> WW has its own ideology for which I am not responsible, as I am not
> its member.
You rely on them to counter Nathan, and you seem to defend ANSWER. I didn't say you were a member, though I fail to see why you wouldn't be...
> My own charge against Human Rights Watch is not that it
> is "_neglecting repression_ of the Kurds in Turkey" but that it
> actually went so far as to help persecute them, for instance by
> pressuring the Italian and other governments to prosecute Abdullah
> Ocalan for "crimes against humanity," while merely recommending
> that the Turkish government "investigate and hold accountable those
> members of its security forces responsible for serious violations of
> international human rights and humanitarian law committed against
> the Kurds" (@ <http://www.hrw.org/press/1999/jan/tur0120.htm>).
I know the line, Yoshie. I used to pitch it myself. What sickens me is position that the prosecution of tortures and extrajudicial killings, and ethnic cleansing, should be opposed under the banner of anti-imperialism.
Turkey represses the Kurds. Duh. The empire and it's hangers on have a selective vision. No shit. None of this exonerates the freelance butchers or grants them imunity from prosecution for their crimes. The WW is acting less as anti-imperialist than as the pro bono legal defense for petty tyrannts.
> I recommend that you turn, instead, to Amnesty International
> for conscientious documentation of human rights violations as well
> as its sensibly left-wing political stance:
I'm already active in Amnesty. More so than HRW, actually.
-- Shane
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