And it’s 1..2..3..
What are we fighting for
Where are they all now eh?
Slan,
D.
Worrying about their Social Security benefits?
Woodstock was fun. But back to business. The original post on prison ships isn’t that far fetched. This administation seems very sensitive about several related points. They repeatedly assert that captured “enemy combatants” have no constitutional rights. According to a 60 minutes story last winter the CIA is moving prisoners to countries engaged in torture so we can deny that we’re doing it. Thinking about those things, prison ships might make sense to some in the Administration. They can be outside the US, thus beyond any countries civil courts. They can be hard to track. They can be deniable.
I don’t have a clue whether it’s true, but on the issue of prisoners, this adminstration’s legal logic sometimes reminds me of Bill Clinton discussing the meaning of “is.”
These are called “renditions” and the Bush Administration has been doing this for a while now. They even send some prisinors to be tortured in Syria… arn’t they one of the “Axis of Evil” countries?
Well, never mind then.
Those are not prison ships, they are cruise ships!
Thus saith his Tominance.
It’s just a rumor, but, you know, it’s the seriousness of the charge that matters, not the actual evidence… :roll:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html
No, they were not mentioned in the Axis of Evil speech. Of course, ‘countries like these’ is extremely vague, and you can include anyone you like under that label.
Also, the Gulag is a labor camp for political dissidents (and ordinary criminals). Guantanomo Bay is a confinement for prisoners of war (exclusively) who are called illegal combatants. They don’t resemble one another at all.
True, but Syria was specifically named and included in that list.
From Wikipedia: Axis of evil
- The term axis of evil was used by United States President George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002 to describe “regimes that sponsor terror”. The states Bush originally gave in his speech were Iraq, Iran, North Korea and then later Syria, but the definition could be interpreted broadly to include other governments.
According to the Webster New World Dictionary, Gulag is as follows:
-
- a prison or forced-labor camp, esp. for political prisoners, as in the Soviet Union
- any place or situation regarded as like such a prison
The definition doesn’t appear to be as specific as you have indicated. Guantanamo is for "political prisoners,” but not “exclusively.” If they were prisoners of war, the US government would have to conduct their responsibilities towards them according to the charters of the Geneva Conventions, but according to definition they are not prisoners of war.
- “In order to qualify for prisoner of war, the prisoners have to carry arms openly; they have to respond to a superior in some hierarchical chain of command and they have to have some identifiable sign that shows that they’re a member of an armed force.” - Michael Noone, a professor of law at Catholic University, and a former judge advocate in the Air Force
The US is now in defiance of International law and the facility at Gauntanamo represents a global police state, administered by the United States and in brazen defiance of universally accepted standards of justice. People are being detained and tortured, for indefinite periods of time. The people being held there are essentially “political prisoners” so the resemblance is clear.
The returning Congress-people who visited the camp might dispute the concept that the prisoners are being tortured, though they are being detained, 'tis true.
And if you want to call someone who was caught in Afghanistan trying to kill multinational forces behind an RPG launcher or automatic weapon a political prisoner (and that after forcing native Afghans to endure any number of tortures and punishments), well…I disagree.
I stand corrected, then. However, if you already knew this, why did you ask the question?
The historical system of labor camps in the Soviet Union that was “The Gulag” was precisely what I said it was was. The dictionary definition reflects the fact that many people use “The Gulag” as a condemning metaphor. The fact that people have broadened the metaphor frequently in the past does not make your use of it any more or less inaccurate.
I am surprised that you are taking that point of view. My feeling is that anyone taken prisoner in a military conflict is a prisoner of war, and that the United States should treat them accordingly. To treat our opponents in a conflict in a civilized manner, regardless of our legal obligation to do so, is an act that would affirm the virtues that we claim in appeals to patriotism. To fail to do so is to undermine those claims, damaging goodwill both at home and abroad. I will, however, concede that there are strong arguments to be made that a strict interpretation of the Geneva Convention does not -require- us to treat them as prisoners of war.
As for the exclusively, or not exclusively, what I mean is, that no-one sentenced in the ordinary court system is sent to Guantanamo. All of the persons confined there are designated by the administration as ‘illegal combatants’. In the historical Gulag, it was domestic criminals - including crimes of dissent - who were sent to the labor camps.
This doesn’t follow at all. You just argued that the persons at Guantanomo Bay are -not- prisoners of war, using the Administration’s arguments, but then you diverge from the administration to say that they are political prisoners. You haven’t shown that they are not ‘illegal combatants’ who must be held as long as the conflict continues.
Also, the United States is hardly a ‘global police state’ - the U.S. is acting like a police state in relatively limited geographical spaces, and is nowhere close to ruling the world.
Nor do I think the United States is deying ‘universally accepted’ standards of justice; I believe there exist people and nations who either support the United States’ actions, or commit similar actions, or both. ‘Universal’ would mean that there were no such nations or persons. It would be more accurately to say that there is widespread international criticism of the United States’ actions.
Anyway, if Guantanomo Bay were truly parallel to the Gulag, you would have been convincted and sent there long since for your dissenting speech. However, domestic dissenters and ordinary criminals are not sent there, nor are the prisoners who are sent there forced to labor.
You do have some good points in there, of course, but they are getting lost beneath the sweeping rhetoric and inaccurate metaphor.
It is you’re opinion that I made “sweeping rhetoric” and used “inaccurate metaphor,” but it hasn’t been well demonstrated and I’m in disagreement with it. I stand by my statements.
