Your point that actions taken in war are more extreme (and up to a certain level not necessarily abuses of power) and that peacetime actions should be evaluated differently is a good one.

To call Gitmo a "gulag" is to show ignorance of the past and the blur the distinctions between prisons and concentration camps. In fact, all prisons are cruel--it's the nature of the thing--but viciousness and death are beyond the pale. Amnesty International seems to have lost sight of some very necessary distinctions.

Posted by: Sarah on May 26, 2005 7:13 PM

Some people think that the war on terror is in fact an abuse of power in a time of peace.

One can believe a war to be unjustified and still see it as a war, to be judged by the standards of warfare.

Yet Amnesty and its supporters seem to be forgetting that nearly all the Guantanamo detainees were captured in Afghanistan. Remember Afghanistan? That country that openly hosted and embraced a certain group that had publicly declared war upon the United States, staging a series of increasingly bloody attacks over a period of years?

"In a time of peace", indeed.

Whatever your feelings about Iraq or the Bush administration, the toppling of the Taliban is about as open and shut a case of justifiable war as could be imagined.

You forgot the part about a few "bad apples".

Wow! I just found this post after reading the Amnesty report and completely agree. I thought I was the only one that looked at this report and went "what the..." The bias this report exudes is ridiculous. I'm not about to say the US is innocent, but at the same time, there are a bunch of way worse things going on out there (a few African and muslim countries could be named) and it seems AI has a few specific targets in mind. And if anyone noticed, the BBC reported on some of AI's findings yesterday... again, a bias seems evident.

Detentions without trial.

Beatings.

Deaths in custody.

Torture.

Extrajudicial killings.

You people should check your moral compasses. Amnesty may have chosen the term "gulag" poorly, but otherwise they seem to be spot on.

One should bear in mind that Guantanamo is only the public face of the prison network. The real action happens elsewhere.

It seems that we have become monsters.

See for example, this Washington Post article

Today's NYT has a detailed article about the CIA front companies that are used to provide aircraft to render suspects to third parties for "interrogation".

And to the links above I might add this blog entry as well.

But Amnesty is off the mark in more than just their use of the term, "gulag".
The problem is one of perspective: if American forces are doing monstrous things, shouldn't Amnesty acknowledge that it is in the context of a struggle with monstrous enemies?
Instead, the report's litany of sneering, scare-quoted references to "counter-terrorism", "war on terror", and so on, makes it seem as if the USA is on a completely unprovoked rampage.

"makes it seem as if the USA is on a completely unprovoked rampage"
You must mean, uh, like the war in Iraq?
The problem, is indeed, one of perspective.

Indeed.

speedbird writes:

"Some people think that the war on terror is in fact an abuse of power in a time of peace."

What an interesting opinion!

Now, *I* think that commenters who introduce their own interesting opinions with "some people think" or "there are those who would argue" or "many of us believe" instead of using the freakin' FIRST PERSON SINGULAR PRONOUN are (a) hack writers; (b) non-thinkers; and (c) sniveling little chickenshits who should be forceably dragged away from their computers, shaken down for their milk money, and shoved into a locker.

But I speak only for myself.

Detentions without trial.

Since when have combatants captured on a battlefield ever recieved a trial before being confined?

Beatings.

Happens in normal prisons, too. Your point is what, exactly?

Deaths in custody.

Happens in normal prisons, too. Your point is what, exactly?

Torture.

...which is investigated, and prosecuted when the allegations are found to have substance to them. Your point is what, exactly?

Extrajudicial killings.

...since when has convicting an enemy combatant of anything been a prerequisite for killing them in combat?

You people should check your moral compasses. Amnesty may have chosen the term "gulag" poorly, but otherwise they seem to be spot on.

You should check your own. Confining captured combatants, without a trial, charges, or conviction, until hostilities ended is not a new and controversial approach.

But for some reason, those opposed to the Bush administration pretend this is a new and horrible creation, undreampt of in more innocent days.

Feh.

David was hosting a civilised discussion about some unbelievably painful issues.

Unfortunately, the trolls have arrived. You two should be ashamed of yourselves, but I doubt that is possible.

Feh indeed.

In the interest of furthering thoughtful discourse, here are two more links:

The Washington Post editorial criticizing the bias of the Amnesty report (the Post, of course, has consistently been at the forefront of investigating allegations of prisoner mistreatment of all sorts).

A lengthy response to the blog entry linked in the entry above of the 31st. Don't be put off by the first few paragraphs, as there is much rhetorical zigging and zagging here as the writer tries to come to grips with a situation whose complexity many prefer to ignore.

I guess you could count JFK as a battlefield.

Mr. Arar. A Canadian citizen, was in transit thru JFK on his way back home to Canada when he was seized by US authorities, bound in leg-irons, flown to Syria on one of the CIA's executive jets, and tortured for a year.

All because his name happened, wrongly, to be on a list.

The monstrousness of the enemy, or the fact that abuses happen everywhere, is no excuse for this.

We have become our own worst enemy.

As for those who would seek to defend or ignore torture, thanks to the web, their moral corruption will be recorded for posterity.