Going Gonzo Over Gitmo
by Greg Strange
“Guantanamo has become the gulag of our time.” --- Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International, in a recent inflammatory statement about the treatment of terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“More Americans are in jeopardy as a consequence of the perception that exists worldwide with its existence than if there were no Guantanamo.” --- U.S. Senator Joseph Biden.
It’s not your father’s Amnesty International, but as my father would be wont to say about Irene Khan‘s deranged pronouncement: gulag, schmulag. The comparison between the prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay and the vast Soviet gulag system of forced labor where millions were brutalized and killed was not some kind of analytical revelation, but rather an intellectual, as well as a moral, obscenity. And as my mother taught me, obscenities aren‘t nice things.
The Bush administration reacted quickly and harshly, after which, according to the New York Times, Amnesty Executive Director William Schulz fired back in response: “If our reports are so ‘absurd,’ why did the administration repeatedly cite our findings about Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war? Why does it welcome our criticisms of Cuba, China and North Korea?”
Because, Mr. Schulz, those particular criticisms of those totalitarian dictatorships were perfectly valid and merely confirmed what the entire world already knew anyway. But why, then, should the Bush administration have even mentioned Amnesty’s findings at all if it was already so obvious? Because in a pusillanimous world where almost no one other than America is much interested in hearing such facts because they might actually, in some rare cases, necessitate some type of military action, it’s nice to get confirmation from a supposedly neutral organization which can’t be accused of pro-American bias. Or, at least, it must have seemed nice at the time, before Amnesty went crackers over Gitmo.
By the way, here’s something else the world knows--though it is loathe to acknowledge it--and which makes the Amnesty characterization all the more obscene. Without the United States, the entire world would likely be a gulag. That’s because without the United States, none of the large-scale, totalitarian forces of evil that rose up during the 20 th century would have been defeated. Without their defeat, the entire world, possibly even including America itself, would have ended up being ruled by tyrants.
It could have been a dark and foreboding world indeed where, instead of do-gooder rock stars singing songs like “We Are The World,” some poor withered soul in a far-flung camp for political prisoners might have composed “We Are The Gulag” and been summarily executed for his flash of creativity.
So there have been a few abuses at Guantanamo. There has probably never been a prison in all of human history where some kind of abuse didn’t occur. Since power corrupts, and since people who work in prisons wield power over the imprisoned, abuses will occur. But it’s a matter of degree.
And when comparing one prison in particular, Guantanamo, to the vast Soviet archipelago of gulags, it’s a matter of insane disproportionality. On a scale of one to ten, where “ten” is the worst Siberian hellhole Stalin had to offer and “one” is the country club that hosted Martha Stewart for a few months, and taking into account the nature of the prisoners, Guantanamo ranks about a 1.0001.
At Guantanamo, every detainee gets a prayer mat, cap and Koran. Every cell has a stenciled arrow pointing toward Mecca. Every cell has a sink installed low to the ground to make it easy for detainees to wash their feet before prayer. Every detainee gets two religiously correct meals per day, as well as one other meal. The prison has a library stocked with Islamic books, even though the detainees’ perverse interpretation of Islam is a large part of what’s behind their willingness to commit terrorist acts.
On the other hand, in the Soviet gulag system, millions were brutalized, starved, frozen and worked to death, all within the framework of an evil, totalitarian regime and all without any semblance of the niceties provided to America’s terrorist detainees. Therefore, the question for our time is: How can Irene Khan of Amnesty International compare Guantanamo to that and still be taken seriously and still have a position of authority and still look at herself in the mirror without utter self-contempt?
Now, we can be pretty certain that Senator Joseph Biden, quoted above, doesn’t agree with Amnesty’s characterization of Gitmo as gulag, but he does believe that the mere perception of it as such around the world is enough to make Americans less safe than they would be if it didn’t exist. In other words, its very existence is a recruiting tool for al-Qaida which will continue to inspire scores of new Osamas and legions of new jihadists, unless and until they shut the place down.
Funny thing is, before there was a Gitmo, back when little or nothing was done to unnecessarily antagonize terrorists, and back when a certain silver-tongued president toured the world apologizing for America’s historical sins, we ultimately ended up with September 11th anyway (which begs the question: what was the recruiting tool for that?).
But not wanting to let that stark reality get in the way of his opposition party-type views, the good senator insisted that “we should end up shutting it down, moving those prisoners. Those that we have reason to keep, keep. And those we don’t, let go.”
Now, let’s see. Exactly how would that work? Do we just move the ones “we have reason to keep” to a different gulag, and then later do the same thing again after that gulag gets bad publicity from Amnesty, and then on and on in a perpetual game of musical gulags?
Let’s face it. You could put them all in the same cakewalk prison where Martha Stewart served her extended vacation from work and it would still be an al-Qaida recruitment tool in the minds of the peace, love and granola crowd. The only thing that might satisfy them would be if the terrorists were put in the equivalent of Stalag 13 from “Hogan’s Heroes” where they could slip out at night through tunnels, pull off a couple of small-scale jihadi operations and then sneak back in under the noses of their thickheaded infidel captors.
Greg Strange
Greg's columns appear regularly at Etherzone.com and have appeared on other web sites as well, such as EnterStageRight.com and CitizenJournal.com. His work has also appeared in many print publications including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Christian Science Monitor and Comic Relief.
