Bush vs. Amnesty International (and English)

President Bush got a little testy with Amnesty International today:

Asked about the recent Amnesty International report that censured the U.S. human rights record in detaining suspected terrorists, Bush reacted sharply, commenting on the criticism personally for the first time.

"I'm aware of the Amnesty International report, and it's absurd. It's an absurd allegation," Bush said. He said the United States "is a country that promotes freedom around the world" and fully investigates accusations of mistreatment "in a transparent way."

Bush said that "we've had thousands of people detained" and "we've investigated every single complaint against the detainees."

He added, "It seemed like to me they [Amnesty International] based some of their decisions on the word of and the allegations by people that were held in detention, people who hate America, people that have been trained in some instances to disassemble, that means not tell the truth."

Yes, you know all about "disassembling", don't you, Mr. President?

Amnesty didn't wait long to respond:

What is 'absurd' is President Bush's attempt to deny the deliberate policies of his Administration, which has detained individuals without charge or trial in prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Air Base and other locations. What is 'absurd' and indeed outrageous is the Bush Administration's failure to undertake a full independent investigation, and that completed reports into human rights violations in these prisons remain classified and unseen. The network of secret detention centers operated by the US around the world must be opened to scrutiny by independent human rights groups and those responsible for torture, no matter how senior, must be held accountable. It is also worth noting that this administration never finds it 'absurd' when we criticize Cuba, China, or when we condemned the violations in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

It's also absurd that the Washington Post (along with many other mainstream press outlets) didn't bother to note that Bush only responded to charges of detainee abuse, and did not address any of the other rather uncontroversial facts about the US record that Amnesty included in its report. Indeed, that's the saddest part of this story — many of those violations have resulted from policies that this administration has fought for proudly and publicly.