I Have No Idea

On Sunday, Fox News host Chris Wallace conducted an interview with Amnesty International executive director, William Schulz. The interview was conducted after last week's comments by the secretary general of Amnesty International who stated in a report "Guantanamo has become the gulag of our times, entrenching the notion that people can be detained without any recourse to the law." The "gulag" was a slave labor camp that was responsible for over 1.6MM deaths. During the interview, Chris Wallace asked the executive director if this was a fair comparison to which Schulz replied, "there are no similarities between US detention facilities and the gulag." Then why the analogy in the first place? The report also noted that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales were considered "architects of torture" and according to remarks by Schulz, they should think twice about traveling abroad or they would be arrested just like Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator responsible for the deaths and/or disappearance of over 3,000 of his own people. When Chris Wallace asked if Schulz stood by his comparison of Rumsfeld and Gonzales as brutal dictators, Schulz replied "No." On a final note, Chris Wallace asked if Schulz had any evidence that Rumsfeld approved of starvation, beatings and other forms of torture, Schulz again contradicted himself by saying "fascinating to find out...I have no idea." How is it that a spokesperson for a highly respected organization such as Amnesty International can get away with making false statements and accusations?

Schulz should be glad he wasn't interviewed by a blogger. In fact, many of the blogs on this topic, including redstate.org and The Political Teen are are far more intolerant than Chris Wallace when it comes to the irresponsible comments made by Schulz.

I agree with the overall principle of Amnesty International who works to protect human rights worldwide however comments such as this turn me off. In addition, I think Amnesty International has lost invaluable credibility as it continues to attack President Bush and the Administration without substantive evidence.