Conjecture: anyone who perjoratively uses the phrase "moral equivalence" a) is a wanker and b) can sod off.

See, Natan Sharansky had to live in the Gulag for some years, so I can understand why he might think that anyone who says that Guantanamo is a gulag (a) is a wanker and (b) can sod off.

He has a good point about the relationship between human rights and political systems, which, judging from your thoughts on Singapore, you actually agree with. You're also against applying moral equivalence to different people's actions, so I'm not sure why you have such a problem with the mere phrase.

Related perhaps:
http://www.secondbreakfast.net/a...ves/ 001967.html

In the democratic world, there are violations of human rights, but they are revealed and dealt with.

This is rather the point. The violations at G'tmo have been revealed but *aren't* being dealt with. Whether the word "gulag" is appropriate or not is not a matter which I give much of a damn about. The fact is that G'tmo has no place within the free world. But it persists, and so unsurprisingly its opponents are stepping up the criticism.

Yes real gulags and Boniato are terrible. But that changes nothing - you can always find something worse than any given bad thing.

It is precisely because G'tmo is an outrage being perpetrated by the so-called leader of the free world which makes it deserving of special attention. Saying "it's not as bad as a real gulag, or Boniato, or what's going on in Burma" is no defence whatsoever.

To attack G'tmos's critics is to deflect attention from the central issue: we *should* expect very high standards of human rights from our democratic governments. That is what makes "free societies" better than "fear societies". But in this instance we're not getting the high standards we expect, so we *should* be pissed off and hold them to account.

> Saying "it's not as bad as a real gulag, or Boniato, or what's going on in Burma" is no defence whatsoever.

No, but concentrating most strongly on it while giving sod all publicity to the worse ones is something for which Amnesty should be criticised.

Incidentally, what is so wrong with Guantanamo? What, specifically, are these human rights violations that we're supposed to be so upset about? (Bear in mind, when answering, that combatants in civilian clothes have traditionally been treated as spies and summarily shot, and that the Geneva Conventions have no problem with that. So you need to explain how much worse it is to be kept in Guantanamo than to be executed.)

what is so wrong with Guantanamo?

I can't do better than appeal to the relevant Amnety report: http://web.amnesty.org/library/ I...ENGAMR510632005

If they are "pisoners of war" then they in accordance with the Geneva conventions, they cannot simply be shot. That's utter nonsense. But do the Geneva conventions apply?

Donald Rumsfeld said: "We have indicated that we do plan to, *for the most part*, treat [the prisoners] in a manner that is *reasonably consistent* with the Geneva Conventions, *to the extent they are appropriate*, and that is exactly what we have been doing." Hmm that sounds like a "no" to me.

The Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions allow a maximum of 30 days isolation of a detainee as *punishment* for a disciplinary offence. The US authorities, including as authorized by Secretary Rumsfeld, have used isolation as an interrogation technique across its theatres of operation. In Afghanistan, techniques included "isolating people for long periods of time".(120) The ICRC found that the US authorities were using "excessive isolation" in Guantánamo for not cooperating in interrogations.(121) In at least two cases of Guantánamo detainees, Salim Ahmed Hamdan and Moazzam Begg, the isolation was for a year or more.

Here are some observations of what's going on in G'tmo made by *FBI agents* (we can be pretty sure this is just the tip of the iceberg):

A detainee’s mouth was duct taped for chanting from the Koran…military employee who applied the duct tape found it amusing;
A detainee being isolated for substantial periods of time;
Agents heard of detainees being subjected to considerable pain and very aggressive techniques during interrogations;
Agents aware of detainees being threatened…by dogs;
Agents have seen documentary evidence that a detainee was told that his family had been taken into custody and would be moved to Morocco for interrogation if he did not begin to talk.

