Eve Garrard, who figured prominently in our comments last week on my posts discussing Amnesty International (“here”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001924.html and “here”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001935.html ) has written “an impassioned criticism”:http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2004/06/the_biggest_att.html of AI over at Normblog. You should read what she says, although I happen to disagree with her claim — which I regard as obviously misguided — that the universal applicability of a principle entails that all who violate it are equally blameworthy for so doing (penultimate paragraph). The most serious criticism to be made of Garrard’s post, though, is that it seriously misrepresents what Amnesty said.
Here is Garrard’s take:
bq. Irene Khan [the AI Secretary General] , has told us that … the attack on human rights conducted by those engaged in the ‘war against terror’ (her scare-quotes) is the biggest attack of all on human rights, principles and values.
Garrard quotes _in extenso_ a letter from Khan to the Telegraph in which the phrase “human rights, principles and values” does, indeed, occur. The link to that letter no longer seems to work [update: “this one”:http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?menuId=1588&menuItemId=-1&view=SUMMARY&grid=P8&targetRule=0&RangeStartValue=3 does – click on “Misleading War”], though, so I’m forced to rely on two other sources. First, the “Telegraph leader”:http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;sessionid=VHB4BPC1LC2MZQFIQMFSNAGAVCBQ0JVC?xml=/opinion/2004/05/28/dl2803.xml&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=7062 to which Khan’s letter is a response quotes AI as saying that
bq. Not since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 has there been such a sustained attack on its values and principles.
And “the AI report”:http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/hragenda-1-eng which Garrard cites in support of her interpretation of Khan reads:
bq. The current framework of international law and multilateral action is undergoing the most sustained attack since its establishment half a century ago. International human rights and humanitarian law is being directly challenged as ineffective in responding to the security issues of the present and future. In the name of the “war on terror” governments are eroding human rights principles, standards and values.
Not, then, a claim about “human rights, principles and values”, but one about “human rights principles, … and values”. Khan is emphatically _not_ saying that there are more violations of human rights than at any time in the last fifty years, she is saying that there is a sustained attack, in the name of the “war on terror”, on the very standards that ought to apply in judging whether human rights are violated in the first place. She’s also saying that that attack is the most serious such attack (where seriousness is presumably measured in terms of its potential to undermine general acceptance of the human rights principles that ought to obtain) in the past fifty years. Khan’s claim may, or may not, be justified, but it is significantly different from the one that Garrard attributes to her.
[Update: on reflection, I should have made clear that I’m sure that Eve’s misrepresentation of Khan’s view is inadvertent. I’d also bet that the misleading comma in the DT letter is the work of a sub-editor.]
{ 48 comments }
yabonn 06.03.04 at 10:19 am
Anyone else began to read this as a critic of Artificial Intelligence?
Anyone of these having passed successfully the vw licence plate test?
MFB 06.03.04 at 10:20 am
It seems to me that a lot of people are misreading (rather than misrepresenting) this meme, thinking that it refers to the kind of thing which brought us Abu Ghraib, whereas it’s actually the kind of thing which brought us the USA Patriot Act.
arthegall 06.03.04 at 11:46 am
I definitely thought “AI” meant Artificial Intelligence, too.
Scott Martens 06.03.04 at 12:18 pm
Well, the big sustained attacks on artificial intelligence were in the late 50’s and early 80’s. Since then, if anything it’s been pretty calm, so I figured it must be Amnesty.
I would agree that the current attack on human rights is more serious than any in recent decades. Yes, it’s true that there have been plenty of times and places where worse human rights violations occurred, but to see so many very powerful western states, and the US in particular, so brazenly abandonning the rights that they used to claim distinguished them from other nations and justified their positions of power… well, I think that is more threatening to global acceptance of human rights than when Outer Nowherestan becomes a repressive dictatorship. Ideas don’t fail when a few people oppose them, they fail when no one with any power has to pay attention to them.
q 06.03.04 at 12:37 pm
The biggest attack? The current verbal assault on the media, AI and the world is the biggest attack on honesty in the last 60 years.
