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

[hildea]

@New Iskander

Remember the most important thing about GULAG: Millions perished. Nobody knew. For decades.

@hildea

@AI

The detention facility at Guantánamo Bay has become the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law. Trials by military commissions have made a mockery of justice and due process.

Seen in this context, the Gulag comment makes excellent sense, and is IMO completely justified. Guantanamo has become an instantly recognisable symbol of lawless detention, where innocents and guilty alike can be held indefinitively without any rights, and without contact with the outside world.

Or in other words (since I like quoting myself ) :

@hildea

Part of this debate becomes a lingustic stand-off. “The gulag comparison is appropriate becasue Gitmo fits definition X of gulag” versus “it’s not because it doesn’t fit defintion Y of gulag”.

On the gulag-thing, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
I’m not going to defend the “almost 60 000 held by other governments for USA” part of AIs estimate without knowing more about how they got it. In my mind, it’s 12 000 + unknown number (probably unknowable until and unless your congress forces a thorough impartial investigation).

@furt

Not at all; I’m pointimng out that the POWs-or-else-criminals binary is foolish, and that there are other historical precedents.

Well, foolish or not, international treaties which your government has signed go for the PoW-or-criminal model. Your goverment has adopted a policy which violates a basic human right. Get used to increasingly negative AI reports.

@furt

And so when troops who have been under fire come across a guy with a recently-used rifle, a Koran and a “death to America” T-shirt they’re supposed to put him under arrest, read his rights and appoint a public defender for him? That is simply not a serious alternative.

In my country, when someone shoots at the police, the police is allowed to shoot back. I kind of thought that this was a pretty ususal policy. But in my country, if the police manage to arrest someone who has fired at police, they aren’t allowed to dump him in a prison camp and forget him. We have this nifty concept called “trial”. I imagined that this was a well known concept in US too.

@xtisme

IIRC the prisoners in Iraq are under a different authority than those held at Gitmo (which is part of the reason we have prisoners AT Gitmo). In addition, there must be some kind of informal processing going on in Iraq because I know that prisoners are released regularly…in fact, your own cite acknowledges that prisoners are released in Iraq. Its probably not accurate for me to say that none of the prisoners in Iraq are in limbo…but then, not all the prisoners in Gitmo were either (as some were also released).

Being stuck in (legal) limbo means, to me, that you might be released tomorrow, next year, or never, and you’ve no way of knowing which until it happens. The fact that some prisoners are released doesn’t mean that they weren’t in limbo until then, or that the ones remaining aren’t still in limbo. But then, it’s been years since I (tried to) read Dante, and this might be another of those linguistic disagreements. “Some kind of informal processing” is better than nothing, but it’s a hell of a lot worse than what should be done.

@xtisme

My concern though is for those who don’t seem to be given any chance to challenge their status by trial and make a final determination…to me THAT is a serious problem that needs to be addressed.

We may disagree about the extent of the problem, but we agree where it really matters.

[Zoe]

xtisme: No, I’m just saying that historically thats how ‘unlawful combatants’ were generally handled by all sides.

Cite? My understanding is that “unlawful combatants” is a new term dreamed up by the Bush Administration.

BrainGlutton: It is the Bush Admin that wants to have it both ways. That is why it is holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, a place which is supposedly American territory but not governed by the U.S. Constitution.

The United States Supreme Court ruled last June that the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have a right to due process and ruled against the Bush Administration (which has continued to use stalling tactics for the most part).

[XT]

@Zoe

Cite? My understanding is that “unlawful combatants” is a new term dreamed up by the Bush Administration.

Certainly. From Encyclopedia: Unlawful combatant:

Unlawful combatant (also illegal combatant or unprivileged combatant) describes a person who engages in combat without meeting the requirements for a lawful combatant according to the laws of war as specified in the Third Geneva Convention. This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. … A combatant (also referred to as an enemy combatant) is a soldier or guerrilla member who is waging war. … The laws of war (Jus in bello) define the conduct and responsibilities of belligerent nations, neutral nations and individuals engaged in warfare, in relation to each other and to protected persons, usually meaning civilians. … The Third Geneva Convention (GCIII) regarded the treatment of prisoners of war. …

Belligerents that identify such unlawful enemy combatants may not necessarily accord them the rights of prisoners of war as described in the Third Geneva Convention. Unlawful combatants may retain rights under the Fourth Geneva Convention in that they must be “treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial”. A belligerent in warfare describes one of the contracting parties in the conflict; that is, one of the powers at war in contrast to neutral countries and non-belligerents. …

International law and practice
The term has been around for at least 100 years and has been used in legal literature, military manuals and case law. However unlike the terms “combatant” “prisoner of war” and “civilian” the term “unlawful combatant”, or similar, is not mentioned in either the Hague or the Geneva Conventions. So while the former terms are well understood and clear under international law, the term “unlawful combatant” is not.

