Redstate

Here is the press release.

edited into your diary?

Any ideas on where I can find a transcript from that press conference today?

On the same dang day that I'm posting at my blog about giving AI the benefit of the doubt ..., now it sounds like they are just on some partisan attack mission after all.

What I also find interesting is that this same press release is not available on the main amnesty site as far as I can find anyway.

is has AI called for the kidnap and trial of Castro?  Kim Jong Il?  Mugabe?  Hu Jintao?  Iran's Ayattollah?  Or Assad?  I can name others that should make the list long before we reach President Bush, Rumsfeld or Rice.

They didn't make the list.

Since AIUSA is based out of New York, is calling for the arrest of US government officials and subjecting them to a court that is not recognized (ICC) an act of treason based on it being a call to overthrow the US government? If such an event were to occur, would the US government be justified in designating AIUSA a domestic terrorist organization?  Assets frozen, building raided & shut down, and arrest of AIUSA directors would be a start.

Of course this is just overblown hyperbole coming from AIUSA. Let them try to implement any of it, and I'm pretty sure they won't like the reaction of the American public (the cheering DU crowd aside).

To me this boils down to them being impotent and them trying to let everyone know that they are important (and money, isn't it always about the money).

but you can't prosecute the president in a US court-he has to be removed from office first (either by impeachment and conviction in the senate, resignation or you wait until his term is up and charge him then).

from Amnesty International (http://www.amnestyusa.org/annualreport/statement.html) and it does not specifically name George Bush as one of the people who should be kidnapped.

It does, however, list Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, and MANY others.  In doing this, AI has made itself one of the many dangerous organizations that advocate the use of force to overthrow the U.S. government, because no government can function if its officials are subject to international prosecution.  This can not stand!

You might want to try This link (which does not work in the original story, streiff).

The individuals, who, to date, have either dodged investigation or escaped sanction, include those at the highest levels of government, such as President Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, as well as Attorney General Gonzales and former CIA Director George Tenet.

I thought fiction was strange, but not any more.

Kissinger's policies may not always be just the thing, but his analysis is almost always right. He saw this kind of idiocy coming about five years ago.  Judicial Tyranny is not just about the US.

But to arrest or "otherwise deal with" Castro or Mugabe would be to interrupt their fine work as members of the UN Human Rights Commission. Iran's ayatollah, of course, is above reproach as he is the leader of a democracy, if you believe Richard Armitage.

Why the UN plays nice with dictators is obvious enough. Why the US State Department can't get its head in the game I will never really understand.

Though with their new secretary, there is some hope.

Need I go on?

See the "American Servicemembers' Protection Act" of 2002, by Section 2008 of which the President is "authorized to use all means necessary and appropriate" to effect the release of "covered United States persons", which includes members of the military, government officials, and government employees or contractors.

In other words, were a foreign government actually stupid enough to try to do this, they could potentially find themselves with Special Forces coming down the chimney.

I wrote about it here.  Schulz's comments were every bit as offensive as Khan's.

Kidnap, or "arrest"?  Is it kidnapping when, say, a drug dealer is forcibly removed from his "crib" and hauled off to the pokey?

Certainly the ICC does not have the authority to arrest Bush -- that much is obvious -- but your labelling it as "kidnapping" does nothing but make it look like we're thumbing our nose at the ICC, whic, in a post-9/11 world, we should not be doing.  The ICC could be one of the strongest anti-terrorist tools at our disposal, short of invading and occupying every country that harbors terrorists (i.e., every nation on the planet) so that we can police them ourselves.

Bush's signing on to the ICC would legitimize our efforts like nothing else.  As it stands, the world sees us as unwilling to submit to any law other than that of our own making, and the (feigned) submission to the international community would reduce anti-Americanism better than any invasion of any defensless agressor in any Middle Eastern nation.  Simply saying that we're on the side of law, order, and peace is not enough; we need to show that we're also willing to work under the ICC's auspices, even if we're only saying we're going to do it -- because, after all, the ICC could never arrest an American president (or any other American citizen), unless they have an army larger than ours.  So it's no more binding than the UN, which we signed on to and promptly ignored when they didn't suit our purposes.  Going along with ICC would be a PR victory and would not compromise our national security or sovereignty in any way -- in fact, we would likely be one of the majore forces behind the functioning of the ICC, presuming someone like John Bolton wasn't sent to them as our representative.  

But Bush's refusal of the ICC has nothing to do with anything except throwing red meat to his red base, as usual; partisanry trumps security these days.  That's fine, I've got plenty of duct tape.

Due to the fact that I've been in the process of moving, I missed it.

Also, the move has drastically shortened my attention span. So, it's entirely possible that I just didn't read far enough into the article.

