For whatever it's worth, I know and admire both John Barry and Michael Isikoff, and I can quite imagine that—based on what they had already learned about the gruesome and illegal goings-on at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Abu Ghraib—they found it more than plausible that the toilet incident, or something like it, had actually occurred. A second allegation, that a whole pile of Qurans had been stepped upon at Guantanamo, is equally credible. But mere objectivity requires us to note that this is partly because every prisoner is given a Quran, and that thus there are a lot of them lying around, and that none of this "scandal" would ever have occurred if the prison authorities were not at least attempting to respect Islamic codes.And then lowering the boom:
For one thing, if Guantanamo were the new gulag, Irene Khan would be languishing in it herself right about now – and so would her family.And then there's this little bit of perspective for the close:
Anyway, the gulag of our times is in North Korea.To which a commenter correctly takes him to task:
The Gulag IS North Korea, not in North Korea. Its the world's largest prison.That would look like this:
Of course, the Fascifists would argue that I'm all wrong. That NK is merely the vanguard of what implementing the Kyoto treaty would look like. And we are evil bastards for not following their enlightened lead. And the NorKorComs must be right since they were helping to campaign for John Kerry.
What more evidence could possibly be needed that they're right?
Right over on the other side that is.
And doing their best to generate funds for the enemy propaganda machine of course:
I'm sure that the real agenda here is that Amnesty donors really open their wallets for work like this. It's all about what message sparks your donors.Did I mention that the enemy is just getting warmed up?
Bush, Other Top Officials Should Face Torture Probes, Says Amnesty; Urges Arrests if WarrantedRemember the race between sanity and technology?
Abid Aslam
OneWorld US
Thu., May. 26, 2005
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 26 (OneWorld) - Rights watchdog Amnesty International urged foreign governments Wednesday to investigate and prosecute President George W. Bush much as they once did former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
''If the United States permits the architects of torture policy to get off scot-free, then other nations should step into the breach,'' William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement launching Amnesty's annual report.
Bush is among a dozen former or current U.S. officials who should be probed by foreign governments because Washington has failed to conduct ''a genuinely independent and comprehensive investigation'' of torture allegations against U.S. troops, commanders, and their civilian overseers, Schulz said.
Others on the Amnesty list of potential targets for investigation and prosecution include Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief George Tenet.
''If the U.S. government continues to shirk its responsibility, Amnesty International calls on foreign governments to uphold their obligations under international law by investigating all senior U.S. officials involved in the torture scandal,'' Schulz said.
''If those investigations support prosecution, the governments should arrest any official who enters their territory and begin legal proceedings against them,'' he added. ''The apparent high-level architects of torture should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera because they may find themselves under arrest as Augusto Pinochet famously did in London in 1998.''
If A.I.'s leadership were given the red button, do you think they'd push it?
I do too.
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