United StatesUnited States
The term has been around for at least 100 years and has been used in legal literature, military manuals and case law. It was introduced into US domestic law in 1942 by a United States Supreme Court decision in the case ex parte Quirin. In this case, the Supreme Court upheld the jurisdiction of a U.S. military tribunal over the trial of several German saboteurs in the US. This decision states (emphasis added and footnotes removed): 1942 was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). … The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., (large image) The Supreme Court of the United States, located in Washington, D.C., is the highest court (see supreme court) in the United States; that is, it has ultimate judicial authority within the United States… Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942), a United States Supreme Court case. … This article is about Sabotage sabotage can also refer to: an early Black Sabbath album (Sabotage), the Alfred Hitchcock films (Sabotage or Saboteur), a Beastie Boys song, or a type of shock site. …

“…the law of war draws a distinction between the armed forces and the peaceful populations of belligerent nations and also between those who are lawful and unlawful combatants. Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful. The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals.”

I dug this up on a quick and dirty search of google. THere are a LOT of laws on the books from various times that deals with this issue (i.e. unlawful combatants an what is to be done with them if they engage in warfare during a conflict). The cites above don’t even begin to scratch the surface…however, hopefully they are what you were looking for. If nothing else you can see the term was not coined by Bush et al…its been in use for quite a long time (at least 100 years…probably more).

-XT

[furt]

[QUOTE=hildea]
Well, foolish or not, international treaties which your government has signed go for the PoW-or-criminal model.

[QUOTE]
Cite?

As has been pointed out, the Geneva convention only defines what a POW is. It says nothing whatsoever about how to treat people who do not fall under it. Neither do our criminal laws define the rights of persons whom US courts do not have jurisdiction over.

In my country, when someone shoots at the police, the police is allowed to shoot back. I kind of thought that this was a pretty ususal policy. But in my country, if the police manage to arrest someone who has fired at police, they aren’t allowed to dump him in a prison camp and forget him. We have this nifty concept called “trial”.

You also have a concept called “war.” I’d love to see the cite that shows your country (or any other) having a policy of always giving trials to enemy combatants caught out out of uniform. I suspect the Norwegian resistance might have taken out a quisling or two without giving them benefit of counsel.

[Yeticus_Rex]

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.

[hildea]

@furt

Cite?

Okay. Article 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11. It doesn’t say explicitly “PoW or criminal, nothing else”, if that’s what you’re asking, but you’d need a lot of creativity to argue that US is not in serious breach of those articles.

@furt

You also have a concept called “war.” I’d love to see the cite that shows your country (or any other) having a policy of always giving trials to enemy combatants caught out out of uniform. I suspect the Norwegian resistance might have taken out a quisling or two without giving them benefit of counsel.

Funny you should say that. Because the Norwegian resistance during WWII fit right into those definitions of illegal combatants. “The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property” – that’s our beloved national heros, “gutta på skauen” (“the boys in the forest”) in a nutshell. And when they were captured, they were indeed imprisoned or shot, without a fair, impartial trial (often without any trial at all). You won’t call me unreasonable for holding USA to a significantly higher standard than Reichskommisar Terboven & co, will you?
And when the war was over, some quislings were indeed shot. Including Vidkun Quisling himself. After a trial. Around 92 000 cases were brought up during Landssvikeroppgjøret (“the high treason trials”). 50 000 Norwegians were found guilty during the trials, sentenced to prison, fines, in some cases death. The rest were aquitted, or the case was dismissed due to lack of evidence. 92 000 cases. If a war torn tiny country could do it in 1945, I find it extrmely hard to believe that a similar feat is impossible for the huge, powerful USA today.

Now, believe it or not, I do actually understand that the current Iraq and Afghanistan are a great deal more chaotic and dangerous than post-liberation Norway. But you can’t bring law and order to a country by acting like the biggest, baddest goon. You’ve no chance of assisting a society to build itself anew, based on law, order and democracy, if you piss on those principles every day. What you should do in your example in post 159 is to bag the rifle, arrest the suspect, and turn him over to the lawful local authorities. Who should, in turn, give him a lawyer and alert his next of kin, if he’s willing to tell who they are. And if, during the trial, it can’t be proved that he’s lying when he claims he was peacefully reading the Koran, wearing the T-shirt of his favourite black metal band Dëäth (who recently toured in America), when a stranger came running through his back yard, dropping his rifle at his feet – then you let him go. Maybe you’re letting a murderer back on the street. But you’re also helping to build, brick by brick, a country ruled on law. And that’s the only way you’re ever going to be able to leave Iraq or Afghanistan without leaving behind a chaotic mess or an oppressive dictatorship.