There's no doubt that the actions in G'tmo are causing psychologically damaging levels of suffering, I call that torture, and the FBI agrees:

An FBI email from December 2003 referred to "torture techniques" being used by the Department of Defense (DoD) in Guantánamo, and noted the FBI’s Military Liaison and Detainee Unit’s "long standing and documented position against use of some of DoD’s interrogation practices". The email expressed concern that DoD interrogators were impersonating FBI agents, and that "if this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DoD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done [by] the ‘FBI’ interrogators". The email noted that "these tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date and…have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this detainee".

These people are being indefinitely detained without trial, being tortured, and denied the rights of prisoners of war on one side, and being denied legal represenatation and recourse to the courts on the other. What's wrong with that? To me, it's anathema in the "free world".


concentrating most strongly on it while giving sod all publicity to the worse ones

As you might say yourself: now you're just being silly. It is inevitable that the world's media will be most interested in criticisms of America, just as you and I seem to be. But Amnesty is an organisation dedicated to highlighting human rights abuses everywhere, have alook round their website, if you doubt it. The idea that it's just an anti-US lobbying group is not remotely credible.

No, I don't buy this blaming-the-world's-media-for-Amnesty's-press- releases bollocks. What didn't happen was that Amnesty released a report detailing all sorts of abuses in lots of different countries and the media picked up on one small part of that and decided to paraphrase it as "Guantanamo is America's Gulag."

> If they are "pisoners of war" then they in accordance with the Geneva conventions, they cannot simply be shot. That's utter nonsense.

If they're combatants disguised as civilians, they can be shot before they even reach the prisoner-of-war stage, which was my point. It's not nonsense; it's accepted practice. The British did it WW2, and, as far as I'm aware, have never been criticised for it. It's normal and ordinary.

What Runsfeld was pointing out was the Geneva Conventions were written by people who never envisaged this sort of situation arising. They simply cannot apply in their entirety to Al Qaeda cadres; it's been tried, and it didn't work. The Conventions were drawn up for men who weren't willing to commit suicide en masse in order to kill their captors. In Afghanistan, around one hundred Al Qaeda prisoners killed themselves in order to kill one CIA agent. Another prisoner, in transit, tried to take down the plane, which would have killed him and all his comrades. After those events, security was increased to Geneva-surpassing levels. If it hadn't been, and we'd had one hundred Al Qaeda members dying in custody for every one of their captors ever since, would that be OK? Would Amnesty be saying how wonderful it was that prisoners were being given enough freedom and rights to top themselves? I doubt it, somehow. The US are applying as much of the Conventions as they can in the circumstances. Fair enough.

Isolation, threats, lies, and being laughed at, I couldn't care less about. The duct-tape thing, I'd need to see more context: we know that prisoners are allowed to chant from the Koran — they're being issued with prayer mats, Korans, and signs to show them where Mecca is — so there was something about this particular bout of chanting that was singular. Since we're dealing with men who use the Koran as inspiration for suicidal killing sprees, it's not that unlikely that he needed to be stopped. Duct tape over the mouth is actually a painless way of shutting someone up, so I don't think that bothers me. It's not nice, no, but prison isn't.

The FBI's complaint about prosecution is mere demarcation: they want the prisoners all to be dealt with by the FBI in the FBI's non-9/11-preventing way, and are pissed off that it's not goign to happen. There is no reason that any of these men should ever be prosecuted in a civilian court. You'll be claiming next they should have been extradicted.

That leaves us with some pain-infliction during interrogations, which has been investigated and reported by the FBI. I don't approve of it, but I note that (a) some abuse happens in all prisons everywhere, yet that is rarely used as an argument that all prisons should cease to exist; that logic only seems to apply to Guantanamo — no-one ever says that a couple of beatings in Broadmoor mean that the entire prison whould be shut and the laws which allowed prisoners to be sent there should be overturned; and (b) the fact that the federal police have investigated and reported the issue and that it is being publicly criticised makes Sharansky's point. Can you imagine the KGB criticising the Gulag?

Personally, I reckon the CSRTs are a reasonable and fair solution to a difficult problem. Amnesty disagree, because (as far as I can see) they think US federal judges should be allowed to treat foreign combatants as US citizens if they feel like it. Amnesty don't explain why those judges who have made that claim are correct, and they don't defer to rulings by other judges who disagree with the claim.

