George Soros, Saddam Hussein, and Human Rights

Clive Stafford Smith, a British human rights lawyer, is campaigning to ensure Saddam Hussein gets a fair trial, unlike his tens of thousands of victims. Smith's previous gig was to ensure that human rights were being observed at Guantanamo, courtesy of a grant from the George Soros Foundation (hat tip to little green footballs by way of Power Line). For those who don't know or don't remember, Soros is the genius who equated Abu Ghraib with 9/11. Let's see, posing and dressing a few people in a humiliating fashion versus mass murder on a gigantic scale - yep, seems about right. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for human rights, but as I've said before, the most basic human right is to live. I don't lose too much sleep over the treatment of murderers.

To get some idea of the mindset of Soros and the 'Progressives' who worship him, take a look at the opening of this profile in the New Statesman:

George Soros is angry. In common with 90 per cent of the world's population, the Man Who Broke the Bank of England has had enough of President Bush and his foreign policy. In a recent article in the Financial Times, Soros condemned the Bush administration's policies on Iraq as "fundamentally wrong" - based as they were on a "false ideology that US might gave it the right to impose its will on the world". Wow! Has one of the world's richest men - the archetypal amoral capitalist who made billions out of the Far Eastern currency crash of 1997 and who last year was fined $2m for insider trading by a court in France - seen the light in his old age? (He is 72.) Should we pop the champagne corks and toast his conversion?

After reading that, I don't know whether to hold Soros or his profiler Neil Clark in more contempt.

Where is the outrage from Soros and other human rights advocates towards the atrocities committed by our enemies? What could be more outrageous than the beheadings of hostages? Where is the outrage over the Islamic fundamentalists' treatment of women? Where is the outrage over suicide bombers killing people who were going to the supermarket, to work, or out for an evening of fun?

The United States is not perfect, but Soros knows better: there are literally dozens of countries that violate civil and human rights in the most egregious manner. The 'campaigns' for Saddam Hussein and the detainees are not about human rights; they are about publicity for a tired old rich man who spent $27 million of his own money to defeat George Bush, money that could have gone a long way towards really improving human rights in the areas that need it most.