Shamnesty International
George
The torture and abuse of terrorist suspects is very much in the news these
days, so it's interesting to note the advice on the topic found in an Al
Qaeda training manual seized some time ago in the U.K. The manual says that
when captured or facing trial, "brothers must insist on proving that
torture was inflicted on them by State Security." Noting the utility of the
open U.S. media, the manual also calls "spreading rumors and writing
statements that instigate people against the enemy" one of the top-five
missions of the terrorist organization.
This is not to say that torture and abuse at the hands of American troops
is always a figment of Al Qaeda propaganda: The Abu Ghraib prison scandal
proves otherwise. But the manual sure puts Amnesty International's newest
annual report, as well as recent claims of torture, Koran desecration, and
other abuse, in perspective.
Al Qaeda knows better than any organization that its success depends on
peeling both Muslim-world support and U.S. public support away from the
Bush administration's war on terrorism. Consider the quasi-reasoned tone
Osama bin Laden adopted in a recording he allegedly made last November,
calling on the "people of America" to drop their support for the president.
The recording was full of contemporary and historical allusions, as is the
training manual. If Al Qaeda's savvy enough for that, it's savvy enough to
know that civil liberties - even the civil liberties of accused bad guys -
are a hot-button issue in the U.S.
In the U.S. alone, there are 65-plus lawsuits claiming abuse of detainees
at American hands. There are still more legal demarches overseas. We've
seen inaccurate Koran-desecration stories send Muslim crowds raging in
protest. We have regular accounts of arrested terrorism suspects being sent
to third countries where they face torture-driven interrogation. And, as if
on cue, we have Amnesty International calling the U.S. military prison at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "the gulag of our time."
Naturally, the Bush administration is berating the organization for such a
ridiculous comparison. After all, Guantanamo Bay's guards are under the
microscope of human-rights lawyers all the time. The inmates are fairly
treated. The guard-throws-Koran-in-toilet story was false. And claims that
the inmates' detention oversteps the boundaries of international law have
been responded to at the highest levels. Besides, the 500-600 Guantanamo
detainees wouldn't be there if Al Qaeda hadn't killed 2,948 Americans and
others on Sept 11, 2001.
Yet the civil-liberties argument continues. Combine its force with regular
bad news out of Iraq, and an unnecessarily large amount of bungling by the
Pentagon - such as failing to punish high-level officers for Abu Ghraib, or
inadequately vetting the Newsweek report on the Koran when the reporters
offered it - and it's quite difficult for the Bush administration to keep
hearts and minds on its side.
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.
The report's tone is reminiscent of its Cold War work, when Amnesty rather
perversely thought it important to be even-handed in its assessment of
Soviet human-rights abuses and our own. Considering Amnesty's
fellow-traveler pedigree, perhaps it intended its Stalinist "gulag"
comparison as a compliment.
The war against Al Qaeda has led U.S. troops and intelligence personnel to
engage in some fairly despicable behavior, sometimes sanctioned, sometimes
not. And this latest wave of complaints about the behavior won't be the
last. Some of the behavior can be punished and stopped. But the war against
terrorism is a real and necessary one, and immunization against its
cruelties is necessary if the U.S. is to win.
Robin T Cox
Now where have I heard this kind of thing before?
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-posen.htm
Let's hear some more of it - it clearly demonstrates the idiocy of
pretending that there's a war going on when everyone knows that it's
nothing more than a sleazy justification for the occupation of Iraq. The
real justification for that occupation was (as Wolfowitz confirmed in
his Vanity Fair interview) was actually to appease Al-Quaida and not to
wage war on them.
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030509-depsecdef0223.html
If there is a war, where are the Al-Quaida perpetrators of 9/11? They
have not been caught after all this time. Instead we have Saddam and his
cronies, who had nothing to do with it, offered as poor substitute
scapegoats. The lack of results speaks for itself.
George
"Robin T Cox" <nom...@nomail.com> wrote in message
news:42A00D...@nomail.com...
>
> Now where have I heard this kind of thing before?
>
> http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-posen.htm
>
> Let's hear some more of it - it clearly demonstrates the idiocy of
> pretending that there's a war going on when everyone knows that it's
> nothing more than a sleazy justification for the occupation of Iraq. The
> real justification for that occupation was (as Wolfowitz confirmed in his
> Vanity Fair interview) was actually to appease Al-Quaida and not to wage
> war on them.
To appease Al-Qaeda? Hmmm. I never took you for a conspiracy theory nut.
I've been wrong before.