Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘iraq war’

Amnesty International just keeps sabotaging its own mission again and again. The latest episode is today’s report on human rights, which blasts countries around the world for violations, singling out – you guessed it – the United States:

Amnesty singles out the United States for shirking its responsibility to set a better global example for human rights protection.

“The U.S.A., as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power sets the tone for governmental behaviour worldwide,” said Secretary General Irene Khan in the foreword to Amnesty’s annual report.

The report calls the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay — which holds some 540 prisoners from about 40 countries — “the gulag of our times.” Detainees were being held there, some for more than three years, without access to legal representation.

Pictures of abuse of Iraqi detainees at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison are also cited in the report. Amnesty says the photos were never adequately investigated.

“When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity,” said Khan.

The report talks about violations by the worst offenders, including North Korea, Zimbabwe and China. But these are mentioned in the same breath as free, democratic countries like the United States and Australia… and of course, Israel.

Amnesty claims that human rights should be universal, and the same standards ought to apply to everyone. Its mission states clearly that:

AI’s vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards.

Sure, equal and consistent standards, right? Except when they’re countries they dislike, such as the U.S. and Israel. Then, the standards are different.

Anyone who can call Guantanamo Bay the “gulag of our times” with a straight face, while essentially ignoring the true gulags of our times in places like North Korea, has squandered all credibility. Amnesty International lost theirs a long time ago.

Update: As if that wasn’t bad enough, Lynn has more on Amnesty’s seemingly incurable obsession with targeting Israel.

Two bombings in Iraq left at least 15 people dead today, as the enemies of freedom struck again:

Twin suicide car bombs killed at least 15 people during the morning rush hour in central Baghdad on Thursday, cutting short what had appeared to be a lull in violence since elections in January.

[ . . . ]

The blasts came a day after a series of explosions around the country that killed 15 people. Together they constitute one of the deadliest spates of guerrilla activity in six weeks.

The attacks would appear to mark a new surge in the violence that has been so common over the past two years in Iraq but which seemed to have subsided since the elections.

Democracy takes enormous effort, time and patience to build – and sadly, precious little effort to destroy. But I still believe that most of the people in Iraq want feedom. They showed up at the polls en masse in January to prove that, and now they will have to face down adversity to continue proving it every single day.

In a refreshingly sensible ruling, a Canadian immigration board denied the refugee claim of Jeremy Hinzman, an American who joined the army cause he figured it would be a cheap way to pay for university, and then fled to Canada when he discovered that – doh – he might actually have to fight a war:

An immigration board ruled that Jeremy Hinzman had not convinced its members he would face persecution or cruel and unusual punishment if returned to the United States.

Seven other American military personnel have applied for refugee status, and Hinzman’s lawyer estimated dozens of others are in hiding in Canada waiting to see how the government ruled.

I can understand fleeing a draft when you don’t support a war. But if you volunteer for the army, then that’s a whole different ball game.

I don’t bear Hinzman any ill will. If he goes to Iraq, I hope no harm befalls him or any other American soldier. If he chooses to object, he can serve his sentence for desertion. But the US army isn’t just an education finance program, and Hinzman should have understood that and known the risks when he signed up. And it’s refreshing to see Canada recognize this instead of revert to our typical “Bush is wrong and America sucks” attitude.

With the daily news so dismal from Iraq, it’s hard for anything to shock us anymore. We dismiss bombings, shootings and kidnappings as routine. It’s like we’ve lost the capacity for outrage.

But stories about children still have the capacity to jolt even the most cynical among us. And today, 34 children are dead, because extremists are so opposed to progress, that they will pay any price to stop it:

Insurgents detonated three car bombs near a U.S. military convoy in Baghdad Thursday, killing 41 people, 34 of them children, and wounding scores.

In two other attacks, a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle near a U.S. checkpoint outside the capital, killing two policemen and a U.S. soldier, and a car bomb killed four people in the restive northern Iraq (news – web sites) town of Tal Afar.