The link you cite is not the actual press release by Dr. William F. Schulz of Amnesty International.  I provided a link, to that document.  However, since the article you cite comes from the AI website, and it appears to summarize the Schulz comments, it seems that kidnapping President Bush is something that AI obviously considers a plausible course of action.

The policy of the US government has been to oppose, strenuously, the ICC, and to negotiate agreements with other countries to exempt us from it.

Besides, I rather we didn't treat terrorism as a criminal matter.  That is what the ICC stands for, you know: International Criminal Court.

So no, let the ICC die, please.

Other than deliberately pissing me off, what is the point of the "drug dealer" analogy?  It has no place in this argument.  Indeed, you don't even have an argument; you have moronic talking points practically copied from Moveon.org.

When we arrest a drug dealer in, say, Reno, that drug dealer has not been abducted. He has been detained by the duly constituted authorities of our government in response to his crimes.  When one government abducts another government's leader that IS a crime, and an international outrage. But why am I even explaining that to you?  You have already proven yourself senseless and irrational.  But I'll be a monkey's uncle if I let you get away with it without a good pounding.

"Bush's signing on to the ICC would legitimize our efforts like nothing else.  As it stands, the world sees us as unwilling to submit to any law other than that of our own making, and the (feigned) submission to the international community would reduce anti-Americanism better than any invasion of any defenseless aggressor in any Middle Eastern nation. Simply saying that we're on the side of law, order, and peace is not enough; we need to show that we're also willing to work under the ICC's auspices, even if we're only saying we're going to do it -- because, after all, the ICC could never arrest an American president (or any other American citizen), unless they have an army larger than ours."

Where do I start? Firstly, the U.S. doesn't need to kiss butt for the Belgians, the Dutch, and the French in order to gain legitimacy. And are you actually arguing that we should ratify the ICC and then renege on the provisions of the treaty?  How the heck does THAT uphold international law? Moreover, what in the name of every sacred marijuana grove in Oregon is a "defenseless aggressor"? Finally, what could you possibly mean by "I've got plenty of duct tape"? It's like you aren't even trying to make any sense.

How disgusting. Maybe they should adopt the CIA rendition practices as well while they're at it,

and suggest that Bush be flown to Uzbekistan for torture.

They're known for boiling people alive for CIA:

http://207.44.245.159/article3943.htm

I'm sure they wouldn't mind if Amnesty International brought in a few, so as to

avoid the criticism on the slaughter of 1000 democracy demonstrators.

In knowing that he was actually stupid enough to advertise the fact that he was a previously banned user, and therefore won't be around long enough to cause you much more heartburn.

It was originally the United States that started the ICC lobbying.

We once backed the Kyoto Protocol, too, but administrations change.  Under Bush, we oppose it.  So, we've opposed the ICC for over 4 years now.  This is nothing new.

So we're only going to feign to respect the law?

We're still going to torture and kidnap people

around the world to be tortured?

I can not say how much this kind of talk disgusts

me. Are we not worth our word? Are we not worth the respect of the world? Instead you suggest we somehow need to abstain from respect for the law.

I see no reason at all to not respect the laws.

I see no reaons at all to feign anything.

This is what disgusts me the most about the republicans. So many are cavalier about lying and cheating others and making it sound as if that is something to be proud of as American.

This is exactly what America is hated for in the world. The fact that our word's value has come down to the softness of the paper that they're printed on.

I for one am disgusted by the comments that Americans are should not hold themselves upto the

promises we have given.

That includes Treaties Against Torture the the Treaties on International Human Rights.

If you can't stand and by and honor these treaties with the rest of the Americans, then go join the other terrorists who don't give a damn about treaties.

The respect of America is at stake. I for one will not tolerate such disgrace.

...

As for Bolton representing U.S. - Saddam Hussein would make an equal for a job where you need to coach people to work together on human rights. - Both would equally accomplist NOTHING. If that is the U.S. intention on sending Bolton as their U.N. representative, then that is fine. Otherwise, get someone with street credibility, who hasn't called for the destruction of the institution where he is going to work at.

We can do better than him, if we want to accomplish something at the U.N.

Where this kind of tripe is not only acceptable, it's welcomed. They'll even overlook the absolute incoherency of anything you say, because it seems to convey the general idea that BUSH IS BAD. They will even cheer the incredibly outlandish (and since deleted) post that you made to the effect that Bush should be carted to Uzbekistan and boiled.

Unfortunately, this is not that site.

As for Bolton representing U.S. - Saddam Hussein would make an equal for a job where you need to coach people to work together on human rights. - Both would equally accomplist NOTHING.

