December 01, 2004

Pentagon, analysts hit anti-U.S. bias at Red Cross

The International Committee of the Red Cross is breaking with tradition by publicly criticizing the United States for the way it handles terror suspects, say Pentagon officials and outside experts.
    
On at least two occasions in recent months, the ICRC overtly criticized the Bush administration for detaining suspected Taliban and al Qaeda fighters without giving them access to judicial proceedings. The administration has deemed them "enemy combatants" and not members of a formal military organization that would give them the rights of prisoners of war.
    
And yesterday, the New York Times reported on what it said was a Red Cross confidential report detailing the purported abuse of detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A Pentagon spokesman issued a statement denying that its personnel mistreat or torture inmates at Guantanamo, where the United States is holding 550 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban members.
    
Andrew Apostolou, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said he cannot recall the European-based ICRC ever criticizing other governments, including the regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, so harshly.
[Not only did they give Saddam a complete pass, but they continue to ignore horrible abuse in the prisons of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to give just the Middle Eastern examples.--Jen]
   
 "The problem is they are applying a double standard to the U.S.," said Mr. Apostolou, whose think tank conducts research on the war on terror. "The fact of life is they never undertook these sorts of activities in the recent past against flagrant human rights violators."
    
A Pentagon adviser, who asked not to be named, said in his dealings with the Red Cross, there is always an attitude that "al Qaeda had a moral equivalence to the United States. They didn't trust anything we said."

Asked whether there is a belief inside the Pentagon that the ICRC harbors an anti-U.S. bias,, the official answered, "Absolutely."
[And I, for one, agree with them! It is flagrant.--J.T.]
[...]
But conservatives see a different pattern when it comes to how the ICRC comments on U.S.-held prisoners in Iraq and terrorists.
    Some reports have leaked to the press, although the Red Cross denies that it released them. In other cases, the organization has issued public statements lambasting the United States.
    
Mr. Apostolou said the Red Cross is getting pressure from more publicity oriented human rights groups to pummel Washington. And, he said, there is a mantra within some of these organizations that says, "Al Qaeda is weaker than the United States, ergo al Qaeda must be the aggrieved party. ... I think since September 11, human rights groups have been very hostile to what the U.S. has been doing."
[This is obvious to all but the blindest Leftist or Liberal Kool-Aid drinker.--Jen]
    
Frank J. Gaffney, a senior Pentagon official in the Reagan administration who is president of the Center for Security Policy, noted the irony of the ICRC pushing for the rights of al Qaeda terrorists when the Red Cross' mission is to safeguard civilians in time of war.
    
"I find it not only extraordinary, but deeply reprehensible that the ICRC is engaged in this kind of effort to protect and promote the interest of people who clearly have no interest in the fate of civilians," Mr. Gaffney said. "The International Committee of the Red Cross has become, I believe, an agitation operation against American interest for some time, and it should hardly come as a surprise to anyone who has followed their work that they are hostile, if not downright contemptuous, of American security concerns and requirements."
[Mr. Gaffney's comments are even more meaningful if one remembers that this pummeling of the USA by the ICRC has gone on simultaneously with obvious enemy atrocities like the senseless murder and beheadings of civilians in Iraq like Margaret Hassan and Nick Berg.]
[...]

 "We did not bring hundreds of innocent civilians off the battlefield," Army Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, who commands the Guantanamo facility, told the Associated Press. "If you listen to every story, I think you'll hear a common drumbeat of this person who tells you he was a rug merchant or whatnot. I think it's all part of a deliberate effort to mislead and to deceive."
    Some released detainees have gone back to the battlefield in Afghanistan to try to kill Americans and their allies, the Pentagon says.

In addition to the ex-Gitmo detainees who've gone back to fight in Afghanistan, some of the others who've been released have gone back to Europe to wage jihad in Eurabia.
IOW, we haven't seen the end of the "fruit" these
"humane" Red Cross efforts will bear.
If we win this war, it will be be either because we do it in spite of the ICRC's attempts to thwart us or because they will get religion sometime soon and realize that the Americans and their Allies are the Good Guys!
Meanwhile, the WashedUpPost continues their part of this jihad against America by continuing their fatwa on the Pentagon and its "sanction" of the "abuse" at Abu Ghraib:
U.S. Generals in Iraq Were Told of Abuse Early, Inquiry Finds.
In deciding who has the moral high ground about these issues, think back to 2 weeks ago when all the MSM would show us was 24/7 footage of the Marine shooting the "unarmed civilian" in Fallujah, but chose not to air the tape of Margaret Hassan being shot in the head by Zaqarwi's band of killers, which was made available to them the same day.
The Islamofacists have gotten the MSMedia and Leftist groups like the ICRC to do their fighting for them when formal weapons and armies aren't available to them--it's cheaper and much less work than fighting and dying.