Gitmo is a Gulag?!?

May 25, 2005 11:51 AM
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"Guantanamo has become the gulag of our time," Amnesty Secretary General Irene Khan said.

Yeah, and um, my high school's "Time Out" room was Auschwitz.

I don't even know where to begin with this one. How about two million Soviets imprisoned at a single time? Or 18 million total? Or one million dead from executions, slave labor, starvation, disease and exposure?

Yes, the detainees are entitled to trials, but that is no Gulag. Amnesty is sounding like the PETA nuts.


Comments: Gitmo is a Gulag?!?

Yep, a more reasonable comparison would be PETA to Hammas.


Posted by: Bubba on May 25, 2005 1:29 PM | permalink

Woah there.

The People for the Eating of Tasy Animals are my kind of people, and not nuts at all.

Such a harsh pronouncement.

Posted by: Kearns on May 25, 2005 2:47 PM | permalink

Definition #3:

"A place or situation of great suffering and hardship, likened to the atmosphere in a prison system or a forced labor camp."

Note that they called it the ' [lowercase] gulag of our times,' as in the current most famous shitty prison system in the world. I'm sure there are worse ones that aren't so famous.

And screw you guys for bashing Amnesty.

Posted by: O'dell on May 25, 2005 10:18 PM | permalink

O'dell:

You're splitting hairs.

By your context-free standards, it meets definitions 1 and 2 of "concentration camp" -- http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=concentration%20camp -- yet, it would be obnoxious and distortive for Amnesty to label it as such.

Posted by: Joe Grossberg on May 26, 2005 7:30 AM | permalink

Why would it be obnoxious and distortive? Historically, it sounds pretty accurate:

"concentration camp, a detention site outside the normal prison system created for military or political purposes to confine, terrorize, and, in some cases, kill civilians. The term was first used to describe prison camps used by the Spanish military during the Cuban insurrection (1868–78), those created by America in the Philippines (1898–1901), and, most widely, to refer to British camps built during the South African War (Boer War) to confine Afrikaners in the Transvaal and Cape Colony (1899—1902). The term soon took on much darker meanings."

Of course, I am not implying that it is anything quite like Gulags, Nazi, or Japanese IA prison camps.

Posted by: O'dell on May 26, 2005 11:14 AM | permalink

Ummm....your high school had a time out room?

Posted by: Matt on May 31, 2005 4:28 PM | permalink

That was the nickname for in-school suspension.

Amazingly I never went there (despite several detentions), but from what I gather, they tried to bore you out of your bad behavior.

Posted by: Joe Grossberg on May 31, 2005 5:29 PM | permalink

No more comments! Either someone has violated Godwin's Law, I'm tired of the discussion or, most likely, the ten-week window has closed. You can, however, contact me through email.