| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Gulag Schmulag
“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 very
nice.
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 20th 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.
“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 very
nice.
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 20th 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.