Amnesty in 'Merican

While listening to the imutable Bill O'Reilly last night, I was struck by the force of some of his absolutism. That the "US is not just rounding up" people, calling them insurgents, and inprisoning them. That there's "No torture" in the military treatment of prisoners; that the military has "behaved magnificantly: name one thing that the military has done wrong;" and that the image of the US as a torturing and abusive prison warden does no damage to the US internationally [but only because it hurts America more to have a too-forgiving, compassionate America. His argument is a skewed version of relativism, which O'Reilly does so well: admonishes out reltavistic arguments in his combatants, offer a simple, clear cut, definitive alternative interpretation, and then back that argument up again with the same relativism he's just admonished. Classy.] The Talking Points Memo that corresponds to the episde I'm discussing can be found here.

The AntiCentenarian has no particular qualm with Bill O'Reilly, other than what we assume to be obvious [ie: That Bill O'Reilly's hypocritical, reductionist, bullying argument does little good], but I was struck by how unappologetic this stance is. To deny that the military has had any faults at all is to deny, for one thing, that Abu Ghraib is bad [Limbaugh: "Just some kids blowing off steam!"] in terms of human rights, international relations, or simple dignified civilization. To deny that the military has undertaken any actions against any persons in these wars other than those who have tried to kill us is to deny the fact of this, or this, or this. The problem to discuss is not whether these events occur, but whether Bill O'Reilly's absolutism builds a false awareness in the mainstream American culture.

And then, of course, there's this bombshell dropped just earlier this week from those vicious Amnesy Internationalists:

"The USA, as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyperpower, sets the tone for governmental behaviour worldwide," she said. "When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity."

She said practices such as the detention without trial of more than 500 men at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba undermined US moral authority and had damaged the Bush administration's ability to put pressure on other countries for progress on human rights.

"The detention facility at Guantánamo Bay has become the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law," she said. " Guantánamo evokes memories of Soviet repression."
Ms Khan likened the Bush administration's practice of holding unregistered prisoners, or "ghost detainees", at secret locations to tactics deployed in some Latin American countries.

The US government's use of dubious terms such as environmental manipulations, stress positions and sensory manipulation to describe the treatment of prisoners amounted to "cynical attempts to redefine and sanitise torture", she said. She also criticised what she said was the UK's acceptance of intelligence derived by torture in certain circumstances.

"To say in a 21st-century democracy that torture is acceptable is to push us back to medieval ages," she warned.

And suddenly, Mr. O'Reilly, it becomes evident that, yes, others do believe that what we're doing may be dangerous and damaging for generations to come.