Comments on: Punctuation and human rights

By: Jeffrey Bogdan

Jeffrey Bogdan — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 00:43:19 +0000

Pardon, I meant to say Nicaragua’s dictator, Somoza, not Guatemala’s. (Though the U.S. role in Guatemala is nothing to write home to mom about either, unless mom is Lyndie England.)

By: Jeffrey Bogdan

Jeffrey Bogdan — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 00:31:37 +0000

For Randy, I used to go regularly to Amnesty meetings and write letters and table in the hot sun trying to get people who had come out to hear some jazz and blues at one of the Jersey shore’s many outdoor music fests, and I gave it up several years ago to do something else that I judged to be more important. What I gave it up for, Randy, is, oddly enough, something like what you are advocating. I too thought that Amnesty reports should lead to action.The difference between your point of view and mine is that it was apparent to me that the government that most needed to have some pressure applied to it was my own. I think I first realized this when in the same year AI and Human Rights Watch issued county reports about on Guatemala and Cuba. Now Cuba is in many ways a miserable place, and I am not one to think that free healthcare and a literacy rate approaching that of Western democracies necessarily excuses its abuses against the right to political expression. However, it was perfectly clear, when you read the reports side by side, that Guatemala was under any concievable interpretation of human rights a vastly more miserable place to live in than Cuba. And Guatemala was not that much worse than another Central American “democracy” whose government was arguably sustained only by U.S. military aid in the 1980s, El Salvador. And let’s not even talk about Haiti. (Not to worry. Hardly anyone ever does, even after the U.S.’s recent “rescue” of jean-Bertrand Aristide.) And if I recall, during the same period it was the U.S., not AI, that made sure Saddam Hussein remained in power, and even conived with France and Germany to supply him with the materials for constructing the WMD that he did in fact have for some time—not that the Reagan administratiion gave two farts. And you would really have to be quite mad, in the 80s especially, to prefer to live in Iraq instead Cuba. And who was it again who supplied General Suharto with the hit list that led to the murder of a million Indonesian leftists in the first year after he took power? Or who secretly encourged the same Suharto to invade East Timor, following which a full third of that unfortunate country’s population were murdered, even as it pretended in the U.N. to condemn the invasion. We could go on for a long time like this, Randy. But even at the height of the Cold War there were always two Evil Empires, a point that Noam Chomsky in particular has made from the beginning of his career as a social critic. My take on the stuff that recently has come out of AI is that they have finally woke up to the fact that a country that outsources human rights abuses to various incarnations of “our son of a bitch”, as FDR charmingly characterized Guatemala’s dictator Somoza,and spins this activity as promoting democracy, no less, is in many ways more dangerous to the cause of human rights world-wide than the countries within which the actual humilations, rapes, murders, disappearances, application of electrodes to the testicles, danglings from the landing gear of helicopters etc take place.

By: pepi

pepi — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 08:56:06 +0000

Eh, sorry…

By: Zizka

Zizka — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 04:59:43 +0000

Man, that Sebastian sure is one text-producin’ motherfucker!

By: pepi

pepi — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 14:48:40 +0000

suggestion of having two separate organisations: The first one is like the current AI which takes a “universalist” view, and the second, AI-abroad , only highlights abuses in poor countries, thus is able to raise money from citizens of rich countries who are too pompous to admit that their own country might have faults?

Heh... doesn't that kind of thing - and the zillion associated think-tanks all worshipping the same so very "non-partisan" altar - exist already? They seem to be definitely following those kind of "priorities". This is after all the kind of international reports we ALL need to read:

Rolling back Anti-Americanism - Growing anti-Americanism in the world may be dismissed as a predictable expression of envy of the world’s sole superpower, but it undoubtedly hurts America’s image and influence. Is anti-Americanism a passing fashion or does it have deeper roots? Is it a response to U.S. policies, or is it an irrational impulse? How does it manifest itself on different continents? And should America treat it with superior indifference or should resources be deployed to combat it? Please join the New Atlantic Initiative to discuss whether the U.S. needs public diplomacy.

I loooove that. And that "Rolling back". Never was a better term picked by a think-tank!