[tagos]

@xtisme

Certainly. From Encyclopedia: Unlawful combatant:

I dug this up on a quick and dirty search of google. THere are a LOT of laws on the books from various times that deals with this issue (i.e. unlawful combatants an what is to be done with them if they engage in warfare during a conflict). The cites above don’t even begin to scratch the surface…however, hopefully they are what you were looking for. If nothing else you can see the term was not coined by Bush et al…its been in use for quite a long time (at least 100 years…probably more).

-XT

A captured person not wearing a uniform who is caught carrying weapons or engaging in warlike acts (such as a spy) is not a lawful combatant and is therefore not protected by the laws of war. Such persons should be treated according to applicable civilian laws (if any) or the Geneva Conventions. In practice they may be tortured (contrary to current international law) or executed .

Just to add a part of your original cite which seemed to conveniently escape your notice.

And

Unlawful combatants may retain rights under the Fourth Geneva Convention in that they must be “treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial”. <snip>

The United States administration uses the term illegal enemy combatant to describe people detained by the United States under some Presidential military orders. However as the United States’ courts have not yet ruled that any of the detainees have faced a “competent [military] tribunal”, this phrase is not a legal description of the detainees status.

Soldiers who break specific provisions of the laws of war lose the protections and status afforded as prisoners of war but only after facing a “competent tribunal”

[New_Iskander]

@hildea

…Norwegian resistance during WWII fit right into those definitions of illegal combatants. “The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property” – that’s our beloved national heros, “gutta på skauen” (“the boys in the forest”) in a nutshell. And when they were captured, they were indeed imprisoned or shot, without a fair, impartial trial (often without any trial at all). You won’t call me unreasonable for holding USA to a significantly higher standard than Reichskommisar Terboven & co, will you?

Very well, what “higher standard” shall we set?

Obviously, mere housing, feeding, respecting basic rights of most is not enough.

@hildea

What you should do in your example in post 159 is to bag the rifle, arrest the suspect, and turn him over to the lawful local authorities. Who should, in turn, give him a lawyer and alert his next of kin, if he’s willing to tell who they are. And if, during the trial, it can’t be proved that he’s lying when he claims he was peacefully reading the Koran, wearing the T-shirt of his favourite black metal band Dëäth (who recently toured in America), when a stranger came running through his back yard, dropping his rifle at his feet – then you let him go. Maybe you’re letting a murderer back on the street. But you’re also helping to build, brick by brick, a country ruled on law.

So, that kind of standard.

I can’t believe you can write such stuff without assistance of hallucinogenic substances, which are probably perfectly legal in your enlightened country. Us? Way behind you. Still fighting the War on Drugs.

[pdx_craig]

@New Iskander

I can’t believe you can write such stuff without assistance of hallucinogenic substances, which are probably perfectly legal in your enlightened country. Us? Way behind you. Still fighting the War on Drugs.

Is it me or is implying that someone’s opinion is the result of being drug addled an insult? Certainly doesn’t add to the debate or prove your point.

[New_Iskander]

@Wesley Clark

I’m guessing AI’s tactic was this
Use a weighted word like ‘gulag’

Wait for US administration to offer condemnations about misuse of the term

AI says ‘if you don’t want us using the term, allow us and others to investigate the prisons to see if there really are serious abuses’

If the US refuses, then they are essentially saying AI is not exaggerating and that they’d rather be called a gulag and not be investigated for it.

If the US refuses to allow independent observers at the behest of AI, it’ll paint the US administration in a much worse light than they currently look. All in all, good tactic. Kudos AI.

Ah, yes, devious and brilliant. Awakens memories.

“Look, that’s what we do. We use that woman to get Prez. on a stand before Grand Jury, then we throw a question about another woman at him, then… we’ll just see what happens.”

What you say, no comparison? AI is striving nobly for the good of the prisoners? Really?

Why don’t you read the report one more time, then blot GULAG phrase and read it again. Which version is more effective: with GULAG or without?

Without GULAG comparison you have a credible document, which you can hold to any official face and demand explanations, making that official squirm.

With GULAG comparison in place, you immediately get “It’s Absurd” answer.

And even if you get to go there, any subsequent report will be answered: “See?! No GULAG, end of story!”

Poor Lefties. Give them a weapon and they immediately shoot themselves. Every time.

[jayjay]

@New Iskander

Ah, yes, devious and brilliant. Awakens memories.

“Look, that’s what we do. We use that woman to get Prez. on a stand before Grand Jury, then we throw a question about another woman at him, then… we’ll just see what happens.”

What you say, no comparison? AI is striving nobly for the good of the prisoners? Really?

Why don’t you read the report one more time, then blot GULAG phrase and read it again. Which version is more effective: with GULAG or without?

Without GULAG comparison you have a credible document, which you can hold to any official face and demand explanations, making that official squirm.

With GULAG comparison in place, you immediately get “It’s Absurd” answer.

