Well the big problem to me is a gulag was traditionally a place used by an autocratic government to put anyone who opposed the tyrannical regime. It was a place for common criminals as well but that was a “convenience” factor, the gulags were primarily places to place political opposition so that they wouldn’t be a factor anymore, and you could still sieve labor from them (at least that’s the perception of gulags, I may be wrong but I think more common criminals than political prisoners were there, I don’t know.)
We can use whatever definition we want for gulag to make it work for Gitmo but still I feel the fact that gulags were originally used to stifle political dissent really makes Gitmo ineligible. And plus the “real” gulags, not the fictional ones that have been created by Bush haters in this thread are just way more brutal than anything in Guantanamo Bay.
As it is I think the U.S. is just “ahead of the game” on this one. The Geneva convention (as relating to the treatment of the Prisoners of War) was mostly developed over a century ago. And the ideals and concepts that were behind its creation stretch backed to a time when warfare was drastically different. Many of the concepts that were still prevalent as rudimentary “international law” when the GC was drawn up were somewhat outdated even then. The GC tried to enshrine ancient concepts that were formalized during the feudal era.
The GC is wholly incapable of dealing with the problem of combatants that use civilian status as a shield of protection from military action during the day, and then sneak out at night and murder uniformed soldiers.
We are fighting a war where our opponents are systematically abusing the international mores we have developed to protect soldiers and civilians. It is inevitable when the lines are intentionally blurred between legitimate and non-legitimate combatant that the innocent are going to have to be punished with the guilty in order for there to be an effective campaign waged.
It is a double edged sword for us, we could allow the enemy to continue hiding amongst the population and do nothing, or we could strike with wide nets and attempt to imprison any we even remotely suspect of acting against us. The first action is militarily fatalistic and the second simply enrages the public and helps our enemies to get new recruits. It is quite the vicious cycle, but between option one and option two I would definitely take the option of offense instead of passively allowing myself to be destroyed.
And since international law is still stuck far in the past even the ones that are certainly enemies of the United States are legally not in the wrong in any sense. That’s the problem, we’re fighting a war where if we follow the archaic rules of the past we’re going to lose, we’re going to have lost from the moment we started. And until international law changes to reflect this fact we have to choose between deliberately losing a military conflict or violation laws which are routinely ignored by all whenever it is convenient. This would not be a tough decision for me to make.
In addition, Amnesty International was once seen as a middle of the road group. Rightly or wrongly they are being painted as leftist extremists. Again, doesn’t matter if that’s true or not, but the perception is there, and stuff like this only builds that perception. Soon enough they will be as irrelevant as Green Peace or PETA because the public will have associated them with over the top jingoism with little substance.
Any good they could have hoped for by exposing abuses at Gitmo were destroyed when they used the word Gulag, by using that word they guaranteed the only people that would listen were the people who were already listening, and that obviously isn’t enough to change anything.
I should also add there is nothing but the allegations of people who have every reason to lie that we have been systematically desecrating religious books at Gitmo (btw, try to flush a book down the toilet sometime and see how well it works.)