You certainly do. If anyone ever goes looking for you, they’ll know where to find you.
“JGilder? There he is. Over there, standing by his statements.”
Best wishes,
Jerry
By ‘sweeping rhetoric’, I am referring to the statements such as “universally accepted” and “global police state.” I believe that did show that those statements do overreach the facts, which is my understanding of the meaning of ‘sweeping rhetoric’. That is, rhetoric which overgeneralizes, overreaches, or both.
I believe I have also shown that there are strong differences between the Gulag of Soviet history and Guantanomo Bay. Clearly, enough people use this inaccurate metaphor to have enshrined your usage in the dictionary, and no one can stop you from using it. It does not, however, become any more accurate. If Guantanamo Bay is unjust (a statement I would agree with), then it is unjust in a manner totally unlike that of the Gulag.
An independent investigation is still needed; a carefully guided tour of Guantanamo hardly fits the bill. If criminals were allowed to guide a jury on tour of a crime scene that they could prepare for them – no one would ever be found guilty.
One mans terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. These countries have the right to resist invasion and occupation. If you want to call them prisoners of war, that’s great, but then they should receive treatment according to the Geneva Convention’s guidelines. This doesn’t appear to be the case at Guantanamo and elsewhere. The Bush Administration needs to be held accountable.
In a soon to be published report in The Nation magazine, Elizibeth Holtzman points out that the US treatment of these detainees violates the War Crimes Act of 1996.
- "This relatively obscure statute makes it a federal crime to violate certain provisions of the Geneva Conventions. The Act punishes any US national, military or civilian, who commits a “grave breach” of the Geneva Conventions. A grave breach, as defined by the Geneva Conventions, includes the deliberate “killing, torture or inhuman treatment” of detainees. Violations of the War Crimes Act that result in death carry the death penalty.
The treatment of these prisoners violates the US government’s own War Crimes laws and indicates that people in high offices are ultimately responsible. Bush knew this and was advised to “opt out” of the Geneva Conventions to avoid prosecution. The war act is serious, and with the death penalty being included carries grave consequences for those who would ultimately be found responsible.
- “In a memo to President Bush, dated January 25, 2002, Gonzales urged that the United States opt out of the Geneva Conventions for the Afghanistan war–despite Secretary of State Colin Powell’s objections. One of the two reasons he gave the President was that opting out ‘substantially reduces the likelihood of prosecution under the War Crimes Act.’”
The concerns didn’t stop there; Ashcroft issued a similar warning.
- “Then-Attorney General Ashcroft sent a memo to President Bush making a similar argument. Opting out of the Geneva Conventions, Ashcroft argued, would give the “highest assurance” that there would be no prosecutions under the War Crimes Act of “military officers, intelligence officials, or law enforcement officials” for their misconduct during interrogations or detention.”
So if you weren’t going to recognize the detainees as POWs, they would have to be considered political since their resistance of a foreign occupation is recognized as legitimate and legal according to International law. If you do recognize them as POWs – then the treatment they have received thus far would violate the War Crimes Act of 1996.
The fighters and enforcers of the Taliban in Afghanistan were referred to by native Afghans as “Afghan Arabs” as they had come to the country with Osama, some very early during the Soviet occupation, some later. Some were Arabs, some were other Muslims, like Chechens, etc etc but all were referred to with that moniker.
This info came from a book calledThrough Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America,by a state dept. official who at the time, published as “Anonymous” but recently revealed his identity as Michael Sheuer. To my surprise, it wasn’t Richard Clarke. The book was carefully footnoted and consisted mostly of Osama’s statements and communications.
There may be some native Afghans but these Afghan Arabs constitute many of the fighters, I think, and despite your attempt to equate them to freedom fighters, many are not. Rather, THEY occupied Afghanistan, with the purpose of instilling a government of their choice, not the Afghan people, and at the expense of Afghan men and women.
I disagree. The US is behaving like a “global police state.” They are acting outside of the law in a what they described to be a global conflict. They are involving people from countries all around the globe. Recently a judge in Italy ordered the arrest of 13 CIA agents for kidnapping a terrorism suspect and secretly transporting him to Egypt.
According to the definitions I found, Guantanamo is being used as a Gulag in that sense. There are differences from the Soviet model of origin, of course, but the similarities are too close and too disturbing to dismiss.
To you, that is. I heard that Sen. Durbin retracted his comments whilst I was away on vacation.
The use of hyperbole and false comparisons is the hallmark of Progressive rhetoric and it weakens the overall message. It belies a lack of self-control, imo. People seem to enjoy administering these tongue lashings but it just summons up bad images of the usual suspects in the 60s (Socialist Workers Party, Black Panthers, Weathermen “communiques”) to me.
And if it wasn’t for the US supporting them, funding and training them – they would never have come to power. At the time the US defined them as “freedom fighters,” but what we really did was back a group that was based in Pakistan before US involvement assisted their take-over of Afghanistan. The US bolstered them into a force that would draw the Soviets into a conflict that the Taliban would ultimately win thereby providing the US with a cooperative ruling power within Afghanistan. Why? To secure a pipeline to Central Asia’s vast oil resources of course. So if the US was so complicit in the rise of the Taliban and declared them to be “freedom fighters” then why are they changing their definition now? The truth is – the US is the foreign invader in all of these cases acting outside of the law against the interests of the indigenous people. The US government is only concerned with it’s own corporate interests. Anyone that resists may find themselves in a US Gulag, or dead, or both.