How is Gitmo a 'gulag', and is this a boy cries wolf scenario

[hildea]

furt
<The topic seems to have drifted partly to prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan>

I wouldn’t expect perfect police work under those conditions. I don’t expect the military to have either time or expertise for the same gathering of evidence as that done by experienced police in a non-chaotic country. What I do expect is an attempt to at least move in the right direction. It would be a lot worse than perfect justice, but it’s not like we’re anywhere near perfect justice now, is there?

And it’s precisely because I don’t want a fall-back to, or continuation of, the Saddam (and Taliban) practices that this is vital. (“Fall-back” assumes that the ordinary police has risen enough that there’s any distance to fall. I’m not convinced we can take that as given.) To change the culture of people who’ve been doing something one way all their lives, to change fundamental principles in how they view something as basic as human rights, is a long uphill battle. You don’t make any progress if you show by example that basic human rights don’t apply when it’s hard, only when it’s easy.

As for being grateful to US for taking problems off their hands: Karzai, at least, has asked for Afghan prisoners to be turned over to Afghanistan.

And I don’t mistake either country for peaceful. Nevertheless, US is not at war with them, US is (supposedly) trying to help put down uprisings against the governments. These governments have major legetimacy problems among their populations. A major ally who is violating basic rights doesn’t improve that.

Returning to Gitmo, as you did: If you see the enemy blurring the line between peace and war, and you see that as a bad thing, why do you advocate helping them do it? This “not criminal, not PoW” contributes to some major blurring in itself, not to mention the whole “War on Terror” rhetoric. Your version, “War on Muslim Fundamentalism”, is more specific, but I’m having problems connecting it to reality. For one thing, it misses those who fight US on political grounds. Secondly, it includes peaceful Muslim fundies, as well as violent Muslim fundies who fight against groups or governments which US isn’t interested in helping. I suggest “War Against Bad Guys Who Target USA” or “War Against Those Who Are Against Us” as more descriptive. (It ought to be possible to get a good acronym out of there, somehow.)

New Iskander
You missed the “Worldwide: In custody of other governments at behest of USA. Unknown: estimated at several thousand detainees”. I read the total 70 000 as those currently held due to the “War on Terror”, which would mean that AI estimate those “several thousand” as somewhere in the neighborhood of 58 000. I’d be deligthed to be shown that I’m wrong, the 12 000 held in US facilities are far too many on its own.

@New Iskander

Well, “We’re certainly not perfect”, either. Would you compare your country to GULAG? Neither would we. You find it oh so facile to understand and excuse your own shortcomings, but you absolutely refuse to understand what we are going through. I wonder why?

There are atrocities in Norway’s past, there are serious human rights violations in Norway’s present. I can understand some of the shit done by Norwegians, just as I can understand some of the shit done by Americans, and others. “Understand” does not equal “condone”.
If you were to use “gulag” or similar strong words when criticising my country, I’d probably be surprised, and I might get defensive. But first and foremost, I’d be extremely interested in hearing the facts about the case, and if I agreed with you that there was some kind of abuse going on, I assure you I’d be a hell of a lot more pissed at whoever was responsible for the problem than I’d be at you for (mabye) using exaggerated language to get my attention. I have plenty of reasons already to do my best to vote the Prime Jellyfish out of office in September, but if there’s some shit being done by my government in my name, I want to know about it.

noanswer42, there’s some serious topic drift here. I suspect I’m at least partly responsible. Can you explain what you meant with your comment about US prisons?

[furt]

@hildea

furt
<The topic seems to have drifted partly to prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan>

Where do you think the guys in gitmo were captured?

And I don’t mistake either country for peaceful. Nevertheless, US is not at war with them, US is (supposedly) trying to help put down uprisings against the governments. These governments have major legetimacy problems among their populations. A major ally who is violating basic rights doesn’t improve that.

My point in this thread has never been to argue that the way things are being handled now is the ideal or even my preferred method of dealing with it; it probably isn’t.

What I was objecting to is/was the implication that what is being done is illegal by some standard. There’s a mountain of difference between illegal and unwise.

Your version, “War on Muslim Fundamentalism”, is more specific, but I’m having problems connecting it to reality. For one thing, it misses those who fight US on political grounds.

These things are never exact. Not all fascists were part of the Axis; and not people fighting for the Axis were fascists. Nonetheless, I feel comfortable calling WWII a war against fascism.

[hildea]

Captured? Mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan, sure, but also in other parts of the world. IIRC Gambia and Bosnia were among the countries listed in the AI report.