By: pepi

pepi — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 14:16:49 +0000

Sebastian – “I haven’t even suggested, much less argued that AI was MORE influenctial than governments and armies. ” Not literally, doh, but you are demanding of it what it does not do and what is more than you demand of your own government. When you keep switching from “it gets in the way of those figthing evil regimes” to “they confuse the words with the actions”, “they report on the atrocities that tyrants commit to stay in power, but pretend that tyrants will typically go peacefully”, they’re not doing enough against “governments who need a bit more pressure applied than the U.S”, they refuse to accept military action as the way to topple dictatorships, or that “systemic problems in tyrant-run countries are only rarely forced to stop by the types of pressures which AI is willing to deal with”—you’re basically complaining they’re not the Pentagon or even the UN. You think they’re too political in the way you don’t like, and too little in the way you would like – well there’s a thing called elections for that! Amnesty is not a taxpayer-funded institution or political party. It’s not a lobby. Not even a charity distributing aid. Which does not mean it cannot be criticised. That goes without saying. But when you say it gets in the way, you simply have to make a distinction between something constituting a material obstacle to whatever policy you support, or even to the wider goal of fighting terrorism itself, and something constituting an opinion and a view different from yours. Especially if that view ensues from a specific mission and goal that is about human rights and international law, not actual policy-making. Does Amnesty fund terrorists? NO. Do they give billions in foreign aid to regimes? NO. Do they even go around campaigning for a particular political party you may not support? NO. Do they make movies about how bad Bush is? NO. They’re only highlighting the US current policy is stepping out of current international law in several areas, and is being used by other countries to do the same. There’s a whole debate on that existing conflict between anti-terrorism policies or laws and current international laws, it’s not like they’re making it all up. It’s very much a serious issue in that framework. Pointing out facts within that framework is not equal to making political decisions. First of all, whether something is a crime of war or illegal under current int’l laws as long as they’re valid and still signed up to by all parties involved is not something up for debate, it can be verified against those very laws. The bombing of Tv stations – illegal. Was it necessary, right, justified politically and militarily? Arguable – matter of opinion and policy-making. Ditto for the Israeli wall or demolishing houses in Gaza. Do I lose any sleep when Israel launches a missile over a Hamas leader? certainly not. I may not go as far as cheering, because it’s a war and not a movie, but it doesn’t really upset or displease me. That doesn’t detract from the fact it’s against laws and conventions Israel signed up to. I have to acknowledge that, even if I may be politically supporting that specific policy. International laws have been violated since the moment they were conceived, it’s not a reason to ignore them or violate them even more and then pretend the violations are not happening. Whatever the violators – whatever their motives – however much more horrible the things their enemies are doing in terms of terrorist bombings and beheadings and tortures, which are, obviously, a giant violation of their own. DOH. It’s completely disingenous to pretend the latter are being “excused” or “ignored” just because you point out the former violations. Pointing out violations no matter who does them and no matter how huge a gap between them – democracies or dictatorships, terrorists or armies – does not “get in the way” of the political choices that are up to a country’s people and their government, and if there’s an authority imposing resolutions within the framework of int’l law, whether they’re respected or not, it’s the UN, not Amnesty. Whatever view Amnesty will voice on a particular international issue, it is neither a veto nor a consent. I know that you know ALL that too, but it doesn’t stop you from treating Amnesty as if it had literal power to do anything more than reports and statements and pressures. You don’t like the content of some of those statements, and think they’re too biased? FAIR ENOUGH. I would argue they’re not because they’re equally highlighting all abuses anywhere, independently of where they occur, independently of word counts and selective quoting and de-contextualised misreadings. But in any case, no matter how many will disagree on that “bias” issue, as always happens with anything political, Amnesty is not preventing any country in the world from taking military action, or viceversa, encouraging it, nor is it sponsoring and supporting regimes. Like all western countries, US at the lead, are still doing! and so much for cold war tactics having been ditched. So forgive me if it strikes me as blatantly hypocrite to direct at Amnesty the very kind of criticism that one should direct to those governments. Also, you’re starting from the assumption that military action is the one way to deal with dictatorships. That’s not even the US policy because they’re not making war against any and each regime on the planet. You’re also assuming Amnesty are putting more pressure on the US than any other government on earth just because you read press releases or report summaries that specifically deal with the US and its policy. You’re also – like your other fellow ideologue Eve Garrard before you – confusing “worst attack on international law and multilateral action” with “worst human rights violation”. You see Amnesty’s priorities as skewed only because you’re damn well intent on seeing them like that. Because they dared criticise the US and oh it follows that they’re anti-American and that’s their entire political agenda. So they’ve got to have a dangerous influence because they don’t stick to highlighting human abuses in the countries that are worse than the US as they’re not democracies. Nevermind that democracies operating within international laws are even more called on to respect them. Nevermind that Amnesty does highlight ALL abuses independently of where they occur anyway, because that’s their entire, and precise, mission. Could you remove your head from your arse and consider the rest of the world? Do you have any idea what tremendous work all top human rights organisations do in those very places where there is systemic abuse, those countries you’re so concerned about only when it comes to arguing about military intervention and defending (or ignoring!) the US policy about them? The hypocrisy is blinding. I hate to be so repetitive, I’m sorry it gets soo tiresome. I just don’t know how to make it clearer than that and in less words.

