# Dick Durbin says sorry - will those who supported his comments say sorry too? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 21, 2005, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275 "2005-06-21T23:57:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/101 "2005-06-22T16:21:00Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Change “Kim Jong-Il” to “Saddam Hussein” and “Korea” to “Iraq, circa 1999” in the above. And yet, we’re in Iraq, and not in Korea, which is arguably the more dangerous and inhuman regime. Funny, that. > [@](#): > > **Miller** , I take your point, but this attitude is creating a _de facto_ double standard between the civilized countries of the world, and terrorist regimes like North Korea. Jeanne Kirkpatrick made a related point in her book, [Dictatorships and Double Standards](http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/608/Dictatorships%20and%20Double%20Standards%20:%20Rationalism%20and%20Reason%20in%20Politics.htm). > > Regards, > Shodan Personally, I don’t have a problem with the US being held to a higher standard than North Korea. Maybe I’ve just got more faith in our ability to meet it than you do. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/102 "2005-06-22T16:23:14Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > And, hard as I’m sure this is for you to believe, I agree with you. Its all bad. But…its not all the same. Because two things are bad, does not make them the same. > > -XT On the other hand, **xtisme** , as I read somewhere else on the net, debating about differences in degrees of torture is like debating about differences in degrees of incest. Well, if you only got head from your sister, but didn’t nail her in the ass, I think you’re in the clear. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/103 "2005-06-22T16:34:03Z")
> [@Hentor the Barbarian](#): > > On the other hand, xtisme, as I read somewhere else on the net, debating about differences in degrees of torture is like debating about differences in degrees of incest. Quite true…if we were talking about differences in degree. But we aren’t really, as you should know. Thats why I used the Lubyanka prison analogy…THERE you have a difference in degree between it and Gitmo. Nazi death camps and Gulags are set up for a completely different purpose. The torture there is almost incidental…its really not the purpose of the camp, which was to extract labor (in the gulag example) or to extract labor as a secondary purpose to causing the inhabitants to die as efficiently as possible. Thats not a difference of degree…its a fundamental difference of type. Gitmo isn’t a camp thats set up with the purpose of extracting labor…or the purpose of systematically killing its inhabitants in an as efficient manner as possible. Its set up to extract information and to keep potential terrorists imprisoned for as long as possible, thus keeping them out of circulation. But I did enjoy your sister analogy. Very droll. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/104 "2005-06-22T16:44:39Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > And yet, we’re in Iraq, and not in Korea, which is arguably the more dangerous and inhuman regime. Funny, that. True, we are. On the other hand, do you think the attitudes of North Korea might be affected by seeing what became of Saddam Hussein, as (for instance) Libya seem to have been? > [@Miller](#): > > Personally, I don’t have a problem with the US being held to a higher standard than North Korea. Maybe I’ve just got more faith in our ability to meet it than you do. Not exactly a higher standard - ISTM you were suggesting that NK should be held to no standard at all. Part of my point was that it is not true that we can do nothing about the abuses of terrorist regimes. We can, and (in some instances) we should. But if we adopt the attitude that “nothing can be done about Kim Jong-Il, so let’s reserve all our moral outrage only for comparatively lesser and unsystematic abuses closer to home and give the real monsters a pass”, then it will be true that terrorist leaders will care nothing for us. It seems many of the serious assaults on the peace of the world come from those who believe that the rest of the world will do nothing - the invasions of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Kuwait, and South Korea, for instance. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/105 "2005-06-22T16:45:14Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > And, hard as I’m sure this is for you to believe, I agree with you. Its all bad. But…its not all the same. Because two things are bad, does not make them the same. > > -XT I think I said something about ‘orders of magnitude’ in my quote. Still, if I were asked the question Dick Durbin asked, I would say, “Germany or Russia” rather than the U.S. because what’s been going down in Gitmo is a lot closer in my mind to those places, than to the U.S. I know that people have been tortured in US prisons on occasions, but I never heard of that happening with official sanction all the way from the top. Whole different animal … one I do not wish to be a part of. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/106 "2005-06-22T16:51:47Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Its not good to focus so much on bashing the US that you lose site of other atrocities out there. No ‘wah, wah, wah’ no ‘just hate America’ strawmen needed. And who has lost site of other atrocities? People generally start Pit threads on new revelations - such as when new allegations and new twists on the Gitmo and Abu Ghraib stories come to light. Have there been any new twists on torture in North Korea? Any new stories? No? > [@](#): > > Um…I was trying to make a point, but one that is obviously lost on you, as from your reply you are just knee jerking with your standard tape recording screed of anything you think is ‘conservative’. I saw your point. Your point was mindless lefty bashing, couched in some attempt at nuance. > [@](#): > > For the record I DON’T agree with whats being done at Gitmo, I DON’T think the US is right to hold those folks without a chance to defend themselves, and I DON’T think the US should be resorting to full scale torture. I’m sure you don’t. But you also appear to me more than willing to shrug your shoulders at it and say, “You lefties are paying too much attention to this. You should stop being America haters who only complain about American atrocities and focus on others for a while.” > [@](#): > > (ironic because this is usually some foam I hear coming from a ‘conservative’ talking to a ‘liberal’). Where do you think I picked up the turn of phrase? Lefties need to start turning conservative rhetorical devices back on their opponents. It’s the only way they’ll ever start moving back into office. > [@](#): > > Unfortunately for you my green card days are long passed and I AM an American citizen…so on that score you can blow it out your ass. Whoop-de-do. > [@](#): > > If you actually read what I wrote IN CONTEXT, then you would see that I’m NOT excusing any action or torture…certainly not by the US. Sure you are. You’re giving passive excuse to it. “Sure, they tortured, and, sure, it’s bad, but it’s not as bad as other people, so try not to mention it so much.” By the way, props on the whole “insults in the quote box” thing. Very original. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/107 "2005-06-22T16:54:39Z")
Durbin giving in makes me crazy. He was right. Getting hysterical about it is bullshit. The Democrats in Congress have GOT to grow and KEEP some fucking balls. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/108 "2005-06-22T16:57:38Z")
> [@Spavined Gelding](#): > > This is all, of course, just stupid. If you people want to engage in a pre-adolescent pissing match like a bunch of hormone crazed junior high school thugs you are welcome to it. > > What the Senator said was: This thing is more like A than it is like B. The response from people who may or may not like “this thing” was to trumpet to the high heavens that the Senator had equated A and B, said that A and B were the same thing. Clearly he did not. It serves some people’s interest to say he did. The Senator took the easy way out. No credit to him for that. One more win for the bullshit machine. No honest discussion of the merits of the FBI report the Senator was relying on. Just bullshit. > > We went through the same thing with Amnesty International with a similar level of intellectual dishonesty. > > All I ask around here is a little honesty. I’m not seeing much of that. And so I drop by to do my semi-annual “Spavined, you are brilliant and I adore you, thank you for being here.” post. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/109 "2005-06-22T16:59:51Z")
> [@5que](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Originally Posted by DirkGntly > > Americans don’t believe in torture or abandoning due process for American citizens. > > Ever hear of Jose Padilla? > [cite](http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/060104_ns_padilla.html): What makes you think all Americans support the government’s treatment of Jose Padilla? In other words, yeah, I’ve heard of Jose Padilla. Thanks for giving us another example of tactics recently used by our governement which appear much like those utilized by the Nazi party! What makes anyone think that criticising the treatment of prisoners at Gitmo means we’re not against the government of North Korea? We’re allowed to have multiple opinions about multiple topics, last I checked. Just because we’re seeing frightening similarities between our government’s actions and those of the Nazi party doesn’t mean we support the psychopath in North Korea. What the fuck do Jose Padilla or North Korea have to do with Gitmo? The strawmen in this thread are forming ranks and threatening to take over. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/110 "2005-06-22T17:18:38Z")
Let’s put on our _realpolitik_ cynical glasses for a minute. Don’t much like them, but they can sometimes lend perspective. We _had_ to know this shit was likely. Only a moron would not have realized that this is a situation wherein “Caesars wife must be above suspicion” because any opening, however slight, offers aid and comfort to our enemies. If we had to “Gitmo”, we should have bent over backwards, double, if needed. We should have _invited_ international scrutiny, Red Cross, Red Crescent, and yes, Amnesty Int. Videotaped _every_ interrogation and made the tapes openly available. That fellow who started losing his marbles and tearing his air? Whisked _immediately_ to a mental ward or hospital, to be treated by _Muslim_ therapists. Don’t allow the _smallest_ chance for disinformation! Needless to say (I hope), even the _slightest_ disrespect for religious symbols is _right out!