Well on the evidence that I’ve seen so far – the posts on CT followed by this piece, Eve’s mentality is of an opinion in search of (supporting) evidence, and is perfectly consistent with the view that we should aim to exterminate Islam and all Muslims. A view I believe widely held in certain communities in the US. She is part of a centuries old tradition of bigotry masquerading as intellectual debate. In fact that picture of Private Lynndie England with the Muslim on a dog lead probably accurately represents the goal.
Now that Mr Bush has brought out the example of World War 2, we now have his cards on the table. The US managed to shut up those pesky Japanese with a couple of Nuclear Weapons in 1945, and now he thinks we are in World War 3, and have some pesky Muslims to deal with. If the US or a partner accidentally nukes a piece of desert near Riyadh or Tehran, the he will claim it was the nukees or Usama Bin Laden’s fault. Now a nuke might put out say 300,000 people which would be a lot less than the number of people who died in Rwanda or Cambodia, numbers which would be used by the zealots to claim how it was not the worst abuse of human rights in the last 60 years. Even better news for the Zealots is that 20 million people died from war in the first 50 years of the 20th century which means that, using the numbers-game, unless they start spraying nukes, they can do virtually anything without attaining the dreaded title of the “The biggest attack”. Even if more people died, zealots could argue that as it was done in a good cause, then the moral case outweighs the human cost.
Please ignore what I say as “yet another ill-thought-out piece of anti-Western rhetoric” by a self-hating Western Christian, while I go and flagellate myself in the corner! (note: this last is an ironic statement)
dsquared 06.03.04 at 1:12 pm
I must say I read it this way first time and was up until now confused about what all the fuss was about; what is happening in Sudan, Zimbabwe, etc, are attacks on people, not principles.
(Mind you, this is probably because I’ve spent the last twelve months arguing myself hoarse against people who want to make the claim that Enron’s collapse was a huge issue of accounting standards; this is a similar distinction between breaches of principles and attacks on their validity).
John Kozak 06.03.04 at 3:06 pm
Why “should we read this”? I just did and it’s spectacularly useless as argument or rhetoric.
rea 06.03.04 at 5:48 pm
“what is happening in Sudan, Zimbabwe, etc, are attacks on people, not principles”
But what is happening in the United states is an attack on principles, perhaps more than people. The United States adopts a doctrine of “preemptive war” (abandoning the Nuremberg princinple that war is not justified except in self defense against an imminent threat), the president’s legal counsel advises him that the Geneva Conventions are “quaint” and “obsolete” . . .
In the long run, such developments in the most powerful country in the world are quite arguably more dangerous than any mere massacre, however tragic. If we abandon the principle that such things are wrong, there will be many, many more massacres, with few voices being raised in protest, and those few dismissed as “quaint” and “obsolete.”
Sebastian Holsclaw 06.03.04 at 7:37 pm
It just reflects AI’s preoccupation with form over substance in their high profile statements. They are great in there lower profile country reports but when they tie things together to make grand statements they screw it up royally.
They are freaking out over an attack on the human rights ‘structure’ when the human rights structure is pathetic and impotent. They complain about unilateral U.S. action and fail to remember that very few tyrants (who a neutral observor might be able to identify as the major instigator of all the most serious human rights violations) rarely go quietly.
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.
I have always admired AI’s general mission, but they have a serious problem with focus and perspective. They also have a serious problem in realizing that it is completely appropriate for their stories to inspire action. They report on the atrocities that tyrants commit to stay in power, but pretend that tyrants will typically go peacefully. It is a special kind of idiocy.
Randy Paul 06.03.04 at 8:35 pm
Their mission used to be to highlight human rights abuses in non-Western countries SO THAT WE WOULD TAKE ACTION.
Totally incorrect. That has never been their mission. The first action took place regarding Portugal. Their mandate is as follows:
1.) to free all prisoners of conscience (i.e. someone who has been imprisoned for their political beliefs, race, religion, ethnic origin, etc,. provided they have not used or advocated violence.)
