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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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 Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 5:48 am Post subject: 'American Gulag'? |
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washingtonpost.com
'American Gulag' :
Post
Thursday, May 26, 2005; A26
IT'S ALWAYS SAD when a solid, trustworthy institution loses its bearings and joins in the partisan fracas that nowadays passes for political discourse. It's particularly sad when the institution is Amnesty International, which for more than 40 years has been a tough, single-minded defender of political prisoners around the world and a scourge of left- and right-wing dictators alike. True, Amnesty continues to keep track of the world's political prisoners, as it has always done, and its reports remain a vital source of human rights information. But lately the organization has tended to save its most vitriolic condemnations not for the world's dictators but for the United States.
That vitriol reached a new level this week when, at a news conference held to mark the publication of Amnesty's annual report, the organization's secretary general, Irene Khan, called the U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the "gulag of our times." In her written introduction to the report, Ms. Khan also mentioned only two countries at length: Sudan and the United States, the "unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power," which "thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights."
Like Amnesty, we, too, have written extensively about U.S. prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay, in Afghanistan and in Iraq. We have done so not only because the phenomenon is disturbing in its own right but also because it gives undemocratic regimes around the world an excuse to justify their own use of torture and indefinite detention and because it damages the U.S. government's ability to promote human rights.
But we draw the line at the use of the word "gulag" or at the implication that the United States has somehow become the modern equivalent of Stalin's Soviet Union. Guantanamo Bay is an ad hoc creation, designed to contain captured enemy combatants in wartime. Abuses there -- including new evidence of desecrating the Koran -- have been investigated and discussed by the FBI, the press and, to a still limited extent, the military. The Soviet gulag, by contrast, was a massive forced labor complex consisting of thousands of concentration camps and hundreds of exile villages through which more than 20 million people passed during Stalin's lifetime and whose existence was not acknowledged until after his death. Its modern equivalent is not Guantanamo Bay, but the prisons of Cuba, where Amnesty itself says a new generation of prisoners of conscience reside; or the labor camps of North Korea, which were set up on Stalinist lines; or China's laogai , the true size of which isn't even known; or, until recently, the prisons of Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
Worrying about the use of a word may seem like mere semantics, but it is not. Turning a report on prisoner detention into another excuse for Bush-bashing or America-bashing undermines Amnesty's legitimate criticisms of U.S. policies and weakens the force of its investigations of prison systems in closed societies. It also gives the administration another excuse to dismiss valid objections to its policies as "hysterical."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company |
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Sleepy in Seoul
Joined: 15 May 2004
Location: Going in ever decreasing circles until I eventually disappear up my own fundament - in NZ
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 6:46 am Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
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| Amnesty continues to keep track of the world's political prisoners, as it has always done, and its reports remain a vital source of human rights information. But lately the organization has tended to save its most vitriolic condemnations not for the world's dictators but for the United States. |
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Oh my God!!! How dare anyone say anything bad about the U.S.!!! Especially if it's true!!! |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 1:57 pm Post subject: |
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Guantanamo is a Gulag?  |
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Wangja
Joined: 17 May 2004
Location: Seoul, Yongsan
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 3:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| Guantanamo is a Gulag? |
No, probably not. But that merely misses the real point which is that if prisoner abuse did not happen, there would be nothing to write about.
I for one have always admired America for its belief in human rights (rights of man) and steadfast support of betterment. It saddens me that having deservedly won the moral high ground Ameirca now is squandering that moral high ground so unnecessarily. |
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R. S. Refugee
Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Location: Shangra La, ROK
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 4:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| Guantanamo is a Gulag? |
Going on this conservative old tendency of mine to believe that words have meaning -- definitions we call them -- here is a definition of gulag. Guantanamo a gulag? I report a definition. You decide. The first definition can't apply because it applies only to the former Soviet Union.
Perhaps 2 and 3 will resonate with some though, since many of these people there were picked up in sweeps and weren't political or resistors at all or guilty of anything more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, they can't rightfully be characterized as political dissidents (definition 2) since they weren't involved in political activities (violent or non-violent) to begin with.
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gu��lag also Gu��lag Audio pronunciation of "Gulag" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (gläg)
n.
1. A network of forced labor camps in the former Soviet Union.
2. A forced labor camp or prison, especially for political dissidents.
3. A place or situation of great suffering and hardship, likened to the atmosphere in a prison system or a forced labor camp.
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I would include some eye-rolling emoticons, but that is such a boorish copout if you know what I mean.    |
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hypnotist
Joined: 04 Dec 2004
Location: I wish I were a sock
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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| R. S. Refugee wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| Guantanamo is a Gulag? |
Going on this conservative old tendency of mine to believe that words have meaning -- definitions we call them -- here is a definition of gulag. Guantanamo a gulag? I report a definition. You decide. The first definition can't apply because it applies only to the former Soviet Union.
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Be fair RSR - although Gitmo is clearly 'a gulag', the words of the report were "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" - that is clearly using definition 1, I fear.
Having said that, though their use of the word may be uncomfortable, I see no flaw in their justification.
Also, it's clearly grasping at straws somewhat to criticise a huge report covering 149 countries based on it's short introduction (which covers the two currently most news-worthy aspects - it's a question for the media whether that's right or wrong). |
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funplanet
Joined: 20 Jun 2003
Location: The new Bucheon!
