[Right: A group of exiles prepares for mass deportation to Siberia]

Last week Amnesty International called the Guantanomo Bay, Cuba, detention facility (also knows as Camp X-Ray) where so-called 'enemy combatants' in the Global War on Terror are being held 'the gulag of our times.'

By invoking the term gulag, Amnesty International wishes to convey the notion that what is happening to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay is somehow comparable to the Soviet labor camp prison system of the Stalinist era. By using the term gulag, Amnesty International wishes to convey images of political terrorism, repression, and harsh prison conditions.

Comparing Guantanomo to a gulag is a serious accusation.

This post explores three questions: What exactly is a gulag and how widespread was the gulag system? What were the Soviet gulags like? And how do the worst and yet unproven allegations of abuse at Guantanomo Bay compare to what happened in Soviet gulags?

None of these questions are fully answered here, but hopefully the reader will come away with a better understanding of the gulag system and the political motivations of Amnesty International in using the term.

Let's begin with the last question first.

What have the Guantanomo Bay prisoners alleged?

[Right: Gulag workers]

According to Amnesty International, there were about 520 prisoners altogether at Guantamo, of which 234 have been released or tranfered out. Many have claimed 'abuse' ranging from humiliating name-calling to guards punching the prisoners.

A videotape of alleged abuse is said to reveal:

the guards punching some detainees, tying one to a gurney for questioning and forcing a dozen to strip from the waist down [in front of female guards].

One document describes how an FBI special agent (SA) observed a female interrogator caress a shackled prisoner, whisper in his ear and then cause him to grimace in pain.

"SA [name deleted] asked what had happened to cause the detainee to grimace up in pain," the document said.

"The marine said [she] had grabbed the detainees thumbs and bent them backwards and indicated that she also grabbed his genitals."

The document showed that the marine also implied that her treatment of that detainee was less harsh than her treatment of others.

He said he had seen her cause other detainees to curl up into a foetal position on the floor and cry in pain.

26 agents at Guantanamo said they had observed some form of mistreatment, although not by FBI personnel.

Cageprisoners.com, an openly pro-jihadist website cloaked in a civil-libertarian dressing, documents the alleged abuses of 6 Bahraini prisoners of Camp X-Ray in this PDF document. Most of the allegations are nothing more than common prison horror stories, much worse could be seen in any prison inspired movie, but some of them do include the allegations of abuse by interrogators (including death threats), mishandling of the Koran, and the story of a guard who overeacted to one of the prisoners for religious reasons.

There are no allegations of out and out murder nor are there allegations that prisoners have been starved to death.

If all the allegations were to prove correct we would have the story of several hundred victims of being at the wrong place (mostly foreigners in Afghanistan their for 'religious studies') at the wrong time (captured within Taliban lines or at al Qaeda camps), taken to a far-off prison with little recourse to due process, and who find that while their lives are in no danger, the conditions at their new home are abusive and less than ideal.

If all of the above is true then Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is a blemish on America's good name and a national shame which needs correcting.

I do not believe for a moment that the majority of the abuse stories at Camp X-Ray are true, especially in light of the recent revelation that al Qaeda trains its operatives to make abuse allegations. However, it is probable that some of the stories are true, even if the majority of those stories turn out to be the kind of routine behavior accepted at most US detention facilities. Abuse happens in prisons, and such abuse should be rooted out. But if you cannot accept any level of abuse at a prison then you cannot accept any penal system.

So then how do the abuses at Camp X-Ray compare to the Soviet gulags? Are such comparisons fair?

What is a gulag?

From the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office's Gulag study which investigates and seeks the return of the bodies of US soldiers held in the Soviet gulags:

The word “gulag” became a familiar term in the West with the publication of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s epic novel, The Gulag Archipelag, in 1973. A Russian acronym for Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerey (Main Administration of Camps), “Gulag,” is often used to mean any oppressive penal system.

It is important to recognize three distinguishing characteristics of the gulags that seperate them from other prison systems.

[Right: Graves of victims at Kolyma gulag]

First, the gulags were a form of political terrorism. These massive prisons were used to weed out those that were even remotely suspected of having all but the most enthusiastic of feelings toward the Soviet system. Solzhenitsyn, for instance, found himself in a Siberian gulag for making the mistake of making a joke about Stalin in a letter.

Can a single prison holding less than 500 people be considered a widespread tool of political terrorism?

Second, the gulags were a source of slave labor. It is not a coincidence that the massive increase in the number of prisoners in the gulags is timed precisely with the announcement of Stalin's first Five Year Plan. Although most of our knowledge of the gulag system comes from the intellectual class that survived them, such as the memories of Alexander Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelego, most of the victims were simple peasants. The gulags were not prisons in the Western sense of the word. The gulags were massive industrial complexes of forced labor.