2.) to ensure a prompt and fair trial for all political prisoners
3.) to abolish the death penalty, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
4.) to end extrajudicial executions and “disappearances”
5.) to fight impunity by working to ensure perpetrators of such abuses are brought to justice in accordance with international standards
It has always focused on these issues around the world, never on “non-Western countries.” That’s utter fiction.
pepi 06.03.04 at 9:05 pm
“*Their mission used to be to highlight human rights abuses in non-Western countries*”
Ah. Fantastic. I just love all these efforts at determining the validity AI’s focus by how many pages and press release space is devoted to West or non-West. “Universal” seems to be taken to mean something very peculiar there.
I used to think that sort of exercise implied, hmm, how can I put it, “a two-tier picture of humanity”? I also used to think principles inform actions as well as laws.
But clearly, that’s just me being not enough non-partisan. Or maybe too much non-partisan, to the point it gets to that awful relativist situation where you lose sight of what is west and what is east and why never the twain shall meet. I’m lost… This maze of moral inclarity I’m in is effectively aiding and abetting the enemy, as all inclarity does. I’m in urgent need of a compass. Do Amnesty sell compasses? well they should. Really. There, that just goes to show how much anti-western they are.
Sebastian Holsclaw 06.03.04 at 9:13 pm
You are misreading the emphasis, or I failed to state it properly.
When highlighting abuses in non-Western countries (or perhaps better to say countries without a history of human rights) the purpose was that Western countries would take action. Otherwise what the hell are you doing? Making a sadist’s chronicle of abuses? Do you see the proper role of AI as being the filmographer for de Sade?
None of the things in your mandate just happen:
“to free all prisoners of conscience” with a magic prisoner freeing wand?
“to ensure a prompt and fair trial for all political prisoners” with strongly worded statements?
“to abolish the death penalty, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” by repeating the words “naughty, naughty”?
“to end extrajudicial executions and “disappearances”” by telling Pinochet that he wasn’t being kind?
AI used to want action by Western governments. They just don’t like to admit that the action against dictators sometimes requires a military so they have to pretend that U.S. abuses are the same because they might be able to change things without getting their hands dirty. Which is great for the very small number of people subject to human rights difficulties with respect to the U.S. and is somewhat unfortunate for those who have their testicles cut off, their wives raped, or their Lamas kidnapped at the hands of governments who need a bit more pressure applied than the U.S.
pepi 06.03.04 at 9:31 pm
It has always focused on these issues around the world, never on “non-Western countries.†That’s utter fiction.”
Yeah, Randy, but… wouldn’t it be so good if they did? Imagine AI drafting long reports about all those filthy non-western places, and then when it comes to America and friends, just pat them on the back and give them a medal and go, ‘you go guys, you are the best and we’re so proud of you’! Now _that_ would be a serious, responsible, non-partisan behaviour by Amnesty. It’d boost our Western™ morale, and you know how crucial that is to winning the War on Terror™.
You don’t want to feel all so vulnerable and open to accountability when there’s entire rogue countries out there. And I mean, whole countries teeming with rogueness. Not just a bit, but a lot of it. Entire forests of bad apples, man. Waiting to be cut down, one by one. That’s what Amnesty should help in – not exposing your weak side to the enemy, the fools, but helping you defeat it.
A good start would be by turning over the management of AI to the Pentagon. Like a sort of specialist military intelligence section. ‘We need to invade that rogue country, can you give us some human rights abuses to denounce? yeah, those photos with women in a burqa, that’s just perfect. What? that’s taken in Miami? just cut out the beach and it’ll be fine’
randy Paul 06.03.04 at 9:56 pm
Sebastian,
Do you know what local AI groups do? Are you aware of what adoption groups are? Do you know what Regional Action Networks do? Can you name the two Professionals Networks? Do you know what urgent actions entail and when they are used? Do you know what the Freedom Writers Network is?
With all due respect, Sebastian you have absolutely no idea as to how AI works and thus, on this subject you don’t know what you are talking about. You are projecting your vision of what you think the organization should be and criticizing them for not living up to your perceptions.
This is a link to Robert Young Pelton’s (The World’s Most Dangerous Places web page. Perhaps you should scroll down to the section about AI and read it. It also helps establish my bonafides to speak on the subject, but that has not been my phone number for several years, so please don’t call it.
