Moral inequivalence

Elliott Abrams asks:

What does one make of organizations that wish to see former President George W. Bush behind bars, but have never expressed similar sentiments about Fidel Castro, Vladimir Putin, Bashar Assad or Hassan Nasrallah?

Those organizations would be Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which just this week asked Canada to try to prosecute Bush “for his role in authorizing the torture of detainees.” They issued their statements now because Bush is soon to visit Canada again. The Human Rights Watch press release is entitled, “Canada: Don’t Let Bush Get Away With Torture.”

No surprise there. While Bush was president, the young people who stopped you in the street in Oslo to ask you to support Amnesty International never mentioned Castro, Putin, Assad, and company – no, they always got your attention by calling out the same words: Guántanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bush.