Amnesty International: Evil and must be destroyed.

Abdul Alhazred

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Amnesty International is evil and must be destroyed.

Non-violently of course. It will be sufficient to starve the beast.

Suspension of Conscience
Christopher Hitchens in Slate

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This organization is precious to me and to millions of other people, including many thousands of men and women who were and are incarcerated and maltreated because of their courage as dissidents and who regained their liberty as a consequence of Amnesty International's unsleeping work. So to learn of its degeneration and politicization is to be reading about a moral crisis that has global implications.

Amnesty International has just suspended one of its senior officers, a woman named Gita Sahgal who until recently headed the organization's "gender unit." It's fairly easy to summarize her concern in her own words. "To be appearing on platforms with Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender," she wrote, "is a gross error of judgment." One might think that to be an uncontroversial statement, but it led to her immediate suspension.

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Amnesty International is evil and must be destroyed.
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????? Hitchens raises a reasonable point, and from what he has written, I agree with it, unless someone can come up with evidence he is wrong. He calls for AI to be pressured that it is wrong in this case, and should change. Somehow you have misrepresented Hitchens article entirely to state that AI is evil and must be destroyed.
 
So let me get this straight: The Taliban is so evil that if a member of your organization ever appears in public in a context of approval or even tolerance of someone who has anything nice to say about the Taliban, your entire organization is evil and must be destroyed. Because the Taliban is that evil.

That would, by my calculations, make the Taliban among the most evil organizations in the history of the world (second only to the Crusaders, who spread Christianity by the sword--which, as we all know, is the most evil act possible).

Or is it that Amnesty International, having taken a position of disapproval towards the Taliban, cannot have one of its members appear in public in a context of approval or even tolerance of someone who has anything nice to say about the Taliban. Because Amnesty International, unlike any other organization, has positions of such shining, glorious righteousness, that anything less than perfection taints the entire organization, making it evil and deserving of destruction.

This would, by my calculations, make Amnesty International the holiest organization in the history of the world. In fact, it would be infinitely holy, such that any slip and it would fall infinitely short of perfect holiness, thus being evil and meriting destruction. But why AA would single Amnesty International out for such distinction (and therefore such repudiation) is a mystery to me.

Anyway, the whole thing is silly. If we're going to talk about evil organizations that should be destroyed, obviously we should start with PETA.
 
I "single out" Amnesty because there happens to be a news story about them.

You want a disclaimer? OK here goes. Other people are stinkers, too.
 
Abdul Alhazred said:
I "single out" Amnesty because there happens to be a news story about them.

You want a disclaimer? OK here goes. Other people are stinkers, too.
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You single out Amnesty International as evil and deserving of destruction because a member of their organization appeared in public in a context of approving of or tolerating someone who was supportive of an organization Amnesty International disapproves of?

And your excuse for this is that other people are evil and deserving of destruction, too?

Of course you singled out AI because it's in the news. It's not the singling out I question, it's what you've singled them out for that I wonder about. I mean, it's not like you've never compromised your own principles, or given the appearance of doing so, is it? Should we also put you on the list of evil people who should be destroyed?
 
As I read it, the problem is that AI suspended/removed one of it's top officials - one whose specific area was gender (protection of rights of women, I assume) - for daring to point out it was not good form for other members to sit on a platform with a thing whose whole organization, as part of it's basic belief system, wants to keep women uneducated slaves with no rights and no hope. If I am correct, they committed not one, but two idiocies. Or three if you consider the Taliban's ideas on treatment of criminals (such as those dangerous people who try to leave the Muslim religion). Sorry, bend'em over and .....
 
I don't know why Amnesty International should be destroyed, they've done a lot of good work protecting dissidents and getting political prisoners freed
 
I don't know why Amnesty International should be destroyed, they've done a lot of good work protecting dissidents and getting political prisoners freed
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You mean in the old days before they became corrupt, or recently?

Sorry pal. They have graduated to promoting mass murder. How much protecting "dissidents" makes up for that?
 
I don't know if AI is evil or needs to be destroyed, but they have certainly lost their way over the past decade or so.

Salman Rushdie:
Amnesty International has done its reputation incalculable damage by allying itself with Moazzam Begg and his group Cageprisoners, and holding them up as human rights advocates. It looks very much as if Amnesty's leadership is suffering from a kind of moral bankruptcy, and has lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong.
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fuelair said:
As I read it, the problem is that AI suspended/removed one of it's top officials - one whose specific area was gender (protection of rights of women, I assume) - for daring to point out it was not good form for other members to sit on a platform with a thing whose whole organization, as part of it's basic belief system, wants to keep women uneducated slaves with no rights and no hope. If I am correct, they committed not one, but two idiocies. Or three if you consider the Taliban's ideas on treatment of criminals (such as those dangerous people who try to leave the Muslim religion). Sorry, bend'em over and .....
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This. It's not "a member of AI happened to appear on a platform with someone who supports the Taliban"; rather, it's "after the above happened, a key member of AI suggested it was probably not a good idea, and the AI promptly binned her for it" that elevates AI to Not My Money status.
 
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