Tiresome

You know, I like the Oxbloggers even if I don't always agree with them, but this is just tiresome:

MORE ON SUDAN: As genocide continues - and as human rights organizations continue to ignore it, preferring instead to comfortably attack the United States - Dan Geffen has more on the possible European response.

UPDATE: A former Oxford amnesty member emails in

OK, admittedly it's not as thorough as one would like (and dated 3 February so they are taking their eye off the ball) but still a step up from "ignoring" it...

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAFR540102004

How's Trinity at this time of year? Do the ducks still nest next to the
porter's lodge near Staircase 1?

Hope you're feeling better,

MP

Thanks!

It's also patently false. Here's a screencap of the Amnesty International USA web page from today:

The very first thing there is about what is going on in Darfour, Sudan. Here's a screencap of the French Section's website:

See where it says "Soudan: Victimes civiles dan le Darfour." Here's a screencap of the main Amnesty International website:

On the left side four places down is a a link to a press release stating "Sudan: UN fact-finding mission must have full access and investigate reported extrajudicial executions in Darfur." I cannot possibly see on what basis Patrick Belton considers this to be ignoring Sudan.

I e-mailed Patrick Belton about this and to his credit he responded "I had a feeling I'd hear from you on this!" There's good reason for that: I took Patrick to task for that before and his claim was just as baseless then as it is now. I have no problem with someone leveling genuine criticism against AI. There is nothing in the world that is so sacrosanct that it cannot stand up under criticism, but if you manufacture criticism that really withers under the onslaught of truth, you weaken your argument and you cross the line from criticism to animus. We should be better than that.

Matthew Yglesias and Atrios weigh in on this as well.