It was to be expected that one-half of the universe would immediately seize upon Senator Durbin's use of the words "Nazi", "Soviet gulag" and "Pol Pot" at the close of his statement cited below in attempts to discredit what he said. Fred Clark of Slacktivist has a response to that half.
Not As Bad As. The NABA defense is, for what it’s worth, arithmetically accurate. The American prison camps in Guantanamo, Bagram, Afghanistan and elsewhere are, in fact, not as vast or as brutal as Stalin’s gulags. The American camps are also Not As Bad As the contemporary torture facilities that the U.S. occasionally subcontracts in places like Uzbekistan.But such comparisons are beside the point. The threshhold has been crossed and conventional arithmetic no longer applies. The only relevant and meaningful comparison is between those regimes that countenance torture and those that do not. Once a nation crosses that line any difference between it and other torture regimes is inconsequential in comparison to the difference between it and those nations which have refused to cross that threshhold.
The NABA defense correctly insists that Guantanamo is different in degree from Stalin’s gulag. It is different in degree, but not in kind. And that difference of kind is the only difference that matters. America has entered the wrong category. We have crossed a threshhold.
He's absolutely correct. It's like the old joke about the guy who propositions a woman, offering her a million bucks to sleep with him; if she says maybe, he then offers $50. She responds indignantly "What kind of woman do you think I am?" and he says "We've established that. Now we're haggling over price."
The threshold has been crossed.
Posted by Linkmeister at June 17, 2005 12:01 AMLink, I've never been clear on the definition of the moral relativism conservatives like to accuse liberals of engaging in. It's always sounded to me that they're describing something that would be better termed "moral leveling." What they've been doing since Nixon bombed Cambodia sounds more like relativism to me.
"Relative to what the Nazis did to the Jews, killing a few thousand Iraqi children by accident is nothing."
"Relative to the Gulags, Gitmo is a stay at Comfort Inn."
"Relative to Stalin, Bush is a greater president than Abraham Lincoln."
Am I missing something?
Posted by: Lance Mannion at June 17, 2005 02:50 AMDifferent in degree?????
How about orders of magnitude?
Hitler's regime killed 9 million.
Stalin's gulags, almost 3 million
Pol Pot, almost 2 million
In Guantanamo, there have been no reported deaths.
In Guantanamo, there were 5 verified cases of Koran abuse by guards.
In Guantanamo, there were 15 verified cases of Koran abuse by prisoners.
This is not a case of NABA. Durbin deliberately chose inflammatory language to deliver red meat to those primed to devour it.
An irresponsible course. in my opinion.
......
Much more responsible would be a reasoned debate on what to do with irregulars captured on the battlefield, representing no nation, wearing no uniform, and upon which the Geneva Conventions is silent.
Much more responsible would be a discussion by the critics on whether they support full legal rights (the same enjoyed by US citizens) for hostiles interned during wartime.
Much more responsible would be discussions of the logical consequences of closing Gitmo - - do we bring them all to the US to face trial? Return them to their home countries? Return them to where they were captured?
I am as frustrated and disappointed with US foreign policy as are many of the critics, but what irks me is the absolute irresponsibility of those like Durbin who flame the fires rather than work for solutions.
Posted by: Pixelshim at June 17, 2005 03:56 AMSo, Pixelshim, at what point after the first person Hitler's regime murdered did it become evil?
One hundred people - that we know of - have died thus far in U.S. custody (and dozens of others shipped to other countries to face unknown fates). Twenty-seven have been ruled homicides by medical examiners. At least two prisoners died after repeated blows turned their thighs into mush. The bits and pieces of their shattered legs clogged up their hearts as they hung from shackled wrists.
Do we have to wait until this happens 8,999,998 more times before expressing moral outrage? How is that "responsible?"
Posted by: Grant at June 17, 2005 07:10 AM
Durbin didn't suggest closing Gitmo. Others have. I'd prefer closing it and moving the prisoners there to someplace within the US. That would allow the prisoners access to attorneys, which I think SCOTUS has said they must have. That in turn would hopefully have a chilling effect on some of the interrogation methods this Administration has approved.
Unless more prisoners are being added to the population down there, I find it hard to believe that any useful intelligence can be gathered from people who've already been held for up to three years. Surely whatever they once knew is stale by now. If that's true, then there's no need for the really aggressive interrogation techniques which may still be in use.
Posted by: Linkmeister at June 17, 2005 08:43 AMLance, I suggest that what you're missing is the near-infinite capacity of those whose guy is "in" to delude themselves that if their guy does it it must be good. Occasionally that capacity diminishes; see Goldwater advising Nixon to go in 1974.
Posted by: Linkmeister at June 17, 2005 09:08 AMGrant
I believe the overwhelming majority of the cases you mentioned have been investigated and have either been adjudicated or are in the process.
The regimes I mentioned did no such thing.
Please do not misunderstand me. I am not a supporter of the Administration's conduct of the war on terrorism or the execution of the war in Iraq. I feel both have been grossly mishandled, and that the blame goes squarely to the top.
But the rhetoric of Durbin, for which he apologized on
Friday, is plain wrong.
Link . .
Would you expand on what legal that rights you would grant to the internees once they are in the US? Would they be just a few, like access to a lawyer? Or would they entail the fully spectrum of rights guaranteed to a US citizen?
Posted by: Pixelshim at June 18, 2005 01:43 AMThey're not citizens of the US, so certainly they're not entitled to all the rights of a US citizen. I would give them access to lawyers and regularly scheduled visits from the ICRC. The administration has shown that without oversight it tends to allow behavior that wouldn't be tolerated in a normal prison.
I'm not saying they should get immigration court hearings and all the rest of it, just that the detention has to be more transparent to the country and the world.
Posted by: Linkmeister at June 18, 2005 08:40 AMLink
I would buy that if it would work.
Unfortunately, it is unclear as to whether it would, or could.
I can imagine appeal after appeal clogging the courts, especially requests for discovery.
I do have faith, however, in the American judicial system, and expect that SCOTUS will further slap this Administration's hand.
Posted by: Pixelshim at June 18, 2005 03:26 PMHe knew he went over the line:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8307379/
Posted by: Pixelshim at June 21, 2005 01:56 PMSo he got hounded into a partial apology by people who'd rather parse the language than admit the action despite the evidence. Proud of 'em, are you?
Posted by: Linkmeister at June 21, 2005 02:16 PMFrom the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
But instead of discussing what goes on at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and other prison camps, the right would prefer to get into a senseless argument about whether "we" are better than the Nazis or Saddam Hussein or the Soviets or Pol Pot or whomever a critic of Guantanamo might raise as a comparison. It's a tactic the group running Washington now has used again and again: They're quite deliberately changing the subject -- from Guantanamo to words spoken on the Senate floor.
Absolutely correct. Misdirection is the shorter word for it. And it's practiced not just by the group running Washington but by all its handmaidens in the blogosphere.
Posted by: Linkmeister at June 21, 2005 09:16 PM