I think Bush made a mistake in declaring that these detainees are not prisoners of war. But what if he had? Prisoners of war are subject to detention without trial until the end of hostilities. Since the WoT has already been longer than the US's involvement in WW2 and could go on for another 20 years or so, and, since it's being fought against a secretive enemy who will never surrender, can be extended arbitrarily at any time, would Amnesty be happy with that? I doubt it, somehow. Bush decided that they weren't prisoners of war because they have no uniform, represent no nation, and have no rank or serial number. That's a fair decision. Apart from that, they're being treated as prisoners of war.

Meanwhile, some men released from Guantanamo have applied for US citizenship. Can't have been that bad.

No, I don't buy this blaming-the-world's-media-for-Amnesty's-press- releases bollocks. What didn't happen was that Amnesty released a report detailing all sorts of abuses in lots of different countries and the media picked up on one small part of that and decided to paraphrase it as "Guantanamo is America's Gulag."

What is your point here? AI constantly produces reports and campaign on human rights abuses in countries all around the world. The most cursory glance around their website shows that they take their responsibilities to all such matters seriously. However for the most part, no-one pays them any attention. "So there's horrible shit going on in Burma, yeah well..."

It is entirely unsurprising to me that when they produce a report or press-relaease criticising (and yes, criticising in no uncertain terms) the US, it attracts one hell of a lot more attention than any of their others. I'm not blaming anyone, because I don't have a problem with it. In fact I want to know if the leader of the free world is engaged in human rights abuses, which it is.

You say you couldn't care less about isolation as a human-rights issue. Well the poeple who drew up the Geneva conventions did care about it, and for good reason: keeping people in solitary confinement for years at a stretch is a sure-fire way of driving them out of their minds. Here's an example:

"In September or October of 2002 FBI agents observed that a canine was used in an aggressive manner to intimidate detainee #63 and, in November 2002, FBI agents observed Detainee #63 after he had been subject to intense isolation for over three months. During that time period, #63 was totally isolated (with the exception of occasional interrogations) in a cell that was always flooded with light. By late November, the detainee was evidencing behavior consistent with extreme psychological trauma."

(a) some abuse happens in all prisons everywhere...

Well that's all right then. Except that we're not talking the odd beating where peoples' tempers get out of hand, we're talking about people being beaten and tortured in the context of interrogation by the state. We're talking about the Department of Defense sanctioning (or at the very miminum having a blind-eye plicy towards) torture.

(b) the fact that the federal police have investigated and reported the issue and that it is being publicly criticised makes Sharansky's point. Can you imagine the KGB criticising the Gulag?

So it's not as bad as Stalin's Russia, and therefore not anything to worry about. You've still failed to take on board my earlier point that the abuses may have been revealed but they haven't been dealt with. I can only assume therefore that the US is not after all part of the "free world" according to Sharanky's definition.

And here you go with the blanket assumption of guilt until proved innocent:

Since we're dealing with men who use the Koran as inspiration for suicidal killing sprees

Yes, because we know for sure that every single person in G'tmo is a terrorist, right? I mean there's no way that innocent people might have got in there on the principle of "better safe than sorry" , is there? Not that we'll ever know for sure now...

Apart from that, they're being treated as prisoners of war.

When you say "that" you mean the rights afforded to them by the Genva conventions, yes? Well apart from that minor matter of a legal right not to be tortured, then yes I suppose you're right.

The problem is that these people exist in a black hole at the moment, neither being afforded their rights as prisoners of war, nor as ordinary criminals. The US has cynically placed them off-shore specifically to prevent them having the legal rights that foreign citizens in the US are accustomed to. The US is proceeding in an ad hoc fashion, making up the rules as it goes along. It's flouting both its own principles of freedom and justice, as well as dangerously undermining important pieces of international law, and making a mockery of it's status as the "home of the free".

Yet for you the main point is whether, when someone points that out, they might have been guilty of hyperbole in their use of one word.

