Amnesty International is a Terrorist Organization

What other conclusion can one draw after beholding these two stories?

Amnesty Int'l Aided 9/11 Plotter

The human rights group Amnesty International - which accuses America of running a "gulag" at Guantanamo Bay - apparently aided in the escape of a key al Qaeda member who's suspected of helping plan the 9/11 attacks.

Just two months after the World Trade Center was destroyed, Amnesty issued one of its "URGENT ACTION" reports on behalf of Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who was then being detained by Jordanian security forces in connection with a planning session for the 9/11 attacks.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Amnesty complained that Shakir was being held in "incommunicado detention and is at risk of torture or ill-treatment." Saddam Hussein - the only Mideast leader to publicly praise the 9/11 attacks - also weighed in on Shakir's behalf.

"Pressure from Amnesty and Saddam Hussein worked," the Journal said. "Mr. Shakir was released and hasn't been seen since."

"Pressure from Amnesty and Saddam Hussein." Isn't there an old saying about being known by the company you keep?

But then AI isn't just in the business of freeing terrorists to return to the holy jihad against the Great Saten - they're also avid planners of terrorist acts that would, in symbolic terms, make 9/11 look like a church picnic:

If the US government continues to shirk its responsibility, Amnesty International calls on foreign governments to uphold their obligations under international law by investigating all senior US officials involved in the torture scandal. And if those investigations support prosecution, the governments should arrest any official who enters their territory and begin legal proceedings against them. The apparent high-level architects of torture should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera because they may find themselves under arrest as Augusto Pinochet famously did in London in 1998. ... [my emphasis]

Amnesty International’s list of those who may be considered high-level torture architects includes Donald Rumsfeld, who approved a December 2002 memorandum that permitted such unlawful interrogation techniques as stress positions, prolonged isolation, stripping, and the use of dogs at Guantanamo Bay; William Haynes, the Defense Department General Counsel who wrote that memo, and Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, who is cited in the memo as concurring with its recommendations.

Our list includes Major General Geoffrey Miller, Commander of the Joint Task Force Guantanamo, whose subordinates used some of the approved torture techniques and who was sent to Iraq where he recommended that prison guards “soften up” detainees for interrogations; former CIA Director George Tenet, whose agency kept so-called “ghost detainees” off registration logs and hidden during visits by the Red Cross and whose operatives reportedly used such techniques as water-boarding, feigning suffocation, stress positions, and incommunicado detention.

And it includes Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who called the Geneva Conventions “quaint” and “obsolete” in a January 2002 memo and who requested the memos that fueled the atrocities at Abu Ghraib; Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, former Commander of US Forces in Iraq, and Sanchez’ deputy, Major General Walter Wojdakowsi, who failed to ensure proper staff oversight of detention and interrogation operations at Abu Ghraib, according to the military’s Fay-Jones report, and Captain Carolyn Wood, who oversaw interrogation operations at Bagram Air Base and who permitted the use of dogs, stress positions and sensory deprivation.

And, in case you were wondering, AI's hit list does include President Bush. Though, as Ed Morrissey wearily but dutifully points out, it does not include Fidel Castro, Bashar Assad, Kim jong-Il, Robert Mugabe, the Iranian mullahs, the Sudanese butchers of Darfur, the ChiComms, etc.

It took the Cap'n to the very end of his post to notice what was day-glo obvious to me from the first sentence:

We elect our leaders, and we hold them accountable. Moreover, when we send our leaders abroad to interact with leaders of other countries, we expect those countries to extend normal diplomatic status, or to warn in advance when that status will not be extended. Violating that status by imprisoning our leaders and diplomats is an act of war against the United States. Those joining in Amnesty International's call for other nations to commit an act of war against us should be held politically accountable for their position. [my emphasis]

I would add criminally liable to that formulation as well.

Three years and nine months ago, the President said, "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists." Looks like Amnesty International has made its choice.