Bush Blasts Amnesty Report, Russia

Check this out: In the same press conference where Bush calls Amnesty Internationalâ??s report on Guantanamo â??absurd,â?� he also blasts Russia for sending a man to prison, saying â??it looked like he had been judged guilty prior to having a fair trial.â?� No bitter irony here.


Bush blasts Amnesty report on Guantanamo

The Associated Press
Updated: 11:56 a.m. ET May 31, 2005

WASHINGTON - A human rights group's report about conditions at the U.S. military's prison at Guantanamo Bay is "absurd," President Bush told reporters Tuesday.

The Amnesty International report, released last week, said prisoners at the U.S. Navy base had been mistreated and called for the prison to be shut down.

The president, addressing a news conference at the White House, said the Amnesty document was an â??absurd report.â?�

â??Itâ??s absurd. Itâ??s an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world,â?� Bush said of the report, which compared Guantanamo to a Soviet-era gulag.

He said the Amnesty allegations were based on interviews with detainees, who hated America and were trained to lie.

Bush's remarks echoed similar criticism by Vice President Dick Cheney.

â??Frankly, I was offended by it,â?� Cheney said in the videotaped interview with CNN's Larry King. â??For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just donâ??t take them seriously.â?�

Washingtonâ??s defense of its detention and interrogation practices comes after weeks of international criticism and violent protests by Muslims outraged at reports â?? which the Pentagon says are false â?? that an interrogator at Guantanamo had flushed pages of the Quran down a toilet.

Iraq defense

On other issues, Bush said the fledging Iraqi government is â??plenty capableâ?� of defeating terrorists whose attacks on Iraqi civilians and U.S. soldiers have intensified.

â??What youâ??re seeing is a group of frustrated and desperate people who kill innocent life and we obviously mourn the loss of every life, but I believe the Iraqi government is plenty capable of dealing with them,â?� Bush said at a Rose Garden news conference.

Bush spoke after separate air crashes killed four American and four Italian troops in Iraq. The governor of Anbar province, taken hostage three weeks ago, was killed during clashes between U.S. forces and the insurgents who abducted him.

On another foreign policy issue, Bush said he expressed concerns with Russian President Vladimir Putin about legal proceedings against former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Once the richest man in Russia, Khodorkovsky was convicted Tuesday of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to nine years in prison following a trail widely denounced as politically motivated.

Bush did not comment directly on the verdict, but said, â??it looked like he had been judged guilty prior to having a fair trial.â?�

The president said he has questioned whether the case shows a backsliding away from the rule of law and democracy in Russia and said it will â??be interesting to seeâ?� how Khodorkovskyâ??s expected appeal is handled by the government.

â??Here, youâ??re innocent until proven guilty and it appeared to us, at least people in my administration, that it looked like he had been ajudged guilty prior to having a fair trial,â?� Bush said. â??Weâ??re watching the ongoing case.â?�

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8046041/

why wouldnt he bash that left wing joke of a group.what are they gonna do?nothing thats what.amnesty should join the aclu on the list of worthless groups who help nothing.

amnesty,hahahahaha.what a joke.fuck those liberal idiots,no one cares what they have to say anyway.

for the record,THE GENEVA CONVENTION DOES NOT APPLY TO THOSE CAPTURED.IT NEVER WILL.not that it was torture anyway.lol.

My point: We have been holding people at Guantanamo for years without access to our legal system, some have finally been released because they were found to be innocent, and Bush has the audacity to say â??Here [in America], youâ??re innocent until proven guilty and it appeared to us, at least people in my administration, that it looked like he had been ajudged guilty prior to having a fair trial.â?�

they arent americans,they get a military tribunal,the guilty ones will be hung,will mistakes be made?sure.

he said that because khodorkovsky was also a political opponent of putins.putin cant let go of the kgb days.

people need to get over gitmo and abu great.fuck em.they started a war we will finish however we choose.cause we can.amnesty international is a joke.fuck them too.

you sure dont hear much coming out of the Hague?these kind of RIDICULOUS RANTS are typical of a left wing extremist group such as the amnesty international.

Get back to work.

today is pretty slow,my boss is out of the office on buisness so most of us are playing playstation in our think room.

Well, shit, I was thinking up all kinds of replies to what I thought you might post back (don't ask), and you come back with that, and crack me up. What can I say? I'm working out of my home and playing a lot of PS2.

im sure you assumed i was a neo-con?

I know you to be very conservative on a lot of issues, since I've been lurking around here for quite awhile, and that you are prone to one-liners guaranteed to stir up liberals, although there doesn't seem to be any liberals anymore, because I rarely see any admit to it - at least not on the boards I frequent.

I'm pretty much a Liberal Libertarian, depending on what we're discussing. Neo-con ... hmmm. I guess the only ones I apply that to are the ones running our country, who I can't stand. I'm sure my gut reaction to Bush is similar to that most conservatives feel toward Wm. Clinton, who was a sell-out to the Liberal cause, much as GWB is to the Conservative cause.