Roger L. Simon points to this item in the UK Mirror. It is written by Kate Allen, "UK Director Amnesty International." It is a perfect example of almost everything that is wrong in so much of the anti-War on Terror, anti-US, anti-Bush Left. Here, in one tight package, is a living, breathing example of what Steven Den Beste decried as the dangerous and short-sighted politicization of AI. Groups like Amnesty International have the potential to do great good, but recognizing their limits, and avoiding a decent into frivolous (yes, frivolous) partisan political pronouncements surely ought to be at the top of their agenda in order to maintain their moral authority.

The director of AI USA, William Schulz, seems to be getting the message, although not fully. At the same time he advises that "...there has been a tendency for the American political left and the greater human rights community to downplay the genuine, serious threat of terrorism around the globe..." and admits that "[h]uman rights organizations are basically set up to put pressure on governments, not on more amorphous entities like terrorist groups..." he goes right on to condemn the actions of one of the few elected leaders who has both the ability, as the leader of an actual nation, and the will to fight the fight Amnesty and the rest of the honest Left admits they lack the tools, and sometimes the will, to fight themselves.

Shulz:

Constant harping and demagoging the actions of the American President hardly help in dispelling that image. After acknowledging the dangers of simple criticism without offered solutions, Shulz goes on to claim that Amnesty takes no position on the specifics of military action, but then indulges his own slanted portrayal of the run-up:

If anything is doing enormous damage to the international support structure for human rights, it is the dying credibility of once great institutions like Amnesty, not the brave leadership of men like Bush and Blair.

But, however much the logic-train Mr. Shulz is riding may not quite have come all the way into the station, at least he's starting on down the right track. It's a long journey when one starts from where Mr. Shulz no doubt began, and one ought to be patient.

His colleague in the UK seems to have missed the train altogether. So we begin.

Mirror.co.uk - WHY WE HAVE TO MARCH AGAINST DUBYA By Kate Allen Uk Director Amnesty International

Some of the critics will condemn them because of the disgraceful bedfellows they find themselves enmeshed with. As Oliver Kamm put it:

Also see Amir Taheri's piece linked below for more on the types of people one might fight behind the organization of these events.

One may reasonably ask if all of those attending the event ought to be tarred with the same brush, simply because the organizers are unsavory. I would ask, ought I be taken less seriously if I attend a rally against, say, Affirmative Action, organized by the KKK? After all, one may reasonably have a difference of opinion on the issue without being a racist the likes of the KKK.

I would say yes, some things are simply beyond the pale, and my political belief on one issue probably not ought to lead me toward giving a truly odious group the credibility a large attendance would provide. Further, what if the only groups I could find capable of organizing for my cause were such groups? I would argue that that ought to give me pause to re-think my entire position, and I would point out that virtually all of the sizable demonstrations organized against the War and George W. Bush have been organized by unreconstructed Stalinists the likes of which one may find in groups like Stop the War and International ANSWER, who's agendas are very much anti-American, and not pro-peace.

It ought to give one pause.

Back to Allen:

Glenn Reynolds quips:

Indeed. And I would ask, was the world a more dangerous and divided place in 1942 than it was in 1939? And who's fault might that have been? I somehow doubt the fair answer could possibly be Franklin Delano Roosevelt's. It is, more exactly, the fault of madmen who send others to crash planes into buildings, who preach hatred in strings of Mosques spanning continents, who indoctrinate children in the joys of martyrdom...and their usefool fools in the West who tell us the fault lies with us, and not them, and ask us to appease and reward murder.

The terrorists who have been at war with us for years did not start attacking us because of the Patriot Act, nor is their recruiting assisted by position papers attacking the niceties of the United States Legal Code. What the doubters Ms. Allen names may be doubting is left open. If it is doubt that we have been attacked and must take action to defend ourselves, then they should be left with no doubt at all, and that includes respect for our Legal Code, including our immigration laws, and filling the gaps in our laws to address the necessities of fighting a new kind of foe. All things necessary if one believes we ought to defend ourselves because we have something worth defending, and, I'm sorry to say to Ms. Allen and her fellow travelers, many of us still hold to this quaint belief.

A deterrent factor to those who might take up arms to fight against us, murder innocent men, women and children. To deter those who might fight in a manner that controvenes the conventions of war, out of uniform, for no known government, against diplomats, humanitarian workers, and Red Cross employees. Yes, let us hope all of that and more.