The Baghdad blasts coincided with crowds gathering to celebrate the opening of a new sewage plant. It was not clear if the event or a U.S. convoy passing nearby was the target.

The first explosion was followed by two more that struck those who rushed to the aid of the initial victims.

All these tactics – the follow-up bombing targeting the people rushing to help, the use of children as political weapons – have all been practiced and fine-tuned for years by the Palestinians in their ultimate testing ground, Israel. Israelis reading this today probably see it as nothing new. After all, they’ve been dealing with attacks like these for years, against the “Little Satan”. Now that the terror tactics have been perfected, the “Great Satan” is of course the new target.

The terrorists (I refuse to whitewash them as “insurgents”) in Iraq are not legitimate protestors of an occupation that is arguably very wrong. They are not innocent victims. They are opponents of freedom. They sense a power vaccum with Saddam’s Baathist regime gone, and they aim to fill it with their brand of extremist fundamentalism. To do that, they have to be able to point to a massive American failure in Iraq. And to point to a failure, they must create the failure… through bombings, kidnappings, and the like. It wasn’t an accident that today’s attack was carried out at the celebration of a new sewage system. It was a strong message that even the tiniest baby steps towards rebuilding and progress will be attacked.

The mistake that the US made in Iraq was not in pegging the Baathists as “bad guys”. No, it’s the mistake that the US has made in countless other situations: viewing the world in terms of “good guys” against “bad guys”. Not recognizing that, all too often, the reality is “bad guys” against “other bad guys”… sometimes briefly teaming up against a third or fourth set of “bad guys” but rarely uniting, except in hatred against Israel and America.

In the meantime, more innocent civilians continue to die, because the terrorists would prefer to see them all dead than free.

Terrorists publicize a video of the beheading of another hostage in Iraq. The nuclear threat from Iran continues to grow, because the Iranian government believes – probably rightly – that the US is tied up elsewhere and nobody else in the world will do anything about it. And North Korea flaunts its nuclear status. Meanwhile, thousands more are killed in Darfur while the world points fingers and stands idly by.

Just another typical day.

An absolutely compelling article appeared today by Australian Tony Parkinson in The Age entitled Why appeasement is always wrong.

As the link requires registration, I’ll post the beginning. But you owe it to yourselves to read the rest.

More than 100 schoolchildren in southern Russia are seized at gunpoint on the first day back from summer holidays. Teachers and parents die trying to protect them.

Eleven Nepalese workers in Iraq are lined up and shot in cold blood. A 12th is beheaded, purely for show.

Sixteen bus passengers in southern Israel are blasted to death by suicide bombers. Explosions at a Moscow subway station kill 10 workers. Another 90 lives are lost when terrorists force two Russian passenger jets from the skies.

In almost any other time in modern history, a week of atrocities such as this would have stunned the world.

Yet, today, as the third anniversary of September 11 approaches, it is no longer a shock to see Islamist extremists carrying out these depraved assaults. Many thousands of innocent civilians have already died. Sadly, there will probably be many thousands more.

But maybe, just maybe, the excruciating horror of watching seven-year-olds monstered by fanatics with bombs strapped to their bodies will prompt more people in free societies to grapple with the true awfulness of this phenomenon – and to confront the reality that muddling through with the old verities of international diplomacy is no answer to the threat.

I don’t always agree with L. Ian Macdonald, but I generally think he’s fairly intelligent. So that’s why I was so surprised to read, in the midst of an article expressing wonder that Kerry isn’t leading Bush in the polls, a nonsensical statement like this:

There weren’t terrorists in Iraq under Saddam, but there are now under the American occupation.

No terrorists in Iraq under Saddam? Really now? What would you call Saddam’s sons? Saddam himself? Or perhaps systematically gassing his entire Kurdish population doesn’t count as terrorism.

Well, I guess Macdonald is just being a typical Canadian in his dislike for Bush, and is letting that dislike affect his thinking.