My problem with the hyperbole in the use of one word is that it tends to take on momentum. Look at all the people now who genuinely believe that Israel is as bad as Nazi Germany, and look at how many of them have progressed from there to out-and-out Jew-hatred. Hyperbole isn't Amnesty's job. Amnesty, more than any other organisation, are supposed to know what a gulag is. All they're doing here is demonstrating that they don't, and that undermines their own authority. From now on, every time they release a report, lots of people will say "Well, it's from Amnesty, so better take it with a pinch of salt, eh?" They used to be a trusted organisation; now they're less so. You think that's OK. I don't.


> We're talking about the Department of Defense sanctioning (or at the very miminum having a blind-eye plicy towards) torture.

Is that proven?


> Well that's all right then.

Not what I said.


> So it's not as bad as Stalin's Russia, and therefore not anything to worry about.

Not what I said.


> And here you go with the blanket assumption of guilt until proved innocent

Like saying that the DoD are sanctioning torture, you mean?


> When you say "that" you mean the rights afforded to them by the Genva conventions, yes?

Not what I said.

> Well apart from that minor matter of a legal right not to be tortured, then yes I suppose you're right.

Not what I said. Not even close, in fact.


> Yes, because we know for sure that every single person in G'tmo is a terrorist, right?

We know that they were all captured while fighting Coalition troops. Of course, it'd be an easier distinction to make if Al Qaeda wore uniforms, but that's hardly the US's fault. As I said before, standard practice on battlefields is to execute enemy combatants out of uniform as spies. These guys were captured and imprisoned instead. Lucky them.

I forget how many of the men released from Gitmo have since been recaptured on the battlefield, but the number's significant, and does rather put the lie to their previous claims of innocence.


> The US is proceeding in an ad hoc fashion, making up the rules as it goes along.

The US is fighting a force who operate according to rules that have never previously been seen in war. An insistence on using out-of-date tactics based on out-of-date traditions and practices is what happened in WW1, and is generally regarded as disastrously stupid. As far as I'm concerned, the US are being about as humane as they can in dealing with an utterly inhumane enemy. I say again: no-one is under any obligation to treat combatants with no uniform, insignia, rank, or serial number according to the Geneva Conventions. The US are abiding by most of the Geneva Conventions, which they don't have to do, but leaving out the bits that don't work. Why were prisoners transported to Gitmo in shackles and hoods? Because the military tried transporting them more humanely and they tried to take down the plane and everyone in it. Thanks to the restraints, those prisoners are alive; without them; they'd have killed themselves. Yet the restraints breach (I think) the Conventions.


> The US has cynically placed them off-shore specifically to prevent them having the legal rights that foreign citizens in the US are accustomed to.

The anti-war movement have cynically insisted that the way to deal with Al Qaeda is in civilian courts, knowing full well that that would make it impossible to take any action against Al Qaeda. The Administration have kept the combatants off US soil in order to avoid having to have a deeply stupid fight with deeply stupid people who would insist that these men are "foreign citizens" rather than enemy combatants and would want them put through the courts and given defense lawyers and would want the evidence against them to meet the standards required in civil cases, and would want civilian juries deciding the whole thing.

The Germans march through the Ligne Maginot and take France. Do you (a) mobilise the infantry or (b) call your lawyer? You have captured a German soldier. Do you (a) put him in a military prison until the end of hostilities or (b) sue him?

You and Amnesty are upset that the Gitmo detainees aren't officially prisoners of war. Fine. Let's call them prisoners of war: that means they stay locked up indefinitely without trial. That what you want?

My problem is this. It's the 10th of September 2001. You have the twentieth hijacker (though you don't yet know that that's what he is) in custody. You know that his comrades are planning something big and dangerous, but you have no idea what. Do you torture him? Well, if you do, you might save three thousand lives. If you don't, you definitely won't. The issue here isn't whether torture is evil — it is — it's what is the lesser of the two evils. I'm still not sure about that one, but I don't think it's such a clear-cut case against torture as some make out.

They used to be a trusted organisation; now they're less so. You think that's OK.

