A Wall Street Journal editorial condemning Amnesty International’s description of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp as the “gulag of our time” ends with this:

It’s old news that Amnesty International is a highly politicized pressure group, but these latest accusations amount to pro-al Qaeda propaganda. A “human rights” group that can’t distinguish between Stalin’s death camps and detention centers for terrorists who kill civilians can’t be taken seriously.

Now, I’m not going to endorse Amnesty’s language; certainly there’s an important distinction between the Soviet gulag and Guantanamo. But that doesn’t make the group’s charges “pro-al Qaeda.” This is part of a long and disreputable pattern of labeling dissent as “pro-Saddam,” “pro-terrorist,” etc. since 9/11. It has got to stop.