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 5:58 pm Post subject: |
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Gulag, eh?
let's see...
USSR vs. Gitmo
USSR-prisoners had no right to practice one's religion freely
Gitmo-prisoners are given Korans, prayer rugs, time for prayers, and prayer messages blared 5 times a day
USSR-prisoners were fed gruel and minimum rations daily, many starving to death
Gitmo-prisoners are given 2 meals daily prepared as their religion dictates plus an MRE..no one is starving
USSR-prisoners were often not given adequate clothing, especially during the winter
Gitmo-clean clothes, plus air conditioning!! (for those who cooperate)
USSR-prisoners were often not allowed contact with family nor the IRC
Gitmo-prisoners are allowed this on a regular basis (for the most part)
USSR-prisoners were worked to death under the cruelest of conditions
Gitmo-I haven't seen any chain gangs in the sugar fields yet
USSR-prisoners were brutally beat and often left without medical care
Gitmo-anyone being brutally beat? no indication...they are getting good medical care
Gitmo ain't a gulag....but it just kills you liberals when the facts don't support your twisted beliefs...again, the template is anything which makes Bush and America look bad is justifiable...truth be damned |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 6:06 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="R. S. Refugee"]
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| Perhaps 2 and 3 will resonate with some though, since many of these people there were picked up in sweeps and weren't political or resistors at all or guilty of anything more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, they can't rightfully be characterized as political dissidents (definition 2) since they weren't involved in political activities (violent or non-violent) to begin with |
What is a mideasterner doing in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban?
You say many of these guys are just guys picked up for no reason?
Where do you get that information? |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 6:10 pm Post subject: |
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| hypnotist wrote: |
| R. S. Refugee wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| Guantanamo is a Gulag? |
Going on this conservative old tendency of mine to believe that words have meaning -- definitions we call them -- here is a definition of gulag. Guantanamo a gulag? I report a definition. You decide. The first definition can't apply because it applies only to the former Soviet Union.
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Be fair RSR - although Gitmo is clearly 'a gulag', the words of the report were "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" - that is clearly using definition 1, I fear.
Having said that, though their use of the word may be uncomfortable, I see no flaw in their justification.
Also, it's clearly grasping at straws somewhat to criticise a huge report covering 149 countries based on it's short introduction (which covers the two currently most news-worthy aspects - it's a question for the media whether that's right or wrong). |
Many who were in the gulags weren't criminals.
The Gulag implies that these people are prisoners of conscious - they are not - if someone belongs to Al Qaida then they are a criminal.
Al Qaida isn't a political party , it is a hate group. |
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Wangja
Joined: 17 May 2004
Location: Seoul, Yongsan
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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| IF someone belongs to Al Qaida then they are a criminal. |
Hmmm, not sure I follow that. They may be loathsome, undesirable sons-of-beeches, but not criminal. At least not until after arrest, charge, trial and conviction.
(Edit: damn, Joo, you stripped that sentence out fast!) |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 6:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Wangja wrote: |
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| IF someone belongs to Al Qaida then they are a criminal. |
Hmmm, not sure I follow that. They may be loathsome, undesirable sons-of-beeches, but not criminal. At least not until after arrest, charge, trial and conviction.
(Edit: damn, Joo, you stripped that sentence out fast!) |
No , because to be in Al Qaida means you are supporting terror , planning terror , encouraging it, or participating in it. |
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Wangja
Joined: 17 May 2004
Location: Seoul, Yongsan
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| Wangja wrote: |
| Quote: |
| IF someone belongs to Al Qaida then they are a criminal. |
Hmmm, not sure I follow that. They may be loathsome, undesirable sons-of-beeches, but not criminal. At least not until after arrest, charge, trial and conviction.
(Edit: damn, Joo, you stripped that sentence out fast!) |
No , because to be in Al Qaida means you are supporting terror , planning terror , encouraging it, or participating in it. |
Agreed. But unless and until they are tried and convicted, they are not criminals.
This is not mere pedanticism: it is a fundamental difference.
Were the difference not to exist, the police in Texas (for example) could arrest and hold incarcerated anyone THEY believed to be planning a crime. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 6:35 pm Post subject: |
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Stalin was never tried an convicted. Idi Amin was never tried and convicted. Kim Il Sung was never tried and convicted. Pol Pot was never tried and convicted . Abu Nidal was never tried and convicted. Jack the Ripper was never tried and convicted.
Were they criminals? |
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Wangja
Joined: 17 May 2004
Location: Seoul, Yongsan
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 6:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
Stalin was never tried an convicted. Idi Amin was never tried and convicted. Kim Il Sung was never tried and convicted. Pol Pot was never tried and convicted . Abu Nidal was never tried and convicted. Jack the Ripper was never tried and convicted.
Were they criminals? |
History is littered with people who committed crimes but who escaped arrest, trial and conviction. That does not mean that society should feel comfortable with dispensing with the niceties of trial and conviction. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 6:49 pm Post subject: |
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| History is littered with people who committed crimes but who escaped arrest, trial and conviction. That does not mean that society should feel comfortable with dispensing with the niceties of trial and conviction. |
Agreed but that doesn't mean that Al Qaida Klansman arent' criminals.
Or that they should enjoy POW status.
Something else to think about Bill Clinton let Bin Laden go to Afghanstan from the Sudan cause he thought there wasn't enough evidence to convict Bin Laden in a US court. |
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