Given that the UNCHR includes the representatives of Fidel Castro, Omar al-Bashir, and Robert Mugabe, breaking some heads strikes me as an important intermediate step on the road to cooperation and consensus on human rights.

Re: "This is what disgusts me the most about the republicans. So many are cavalier about lying and cheating others and making it sound as if that is something to be proud of as American."

I would bet my left nut that Jason of Cascadia is not a republican.  The nature of the post kind of makes that obvious. Don't assume he belongs to the GOP just because he posts here.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/annualreport/statement.html


-bro

That link is just the one containing the Shulz quote, I'll see if I can dig up the howie and harry show.
-bro

that Clinton's administratoin was the first to opt out of participating in the ICC, and the Bush just continued that policy.

I think this is the correct policy though.  I am not too keen on some internation court that isn't answerable to our constition is a very scary proposition.

http://www.amicc.org/docs/Clinton_sign.pdf

Apparantly the US signed the treaty, so they could continue to be a part of discussions and negotiations on what the jurisdiction of the court would be.

But Clinton recomended that the treaty not be presented to congress for ratification by his successor(s) until the US could see how the court operated.

When Bush took office he withdrew the signature, and made it clear he had no intention of presenting the treaty for ratification.

You were more right than wrong.  The U.S. (under Clinton) voted against the creation of the ICC treaty in Rome in 1998.  You can see the Human Rights Watch press release here.

Also, the reason that Clinton signed the treaty (note the date -- not only at the end of his second term, but also the last allowable date for countries to sign onto the treaty) was not because he supported it or expected it would be ratified.  It was just one of the many final hour acts of his administration used to try to score legacy points without having to actually deal with the consequences.

getting or looking for more links.

The ICC could be one of the strongest anti-terrorist tools at our disposal, short of invading and occupying every country that harbors terrorists (i.e., every nation on the planet) so that we can police them ourselves.

The ICC does not one thing for prevention.  It's all after the after the fact.  We don't need it because we already have a system of checks and balances.

The discussion on this and other threads has discussed a number of issues:

Whether "gulag" is an accurate and/or fair term to apply to Guantanamo and Baghram.

Whether the ICC has any jurisdiction over US officials.

Whether Amnesty International is just another lefty NGO.

What noone, to my knowledge, has addressed here on RS is the actual substance of the claims made in the AI report.  I haven't been following as closely as in the past, perhaps I missed that discussion.  If anyone is actually interested in reading the AI report in question, it's here.

It's arguable that our handling of detainees falls outside of US and international law.  That exposes Americans to prosecution under war crimes and other laws.  That is why the changes in interrogation protocol introduced and championed by civilian leadership in the Pentagon and elsewhere have been consistently questioned and resisted by non-civilians.  None of this may make you happy, but it's simple fact.  

There's also not a lot of point in faulting AI for pointing any of this out, or for advocating that existing laws be respected and enforced.  That's what they do.  What they're calling for -- openness and transparency in the handling of wartime detainees -- does not seem, to me, to be an extraordinary demand.

Cheers -

I appreciate your thoughts here. I think my pro-Bush conservative credentials are pretty well in order, and yet I also find myself giving a break to Amnesty here. If a meteor lands on New York I'm not going to call outer space anti-American. Amnesty makes their reports as they always have.

The gulag analogy is incorrect, but not evil.

As for the arresting of American leadership ... objectively, there's nothing false about saying that if American leaders were guilty of war crimes, international law allows for their arrest. Objectively, this is merely a statement of law.

I do however, wonder about that single press release that makes these points. It's only on the New York base Amnesty International USA web site that I can even find it. I wonder if it was composed by the local office.

I mean, how surprised would any of us here be to find that a New York liberal bled his blue state blue blood onto a document and just couldn't resist adding that in. I mean, wasn't Christopher Hitchens making such assertions about Kissinger not all that long ago? And Hitch is no idiot, and has shown himself to favor U.S interests over Islamic fundamentalism quite strongly.

I just think we should all be careful here. Amnesty International, not the New York office, are the ones that composed the report. After all the years of non-partisan, genuine human rights protection, they should at least get the courtesy of having their reports read all the way through by those who would be their accusers.

I wish I could go back and make them not say Gulag. I wish they could have let the points about international law go unsaid aloud, as they really profit nothing. But I still say we have to read the report. We should want to be green-lighted by groups like AI.

I know. You can't always get what you want. This could be some big partisan hack job against Bush. I know that. But I refuse to call it that if I haven't even read the entire report.

After looking around, flexing my GoogleFu, I still can't find the transcript of the dean/durbin/reid thing.  I don't think its likely to show up either, normally they are out within a day or two.
-bro