No prisoner at Guantanomo or at any other detention facility for war prisoners has alleged forced labor.

Third, while the purpose of the gulags was not necessarily to torture or kill prisoners, the gulags were a place where humiliation, torture, and genocide scale mass deaths occured. Unlike survivors of the holocaust, though, who have found voice in the state of Israel, in US based interest-groups, or who have captured the fascination of Hollywood, the story of the gulags remains largely unheard of for the vast majority of the American public. While we understand that the gulags were bad places in the Soviet Union, the horrors of the gulag do not seem to resonate with us in the same way.

Very few cases of death are alleged to have occured in any US war related detention facility, none at Guantanamo.

Just how widespread was the gulag phenomenon?

Only the crimes of the Holocaust can measure up to the sheer evil of the gulags of the Soviet empire.

Anne Applebaum in Capitalism Magazine:

As a result, between 1929, when they first became a mass phenomenon, and 1953, the year of Stalin's death, some 18 million people passed through them. In addition, a further 6 or 7 million people were deported, not to camps but to exile villages. In total, that means the number of people with some experience of imprisonment in Stalin's Soviet Union could have run as high as 25 million, about 15 percent of the population.

-Ten percent of the entire population of the Soviet Union lived in the camps.
-The Gulag administration was the largest single employer in all of Europe.
-The average life expectancy of a camp prisoner was one winter.
-At least twenty million people perished in the labor camps during StalinÂ’s rule.
-The camps dehumanized life and instituted a reign of terror throughout Soviet society.

In total, between 1937 and 1953, as estimated by Robert Conquest, Kolyma consumed almost 3 million lives, mainly natives of the Soviet Union.

No Polish prisoners at all returned of 3000 sent to Chukhots camps

To understand the sheer enormity of a single gulag one would have to envision medium sized cities made up entirely of the victims of forced relocation campaigns surrounded by a series of smaller cities made up entirely of slave laborers. Some of the gulags were so massive in geographic scale that they are hard to imagine. For instance, the deadly Kolyma gulag was really a series of forced labor camps in and around the massive gold mine and not a single prison. Think the size of US states, and not just Rhode Island and Deleware--think Kansas.

The gulags were so enormous that they pervert the Russian economy to this day. Whenever the centralized government was forced to make the decision to invest in labor or capital, labor was chosen because it was nearly free and had certain advantageous political effects. To this day, hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens live in communities founded by gulag slave-labor in arctic regions which have no business being there. Many of these arctic residents are the children of gulag survivors and exiles forced to the area.

[Right: Gulag slave laborers dig the Balamor canal]
Thousands of forced labor projects left millions dead. Here is just one example from the building of the Belamor Canal:

Over 100,000 prisoners equipped with pick-axes, wheelbarrows and hatchets - dug a 227-kilometre long canal linking the Baltic and the White Sea in 20 months between 1931 and 1933. Tens of thousands died in the process.

Even if one were to compare the combined US War on Terror prisons to the gulag system one would be left with a drop of abuse next to a pool of horrors and mass murders. Such a comparison is unwarrented and immoraly minimizes the horrors of the gulags.

What were the Soviet gulags like?

While the prisoners at Guantanamo complain of periodic guard abuse, Koran flushings, and no judicial review by US civilian courts, the victims of the gulag were busy dying by the millions.

But what also needs to be remembered is that the gulags were not just a place for men, but for entire families.

Susanna Pechuro retells the horrors of the gulags:

The most horrible thing I saw in a camp was how children were taken away from their mothers. Because it's something you can't live with. And there are some things I don't let myself remember, because if I do I get insomnia for several weeks remembering those screaming mothers after their children have been taken away from them, [screaming] because they will never know where these children are being taken, to what orphanages. I've never seen anything more horrible than that, even though I also saw people beaten up. But nothing more horrible than the separation of children and mothers. And this can never and should never be forgiven. No matter what communists say now, the social structure which made it possible will never be pardoned.

...millions of children were either imprisoned with their mothers, or were born in the Gulag. Babies were taken from their mothers to be watched in batches of dozens by rough-mannered nurses. The nurses "took off their nightclothes and washed them in ice-cold water. The babies didn't even dare cry. They made little sniffing noises like old men and let out low hoots. This awful hooting noise would come from the cots for days at a time," wrote political dissident Hava Volovich. Of her own baby, Volovich wrote: "Little Eleanora, who was now fifteen months old, soon realized that her pleas for 'home' were in vain. She stopped reaching out for me when I visited her; she would turn away in silence. On the last day of her life, when I picked her up (they allowed me to breast-feed her) she stared wide-eyed somewhere off into the distance, then started to beat her weak little fists on my face. . . . Then she pointed down at her bed. In the evening, when I came back with my bundle of firewood, . . . I found her lying naked in the morgue among the corpses of the adult prisoners."

