Comments on: Shameless

By: Randy Paul

Randy Paul — Sun, 26 Jun 2005 21:58:06 +0000

Jet,

Much, if not most of AI’s activities and impact takes place on a grassroots basis. Do you know how many local groups are working on Prisoner of Conscience cases throughout the world? How many are active in, say the Caribbean Regional Action Network? PABRAN/ The Urgent Action Network? The Medical Professionals group? The Legal professionals Group?

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Sun, 26 Jun 2005 16:08:56 +0000

The accusation that Amnesty is ignoring Darfur displays truly lamentable ignorance. In this speech Irene Khan uses as her first example of the betrayal of human rights the failure to act against Sudan's campaign of killing, rape, etc. in Darfur. (Her second example is the African Union's failure of the people of Zimbabwe.) You may have heard of this speech, since it's the one that contained the original Guantanamo-Gulag comparison.

By: farang

farang — Sun, 26 Jun 2005 00:58:51 +0000

I think Uncle Kvetch said it best. Plus a hearty laugh.

By: Brendan

Brendan — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 19:25:13 +0000

Oh dear. There was Rofe with what seemed like a statement we could all agree with, and then comes along Jet and spoils it all. You are aware, Jet, of what goes on to the estimated 10,000 people currently being held by the US across the world? You do know that when people talk about ‘prisoner abuse’ this is a euphemism for torture? You do know what not a small number of those who ‘vanish’ are tortured to death?

To be fair to those who complain about the Gulag metaphor incidentally, it is probably unfair to compare (implicitly) what the US is doing to what happened under Stalin. It seems to me, however, to be quite comparable to the USSR in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

You are ignorant, Jet. Luckily due to the wonders of the internet, there is now an excellent website at which you can read up on these and many other issues.

http://slate.msn.com/features/whatistorture/introduction.html

By: Brak

Brak — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 08:03:53 +0000

Let’s see. If I were an insane racist and abducted people I considered to be members of inferiour races and gassed them to death on my farm, I am sure that comparisons to Nazi extermination camps would be made in the popular media, despite the small scale of my operation.

By: José del Solar

José del Solar — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 03:03:42 +0000

Or even worse, by refusing to take action in order to reduce or minimize the effects of global warming, it could be argued that the US is leading the world towards “ecocide”.

By: José del Solar

José del Solar — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 02:48:15 +0000

Genocide: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.

So I guess the, according to jet’s analogy, the US is responsible for setting the conditions (through direct funding to reppressive governments and CIA actions) for the attempted “genocide of the latin-american left”.

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 20:46:39 +0000

Good, so we’re all in agreement.

Chaining people to floor for 24 hours and allowing them to wallow in their own filth is bad.

Using inappropriate metaphors to describe this treatment is worse.

By: jet

jet — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 18:50:14 +0000

Oh, I forgot to add that the comparison was “Shameless”.

By: jet

jet — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 18:49:39 +0000

Rofe,
Only someone hell bent on diversion would compare Guantanamo, et al to the Boer camps. The Boer camps were full of the families of the Boer army that the British rounded up and kept in horrible underfed conditions as hostages. Comparing those camps to the US camps is about as accurate as comparing the US camps to a Russian Gulag; distortion and diversion on a level worthy of Hitler’s reasoning for the invasion of Poland [irony fully intended].

By: Dan Simon

Dan Simon — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 18:26:46 +0000

Whether or not one approves of AI's current priorities, they are vastly different from--I would say, a betrayal of--their founding mission. AI was originally formed for the purpose of speaking out on behalf of "prisoners of conscience"--people who had been imprisoned for the crime of political dissent in countries without political freedom. It was that vital, narrow, non-partisan agenda that earned it so much kudos during the Cold War. Unfortunately, AI has since abandoned it completely, in favor of mushy "human rights" platitudes and international political grandstanding. I elaborate here.

By: Rofe

Rofe — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 17:11:32 +0000

I agree with systematic.

By: abb1

abb1 — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 16:25:58 +0000

The abuses at G et al were bad. Stupid. Malevolent. Etc.

How about ‘systematic’?

By: Rofe

Rofe — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 16:22:12 +0000

Sven,

Disengenuous, still, but certainly clever. I enjoyed your progression.

Nonetheless, Guantanamo et al do not come close to the gulag.

Brendan,

I don’t know enough about the Kenyan / Boer camps to say if G et al reaches their level. If, in fact, their levels reached that of the gulag, then of course they can be compared to the gulag.

But hold on a second. Why are we rolling around in all this silly parsing ? The abuses at G et al were bad. Stupid. Malevolent. Etc. But regardless of whether you compare them to the gulag or a Snickers break, the abuses are what they are and that’s either something more or something less than whatever else one compares them to.

I happen to think that the abuses are orders of magnitude less than the gulag. I also think that the comparison diminishes the the evil that was the gulag and dilutes objections to G et al.

But the abuses (i.e. torture) have no place in the WoT. America is / should be better than that.

Clear enough ?

Cheers,

By: abb1

abb1 — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 16:11:25 +0000

AFX News reports:

US acknowledges torture at Guantanamo; in Iraq, Afghanistan – UN
06.24.2005, 11:37 AM

GENEVA (AFX) – Washington has, for the first time, acknowledged to the United Nations that prisoners have been tortured at US detention centres in Guantanamo Bay, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq, a UN source said.

The acknowledgement was made in a report submitted to the UN Committee against Torture, said a member of the ten-person panel, speaking on on condition of anonymity.

‘They are no longer trying to duck this and have respected their obligation to inform the UN,’ the Committee member said.

‘They they will have to explain themselves (to the Committee). Nothing should be kept in the dark,’ he said.

UN sources said this is the first time the world body has received such a frank statement on torture from US authorities.
…