“Guantanamo has become the gulag of our time.” --- Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International, in a recent inflammatory statement about the treatment of terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“More Americans are in jeopardy as a consequence of the perception that exists worldwide with its existence than if there were no Guantanamo.” --- U.S. Senator Joseph Biden.
It’s not your father’s Amnesty International, but as my father would be wont to say about Irene Khan‘s deranged pronouncement: gulag, schmulag. The comparison between the prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay and the vast Soviet gulag system of forced labor where millions were brutalized and killed was not some kind of analytical revelation, but rather an intellectual, as well as a moral, obscenity. And as my mother taught me, obscenities aren‘t nice things.
The Bush administration reacted quickly and harshly, after which, according to the New York Times, Amnesty Executive Director William Schulz fired back in response: “If our reports are so ‘absurd,’ why did the administration repeatedly cite our findings about Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war? Why does it welcome our criticisms of Cuba, China and North Korea?”
Because, Mr. Schulz, those particular criticisms of those totalitarian dictatorships were perfectly valid and merely confirmed what the entire world already knew anyway. But why, then, should the Bush administration have even mentioned Amnesty’s findings at all if it was already so obvious? Because in a pusillanimous world where almost no one other than America is much interested in hearing such facts because they might actually, in some rare cases, necessitate some type of military action, it’s nice to get confirmation from a supposedly neutral organization which can’t be accused of pro-American bias. Or, at least, it must have seemed nice at the time, before Amnesty went crackers over Gitmo.
By the way, here’s something else the world knows--though it is loathe to acknowledge it--and which makes the Amnesty characterization all the more obscene. Without the United States, the entire world would likely be a gulag. That’s because without the United States, none of the large-scale, totalitarian forces of evil that rose up during the 20 th century would have been defeated. Without their defeat, the entire world, possibly even including America itself, would have ended up being ruled by tyrants.
It could have been a dark and foreboding world indeed where, instead of do-gooder rock stars singing songs like “We Are The World,” some poor withered soul in a far-flung camp for political prisoners might have composed “We Are The Gulag” and been summarily executed for his flash of creativity.
So there have been a few abuses at Guantanamo. There has probably never been a prison in all of human history where some kind of abuse didn’t occur. Since power corrupts, and since people who work in prisons wield power over the imprisoned, abuses will occur. But it’s a matter of degree.
And when comparing one prison in particular, Guantanamo, to the vast Soviet archipelago of gulags, it’s a matter of insane disproportionality. On a scale of one to ten, where “ten” is the worst Siberian hellhole Stalin had to offer and “one” is the country club that hosted Martha Stewart for a few months, and taking into account the nature of the prisoners, Guantanamo ranks about a 1.0001.
At Guantanamo, every detainee gets a prayer mat, cap and Koran. Every cell has a stenciled arrow pointing toward Mecca. Every cell has a sink installed low to the ground to make it easy for detainees to wash their feet before prayer. Every detainee gets two religiously correct meals per day, as well as one other meal. The prison has a library stocked with Islamic books, even though the detainees’ perverse interpretation of Islam is a large part of what’s behind their willingness to commit terrorist acts.
On the other hand, in the Soviet gulag system, millions were brutalized, starved, frozen and worked to death, all within the framework of an evil, totalitarian regime and all without any semblance of the niceties provided to America’s terrorist detainees. Therefore, the question for our time is: How can Irene Khan of Amnesty International compare Guantanamo to that and still be taken seriously and still have a position of authority and still look at herself in the mirror without utter self-contempt?
Now, we can be pretty certain that Senator Joseph Biden, quoted above, doesn’t agree with Amnesty’s characterization of Gitmo as gulag, but he does believe that the mere perception of it as such around the world is enough to make Americans less safe than they would be if it didn’t exist. In other words, its very existence is a recruiting tool for al-Qaida which will continue to inspire scores of new Osamas and legions of new jihadists, unless and until they shut the place down.
Funny thing is, before there was a Gitmo, back when little or nothing was done to unnecessarily antagonize terrorists, and back when a certain silver-tongued president toured the world apologizing for America’s historical sins, we ultimately ended up with September 11th anyway (which begs the question: what was the recruiting tool for that?).
But not wanting to let that stark reality get in the way of his opposition party-type views, the good senator insisted that “we should end up shutting it down, moving those prisoners. Those that we have reason to keep, keep. And those we don’t, let go.”
Now, let’s see. Exactly how would that work? Do we just move the ones “we have reason to keep” to a different gulag, and then later do the same thing again after that gulag gets bad publicity from Amnesty, and then on and on in a perpetual game of musical gulags?
Let’s face it. You could put them all in the same cakewalk prison where Martha Stewart served her extended vacation from work and it would still be an al-Qaida recruitment tool in the minds of the peace, love and granola crowd. The only thing that might satisfy them would be if the terrorists were put in the equivalent of Stalag 13 from “Hogan’s Heroes” where they could slip out at night through tunnels, pull off a couple of small-scale jihadi operations and then sneak back in under the noses of their thickheaded infidel captors.
Greg Strange
Greg's columns appear regularly at Etherzone.com and have appeared on other web sites as well, such as EnterStageRight.com and CitizenJournal.com. His work has also appeared in many print publications including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Christian Science Monitor and Comic Relief.
1 Comments:
Greg,
Just want say THANKS for your articles on Gitmo. We are becoming more aware of the morons at amnesty international because of folks like you.
Thanks again and keep up the good work.
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