And even if you get to go there, any subsequent report will be answered: “See?! No GULAG, end of story!”

Poor Lefties. Give them a weapon and they immediately shoot themselves. Every time.

Nostalgia for your posting hiatus is beginning to hit me…

[New_Iskander]

@pdx_craig

Is it me or is implying that someone’s opinion is the result of being drug addled an insult? Certainly doesn’t add to the debate or prove your point.

It’s a Puritan in you speaking. Me, I’m simply envious.

[XT]

@tagos

Just to add a part of your original cite which seemed to conveniently escape your notice.

You were’t even following the conversation or the point were you? Just an attempt at a drive by slam (can you say 'knee jerk reaction?)? The question I was answering with the cite I posted was “Cite? My understanding is that “unlawful combatants” is a new term dreamed up by the Bush Administration.” The cite you (un)helpfully gave was about “Unlawful combatants may retain rights under the Fourth Geneva Convention”…yes? And? Does this negate the fact that ‘unlawful combatants’ was NOT a term dreamed up by Bush et al? Does it say that some where in there and I just missed it?

Now that you’ve inserted your cite in though…what do you suppose it means in the greater context of this discussion? Would you like to perhaps expand on it in the context of the thread or was it just a cut and paste excersize in the hopes that randomly tossing in some data would make a point?

BTW, you might want to check your data on the 4th Geneva Convention before hopping into the historical side of this discussion.

-XT

[XT]

Er…that is check the ‘date’ not data.

-XT

[Fear_Itself]

@pdx_craig

Is it me or is implying that someone’s opinion is the result of being drug addled an insult? Certainly doesn’t add to the debate or prove your point.

Of course it is an insult. But as a result of the overreaction of the right-wing to manhattan’s self-imposed exile, conservatives on this board expect to be held to a much more lenient standard than the rest of us, due I suppose, to their fragile sensibilities. You see, if we admonish them every time they act like jerks, they will take their ball and go home, and for some reason, many see this as a Bad Thing. In basketball, it’s called ‘working the ref’, where a player whines and whines to the referee about supposed fouls until the ref starts to see thing their way. Pretty soon, the ref is afraid to call anything on them, in order to appear even handed. It is SOP for the Republican Party; to wit, Dick Cheney claiming he was ‘offended’ by the AI use of the word gulag, or the whole “he’s a maniac” reaction to the the Dean Scream. It’s just one of the burdens of being a Liberal on this board. (See how playing the martyr works?)

[New_Iskander]

@hildea

And when the war was over, some quislings were indeed shot. Including Vidkun Quisling himself. After a trial. Around 92 000 cases were brought up during Landssvikeroppgjøret (“the high treason trials”). 50 000 Norwegians were found guilty during the trials, sentenced to prison, fines, in some cases death. The rest were aquitted, or the case was dismissed due to lack of evidence. 92 000 cases.

Let me get this straight.

After WWII, your country detained 92,000 people, conducted “high treason trials”, or as you call them Landssvikeroppgjøret (completely impartial, I’m sure), sentenced 50,000 people “to prison, fines, in some cases death”.

During 4 years since 9-11, US detained 70,000 people, released 58,000, continues to keep in detention 12,000.

And you are lecturing us about Human Rights?

[tomndebb]

I can’t believe you can write such stuff without assistance of hallucinogenic substances

Nostalgia for your posting hiatus is beginning to hit me…

It’s a Puritan in you speaking.

But as a result of the overreaction of the right-wing to manhattan’s self-imposed exile, conservatives on this board expect to be held to a much more lenient standard than the rest of us, due I suppose, to their fragile sensibilities.

If you folks would prefer, I can move this to the Pit for you. Otherwise, I do not want to see any more personal slights or “observations.”

[ /Moderator Mode ]

[tomndebb]

And you are lecturing us about Human Rights?

I don’t see whyt not. You point to the fact that following four and a half years of foreign occupation their country carried out actual trials for collaborators (you are familiar with the name Quisling, correct?), executing a few of the more egregious participants and this is supposed to outweigh the fact that following a single event (in which the vast majority of the perpetrators perished) we are holding without trial nearly a quarter of the same number of people that they convicted as some sort of defense against our actions?

[pdx_craig]

Thanks tomndebb,

I was actually thinking this thread was really starting to get interesting and then things heated up a little. I hope we can keep it on track.

[New_Iskander]

@tomndebb

…following a single event (in which the vast majority of the perpetrators perished) we are holding without trial nearly a quarter of the same number of people that they convicted as some sort of defense against our actions?

We also declared war on Japan and eventually dropped two nuclear bombs on their civilian cities following a single event of Pearl Harbor (where less Americans died than on 9-11). Yes, we are the absolute worst.

And I offer no defense. I’m saying that any Norwegian is not qualified to lecture us about Human Rights.