Which is a strange thing, as I suspect most people in this country are revolted that you are more exercised over a lack of creature-comforts for the nearly 700 people held at GTMO, than you are over the fact that they were caught in arms fighting for a vicious cause and that you can find not one ounce of strength to express relief that they will kill and maim no more. Many people in this country are revolted that you seem more interested in getting your nine countrymen off the hook, than you are in getting hold of them and punishing them yourself.

RIGHTLY, I wonder if you're protests would be even stronger if the leader of a terror exporting state like Syria or Iran were visiting your nation. One need not wonder long.

RIGHTLY, one might wonder what the difference in the crime committed might be between someone held by the US in GTMO, where one almost certainly must have made some VERY unwise choices to find oneself, and one held by a terror-state like Syria or Iran, where in either case simply speaking out of turn might land one in a torture house. And I assure you, the indignities will go far beyond the choice of orange eveningwear and no one will be around to take your photo through the fence.

One may rightly wonder where Ms. Allen's sense of proportion has gone.

Ah, the outrage of the Arab street. Ever our fault. I assure you, Al Jazeera has many images on file with which to flog their viewers into outrage. Orange jumpsuits are mild. One might hope the images would shame people into do better or drive the criminals from their midst. One might understand that they will not, although our understanding of those reasons will almost certainly differ.

There was a legal system available to take care of and punish John Walker Lindh. Not so those caught out of uniform fighting on behalf of no signatory of the Geneva Convention.

Hanging over them is also the benefit and blind luck of having fought and been captured by one of the most humane foes in the history of the planet - that has power to do great evil yet instead practices so much mercy. The treatment they can expect in the future, no one save a small handful of people knows. To the rest of us it is left to imagine, and our imaginings will take a shape only as dark as our view of the justness of the United States.

To Amnesty International, it seems, that image is dark indeed.

Well if it stinks so badly it must be dirty. So I suggest AI takes some sharp sticks and garbage bags along and makes themselves useful for once. After all, they'll be dressed for it.

Guantanamo Bay is not the only thing bothering Allen. It is quite clear that it is the entire War on Terror and our penchant for defending ourselves that she protests. She still, absent GTMO, has plenty to complain about.

I would suggest that September 11 was one hell of an alibi. An excuse even! It also showed that...it's not our war...it's one someone else declared on us. And its a funny thing about war time, the regular peacetime laws have always been found a bit wanting. This is nothing new. But again, those who don't want us to defend ourselves must first convince us that we were not really attacked, or at least is was not so bad that we ought to do anything about it.

I leave it to legal bloggers to suss out the legalities here. I would simply say that Jose Padilla is a single individual who's rights are important, but who's rights do not trump the rest of our rights not to be murdered by terrorists, and who's rights don't include forcing the government to give out its methods which might also make it easier for us to...be murdered.

As it should be!

Puh-lease, put up or turn in your tinfoil hat.

Sounds like Dick Cheney's house!

Frighteningly, not just rank and file members, but leaders of Amnesty International have their world-views so badly out of whack that they actually view the United States of America as a foe of human rights, rather than one of its great living hopes. Sadly, so blinded by their political leanings, they contribute to the world's turning away from this champion through their hysterical fear-mongering, thus squandering the truly great good they could be doing.

We don't support the ICC because its protections are inferior to those offered by our own Constitution, and no President nor Congress has any right to sign those away - ever. We have also seen other so-called hopes, take the UN for instance, coopted for use by and protecting totalitarian despots, dictators, torture states, terror exporters, anti-Semites and murderers. No, the "international community" will need to prove itself now before we lay down our sovereignty at its feet.

And that is sad, because it has not, and people with interests as petty as the MPG of an SUV will debase themselves by marching with the supporters of tyranny all for the sake of being part of an anti-American mob.

I'm no expert in the British legal system, but I will make a bet. I will bet that not one peaceful protester, not one, will be treated anywhere near as badly as they would be treated by the man who the event's organizers would put back in power in Iraq, nor frankly badly at all.

The Lord Mayor of London himself has called Mr. Bush worse than Hitler. What would you do if you met Hitler? He damn well better be protected.

There has been nothing good-humored about this screed, and do people really think that they can trash the United States and its elected leader and just say that they're "pro-American" and that makes it all right? "Oh, OK then, for a second I thought...HEYWAITAMINUTE!"

It's always interesting to see what deeds people perform for pride. Well I say hear here, but rest assured, it doesn't exempt you from bearing the responsibility of your positions, nor of having them, and thus you and your organization judged.

After reading this representative of Amnesty International I am left with one overriding impression, a message for Ms. Allen and all who would march against The President of the United States on this State visit...

...a snippet of Henry V, Act IV, Scene V:

Shame and eternal shame, nothing but shame!