Amnesty USA-'Don't know for sure' about Guantanamo (FOX News Sunday)

[Roland99]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050605/ts_nm/rights_guantanamo_amnesty_dc

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite highly publicized charges of U.S. mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, the head of the Amnesty International USA said on Sunday the group doesn't "know for sure" that the military is running a "gulag."

Executive Director William Schulz said Amnesty, often cited worldwide for documenting human rights abuses, also had no information about whether Secretary Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved severe torture methods such as beatings and starvation.

Schulz recently dubbed Rumsfeld an "apparent high-level architect of torture" in asserting he approved interrogation methods that violated international law.

"It would be fascinating to find out. I have no idea," Schulz told "Fox News Sunday."

And I'm to believe there was no arm-twisting done?

[Mark Williams]

1. Video Of Williams Schulz On Fox News Sunday

DEMbloggers will have the video of William Schulz on Fox News Sunday online shortly

[Straight Shooter]

2. Another trophy head on the bush Wall of Retraction. n/t

[Robb]

3. Quick, spin!

Fox: "So, are you absolutely positive about all this?"
AI: "No, we're not positive. We have very strong evidence supporting our claims, but no one's positive because we weren't there."
Fox: "Amnesty head says they lack evidence and have no first-hand corroboration....!"

:eyes:

Fox: "Plus, when he plays tennis, he beats his wife."

[ckramer]

4. "It would be fascinating to find out. I have no idea,"

When he said that, the reputation of the organization is at stake here.

[struggle4progress]

16. Nonsense. AI believes prison transparency is essential ..

.. to prevent abuse of prisoners, and the organization has decades of experience with officials who lie.

Obviously, if essentially all outside access is forbidden, it is exceedingly difficult to obtain verifiable facts about treatment: not even the official happy-face tales are supportable.

AI is calling for transparency, and the call should be heeded ...

[K-W]

17. Are you joking?

So the fact that the US doesnt let human rights organizations into its prisons reflects poorly on the human rights organizations?

Welcome to upside down world.

[ckramer]

18. No.

AI issued the annual report on global human rights saying that Guantanamo "has become the gulag of our times," right? Yet the executive director of the AI here appeared to be clueless by saying "I have no idea" and "We don't know for sure" and had "absolutely no idea."

That gave people the impression that their report accusing US' wrong doing at Guantanamo could be a second guess.

That's what I meant.

[Frederik]

32. No

As far as I understand, the "gulag" remark was made by one of the leaders of the organization, but the word was not used in the report. But I could be wrong.

[Roland99]

19. We've been in Bizarro World for some time now

Debt is good

Death is good (unless it's an embryo)

Social Security is only for the poor

War is Peace

[ElectroPrincess]

5. What I can't understand is how anyone interested in a "free press"

would agree to be a guest on Fox News ANYTHING!

Damn, we're in for a long cold winter of nothing but Bush-Co. promoting propaganda from *all* of the USA's major news outlets. Makes me want to sneak in my buddy's luggage when she visit her family in France this summer.

Double yikes! May God save our democracy from this vicious (Take No Prisoners!) military industrial machine. :scared:

[Jack Rabbit]

9. How could anyone interested in a free press appear on television nowadays?

If it's not some functionary of the propaganda ministry on FoxNews, it's Wolf Blitzer on CNN or Tim Russert on NBC.

The media is in the hands of the same people who have foot the bill for Mr. Bush's political career. The owners of the media will use it to protect their investment in a bastardized regime, not to provide citizens with facts needed to make an informed decision in a democratic process.

[efhmc]

6. There are no more independent agencies during this regime?

[countingbluecars]

7. This is really disturbing-

for Amnesty to come out so strongly-and now the backtracking. What techniques is the government using to intimidate people like Schulz?
I get the creepy feeling that every little thing you have ever done can and will be used against you.

[HeeBGBz]

25. I think so too

Is there anyone who will hold their ground with the Bush admin?

[Fleshdancer]

8. what a great way of taking words out of context

I watched this segment and Mr. Shulz didn't retract anything. What he said was that the US should open up Guatanamo to human rights organizations and that when the Red Cross went there, apparently the US hid some of the detainees. Even so, the Red Cross STILL condemned the way the detainees they did see were treated.

He listed the comments made by the Red Cross, comments made by a soldier who once worked over there, and a couple of other sources...all the research led Amnesty to say what they did about Guatanamo and when Shultz said he "doesn't know for sure", he was making the point that Amnesty should be allowed to see it for themselves.

[Roland99]

10. Thanks for the details.

[Jack Rabbit]

11. I find that very easy to believe

!!

[countingbluecars]

12. Thanks.

I am glad to hear this.

[leQ]

15. if only you worked for the wires, we'd at least have a chance

[King Coal]

38. Thank you, Gloria. I watched it too.

Shultz did a fine job, considering the wing-nutted cross examiniation. That Fox ass even asked him if he contributed money to the Kerry campaign. I'll guaranfwordtee you the Fox ass contributed to Bush, but........ What a crock of shit.