_ We should have set brutally high standards for ourselves, and rigorosly enforced those standards, openly, publicly, and without so much as a _hint_ of reluctance. It was shatteringly obvious that any covering up would be instantly of service to our enemies. We don’t have to worry about what our enemies think, we have to worry about what people think who are _not yet_ our enemies! The same rigorous standards that would have protected us against lies would equally protect us from failing to meet our own standards. After all, if we aren’t willing to be the Americans, who will? If not us, who? If not now, when? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/111 "2005-06-22T17:21:09Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > True, we are. On the other hand, do you think the attitudes of North Korea might be affected by seeing what became of Saddam Hussein, as (for instance) Libya seem to have been? I’ve not seen any evidence that this is the case. > [@](#): > > Not exactly a higher standard - ISTM you were suggesting that NK should be held to no standard at all. Part of my point was that it is not true that we can do nothing about the abuses of terrorist regimes. We can, and (in some instances) we should. Short of military intervention, no, we can’t do anything about the abuses of terrorist regimes. Do you think we should invade North Korea? No? Then what’s the point in talking about how awful North Korea is? > [@](#): > > But if we adopt the attitude that “nothing can be done about Kim Jong-Il, so let’s reserve all our moral outrage only for comparatively lesser and unsystematic abuses closer to home and give the real monsters a pass”, then it will be true that terrorist leaders will care nothing for us. > > It seems many of the serious assaults on the peace of the world come from those who believe that the rest of the world will do nothing - the invasions of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Kuwait, and South Korea, for instance. > > Regards, > Shodan Do you think that Hitler would have stayed out of Poland if there had been more anti-Nazi rallies in London? Seems pretty unlikely, to me. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/112 "2005-06-22T17:27:47Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > And so I drop by to do my semi-annual “Spavined, you are brilliant and I adore you, thank you for being here.” post. Harumph. Intelligent, incisive, closely reasoned. Pretty much ok, paragon-wise. Got that whole Orville Redenbacher thing going on. Probably wears a bow tie. ---
**Author:** ![5que](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/3bc359/32.png) [@5que](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5que)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/113 "2005-06-22T17:31:19Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > What makes you think all Americans support the government’s treatment of Jose Padilla? In other words, yeah, I’ve heard of Jose Padilla. Thanks for giving us another example of tactics recently used by our governement which appear much like those utilized by the Nazi party! The point was to DirkGntly that American Citizens are being denied rights of due process; it’s not just them foreigners at Gitmo. And I don’t see the American public making a big deal about Padilla, so I assume they are supporting the government’s actions. Please quote me where I mentioned Nazis (or North Korea, or …) ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/114 "2005-06-22T17:46:28Z")
My response from the [“How is Gitmo a gulag” thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=318632&page=1&pp=40): > [@Me](#): > > The OP reminds me of when PETA was trying to compare the Chicken Industry with the Holocaust and failed miserably in the process. They would have been more successful if they had compared the Russian Gulag with the Holocaust, but alas, that would not be on their agenda…which is what we have here…erroneously comparing Gitmo with the Gulag. Not comparable in the death, lack of food, clothing, medical care that the Gulag had neglected to provide for DECADES, not just a couple of years. Millions died in the Gulag in a deathspiral from lack of food, lack of proper clothing, and long hours of hard labor. > > Now if Gitmo still kept the prisoners, starved them, exposed them to weather extremes and made them build thousands of miles of road, rail, and waterways with a healthy number of power plants and dams and resupply the dead prisoners with fresh prisoners from the Middle East for at least a couple of decades, then I will agree with AI. > > I’m sure AI could picked a better fit for what’s going on at Gitmo, but that would not satisfy their agenda to overstate the abuse at Gitmo in attempt to bring quicker resolution. **That in turn diminishes the pain, suffering, starvation, slave-labor that men women and children endured in the Gulag as well as the Jewish Holocaust victims and survivors who suffered horrificly at the hands of the Nazis**. I do believe there are some abuses at Gitmo, but nothing comparable to the Gulag. My bolding. I guess I need to a little further on why I feel this way. I actually took the time a few years ago to talk to a friend’s mother who is a holocaust survivor (who lost 10 of her relatives from the Aushwitz concentration