Despite your repeated assertions to the contrary I have never argued that AI only is supposed to focus on non-Western countries, nor have I suggested it is useless.

This is what you wrote: Their mission used to be to highlight human rights abuses in non-Western countries SO THAT WE WOULD TAKE ACTION. Now they seem to confuse the words with the actions and attacks on “human rights principles” as being the thing to trumpet in your press releases. The actual murder of human beings gets relegated to the background in their rush to worry about the U.S. non-fit with AI principles. Which is patently false, totally warped, and disgustingly jingoistic. Amnesty does not exist to reassure the likes of you that you live in a super-duper shining city on a hill that can not be criticised because there’s always someone doing much worse anyway. If you need that kind of comparisons to get that reassurance about the state of democracy in the US, and if you view supporting the very principle of accountability and respect for laws as an obstacle to democracy, then it’s you who has a very poor standard of what democracy is in the first place. What’s amazing is, even your very comments and the whole mentality behind them prove the point Amnesty is making about flaunting international laws. And you don’t even realise that.

By: q

Sun, 06 Jun 2004 02:33:40 +0000

it causes the devaluation of the terms such that people don’t respond to the ideas with as much shock as they otherwise might. Seb H: What do you think of the suggestion of having two separate organisations: The first one is like the current AI which takes a “universalist” view, and the second, AI-abroad , only highlights abuses in poor countries, thus is able to raise money from citizens of rich countries who are too pompous to admit that their own country might have faults?

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 01:40:43 +0000

“Having a political influence, like ANYONE who does anything, is NOT equivalent to having MORE power than governments or armies, is it?” And it can utilize that influence in ways that are bad or good. I have argued that it uses its influence in ways that are often not particularly good. I haven’t even suggested, much less argued that AI was MORE influenctial than governments and armies. Sheesh, talk about attacking straw men. AI has (and used to have more) influence on the international scene. I argued above that it uses its influence in a fashion which expresses a very weird set of priorities and which TO WHATEVER UNDEFINED EXTENT IT HAS INFLUENCE it exercises it in a way that is often counterproductive to changing non-Western systems of government which are reliant upon torture to survive. I have also argued that it uses such expansive definitions of “war crimes” and “torture” that instead of doing what I think it intends (force people to look at even the more minor cases) it causes the devaluation of the terms such that people don’t respond to the ideas with as much shock as they otherwise might. Despite your repeated assertions to the contrary I have never argued that AI only is supposed to focus on non-Western countries, nor have I suggested it is useless. As for “how exactly does it ‘get in the way of those who want to get rid of the evil systems’” that is simple. For whatever influence AI has (which is still undefined by either of us) it uses that influence to resist force being applied to such governments. This includes an extreme resistance to even non-military forms of pressure (see AI’s responses to the first Gulf War and its aftermath).

By: pepi

pepi — Sat, 05 Jun 2004 11:45:19 +0000

(…and I was still waiting for a reply detailing isntances of the nefarious influence Amnesty is having, how exactly does it “_get in the way of those who want to get rid of the evil systems_”, and how all the evil systems other than Saddam’s former regime are exactly on the way to being get rid of and by whom anyway? but I’ll be glad I never got an answer…)

By: pepi

pepi — Sat, 05 Jun 2004 11:16:07 +0000

Sebastian, that is so pathetic. I never said that or implied that. Having a political influence, like ANYONE who does anything, is NOT equivalent to having MORE power than governments or armies, is it? Why aren’t you upset that a part of your taxpayer money is going out not to Amnesty but to dictatorial regimes still being supported in the name of real-politik and war-on-terror? That doesn’t bother you at all? But the fact that Amnesty highlights violations of int’l law by the US does? It’s a waste of time. It’s impossible to argue with someone using soo many ridiculous straw men to dodge all the relevant questions, someone who knows nothing about the nature and goals of AI’s work, doesn’t even know what the Geneva conventions say (and God forbid the US should be held accountable to laws it is signatory to and wants enforced by others!), and is not even interested in what they do in the rest of the world because it all has to come down to whether they speak praisingly or critically about the US. Is that the measure of validity for an organisation defending universal human rights? Whatever. Not to worry, the House of Bush has its own human rights enforcement section, and it works with such marvellous coherence. You can go back to safely ignoring the work of Amnesty. Have a nice weekend.