Sebastian Holsclaw 06.03.04 at 10:22 pm
“You are projecting your vision of what you think the organization should be and criticizing them for not living up to your perceptions.”
No that is specifically not what I am doing. I am reflecting on AI’s stated goals and criticizing them for how they act in response to them.
I have never criticized AI’s reporting function in so far as it chronicles abuses. What I criticize is its willful and organizational blindness to the fact 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. Economic and Diplomatic sanctions? Please. Castro has been in power for decades, and hasn’t had Soviet support for more than a decade. Yet he sends playwrights to die in his prisons because they criticize him. Mugabe laughs while sending people on his killing sprees and as usual the left is so impotent that it can’t convince French President’s to forbear from embracing him.
If your letters do something they provoke action by friendly governments against the things you chronicle. If your reports do anything useful systemically they provoke action against the abuses reported. The letters are not action. The reports are just the beginning of action. The confusion of these letters and these reports with action against the governments in question is a confusion about the difference between self-righteousness and actually doing something good in the world.
Did you dislike the Pinochet government? Or did you just dislike Western support of Pinochet? Did you object to Saddam, or did you just object to the fact that the West ever supported him? Do you object to Mugabe, or do you just believe that the West should not support him? Do you object to Castro? Or just the fact that Europe supports him?
Those are different questions, and has trouble distinguishing between them. Western support for a regime might end with mere letter writing. You might be able to smuggle a few prisoners on the margins of despotic regimes. But regimes that thrive on real torture will continue to exist if that is all you are willing to have done.
And if you think that is in line with the precepts you quoted me, I guess I didn’t understand you at all.
Randy Paul 06.03.04 at 10:45 pm
Well, Sebastian perhaps you should talk with some former prisoners who AI has worked on behalf, such as Jorge Valls of Cuba, Veronica de Negri of Chile, Juan Carlos Rodriguez of Argentina, Ninotchka Rosca of the Phillipines, Arn Chorn of Cambodia who AI worked on behalf of and who have spoken on behalf of AI.
Those are just a few I came up with off the top of my head, but I’m sure there’s more. They can tell you how wrong you are.
pepi 06.03.04 at 11:15 pm
“Did you dislike the Pinochet government? Or did you just dislike Western support of Pinochet?”
That is real ugly, Sebastian.
Would you ask that question to those who survived the tortures, or their families and friends? What possible relevance would who supported Pinochet have to them? Does it change the facts?
It’s you who sound a lot more interested in the political-ideological interpretation and projection game than the actual denounciation of abuses itself.
Honestly it’s getting confusing to try and follow all these contrasting demands made of a human rights org. One moment it’s too political, the next it’s asked to do the job of governments and take action and choose policies. What’s the story?
I know, this is hardly original, but I genuinely do not remember all this anti-AI feeling when it suddenly became convenient to denounce the Taleban abuses of women’s rights two years ago. Oh, file that under “anti-western” too.
It’s funny cos this kind of reaction kind of proves the point AI is making about the erosion of principles. But no, we shouldn’t bother about principles here because over there there’s people being massacred. That makes a lot of sense.
pepi 06.03.04 at 11:20 pm
Oh, and Europe most certainly does not “support Castro”, Sebastian. Nice try, but it’s untrue. You missed out on a few news items about Cuban-European relations.
Giles 06.03.04 at 11:31 pm
“but I genuinely do not remember all this anti-AI feeling when it suddenly became convenient to denounce the Taleban abuses of women’s rights two years ago. ”
I think you’re kidding yourself there – respect for AI has been ebbing for years – I cancelled my memebership 8 years ago.
nick 06.03.04 at 11:38 pm
You know, I’d find it a bit embarrassing to criticise the well-publicised workings of an organisation in a way that proved beyond doubt that I was completely ignorant of those workings.
But regimes that thrive on real torture will continue to exist if that is all you are willing to have done.
Which should be parsed thus: ‘I just can’t be arsed.’