camp), and her story on what she endured would not match ANY story from a current survivor of Gitmo, should I be ever get a chance to talk or hear from one. Rather than surround myself with the bullshit from both sides of the aisle, here on the SD and from our country’s representatives, I actually took the time to know what an actual death camp is through the first hand account of a person who lived through it when other members of her family didn’t. So, when I hear some of you mock each other about whether Gitmo is like a Nazi Death camp or not, I just see some posters here who have no qualms about being deceitful to match their party’s lines. I have lost respect for you. Comparing a Gitmo to a Nazi death camp is total exercise in dishonesty…sure, torture happened at both sites, but while that’s the main divisive point at Gitmo, it was just one of many atrocities at a Nazi death camp. Take the time to seek a holocaust survivor and talk to them to give yourself a better perspective. Really, it would help you make better comparisons in the future…honest comparisons that is. Finally, for the last two years, I feel I have been an abandoned citizen by the dishonesty of both parties…they are far from worthy of my vote in the forseeable future, and virtually none of you are helping the matter at all. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/115 "2005-06-22T18:29:15Z")
> [@5que](#): > > The point was to DirkGntly that American Citizens are being denied rights of due process; it’s not just them foreigners at Gitmo. I agree. It simply seemed as if your subtext was “And so therefore we can see that Americans believe in torture or abandoning due process for American citizens and that this means that outrage abandoning due process for foreigners is not important or unAmerican.” This is not true. If this was not the underlying sentiment, then I apologize. > [@](#): > > And I don’t see the American public making a big deal about Padilla, so I assume they are supporting the government’s actions. Yes, well, our news outlets do get clogged up with stories of runaways brides, don’t they? Nevertheless, a quick Google of Jose Padilla reveals multiple sources of websites, editorials and straight journalistic sources decrying the treatment Padilla has received, and calling for the government to either charge him or release him. Not the least of these is when the “U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals declared that the Bush Administration lacked the authority to designate a U.S. citizen arrested on U.S. soil an “illegal enemy combatant” without clear congressional authorization (per 18 U.S.C. § 4001(a)); it consequently ordered the government to release him from military custody within thirty days[4] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos�\_Padilla#endnote\_reuters1](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%E9_Padilla#endnote_reuters1)). However, the court has stayed the order pending appeal.” ([(from Wikipedia)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Padilla) > [@](#): > > Please quote me where I mentioned Nazis (or North Korea, or …) Ah. You didn’t, and I apologize that the formating in my post made it appear as if my entire post was a reply to yours. In the second paragraph of my post, I was replying to the general North Korea hijack of the thread, since I wasn’t able to pin down exactly where it started. In the third and final paragraphs, I was addressing both the Padilla issue and the North Korea issue with one blanket “so what?” because I think that both are irrelevant to the discussion of the government’s treatment of prisoners at Gitmo, and most especially irrelevant to Dick Durban’s statements and the recants regarding that treatment. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/116 "2005-06-22T19:01:41Z")
> [@newcrasher](#): > > Dick Durbin says sorry - will those who supported his comments say sorry too? Nope. His words were misinterpreted but not inaccurate. I’m not a politician who has to keep millions of people happy so I’ll repeat that the reports out of Gitmo and the other prison camps are FAR more reminiscent of the treatment of political prisoners in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia than they are of the America I want to be proud of. And I am not referring to the death camps, whose sole purpose was genocide. He should have made that clearer AND the morons who misunderstood should have figured it out on their own before jumping to conclusions or listening to those evil people who chose to misinterpret for their own political gain. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/117 "2005-06-22T19:45:14Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Short of military intervention, no, we can’t do anything about the abuses of terrorist regimes. Do you think we should invade North Korea? No? Then what’s the point in talking about how awful North Korea is? I mentioned Libya, which we have not invaded, nor threatened to do so. Yet Ghaddafi has agreed to divest himself of WMDs. IIRC, he did so a few days after the invasion of Iraq. It is hard to avoid the suspicion that Ghaddafi took a good long look at what happened to Saddam, and decided it wasn’t worth the risk. In the same way his sponsorship of terrorism trended sharply downward after Reagan bombed the crap out of him after the terrorist bombing in Rome. But why should we talk about terrorist abuses abroad? For this reason - Ghaddafi’s infant daughter was killed in the bombing raid Reagan ordered. Isn’t that a dreadful thing? Yes, of course it is. But if we shrug our shoulders and say, “there is nothing we can do about foreign human rights abuses, and let’s not talk about it or worry about it”, we are then pushed to condemn, not Libya in the 80s for sponsoring terrorism, but the US for responding to it and killing a little girl. Same thing in Iraq. Were the incidents at abu Gharib dreadful things? Sure they were. Were they at all comparable to what Saddam did in the same prison for decades previously? No, of course not, and willful blindness to one side of the moral equation does nothing to balance it. And that’s what comparisons to the Nazis or the gulags do - they show a kind of willful blindness that distorts the thinking. It’s sort of like Mel Brooks’ description of the difference between tragedy and comedy. > [@](#): > > Comedy is where you fall down an open manhole and break your pelvis. Tragedy is where I get a cut on my finger. Same thing here. Gulags and torture are where some assholes at one prison in Iraq play what amounts to nasty pranks on Iraqi prisoners. But Saddam’s security forces breaking people’s arms with clubs and cutting out their tongues and rape - That’s nothing. Let’s not talk about it. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/118 "2005-06-22T20:00:20Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Nope. His words were misinterpreted but not inaccurate. I’m not a politician who has to keep millions of people happy so I’ll repeat that the reports out of Gitmo and the other prison camps are FAR more reminiscent of the treatment of political prisoners in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia than they are of the America I want to be proud of. > > And I am not referring to the death camps, whose sole purpose was genocide. He should have made that clearer AND the morons who misunderstood should have figured it out on their own before jumping to conclusions or listening to those evil people who chose to misinterpret for their own political gain. Horseshit. Whatever happened to…“Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Otherwise, don’t say it.” That should apply to any public representative, of any political background. You owe it to your constituents/citizens at least that basic level of respect. Otherwise, you’re part of the problem, not part of the solution. How’s this example for being misinterpreted: Any home in America that serves food is like Gitmo since they serve food there, so it can’t be that bad. Am I being inaccurate or misleading? Uh, yeah. Another horrible comparison and quite dishonest, just like other idiots who use the Nazi and gulag references. Durbin is no better than Bush in that regard. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/119 "2005-06-22T20:03:10Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > …It is hard to avoid the suspicion that Ghaddafi took a good long look at what happened to Saddam, and decided it wasn’t worth the risk… Actually, its quite easy to avoid such an infection of disinformation with the vaccine of fact. Ghaddaffy Duck had been in negotiation over his possible return to good graces for quite some time before the invasion. A factoid which has been pointed out in these boards on any number of occassions, yet somehow seems to have eluded you. > [@](#): > > …but the US for responding to it and killing a little girl… Considerable question about that, as well. > [@](#): > > …No, of course not, and willful blindness to one side of the moral equation does nothing to balance it… There is no “moral equation”. Wrong is wrong, it doesn’t get less wrong by any process of comparison. Only if you are suggesting that our commission of crimes somehow is to be taken as retribution and correction of Saddam’s crimes. But I doubt even you would try to float such a lead balloon. > [@](#): > > …And that’s what comparisons to the Nazis or the gulags do - they show a kind of willful blindness that distorts the thinking… There was no such comparison. Period. Full stop. Durbin’s words were twisted into that shape for partisan purposes. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275/120 "2005-06-22T20:08:32Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Same thing here. Gulags and torture are where some assholes at one prison in Iraq play what amounts to nasty pranks on Iraqi prisoners. But Saddam’s security forces breaking people’s arms with clubs and cutting out their tongues and rape - You’re absolutely disgusting. Completely. If I met you in person after this I would be hard-put not to spit in your face for continually and disingenuously ignoring the difference here, that difference being that this absolute SHIT is being done IN OUR NAME! NOTHING Saddam did excuses what members of the US military are doing IN OUR NAME at Gitmo, what they did at Abu Ghraib, what they’re doing at other military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, whatever the HELL is happening to prisoners being held by their home countries at the request of the Administration. The tu quoque fallacy doesn’t work, anywhere, but especially not here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-durbin-says-sorry-will-those-who-supported-his-comments-say-sorry-too/309275.md?page=7)