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Sat, 05 Jun 2004 08:52:45 +0000

Ok pepi, you convinced me. Amnesty International has no influence. Never mind. Nothing to see there.

By: q

Sat, 05 Jun 2004 06:41:14 +0000

If you champion unilateralism, then complaining when the multilateralists attack you is conceited.

By: pepi

pepi — Sat, 05 Jun 2004 02:44:09 +0000

Sebastian, the Geneva conventions work like this: when you hit a non-military target, you hit a non-military target. TV stations, even in dictatorships, are not considered military targets. It doesn’t matter how many people died in there. It’s still not a military target. (When did the body count ever determine if an action is legitimate or not??) The bombing of that TV station, in Belgrade, ‘99, they said that was a mistake. This time, they’re not even pretending. Maybe that also says something about the erosion of principles of international law? but oh no, don’t even try and consider that. Remember, Amnesty is aiding the enemy, so they can’t be making a point that may contain a grain of validity. Oh, and the Chinese embassy? Was that in protest against the Tienamnmen tanks and shootings? (no, my memory must be bad, again, I’m sure that there was some other, proper, massive protest by Western governments against the Chinese dictatorship/government/business partnership for shooting down protesters under the eyes of the whole world exactly 15 years ago…) I’m wasting my sarcasm. Here’s the idea, straightfoward: no, none of the above quoted instances of violations of the Geneva conventions or other international laws, from bombing embassies and TV stations to “a few bad apples” torturing prisoners, are even remotely comparable to genocide in Sudan or the crimes of former dictator Saddam Hussein or your choice of term of comparison for the there’s-always-worse game; but the ‘top’ democracies in the world who signed up to those laws and who want to spread them had better stick to them in the first place, else, what happens when principles, those weak and silly things called principles, get called “outdated” and “ineffectual” and maybe even an obstacle to the war-on-terrah? What happens when principles are perceived as getting in the way of… spreading observance of principles? I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to have to find out the bad way ten years from now. If principles and conventions are to be ditched, then let’s ditch them. While they’re still there, though, they’re there for all to respect. More so by the very countries who have devised those principles in the first place! And in all this, word counts and selective quoting of reports aside, I still fail to see how these dangerous Amnesty brigades “got in the way” of democratisation efforts or anti-terrorism fight. I’m repeating myself, I know, but I still fail to see how the worst crap, like supporting dictatorships and selling weapons to terrorists, can always be justified in terms of real-politik, but if Amnesty gives more prominent press release or summary space to something the US did, it’s outrageous. If the US democracy is that fragile its foreign policy is hindered by sheer criticism on a printed page, why, why bother at all? That’s already handing it to bin Laden on a silver plate. With matching cutlery. Bon appetit…

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Fri, 04 Jun 2004 22:29:28 +0000

Whoa, how many people died in the Iraqi TV station? And this is complete crap: “But once you kill people because you don’t like what they say, you have changed the rules of war.” Destroying propaganda outlets which are totally run by the government has never been against the rules of war. Never. Once again, the failure to understand the difference between bombing a building which is arguably not a civilian target and purposely shelling civilian humans beings to cause panic and purposely hide behind civilians to cause confusion about the status of the combatants is ridiculous but not surprising.

By: nick

nick — Fri, 04 Jun 2004 22:08:42 +0000

It worrys for 5 paragraphs that this Iraqi TV station which has been completely controlled in every particular by Saddam for decades is a ‘civilian’ target. That’s fucking disgusting, Sebastian. The Iraqi TV station was no less a civilian target than the Serbian TV station. And as Robert Fisk said at the time, in a climate where journalists already run a greater risk in warzones than soldiers: Yes, Serbian television could be hateful, biased, bad. It was owned by the government. But once you kill people because you don’t like what they say, you have changed the rules of war. And that’s what Nato did in Belgrade in the early hours of yesterday morning. And for that decision, Wesley Clark deserves condemnation. But I suppose that were the new, US-controlled Iraqi TV station to be bombed, and its journalists murdered, you’d nod and admit that, yes, it was a military target. Structurally the press release suggests that U.S. bombing of a TV station is more important than Iraqis intentionally targeting civilians and intentionally disguising themselves among civilians to conduct surprise attacks. Well, duh. It’s a press release for American consumption. Unless you have knowledge that Iraqi insurgents are tuned to the US feed of CNN, I don’t see your point, apart from its admission of moral vacuity.