Gitmo a Gulag? Maybe, Maybe Not Says Amnesty International Director

Amnesty International must have gotten all the splashy headlines they require for the present moment--William Schulz, the Director of AI who called Donald Rumsfeld a "high-level architect of torture" and Guantanamo Bay a "gulag," now says, according to Reuters, that he does not know whether Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved severe torture methods such as beatings and starvation. "It would be fascinating to find out. I have no idea," says Schulz. How can one be accused of being the "architect of torture," while at the same time the accuser admits he has no idea?

Schulz says "We don't know for sure what all is happening at Guantanamo and our whole point is that the United States ought to allow independent human rights organizations to investigate." On the one hand, we don't know what is going on, yet on the other, the US is running a gulag...is this William Schulz or Sergeant Schultz? He also said he has "absolutely no idea" whether the Red Cross has been given access to all the Guantanamo prisoners...

The ICRC says this:

"Geneva (ICRC) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been regularly visiting the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay since early 2002 for the purpose of monitoring that persons held there are treated in accordance with applicable international laws and standards.
It also enables those detained at Guantanamo Bay to remain in contact with their families by means of Red Cross messages. " (Bold supplied).

But Schulz has "no idea." Yet even though his phrase of the day seems to be "I Know Nothing!" he continues to say there are a few things he does know--"The United States is maintaining an archipelago of prisons around the world, many of them secret prisons into which people are being literally disappeared ... And in some cases, at least, we know that they are being mistreated, abused, tortured and even killed."

If the pattern continues, next week Mr. Schulz will be asked how he knows that, and he will reply, "I have no idea..."