Excuse my lack of coherence in this post, but this is the kind of thing that converts my brain tissue to water vapour and drives it out of my ears under high pressure. Some months ago, Amnesty exceeded the clear tems of its own statute by printing thousands of posters opposing the Iraq war, posters that bore (in inch-high capitals) the organization’s lies about the consequences of that war: “50 000 CASUALTIES”, “2 MILLION REFUGEES”. Hmm, acting illegally and lying to justify it, where have we heard accusations like that before?

While I might quibble about the philosophical worth of human rights “discourse”, the language of human rights can provide useful rules-of-thumb when tackling cruel regimes around the planet. Amnesty used to do a good job in highlighting and opposing abuses of such rights. Again, in contravention of its own stated principles, it has now become a political group with its own ideological agenda and—irony of ironies—it produces propaganda and misinformation of the kind that marks out the governments whose activities it criticizes.

I certainly disagree with many of the security policies adopted in the US and the UK since a War on Terror was declared, but the foreign policy strategy of these countries is none of Amnesty’s business, by Amnesty’s own definition of what its business is. Who is Irene Khan to say whether the World is a safer place or not as a result of Coalition military action? Who is she to say that those actions have not promoted liberty? Would she like to have taken her chances with the human rights prevailing in Afghanistan or Iraq before or after our military intervention in those countries? Would she like to explain her ultra vires pontificating to the people who have funded her activities?

Right now I feel the urge to stomp down the road to the Amnesty Bookshop and throw something through one of the windows, but I have to put my pyjamas on and go to bed.