At 12:03 PM 1/13/02 +0100 J. van Baardwijk wrote:
>That is frightening. I can accept that you would believe that some
>violations are worse than others (I would actually agree with you on that),
>but I find it scary when people believe some human rights violations are
>not serious.
Well, if you are going to consider #1 and #2 to be "violations of human
rights", I find now other description for them than to be "not serious."
>>Let us consider the following human rights that are possibly at issue here:
>>1) The right of a prisoner, who was trained to crash airplanes into
>>buildings, to not be shackled, restrained, and/or hooded during a 20 hour
>>flight on an airplane.
>
>>2) The right of a prisoner, who was trained to crash airplanes into
>>buildings, and who also attempts to resist peaceable transport to trial on
>>a 20-hour airplane flight, to not be sedated.
>
>How do you know that those prisoners were trained to crash airplanes into
>buildings? Can you quote a source on that, or a source that says all AQ and
>Taliban members received that kind of training?
Fine, remove that line from #1 and #2. It does not change a thing.
Of course, I would also refer you to the Mazar-e-Sharif prison riots as an
example of the typical training of Al Qaeda henchmen.
>>*If* these are violations of human rights
>
> From Amnesty International's letter to Donald Rumsfeld:
>The UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form
>of Detention or Imprisonment states that: "The term `cruel, inhuman or
>degrading treatment or punishment' should be interpreted so as to extend
>the widest possible protection against abuses, whether physical or mental,
>including the holding of a detained or imprisoned person in conditions
>which deprive him, temporarily or permanently, of the use of any of his
>natural senses, such as sight or hearing, or his awareness of place and the
>passing of time".
>
>I would think that this qualifies as convincing evidence of human rights
>abuses in this matter.
I find it completely unconvincing, and indeed, I again find Amnesty
International's positions to be off the deep end.
The only thing in the above that applies to the current situation is the
use of hoods.
In my opinion, if the use of hoods to ensure safe transport in an airplane
of dangerous prisoners is an abuse of human rights, then that simply means
that someone wrote a bad definition of human rights.
>>these are violations of
>>human rights of the most minor and insignificant sort.
>
>And therefore they should not be condemned? Let's say one of your
>neighbours gets murdered, and an other neighbour's car is stolen. We will
>all agree that both are crimes, but that the first one is significantly
>more severe than the second one. Just because the car theft is a relatively
>minor and insignificant crime, should your local police force only handle
>the murder case, and ignore the car theft?
I would actually consider both of them to be major and significant crimes.
A much better example would be a person who's friends suffered a fall in a
rock-climbing accident. This person then drives at speeds well above
posted speed-limits to get the friend to an emergency room vs. murder or
grand theft.
>>Whatever resources
>>Amnesty International devoted to these violations would almost surely have
>>had a greater net effect on the well-being of humanity had those resources
>>been directed towards the human rights abuses of at least a dozen other
>>countries.
>
>So, if other countries violate human rights, then we should protest, but if
>the US violates human rights we should ignore it? Even if those violations
>are relatively minor compared to violations in some other countries?
Just keep things in perspective.
JDG
__________________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
"Our campaign against international terrorism does not represent some
sort of 'clash of civilizations.' Instead, it is a clash between
civilization and those who would destroy it." -Amb. Richard N. Haass