Not what I said.

the DoD are sanctioning torture

Not what I said.

Is that proven?

Yes. The FBI (and others) have witnessed what they describe as "torture techniques" being routinely used by the agents of the DoD. Either the place is totally out of control, or the DoD is at least turning an official blind eye to it.

We know that they were all captured while fighting Coalition troops.

Is that proven?

deeply stupid people

I guess that's me, and anyone else who thinks that such "arge numberout-of-date traditions and practices" as the right to a fair trial and due process have any place within the "free world".

That what you want?

It'd certainly be an improvement - they couldn't be tortured any more.

I do understand the September 10th dilemma. But the analogy seems not to work - notice what the FBI said about the tactics currently being used in G'tmo: "these tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date".

In *extreme* cases such as September 10th, maybe exceptions can be made. But they must treated on a strictly case-by-case basis, and covered by some legal process. Convince a judge (or other suitable higher authority) that it needs to be done, and then do it. But such cases are happily few and far between. The trend as started in G'tmo and elsewhere is that these tactics are becoming the norm, not exceptions to it, and that they occur out of sight of any legal framework whatsoever.

We must of course be vigilant, but if we go around constantly shitting ourselves because we believe that it's September 10th, and that this guy we've got in custody is the twentieth hijacker (as it were), and that we have to get the relevant information out of him by any means necessary, then one thing is sure: a few years down the line we'll have landed ourselves with very large number of horrific miscarriages of justice.

Of course torturing lots of innocent Muslims is also a damned good way of pissing off lots of Muslims and provoking reprisals, so I don't believe that in the long run these methods would be effective in the "War against Terror": we'd have more terrorists and more attacks, and in turn we have to step up the campaign of imprisoning and torturing, and on it goes.

Meanwhile our status as a member of the "free world", as well as any national pride we might have had arge numberthat were a country of "justice", "freedom", and "fairness", will lie in tatters.

When Islamist terrorists are placed in durance vile they are given the motivational tome and source-book of their anti-Western hatred, the Koran. This is the equivalent of the British colonial authorities providing Das Kapital to Communist Terrorists during the Malayan Emergency or the Allied Occupation force in Germany allowing the Nazi's to keep copies of Mein Kampf in their cells.You know it makes sense.

Rebbiker,

The war is being fought on many fronts. One of those fronts is to convince non-psychotic Muslims that the US has nothing against them and respects religions. The Korans aren't for the prisoners; they're for the world to see. In that context, it's a good tactic.


> they must treated on a strictly case-by-case basis, and covered by some legal process. Convince a judge (or other suitable higher authority) that it needs to be done, and then do it.

OK, I agree with you here. Unfortunately, no civilian judge would ever condone it, and no non-civilian judge would ever be approved of by civil rights acitivists, so we're back where we started. But at least now it's you and I disagreeing with the rest of the world, not with each other.


> The FBI (and others) have witnessed ...

In other words, the standard of proof that torture is happening is the same standard that all these men are enemy combatants: witnesses, not a civilian trial.


> such "arge numberout-of-date traditions and practices" as the right to a fair trial and due process

Those clearly weren't the traditions and conventions I was referring to, but still: prisoners of war have no right to any sort of trial and the only due process they have a right to involves them giving their rank and serial number, answering to a recognisable chain of command, and wearing a uniform. I say again: according to international convention and law, all these men may be summarily executed. The US is treating them better than that.


> notice what the FBI said about the tactics currently being used in G'tmo: "these tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date".

My problem with this is that the FBI failed to prevent 9/11, even though it is now generally recognised that they could have done so, because their tactics and regulations are utter bollocks. They had one of the terrorists' laptops in their possession, but didn't hack it because it belonged to an Arab and they didn't want to appear racially insensitive. They've spent the last four years arse-covering, and one way they've been doing that is to disparage all other agencies, because they're afraid, with good reason, that any other agency that shows some success will then replace the FBI.

So that claim may well be true, but I won't believe it until it's corroborated from outside the FBI, preferably with some actual evidence.