Dead Silence or Struck Dumb?

Charles Bird and Von on Obsidian Wings were on a tirade recently criticizing Amnesty International for criticizing the Bush administration in terms they found unacceptable. Charles subsequently became obsessed that AI does not numerically rank countries in terms of human rights abuses, making me wonder how that could possibly be a good use of AI's limited resources other than to politicize analysis of human rights abuses and please Charles.

So last month, AI released a report titled In Cold Blood: Abuses by Armed Groups, dealing with the contemptible and indefensible acts committed by insurgents in Iraq. It was the second such mention of the subject released by AI that month.  Charles and Von made a practice of basing their criticism of AI on the volume of reports and press releases, ignoring the entire grass roots activities of AI local groups, urgent actions, prisoner adoption cases, Regional Action Networks, etc.

So, what was the reaction of Charles and Von to these reports by AI: dead silence as far as I can tell.

Comments

[Joel]

Randy, these folks want ~no~ mention of human rights violations committed by the United States. Furthermore, they don't want to discuss the fact that most of the attacks on Iraqi civilians aren't being committed by the self-proclaimed Freedom Fighters but by criminal elements who, in the disastrous void created by the shock of the United States, are preying upon the innocent.

We made that world and, if we want to be fair, we should include those numbers among the atrocities committed by our own troops.

[The Heretik]

Ranking the most abusive governments? Sounds like a concept for a bad TV show. Oy.