Jesse and Ezra at Pandagon perform a valuable public service: they read Instapundit so the rest of us don't have to. Today they linked to this post in which Glenn links approvingly to an article by Frida Ghitis in The New Republic (subscription only, but the text is in the comments section to Jesse's post) which perpetuates the fiction that Amnesty International is so busy criticizing the USA that this is getting to be one of the "most serious emerging threats to human rights today." What did Ghitis base it on? A letter that introduced this year's annual report. Not the report itself, not the web site, not the numerous other section websites, not the many, many actions AI's members take on behalf of human rights issues that fall under AI's mandate. Just an introductory letter.
Glenn, in an effort to move away from his standard "Indeed. Heh" mode of discourse, comments that "Perhaps they should address a bit more effort to this situation" and links to what is happening in Darfur, Sudan.
Does he even bother to look to see if AI has addressed these issues? It took me all of thirty seconds to find this. I've been down this road before regarding similar claims made against AI and the belief that they are doing nothing about the ongoing human rights abuses in Sudan. It's unfounded nonsense that says more about the critics than it does about AI.
There's a solution for this. Those who are interested in living in the real world can sign up here for free and judge for themselves when they receive actions from AI as to whether they are, in fact criticizing the US at the expense of the rest of the world. You can have the additional benefit of participating in actions of your choosing and help human rights around the world. The choice is yours: participate and help or sit in the darkness cursing those who are trying to make a difference.
A little perspective on Reagan:
Reagan: Not Everybody’s Hero
By Frida Ghitis
The growing consensus emerging as the Reagan myth receives its finishing touches paints an America in despair and a world in chains before the genial actor-president came to office.
America, they tell us, was in something of a national clinical depression. Away from US shores, the masses yearned for am American Liberator. Enter the “Great Communicator,” the warm-hearted, freedom-loving Ronald Reagan. The 40th president flashed us his disarming smile, he slashed our taxes, slay the Communist empire, and rode off into the sunset, leaving us in a state of national bliss, surrounded by a world now free from oppression.
Funny thing, how the eulogies clash with the reality remembered by millions of people in the US and abroad.
When Reagan came to office, I had lived in the US a few years. I lived in a small building filled with young professionals. A couple of gay men lived above me. Suddenly, one of them, a shy but always friendly lawyer, fell mysteriously ill. We discovered he had something they called GRID, Gay Related Immune Deficiency. Later renamed AIDS, the disease quickly but cruelly killed my youthful neighbor.
Aids spread quickly and ferociously. Thousands were dying. President Reagan’s communications director, Pat Buchanan, explained that the disease somehow proved homosexuality was unnatural. The leader of Reagan’s Christian supporters, Jerry Falwell of the Moral Majority, declared the Aids was God’s punishment of gays.
Victims of Aids suddenly became victims of hatred, as well. The president said nothing. Thousands of victims lost their jobs and their families. People now filled with ignorance and hatred burned the homes of the dying, while many of the sick were refused care. Ostracism, fear and rejection became symptoms of Aids in America. President Reagan’s silence lent a seal of approval to the callousness that surrounded thousands of Americans in their final days.
Reagan may stand as a hero to millions today, but millions in other countries also remember him as the American president who supported hated dictators in Latin America and elsewhere. The Reagan administration helped financed the Central American wars that left some 300,000 dead and thousands more injured and maimed. To be sure, the Central American conflicts fit neatly into the global Cold War, but many believe rightly that Reagan fought these conflicts with unnecessary disdain for the human rights and well being of millions of impoverished people, including many who died at the hands of US-supported right-wing death squads.
To be sure, Reagan’s efforts to liberate those living under communist oppression count as a massive achievement. But if the oppression came from anywhere else, it did not give him much cause for concern.
It was Ronald Reagan who sent his special envoy, Donald Rumsfeld, to meet with Saddam Hussein in 1983. The president knew full well what kind of a man Saddam was. US intelligence knew not only that Saddam had used chemical weapons against his own people, it had told the president that the Iraqi army was using chemical weapons on an almost daily basis in its war against Iran. No matter. Reagan moved to strengthen relations with Baghdad. The State Department, under Reagan’s watch, removed Iraq from its list of country’s sponsoring terrorism, opening the door for Saddam to purchase chemical materials and missile components from American firms.
Ronald Reagan coddled the regimes that oppress their people in the Middle East. He helped arm them, and continued the shameful tradition of turning a blind eye to their abuses. That helped stoke the anger at America that now helps fuel terrorism. And when terrorists struck Americans in Beirut, Reagan quickly pulled US forces, sending a clear -- and thoroughly studied -- message that America can be defeated through terrorism.
No doubt, Ronald Reagan accomplished important and powerful victories. His single-minded defiance paid off, at the very least accelerating the defeat of Communism. He captured America’s penchant for optimism and lifted the spirits of many in this country. But his legacy is not one of unalloyed joy for the entire world. To millions of people Reagan’s overpowering characteristic was his insensitivity to suffering, so long as the suffering did not come from Communism or from taxes.
Now that his body has been laid to rest, the mythmakers should take a break. Before the finishing touches are applied on the legend, let’s get the full picture of the not-so-splendorous presidency of Ronald Reagan.
Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs
Posted by: rene alexander | June 12, 2004 at 02:24 PM