloway. A Texas A&M University student, advertisement Brandi Stahr who had been feared murdered after disappearing nearly seven years ago has been found alive and working in Kentucky.
BRYAN, Texas – A Texas A&M University student who had been feared murdered after disappearing nearly seven years ago has been found alive and working in Kentucky, according to authorities.
Brandi Stahr went missing in October 1998, and police spent hours searching for her body in wooded areas. They questioned a serial rapist and murderer about her just hours before he was executed last year.
But a telephone tip led investigators to Florence, Ky., where Stahr has been working for the last five years at a Sam’s Club, said Texas Ranger Frank Malinak.
“We thought we were dealing with a missing persons case,” Malinak said. “But, in actuality, we were dealing with a person who did not want to be found and was in hiding.”
Family troubles
Stahr, 27, hid from her family after she and her mother, Ann Dickenson, got into an argument over bad grades she received during her sophomore year and her family stopped paying for school.For the last five years, Stahr worked under her real name, using her Social Security number. But police said they were unable to locate her that way because they don’t have access to IRS records.
Looks like there was a little trouble in paradise.
Dickenson and Stahr haven’t reunited yet, but have talked on the phone. Stahr told her sister the family should not bother visiting, but her mother said nothing will stop her.
“We’re going. I’m going. Even if I have to sit out in a (Sam’s Club) parking lot to see her,” Dickenson said.
Although Stahr committed no crime in her disappearance, investigators spent a lot of money and time looking for her, Malinak said.
Boy its hard to tell the crimes from the runaways these days.
Obviously this scenario in this case is much different than the well publicized Aruba missing teen. However, it does show us that there can be other alternatives to missing individuals other than thinking the worst.
Keep the faith.
Natalee Holloway: Teen Still Missing in Aruba, Part II
There still has been no word on the missing teen, Natalee Holloway, who disappeared the last night of a trip to Aruba celebrating her graduation from high school.
Video via NBC13 Miami
Description of Natalee Ann Holloway
Holloway came to Aruba for a five-day excursion with 124 seniors and 40 chaperons from Mountain Brook High School, near Birmingham, Ala. She was last seen around 2 a.m. Monday, Attorney General Caren Janssen said Thursday.
Four days later, the Alabama teenager is still missing, despite an extensive search of the Dutch Caribbean island.
“Honestly, at the beginning, we were hopeful the girl would come back,” said police Superintendent Jan van der Straaten. “Today, we are more and more thinking about the possibility of a crime.”
On the island remarkable for its absence of violent crime, hundreds of residents and tourists posted fliers to help the hunt. FBI agents helped the Dutch military and Aruba police scour outlying scrubland with helicopters and all-terrain vehicles but found no trace of the 18-year-old.
Aruba radio and television stations broadcast a reward offer from Holloway’s family, though they did not specify an amount. The family promised to reward anyone who brings her safely to a police station or hospital.
As posted yesterday crime does occur on these islands and in many cases they go unreported. The last thing the Island Tourism Bureau wants is a blemish like this. One can see through out the reporting of the story and comments from Aruban officials the want and need to stress its a safe island. The story should be about Natalee Holloway and how to find Natalee Holloway. Not about how safe Aruba is or that there is little to know crime. ARUBA, this is not about you. Its about finding Natalee Holloway.
The island of 72,000 off the coast of Venezuela has a reputation of being all but free of crime for tourists.
There was one murder and six rapes last year and two murders and three rapes this year. But all the rapes were committed by local men against local women. The two murders involved drug addicts who died in knife fights.
“Aruba is a happy island and a safe island,” said Janssen, the attorney general. “We’re looking everywhere.”
The Aruban police,tourists and several family members that traveled to Aruba are searching the Arashi area in the northwestern tip of Aruba.
“We don’t have any indication as to if she is alive,” Sambo said. “The whole population is aware that she is missing. The police are doing everything to find her.”
Police, using helicopters and all-terrain vehicles and patrol cars, were combing the Arashi area in the northwestern tip of Aruba, a rugged terrain of sand dunes, craters and beaches. The area is near the Holiday Inn.
More than 100 people, mostly American tourists, offered to help during a gathering Thursday morning at the Holiday Inn, organized by International Friends of Aruba, a group of wives of Americans working on the island. The volunteers were distributing fliers with the teenager’s photo in various parts of the island.
Police questioned and released three Aruban men who said they dropped Holloway off early Monday at the Holliday Inn, where she had been staying about 3 miles from the capital of Oranjestad, said police assistant inspector Jules Sambo. The three were not suspects, he said.
Not suspects, huh? Let’s just hope this has a happy ending and they find Natalee Holloway safe.
More from:
Police scoured the Aruban sdhoreline by boat and helicopter Thursday for any sign of a missing Mountain Brook woman, but to no avail.
The family of Natalee Ann Holloway, 18, offered a $10,000 reward for her return.
Holloway disappeared on a trip to the Caribbean island with about 140 other recent graduates of Mountain Brook High School and seven adult chaperones. Family and friends say she left her passport, cell phone and luggage at the hotel where the group was staying.
About 100 of Holloway’s family, friends, Aruba residents and other tourists formed a search party. Shop windows were lined with fliers bearing Holloway’s picture, and a group of expatriate women, the International Friends of Aruba, staked out the roughest neighborhood in Oranjestad, the capital, in the hope of spotting her.
“Everybody’s just stopped what they are doing and helping out,” said Julia Renfro, a member of the group and editor of the local English-language newspaper, Aruba Today. “There are all kinds of people on the streets, on the corners, looking in windows. Everyone’s here, we’re knocking on doors.”
Dutch marines stationed in the Caribbean island of Aruba begin a search for Natalee Holloway, 18, an Alabama high school graduate who disappeared while on a five-day graduation trip in Oranjestad, Aruba, Thursday, June 2, 2005. The Holloway family offered a reward for her safe return as more than a hundred tourists and locals volunteered to post fliers and help in the search.
CNN:
“We can’t just sit here and do nothing,” said Robin Holloway, the girl’s stepmother. “We don’t know if she is still in Aruba … or she’s been kidnapped. We just don’t know anything.”
In Alabama, more than 150 people participated Tuesday in a prayer service for Holloway at Mountain Brook Community Church.
Update: NBC 13, Miami, Mom Pleads For More U.S. Help To Find Missing Teen In Aruba.
US – Iraqi Find; How many More May exist
The US and Iraqi forces find a massive bunker network in Iraq’s western province of Anbar the size of three football fields long. I truly believe that most Americans are not even aware of the enormity of the weapons cache and extent to which Saddam had built such bunkers. Three football fields long?
U.S. and Iraqi forces searching Iraq’s western province of Anbar on Saturday uncovered a network of bunkers hidden in a vast underground quarry and equipped with air conditioning, food and a wide assortment of weapons, a Marine spokesman said.
The quarry, near the town of Karmah, was as long as three football fields and had been divided into rooms that apparently had housed insurgents, the spokesman, Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool, said in a statement.
Within the various rooms making up the facility, Iraqi security and coalition forces discovered four fully furnished living spaces, a kitchen with fresh food, two shower facilities and a working air conditioner,” Pool said.
The weapons stored in the facility included mortars, artillery shells and rockets, according to Pool, who said night-vision goggles and cell phones were also found.
One just wonders how many more such bunkers exist and what else is being hid in these elaborate bunker systems?