Sebastian Holsclaw 06.04.04 at 12:14 am
““Did you dislike the Pinochet government? Or did you just dislike Western support of Pinochet?”
That is real ugly, Sebastian.
Would you ask that question to those who survived the tortures, or their families and friends? What possible relevance would who supported Pinochet have to them? Does it change the facts?”
But I’m not asking them. I’m asking Amnesty International to analyze it that way. My question is do you want governments to DO THINGS to stop the abuse, or are you content with governments who merely stop supporting the abusive governments. Perhaps you see AI as all about saving a few people on the margins. Perhaps you aren’t interested in doing what it takes to change regimes. If so, fine. Saving individuals from an awful system is a worthwhile endeavour. I’m all for it. I just wish AI didn’t feel the need to get in the way of those who want to get rid of the evil systems. Or more specifically getting in the way of those who think that waiting for the regimes to collapse on their own while they murder millions in the decades on the way isn’t such a brilliant plan.
And no, I haven’t missed the European left’s purely rhetorical ‘split’ with Castro. As usual you mistake support (the word I use and the money Europe sends) and diplomatic lies (what Europe does to pretend distance).
“You know, I’d find it a bit embarrassing to criticise the well-publicised workings of an organisation in a way that proved beyond doubt that I was completely ignorant of those workings.”
I’m sure you are quite familiar with that problem. Please, other than Randy Paul, I read the country reports as much as anyone here. I’m not unfamiliar with the good AI can do. I’m annoyed with AI’s willingness to work on the margins AND interfere with those who realize that changing despotic systems often requires using the military instead of waiting for them to die. If it wanted to just work on the margins of these countries that would be fine if they weren’t also trying to get in the way of those who do otherwise. If it wanted to just make changes in Western countries that would be fine. It is the state of denial about what is required to change most despotic regimes that is so annoying. (At least to me).
Barry Ross 06.04.04 at 12:24 am
It seems to me that Ms Garrard willfully misunderstands the Amnesty statement, since I can find not even a tangential relationship between her argument and the Amnesty statement to which she links. Is this the same Eve Garrard who wrote a two part post, also on Normblog, to say that evil exists because she knows it when she sees it. Or was that art?
pepi 06.04.04 at 1:14 am
“My question is do you want governments to DO THINGS to stop the abuse, or are you content with governments who merely stop supporting the abusive governments.”
Well, Sebastian, it’s interesting you want to ask AI that question”, but are you sure you picked the right recipient for that message?
Why on earth aren’t you asking the governments directly, what are they doing to stop so and so and change regimes and stop supporting tyrants?
Honestly it’s baffling. Does AI have as much as or more power than national governments? Nope. Than legal courts? Neither. Than the UN? Nooo, certainly not.
So why are you asking something out of it that it cannot do? only to complain it’s not doing it?
Why not judge what it actually does. Really, follow Randy Paul’s advice. You don’t sound like you know a lot about the nature, goals and scope of the work you’re criticising.
Also, please stop projecting. HR orgs are not about saving people “on the margins” (?) and are not indifferent to “what it takes to change regimes” – it’s just not up to them to do that. You’re making it sound like they are only involved in a sterile feel-good exercise to get press attention, like celebrity charity stunts, just because what they do cannot extend beyond reporting and soliciting and pressuring.
What they cannot do, is up to political powers to do.
Or you want to give more power to AI than to a Pentagon/Ministry of Defense or a President/Prime Minister and Congress/Parliament put together?
Aren’t those the players to whom you should be addressing your concerns in respect to supporting/opposing dictatorships?
Whatever AI may say about wars or policies by any country or political leader, it is most definitely not preventing anyone from choosing and enforcing them.
Why, now the whole fight against dictatorships _and_ terrorism is is being hindered by Amnesty’s reports and press releases. It’s fantastic.
I’m sorry Sebastian, but I think apart from you we all did miss the part where Amnesty International ‘got in the way’ and tried to prevent the glorious Allies from taking down Saddam ten, twenty, thirty years ago… or even just last year! Funny that eh? Saddam’s regime did collapse eventually, didn’t it? (well… sort of, but let’s pretend it completely did) Now, my memory is bad, ok, but at what precise moment was Amnesty actively trying to prevent that? and how? Selling weapons to the Iraqi army?
