Amnesty International moves further from relevance

In its just-released annual report, Amnesty International "did not mention human rights concerns in Cuba, China, North Korea or most of the former Soviet Republics," according to UPI.

AI's summary of its own report reads as follows:

Huge challenges confronted the international human rights movement in 2003. The UN faced a crisis of legitimacy and credibility because of the US-led war on Iraq and the organization's inability to hold states to account for gross human rights violations. International human rights standards continued to be flouted in the name of the "war on terror", resulting in thousands of women and men suffering unlawful detention, unfair trial and torture – often solely because of their ethnic or religious background. Around the world, more than a billion people's lives were ruined by extreme poverty and social injustice while governments continued to spend freely on arms.

You are reading correctly -- the only country that AI's summary mentions as a perpetrator of human rights abuses is the U.S. No mention of terrorists as human rights abusers. No mention of countries that routinely torture their own citizens.

Radical terrorism is the gravest threat to global security, and yes, to human rights, in my adult lifetime. And it is the US-led war on terror that AI chooses to take on?

Good grief.

UPDATE: LGF is on the case in a post entitled Amnesty International Hits Bottom, Digs citing this from AFP:

The United States has proved “bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle” in its fight against terrorism and invasion of Iraq, Amnesty International charged.

In its 2004 report on the state of human rights around the globe, the London-based group cited grave violations in dozens of other nations.

But it targeted in particular the “war on terror” initiated by US President George W. Bush in the wake of the September 11 attacks in 2001 for sanctioning human rights abuses in the name of freedom.

The unilateral nature of the conflict to unseat Saddam Hussein in Iraq had additionally “virtually paralyzed” the United Nations’ role in guaranteeing human rights on a global level, the Amnesty report said Wednesday.

The 339-page document, detailing the human rights situation in 157 nations and territories, reserved the most column inches for the United States, with almost as many critical words also meted out to Russia and China.

UPDATE: At TNR Online Frida Ghitis argues that far from becoming irrelevant, AI is perhaps becoming the problem itself:

In the last year, worldwide conflict has brought turbulence, trauma, and abuse to millions of lives. From the bombed out checkpoints in Kabul and Baghdad, to the interrogation chambers in Saudi, Syrian, and American prisons, to the increasing scrutiny into the daily lives of innocent civilians the world over, the actions of extremists and the reactions of governments have resulted in an atmosphere that conspires against human rights. In the words of Amnesty International, we are living through "the most sustained attack on human rights and international humanitarian law in 50 years." Given this situation, it's a shame that Amnesty, the most venerable of human rights organizations, has decided to stop doing its job. In fact, it could be argued that one of the most serious emerging threats to human rights today is Amnesty's decision to spend a disproportionate share of its limited resources attacking the United States--at the opportunity cost of focusing attention on governments that are slaughtering, enslaving, torturing, and imprisoning millions of people around the world....

UPDATE: Hootinan checks in with this:

As UN troops buy sex from teenage refugees in the Congo and aid workers refuse to do anything about it...

Teenage rape victims fleeing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo are being sexually exploited by the United Nations peace-keeping troops sent to the stop their suffering.

The Independent has found that mothers as young as 13 - the victims of multiple rape by militiamen - can only secure enough food to survive in the sprawling refugee camp by routinely sleeping with UN peace-keepers.

...Amnesty International is calling the United States the worst violator of human rights in the world. Amnesty slams 'bankrupt' vision of US in damning human rights report.

LONDON (AFP) - The United States has proved "bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle" in its fight against terrorism and invasion of Iraq (news - web sites), Amnesty International charged.

In its 2004 report on the state of human rights around the globe, the London-based group cited grave violations in dozens of other nations.

But it targeted in particular the "war on terror" initiated by US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) in the wake of the September 11 attacks in 2001 for sanctioning human rights abuses in the name of freedom.

The unilateral nature of the conflict to unseat Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in Iraq had additionally "virtually paralyzed" the United Nations (news - web sites)' role in guaranteeing human rights on a global level, the Amnesty report said Wednesday.

The 339-page document, detailing the human rights situation in 157 nations and territories, reserved the most column inches for the United States, with almost as many critical words also meted out to Russia and China.

Our invasion and toppling of Saddam "virtually paralyzed" the UN's ability to guarantee human rights on a global level? Geez, I was unaware our actions had such an overwhelming effect on the libido of UN workers. Don't you just love it when the United States is singled out and blamed for all the world's ills? Much like Israel is.

UPDATE: Neil Boortz does not pull any punches (scroll down to fifth item):

Amnesty International condemned the war on terror yesterday and said it has flouted human rights and made the world more dangerous. Now ... I'm not saying they didn't, but does anyone remember Amnesty International condemning the terrorist attacks on the United States? I'm just curious. Let me know. While you're doing the research I'm too lazy to do, maybe you can find out if Amnesty International ever condemned Saddam Hussein for his brutality toward his own people.

Two things often elude liberals: facts and consistency. The Secretary General of Amnesty International, Irene Khan, said "As a strategy, the war on terror is bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle." Let's pick apart this nonsense, shall we?

Would somebody please tell me how liberating 25 million people from the bloody and brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein is an act "bankrupt of vision"? Would Amnesty International care to tell the families whose members were murdered by Saddam Hussein, whose daughters were raped and murdered, that the war on terror has made the world more dangerous? How about the Kurds that were slaughtered? Those who died from Saddam's chemical weapons? That's because it hasn't, and these morons know it. Saddam Hussein had and used chemical weapons against his enemies, including people in his own country. Now he's gone. Now he's not there to use these weapons again ... and this means that the world is more dangerous? Would someone please explain that concept to me?

This has nothing to do with human rights, and everything to do with hating the United States of America. To these people, we are not allowed to defend ourselves, at least not without the permission of the United Nations. To these leftists the terrorists are really nothing less than "freedom fighters" and appear to hold the moral high ground. After all, they're just misunderstood people. It's the same thing with Israel. Amnesty International condemns Israel for defending itself. Unbelievable. Once again, the selective outrage of the left rears its ugly head.

Where was this organization on the human rights abuses in Iraq? North Korea? Cuba? The Soviet Union? Remember: it's only bad if America does it. The photos taken at Abu Ghraib by a few are a walk in the park compared to the systematic death and torture that goes on daily in other countries.

The United States doesn't need lectures from a leftist, anti-American "human rights" organization that ignores real human rights abuses in world.