No Amnesty for Amnesty International

When I was at Boston College, I enrolled in a Communications course for the Spring 1980 semester. It was a pretty good course, held at night. We had several presentations by special guests, and the one that I'll always remember was a presentation by Amnesty International. It was stunning. Although I've misplaced (probably lost during a move) much of the info that was provided along with my notes from the session, I recall being practically inspired by the speaker and some of the atrocities that she was talking about. Inspired enough to wonder whether or not that type of work was in my future (the reporting, not the torture!). For years afterwards I'd attend any local Amnesty event, and donated as much as I could.

My how things have changed. What was the admirable organization in 80s that I wanted to get involved with is now a reactionary, far left wing NGO non-profit that is probably the leader in attempting to smear the United States in the eyes of the world. It is no longer an organization that deserves to take itself seriously. I've always thought that a great idea for an investigative piece would begin with the following supposition: that the leftist enemies of the United States, who found that they were losing the battles with America both policy-wise and public relations-wise, became determined to take over the then respectable mantles of international organizations such as Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and various United Nations entities, and turn those organizations against the US.

As David B. Rivkin and Lee A. Casey explain in an article on NRO this morning, even the Washington Post thinks that Amnesty International has lost its mind with the release of the 2005 Annual Report. Both the NRO article and the Washington Post editorial are must reading, but I think that the Post sums it up best when it says:

"IT'S ALWAYS SAD when a solid, trustworthy institution loses its bearings and joins in the partisan fracas that nowadays passes for political discourse. It's particularly sad when the institution is Amnesty International, which for more than 40 years has been a tough, single-minded defender of political prisoners around the world and a scourge of left- and right-wing dictators alike. True, Amnesty continues to keep track of the world's political prisoners, as it has always done, and its reports remain a vital source of human rights information. But lately the organization has tended to save its most vitriolic condemnations not for the world's dictators but for the United States."