What I meant by topic drift is that the thread asked about those held in Gitmo, but a lot of our discussion is more relevant for those who’re held in US-run camps in Iraq and Afghanistan. For one thing, it wouldn’t be a huge practical burden to run trials for the few hundred held in Gitmo, but the several thousands held in Iraq might pose a challenge for Iraq’s legal system.

What I was objecting to is/was the implication that what is being done is illegal by some standard. There’s a mountain of difference between illegal and unwise.

Ah. I’ve been arguing partly the morality of what’s going on, and partly along pragmatic lines. The current practice may work, sort of, short term, but seen in a long term perspective it reminds me of a Norwegian saying on the wisdom of pissing your pants to keep warm.
From a legal point of view, I believe your Supreme Court has made several rulings which have been pretty scatching about what’s going on at Gitmo, but I don’t remember the specifics off hand.

[New_Iskander]

@hildea

You missed the “Worldwide: In custody of other governments at behest of USA. Unknown: estimated at several thousand detainees”. I read the total 70 000 as those currently held due to the “War on Terror”, which would mean that AI estimate those “several thousand” as somewhere in the neighborhood of 58 000.

There are also credible reports about hundreds of people ground for hamburgers and scores of people cut up for steakes, not to forget eyewitness accounts of Rumsfield eating alive baby twins, boy and girl.

As a word of caution, those reports, as true as they sound remain unconfirmed at the present moment, so sorry, no cites.

[New_Iskander]

…the head of the Amnesty International USA said on Sunday the group doesn’t “know for sure” that the military is running a “gulag.”

“It would be fascinating to find out. I have no idea,” Schulz told “Fox News Sunday.”

[RedFury]

Asked about the comparison, Schulz said,

“Clearly this is not an exact or a literal analogy.”

“… But there are some similarities. The United States is maintaining an archipelago of prisons around the world, many of them secret prisons into which people are being literally disappeared … And in some cases, at least, we know that they are being mistreated, abused, tortured and even killed.”

“And whether the Americans like it or not, it does reflect how the more than 2 million Amnesty members in a hundred countries around the world and indeed the vast majority of those countries feel about the United States’ detention policy,” he said.

Bingo!

[New_Iskander]

I “don’t know for sure” whether <…> is a biggest ass that ever graced this world, “but it would be fascinating to find out. I have no idea”.

[elucidator]

Let us specify that AI’s use of the word “gulag” was ill-advised. I am not a citizen of Amnesty International, hence I am directly concerned. Nonetheless, when it comes to watchdogs, I’d prefer one that barks prematurely to one that barks too late.

We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, while simultaneously stepping on our collective dick. Our detentions, and the circumstances surrounding those detentions, should have been entirely transparent. Even if we had nothing to hide (a proposition I view with vast skepticism), our secrecy gives the impression of hiding.

But it becomes increasingly apparent that we did, indeed, have things to hide. This would be a disgrace for any nation, but more so for the nation that purports to (and should) be the standard for humane conduct and human rights.

It is bad enough that we earn our own revulsion. But for reasons of perfectly cynical realpolitik, this sort of behavior is neutron density stupid. Day by day, we move those unfriendly to us to become committed enemies, and silence those who might have spoken for us.

There is nothing, but nothing, as stupid as recruiting allies for one’s enemies.

[Pjen]

From the Christian Science Monitor:

The image war over US detainees

"If nothing else, Amnesty International’s use of “gulag” in relation to US actions may bring home to the administration just how much other nations’ perceptions of US morality have declined.

"They’re trying to jar the [US] system and say, ‘You’re doing what the Soviets did, remember them?’ " says Perkovich.

In responding so quickly, the administration may have shown that it understands the damage already done to the US reputation. After all, geopolitical power, if it is to be sustained, requires not just hard military might but the absence of hostile resistance, notes Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis in a recent Foreign Affairs article on the Bush administration’s grand strategy.

“This is what was missing during the first Bush administration: a proper amount of attention to the equivalent of lubrication in strategy, which is persuasion,” writes Gaddis."

Job done i’d say.

[Apos]

It’s certainly interesting that there is a group which obviously cares about morality and human rights, and then there is a group that spend it’s time crying in outrage because someone dared not to use a euphamism for what they tacitly support. Is Gitmo a gulag? Not in the sense that nothing that isn’t exactly like what Soviet Russia did is a gulag.

Then again, I bet when people in Russia complained about the gulag and used some other historical reference to condemn it, there were those thugs who hemmed and hawed and raised holy whine about the misuse of the word, to the exclusion of any actual confronting of the reality of the matter.