Or perhaps you meant opinions, not actions, getting in the way? But… wouldn’t it be totally hilarious, to consider opinions as obstacles ‘getting in the way’ of… ‘exporting democracy’?
And how are they now getting in the way of some US-led action to fight tyranny in Sudan/Zimbwabwe/Korea? If that action is missing and there’s no such plan to invade Korea/Sudan/Zimbabwe, is it a) because there’s no political interest in doing it, or b) because Amnesty has _voiced_ concerns about military action outside of UN approval etc. etc.? What do you think?
“And no, I haven’t missed the European left’s purely rhetorical ‘split’ with Castro. As usual you mistake support (the word I use and the money Europe sends) and diplomatic lies (what Europe does to pretend distance).”
Please translate in factual statement. Is it “Europe” – or “the European left”? I don’t know where you take your news from, but, well, just be informed the two terms are not equivalent. And not just Europe, but “the European left” in its vast expanses is not “supporting Castro” anyway. Take a look at the calendar, it’s not ’68 anymore.
pepi 06.04.04 at 1:28 am
barry ross – Some may say that art is like evil. You just know it when you see it…
The same applies to bullshit.
Sebastian Holsclaw 06.04.04 at 8:59 am
“What they cannot do, is up to political powers to do.”
That is a pathetic dodge. A huge portion of AI’s existance is focused around attempting to change the minds of what political powers do. And yet when their reports were used to bolster the case for war in Afghanistan and Iraq there was much whining about the reports being ‘misused’ by the U.S. government to paint an ‘unhelpful’ picture of those governments.
Your response is like Michael Moore–one minute he claims to be a documentarian, but when caught in untruth he retreats to ‘entertainer’. Amnesty International attempts to change political opinion. And that is fine. But some of the directions they have attempted to change it don’t make sense in relation to their goal to actually get governments to stop systemic torture.
Randy Paul 06.04.04 at 2:39 pm
But some of the directions they have attempted to change it don’t make sense in relation to their goal to actually get governments to stop systemic torture.
More unsupported criticism. I would imagine what AI got upset about is the same thing they got upset about before the first Gulf War: selective use of their reports.
While the Bush administration uses their reports to back up their case in Iraq and Afghanistan, they ignore AI reports on such nations as Pakistan and Uzbekistan because they need something from these nations. That’s the hypocrisy of selective use of information and that sure as hell is not AI’s problem; it’s the problem of those who claim to support human rights while talking out of both sides of their mouths.
Sebastian Holsclaw 06.04.04 at 5:27 pm
“I would imagine what AI got upset about is the same thing they got upset about before the first Gulf War: selective use of their reports.”
This has gone fully circular. I am roundly slammed for thinking that Amnesty International can do anything and am assured that it is the governments who decide to do things. I shouldn’t criticize AI because it doesn’t make the decisions. Now we have rediscovered that AI gets upset about ‘selective’ use of their reports as if it ought to make the prioritization decisions. That was the tact I took at the beginning when I suggested that AI’s sense of prioritization was seriously screwed up.
‘Selective’ what? Surely you are not positing that AI was angry that we were invading TOO FEW countries to topple TOO FEW dictators who use torture as one of their main methods of maintaining power. I am fairly certain we can all agree they weren’t complaining about that. Which brings us right back to my point about AI: “But some of the directions they have attempted to change it [the international political situation] don’t make sense in relation to their goal to actually get governments to stop systemic torture.”