[MGKrebs]

13. Reminds me of Scottie Mac claiming it's all 'rumors'.

Well since they won't let anybody in there to SEE it, what else do we have?

If they are admitting 'minor incidents' in their self-investigation, but they won't let any outside group observe or verify, I think a reasonable person could conclude that there is likely more serious issues.

[K-W]

14. That is disgusting.

Most of this country is going to think Amnesty retracted thier statement when the propaganda machine is done with this.

[elias49]

20. I think Schultz did fine!

Watch the video again!
He made the point well, that AI is only applying the same standards they apply to all and any countries
He made the point well that for, what did he say, 20 years? AI has been reporting about abuses that were occuring during Saddam Hussein's reign, even while Rummy was cozying up.
The point Schultz made about the fact that Rummy authorized techniques that violate Geneva Conventions, and was not contradicted was well said.
When he pointed out that it was 'the Pentagon' that said there were only 10 minor episodes of mistreatment, and there was no independent analysis...
so many things were great about this interview, IMHO.
Schultz 1
Wallace 0

[Disturbed]

21. Has anyone noticed that lately....

when scenes of Gitmo are shown there are the detainees playin soccer, lounging around or reading a book, maybe the Koran?

It's all just a leisure camp these days.

[0rganism]

33. How hard would it be to stage something like that?

With GOP propaganda taking every possible form these days, it wouldn't come as a huge surprise to me that they'd set up a fake camp and paid some actor friends to play around in it with the cameras rolling. Would that shock anyone, really? Even if it were exposed as a hoax, the righties would find it entirely defensible while levying an attack on the exposer's character.

They've got game.

Unfortunately.

[merwin]

22. *ehem* Bush didn't "know for sure" that Iraq had WMD, yet FAUX

took his word for it.

[applegrove]

23. Amnesty head offices are not allowed to investigate their own country.

That is how it works!

[daleo]

24. It is a gulag.

It is full of political prisoners who haven't been charged with a crime, and haven't been allowed due process. In addition it is in an out of the way place, to facilitate secrecy. As a bonus it has a harsh climate.

These were all characteristics of the Soviet Gulag Archipelago as outlined by A. Solzhenitsyn.

[DLnyc]

26. how about changing the title of this thread,

since apparently AI was NOT saying what the title implies they were saying?

[Roland99]

34. Well, it's the news article title and I can't edit at this point anyway.

[stickdog]

27. BushCo: Innocent until proven guilty

Detainees picked up on BushCo's whim: Tortured until confessed guilty

[arthur_d]

28. as a russian immigrant

as a russian immigrant, calling guantanamo a gulag is really insulting to the people who were in real gulags in russia.

[Bridget Burke]

36. So--which Gulag were you in...

And how does it compare to the one in Cuba? Or the ones in Iraq & Afghanistan? Or the facilities we send the hard cases to--in countries with even lower standards than ours?

[JawJaw]

29. Double Standards Again

Of course, when Rummie comes up with a "Lordy, golly gosh, we just don't know" when asked to back up his arguement that has no basis, it's just skipped over, because he's such a nice man, who's so busy, and has to scrape by with the biggest intelligence and military resources ever seen on the planet.

[pinniped]

30. They must have sent him "the envelope."

.

[HereSince1628]

37. No, they just cherry picked Schultz's response

I saw much of the interview, my favorite line was just a little ahead of Schulz's quoted response...Wallace framed a question that went something like this:

--Ignoring sleep deprivation, stress positions, and the use of dogs to intimidate did the US starve prisoners or do things that Americans would usually recognize as torture?--

As though the first three aren't usually recognized as torture.

[symbolman]

31. Will somebody please explain to me

How we the US has sanctions against Cuba, calls Castro a COMMIE all day long, threatens to invade it now and then,

BUT we have a GULAG there and it's not a problem...

This does not compute.

[wmills551]

35. The base is separate from Castro's Cuba.

US Gov. set it up long before the 1959 revolution, we used to pay a small amount to the Cuban government to lease the space. I just don't think Castro ever was able to remove it after he took over. But then most of what I know is from that Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore Tom Cruise movie, so this may be wrong.

[jokerman93]

39. Retraction action

It makes no sense that the head of AI in America would come out suddenly on FOX channel and say they are actually clueless about the SOPs at Gitmo and elsewhere.

Now, if Bushco operated like some kind of rich white guy mafia, they'd probably launch background investigations into a number of high ranking AI officers. Someone is bound to have some dirty little secrets that could be leveraged on behalf of the Gulag system.

;-)

If not, threats do nicely too.

Whatever the case, I'm convinced the Bush administration is as dirty and corrupt as the Winter is long.

*sigh*

[ConsAreLiars]

40. "...our whole point is that the United States ought to allow independent

human rights organizations to investigate."

I guess you missed that part.