[DocCathode]

@Apos

Then again, I bet when people in Russia complained about the gulag and used some other historical reference to condemn it, there were those thugs who hemmed and hawed and raised holy whine about the misuse of the word, to the exclusion of any actual confronting of the reality of the matter.

I bet when people in Russia complained about the gulag, a friendly agent from th KGB showed up and told them not to question the wisdom of the state. If they continued to complain, they ended up in the gulags.

[Squink]

Rumsfeld on the prisoners at Guantanamo:

“Our desire is not to have these people. … Our goal is to have them in the hands of the countries of origin, for the most part,” Rumsfeld said.

That ellipses is annoying, but the full text of Rumsfeld’s remarks aren’t available yet.
From this however, it sure doesn’t sound as if the inmates are quite the intelligence asset that some have made them out to be.

U.S. Wants Gitmo Prisoners Held at Home

[Apos]

@DocCathode

I bet when people in Russia complained about the gulag, a friendly agent from th KGB showed up and told them not to question the wisdom of the state. If they continued to complain, they ended up in the gulags.

In Soviet Russia, you not go to gulag, gulag come to you!

Meanwhile, this is our country’s legacy of freedom and civil liberty in funny format:

So You’re Being Tortured To Death In An American Military Prison!
Q: Help! I’m being tortured to death in an American military prison! What should I do?
A: First of all, you should get your facts straight. You’re not being tortured to death in an American military prison; you’re being interrogated to death in an American detainment facility. America does not tolerate torture.

Q: Is there any sort of legal representative or due process I could get before being beaten to death?
A: No. Lawyers, open legal procedures, and basic civil liberties are all tools the enemy can use to escape justice - the justice of being beaten to death in a prison camp.
Q: It’s just that my name is Musab Mohammed Khan, the pastry chef, and I believe you have me confused with Musab Muhammed Khan, the al Qaeda associate also known as “The Fist of Jihad.”
A: First, there are many terrorist pastry chefs, just as there are many terrorist pastries. Second, competent intelligence and accurate prison records are both tools the enemy can use to escape justice.

Q: I seem to be losing all feeling in my lower body. Is there a doctor in the gulag?
A: Please: we find the term “gulag” absurd and offensive. A “gulag” is Russian. You are not being interrogated to death by Russians. You are being interrogated to death by the greatest country in the world.
Q: Is there a more accurate term you’d pre- aaaa! AAAAAAAA!
A: We prefer “outpost of liberty” or “island of freedom.” Stringing together Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram Airbase creates the Freedom Archipelago.
Q: So! Much! FreeedaaaAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGH!!!

Q: When I die in a few minutes, will my death help the cause of freedom?
A: Not really. But in a way, isn’t death itself just freedom from life - the greatest prison of all?
Q: Wow… you’ve HRAAACK totally blown my mind - and my lung and ribcage and my kneecaps!
A: Oh, don’t thank us - it’s all part of being tortured to death in an American military prison!

http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2005/06/so-youre-being-tortured-to-death-in.html

[elucidator]

Wow, that is savage satire! Brilliant! Kudos!

[suranyi]

@Pjen

Let me just repeat my quote from the Pulitzer Prize winning author, the standard work on the Gulags:
From ‘Gulag, A History’, Anne Applebaum, Random House and Allen Lane:

'Over time, the word ‘Gulag’ has also come to signify not only the administration of the concentration camps but also the system of Soviet slave labour itself, in all its forms and varieties: labour camps, criminal and political camps, women’s camps children’s camps, transit camps. Even more broadly, ‘Gulag’ has come to mean the Soviet repressive system itself, the set of procedures that prisoners once called the ‘meat-grinder’, the arrests, the interrogations, the transportation in unheated cattle cars, the forced labour, the destruction of families, the years spent in exile, the early and unnecessary deaths.

(My added emphasis.)

Just about right I would say. What is Guantanamo if not a ‘criminal and political camp’, it has a ‘children’s camp’, The neo-cons have set up a repressive system of which this is a part, ‘random arrests’ seem to be the main way people came to be in the camp, 'interrogations are the main raison d’etre of the camp according to the neo-cons, OK no unheated cattle trucks, but shackled in your own excrement for eighteen hours on the floor of an aircraft is close enough for me, and the 'destruction of families, the years spent in exile and early and unneccesary deaths speak for themselves.

Close enough a comparison I think.

Anne Applebaum recently wrote a column in which she said that she thought that Amnesty International’s use of the word “Gulag” in reference to Guantanamo was wrong:

Anne Applebaum - Amnesty's Amnesia

Ed