You can’t have it both ways. AI is a political advocacy group. It has an agenda, and not all of it is as explicit as the points you quoted above. It also has an odd sense of perspective which is reflected in its ability to conflate a vast spectrum of issues together as “war crimes” or “abuses” or “violations” with an apparent inability to differentiate between them. Take this AI press release for example. It is entitled “Iraq: Fear of war crimes by both sides” It spends 5 paragraphs about the US bombing of the Iraqi TV station. A TV station entirely run by the apparatus of a dictatorship. 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. In a short one paragraph throw-away at the end this press release (by an organization quite media savvy enough to know that you put the most important parts of a press release at the top you signal them with the heading) says: “Iraqi forces are reported to have deliberately shelled civilians in Basra and to placing military objectives in close proximity to civilians and civilian objects. There have also been reports of Iraqis dressed in civilian clothes in order to allow surprise attacks on coalition troops.” They then tie it back to the 5 longer U.S. paragraphs with: “”Any direct attack on civilians is a war crime. Those who blur the distinction between combatants and civilians undermine the very foundations of humanitarian law,” said Claudio Cordone.”
The 5 initial paragraphs on bombing the state controlled propaganda and information organ, 1 paragraph on Iraqi soldiers intentionally shelling civilians and hiding among civilians for surprise attacks. All ‘war crimes’.
And that is an excellent example of why AI has no sense of proportion.
Randy Paul 06.04.04 at 6:38 pm
Sebastian,
Is here anything factually wrong with this statement:
The bombing of a television station simply because it is being used for the purposes of propaganda is unacceptable. It is a civilian object, and thus protected under international humanitarian law,” said Claudio Cordone, Senior Director for International Law at Amnesty International.
No.
The press release covered both sides. You’re obsessing over word count (which is not an indication of all of their work on the issue) in one press release.
As far as selective use of their reports, you misundertsand me. It’s not AI who is selectively using their reports, but the Bush administration. Simply put, if you’re busy using their information to criticize Saddam Hussein human rights abuses, why are you making common cause
with Islam Karimov another brutal dictator and not making mention of AI’s reports on him?
This is a non-sequitur:
“Selective” what? Surely you are not positing that AI was angry that we were invading TOO FEW countries to topple TOO FEW dictators who use torture as one of their main methods of maintaining power. I am fairly certain we can all agree they weren’t complaining about that. Which brings us right back to my point about AI: “But some of the directions they have attempted to change it [the international political situation] don’t make sense in relation to their goal to actually get governments to stop systemic torture.”
AI doesn’t advocate the invasion of countries to topple dictators. If you can’t see the Bush administration’s inconsistency in trumpeting the “liberation of Iraq” while simultaneously pouring millions into Uzbekistan, among other dictatorships that torture people, illegally refouling suspected terrorists to countries like Egypt and Syria to be tortured and maintaining a system of interrogations that involve torture among other practices that do little but raise an uplifted middle finger to human rights law, then I don’t really have anything else I can say.
pepi 06.04.04 at 6:44 pm
Sebastian: you’re still not considering what Amnesty actually is and actually does.
There’s no “pathetic dodge” in saying they’re not the ones that can overturn dictatorships or enforce actual _policies_. It’s a pure statement of fact.
Amnesty is simply not a government or ministry of foreign relations or department of defense or intelligence service. Come on you can’t argue with the obvious.
That’s not to say they don’t have a political view or role, of course, denouncing abuses is political in itself. Obvious, again. It’s just very disingenous to confuse that kind of ‘political’ with the political action governments take, or even the UN. AI doesn’t enforce resolutions. Doesn’t decide on military action or embargoes. Doesn’t have sovereignity or jurisdiction anywhere. It’s not an institution that’s part of the democratic system. It’s not elected by voters. It’s an organisation pursuing a specific mission. Why not actually consider it for what it is?
One minute you want it to have less of a say because it “gets in the way” of whatever, the next you demand from it more power and more initiative than sovereign nations have – then you complain about dodging. It’s fascinating.
pepi 06.04.04 at 7:00 pm
Oh, and no one ever said you “shouldn’t criticize AI because it doesn’t make the decisions”, Sebastian. It’s a straw man. Amnesty is as criticisable as any entity on this planet.
It’s that your criticism of AI is based on a total distortion of what it is and what it sets out to do. It’s like bashing the Pentagon for not publishing reports about the condition of child workers in Thailand. That’s not their job, is it?