Who woulda thought? South Korea is refusing to cave to threats and kidnappings, resolving to send troops to Iraq despite the terror tactics:

South Korea will go ahead with its plan to send 3,000 troops to help rebuild Iraq despite a threat from Iraqi militants to behead a South Korean hostage, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

[ . . . ]

The group holding [33-year-old businessman Kim Sun-il] said South Korea had 24 hours from Sunday night to withdraw its decision or they would behead him, Arabic television station Al Jazeera reported.

“I am telling you that there will be no change to our government’s basic spirit and position — our plan to send troops to Iraq is for the support and reconstruction of Iraq,” Choi said.

[ . . . ]

“If we accept the terrorists’ demand this time, the terrorists will continue threatening the world,” he said.

South Korea knows a thing or two about tyrannies. Their next-door neighbour has taught them well. Still, who woulda thought that the country that has shown so little spine lately in dealing with their Northern counterparts would stand so firm on their Iraq commitment?

Another violent day in Iraq, as a suicide car bomber blew himself up outside an army recruitment centre, killing at least 35 and wounded another 150:

Visiting the scene of the blast, Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi vowed his people would prevail in the face of mounting violence before the June 30 political handover from the United States.

“This is an escalation that we have been expecting,” Allawi said. “The government of Iraq is determined to confront the enemies.”

By the day, the world is losing confidence that this will happen. And as June 30th gets closer, things are only likely to get worse instead of better.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is refusing to negotiate with Al Qua’eda for the release of kidnapped American engineer Paul Marshal Johnson:

Al Qaeda has given the government until Friday to release jailed militants or it will execute engineer Paul Marshal Johnson, who was kidnapped last week. Saudi official sources have said the kingdom would not give in to al Qaeda’s demands.

[ . . . ]

De facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah, showing no sign of compromise, has said the kingdom would deploy more forces and strike soon against Saudi-born Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda.

Washington said it would use every appropriate resource to gain Johnson’s release but would make no concessions to his captors.

For terrorism to succeed, governments must negotiate with it. The Saudi government knows better – not because it is a bastion of democracy or enlightenment, but because it knows that giving into even a small demand would only ensure more attacks. Contrast this reaction to how the Canadian government dealt with the kidnapping of our citizens, notably Fadi Fadel.

The U.N. is reporting that Iran is being less than forthcoming with weapons inspections teams:

Iran is not fully cooperating with U.N. inspectors and must come clean about the full extent of its nuclear program within months, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday.

Mohamed ElBaradei said Iran’s cooperation has been “less than satisfactory” and warned that the process of clarifying unresolved issues — particularly over Iran’s uranium enrichment activities — could not be allowed to drag on for ever.

I’m sure I’m not the only one hit with a sense of deja vu. Though if I were the type to gamble, I’d bet that the situation in Iran will never come to what has transpired in Iraq. The two are vastly different, and while Bush had grouped them under his “Axis of Evil” umbrella, it’s still like comparing apples to oranges.

However, ElBaradei would also do well to remember that his weapons inspections teams lost all credibility when they failed in Iraq. Countries like Iran might feel more comfortable flouting them now, knowing that the U.N. will not do anything beyond shaking a fist at a country’s failure to cooperate.

And of course, the worst-case scenario is that Iran is far ahead of anyone’s expectations in terms of development of nuclear weaponry. That would truly be catastrophic, because if the U.N. allows this lack of cooperation to drag for months, then a militant Islamist regime would have acquired nuclear capability, and does anyone have any doubts as to who the first victims would be?

Far more likely, of course, is that Iran is simply flouting the process to prove a point. In any case, the U.N. and most of the world demonstrated pretty clearly that they won’t do anything to countries who flout the inspections. That leaves us in a dangerous place. Iraq’s WMDs were nowhere to be found, so the United States ended up looking foolish. But remember the story of the boy who cried wolf: what happens when there really is a threat?