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Lol nah. I agree with their work when it comes to promoting public awareness of certain things and getting other countries to help out by using the people's voice. But as for things I don't agree with, their name pretty much spells it out - Amnesty. They released people who could be potential threats to public in the past as part of backdoor deals with different organizations - they love to negotiate. Their stance on death penalty is also another thing I don't agree with; unlike them, I don't believe it's worth risking the safety of other innocent people in hopes of "rehabilitating" certain criminals and I strongly believe that some people are better off dead.

Understandable...those are pretty core beliefs to have to compromise. But everyone negotiates in the real world, it's the only way to get anything done, especially when you're dealing with hostile states or groups. It's a lot of gray, and much less black and white.

Anyway, our conversation reminded me of a really cool interview I heard on NPR the other day with Bobby Graham's son, I forget his name. His evangelical Christian charity has been working in southern Sudan since the 90's (maybe in the late 80's too). The ICC just recently issued an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir (the president of Sudan), and NPR was asking why his charity group was continuing to negotiate with Bashir. Basically, he said, He's the guy in charge. Sometimes you just have to deal with who's in power because that's the reality on the ground. Yea, he's a terrible person, he bombed one of my hospitals, but who's going to come down here and arrest him?

I'm bad at paraphrasing, the whole interview is much better. Compromising in humanitarian crises is never easy. Could you imagine trying to negotiate with someone you know tried to bomb you? Very gray indeed. I don't think I could do that

The world was never clean and never will be. That is why I choose not to get involved in these matters.

Reminds me of that incident with the Lord's Resistance Army where the regional government ignored the ICC orders to arrest their leaders and instead supplied them with food, water, and maybe some ammunition as well. The LRA is well-known for kidnapping, torturing, and sexually assaulting children; not to mention their habit of hacking people's limbs off for different "reasons" such as riding a bike on Sabbath day. I've read one witness' report of their activities: the person narrating was a young boy (I don't remember the age but it was certainly under 12); he and other kidnapped children were forced to torture and kill one of their playmates for attempting to escape. The LRA then forced them play "catch" with the boy's head after chopping the body to bits - the head was displayed in the middle of the camp so everyone can see it. The details of the story would be enough to leave some people haunted knowing that this happens on a daily basis. What surprises me is that the people responsible for this are not that hard to find yet they are still wandering around doing their usual routine. The world's a pretty fucked up place, I know.

theres something called excessive force. Philadelphia police have been known to gun down people, like shooting a full clip and reloading to shoot some more, over very minor offenses or sometimes none at all. Im not going to she needs to get hit cause that goes for alot of ppl but im not going to take her side.


Excessive force was clearly used. That officer took clear advantage of his authoritative position and power and grossly misused it imo. Like i said everyone probably deserves a spanking but i hate to see the people we place in charge to protect us think that they are somehow above us....

Those stories are so heartbreaking. No one should ever have to grow up or live like that.

There's a lot of reasons why no one arrests those people, but I'd venture to say the top two are fear of retribution and money. When the rebel group has more firepower than the local militia (or in some cases, the actual centralized "army") there's not a whole lot they can do. In other cases, the local governments are being bribed to be ineffective.

And sometimes when someone tries to do something, like the ICC and Bashir, it only makes the violence towards the people affected on the ground worse. I saw today he's expelling all the aid groups from Sudan (including DWB). There will probably be a surge in violence soon.

And wow we derailed this topic ei?