You misrepresented AI’s mission as “highlighting abuses in non-Western countries”, you ignore the relation between human rights principles and human rights abuses, you confuse press releases with statements on one issue with reports covering the entire world, you accuse them of “forgetting” about murder and genocide only to bash the US when it’s patently not true because there’s tons of reports and active work done in the very countries that everyone is saying are being forgotten and ignored.
Ah but they dared point out that the war on terror is undermining principles of international law, and that gets on your nerves so much you have to misrepresent their entire work and goals. Your motives for disliking Amnesty are transparent and clear, but your attempt at justifying that dislike most definitely isn’t!
pepi 06.04.04 at 7:15 pm
Randy Paul: I am really fascinated by that ability to completely ignore that inconsistency and project it onto a human rights organisation. So yes, billions and weapons given to dictators don’t raise a peep, but if in an Amnesty report there’s 20% more text devoted to violations by “the West” than by non-West, woo hoo, scandal and outrage.
Isn’t it something awe-inspiring, that capacity for denial?
Sebastian Holsclaw 06.04.04 at 9:22 pm
“You misrepresented AI’s mission as “highlighting abuses in non-Western countries””
Do you even read my posts? I specifically clarified with WHEN HIGHLIGHTING….
The press release is such a blatant example, yet I’m not at all surprised that you choose to pretend it is a question of word count. Press releases have a specific structure which is keyed to newspaper reporting. Importance declines down the page. 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.
This is furthered by the specific content relayed. Paragraphs are spent on the specifics of the TV station bombing (which by the way is NOT CLEARLY a violation of any international law) while the Iraqi atrocities (the intentional targeting of civilians and use of civilians as human shields, which are the most serious violations possible under the fourth Protocol) are treated in a cursory fashion with only a few sentences at the end.
Amnesty International blurs the two types of violations. One of the key functions of the Geneva Conventions is to set up a situation where civilian casualties are minimized. The U.S. minimizes civilian casualties better than anyone in the entire world. To compare a strike on a TV station, wholly run by the dictator in question, to a system of intentionally killing large numbers of civilians and systemically using them as shields is to completely miss the point of how the Geneva Conventions work. To talk about both as ‘violations’ is to obscure (and I believe intentionally obscure) the difference in types of actions. To talk about both as ‘war crimes’ dilutes the meaning of the phrase into complete uselessness.
Do you believe that talking about jaywalking and genocide as ‘crimes’ in the same conversation would be generally helpful? They are both crimes in the literal sense of the word, but in almost any context where you would use the word crime to talk about one of them, it would be inappropriate to also be talking about the other. You could use the word ‘crime’ to encompass either in separate conversations, but to use it for both in the same context is to do a serious injustice to at least one of them. If you use genocide to argue that the death penalty is appropriate for certain crimes and then transition immediately into talking about the crime of jaywalking most listeners would be concerned. Yet Amnesty International does this on a regular basis and thinks nothing of it.
q 06.04.04 at 9:39 pm
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
nick 06.04.04 at 10:08 pm
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.
Sebastian Holsclaw 06.04.04 at 10:29 pm
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.
pepi 06.05.04 at 2:44 am
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…
q 06.05.04 at 6:41 am
If you champion unilateralism, then complaining when the multilateralists attack you is conceited.
Sebastian Holsclaw 06.05.04 at 8:52 am
Ok pepi, you convinced me. Amnesty International has no influence. Never mind. Nothing to see there.
pepi 06.05.04 at 11:16 am
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.
pepi 06.05.04 at 11:45 am
(…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…)
Sebastian Holsclaw 06.06.04 at 1:40 am
“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).
q 06.06.04 at 2:33 am
_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?
pepi 06.06.04 at 2:16 pm
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.
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.
pepi 06.06.04 at 2:48 pm
q:
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:
I loooove that. And that “Rolling back”. Never was a better term picked by a think-tank!
Zizka 06.07.04 at 4:59 am
Man, that Sebastian sure is one text-producin’ motherfucker!
pepi 06.07.04 at 8:56 am
Eh, sorry…
Jeffrey Bogdan 06.11.04 at 12:31 am
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.
Jeffrey Bogdan 06.11.04 at 12:43 am
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.)
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