During the winter of 1937-38, "no hot food was given to the prisoners at all; the daily ration consisted of 400 grams of half-dried bread. [In March 1938], a new group of NKVD officers arrived from Moscow. The officers formed a 'special commission' and called out the prisoners in groups of forty. They were told they were going off on a transport. Each was given a piece of bread. The prisoners in the tent heard them being marched away --- and then [heard] the sounds of shooting."

"-It was easier to get accustomed to seeing the dead or dying, than to the scenes of stripping the dead bodies, sometimes even before they had died. The inmates did this themselves in order to have more clothes. There was no place for the majesty of death in the gulags of Kolyma. I could not get used to naked bodies being dragged by their legs to a special store, some considerable distance from the barracks. The mortuary was emptied depending on the season of the year."

Until 1956, Shifrin and his fellow prisoners worked ten-hour days, seven days a week. Thereafter the work load was reduced to six days. Prisoners who attempted to escape, and were shot and killed some distance from the camp, were left to rot (though their index fingers were severed for purposes of fingerprint identification). The bodies of those shot close to camp were placed near the gate to terrorize and deter other inmates who might be contemplating escape....

Shifrin also recalled a grisly incident involving a prisoner who cut off his hand with an ax and asked a fellow inmate to place the severed appendage inside lumber that had been loaded for shipment. When Shifrin asked the amputee why he had done this, he replied that the lumber would go to other countries, where the hand might help people understand the conditions under which the lumber was cut.

Hopelessness, desperation, and fatigue from the exhausting work schedule led to many instances of self-mutilation. Some prisoners induced infections by pulling thread through the plaque between their teeth, then running the thread through a few inches of flesh with a needle. Serious infection would develop within minutes and justify their transport to a hospital for a "rest."

From there, from the gold mine, came a procession of human phantoms. These people were driven hard to work, like animals, through the entire (summer) season. The animals would have revolted or died. The man endures more than they do. The men exploited through the season changed into skeletons. One cannot understand how these people are still alive? Only skin and bones, without exaggeration. These past people, physically completely destroyed, are not needed in the gold mine anymore, because their productivity is nil; therefore the half dead men are directed to the task of maintaining the roads."

Conclusions

Making any sort of comparison, even as a rhetorical device, between Camp X-Ray and the Soviet gulag system is problematic at best and grossly immoral at worst.

For Amnesty International to stoop to the low of making such a comparison reveals their ignorance of history and their political bias against the United States. While the US, like all nation-states, is not perfect, her flaws do not begin to compare to the oppression of Communist states in general and of the gulags in particular.

Shame on you Amnesty International, I will never take your accusations seriously again.

Resources:

Perhaps the most complete account of the gulag system is Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, but the enormity of the work makes it difficult reading. An easy afternoon read, and a better piece of literature, is Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich which recounts the humanity of a single victim on a single day under the oppression of the gulag system.

Another account of gulag stories see Applebaum's Gulag: A History, which is really a narrative history and very readable.

For a great e-bibliography, see The Soros Foundation funded Gulag link site.

Parenthetically, I spent some time studying in Russia during the mid-1990s. For about a year I studied the Soviet system. To this day the Russian people have still not come to terms with the horrors of Communism. Even survivors of the gulags prefer to blame them on Stalin, rather than the Marxist-Leninist system which Stalin was inspired by.

Roger L. Simon comes to a conclusion similar to my own here. Malkin also has a nice reaction to the Gitmo flack here along with blog reaction and Babalu Blog reminds us that the very real gulags of Cuba still operate to this day. Austin Bay fisks Amnesty here. John Henke does a good job discussing the accusation here and how the US is rightly investigating them. Villanous Company puts it into perspective here.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds is kind enough to link me and he has a good post of his own here. You might also want to check out the 'fatwas' issued below.

Posted by: Rusty at 01:00 PM | Comments (81) | Add Comment
Post contains 3172 words, total size 23 kb.

1 The best work by Solzhenitsyn on this topic is The First Circle.

Posted by: Leopold Stotch at June 01, 2005 05:35 PM (TGYM2)

2 Rusty, that was a great read. As stated should be required reading for Amnesty International.

Posted by: red at June 01, 2005 05:50 PM (o7AuK)

3 In total, that means the number of people with some experience of imprisonment in Stalin's Soviet Union could have run as high as 25 million, about 15 percent of the population. In sum, the folks at Amnesty International provide us with even more evidence that modern Liberalism is a mental disorder.

Posted by: Carlos at June 01, 2005 06:25 PM (8e/V4)

4 Great post and excellent points. AI should read the book, "On Bullshit" and the go take a long hard look in the mirror.

Posted by: Mr. K at June 01, 2005 06:33 PM (clAy6)

5 Great post and excellent points. AI should read the book, "On Bullshit" and then go take a long hard look in the mirror.

Posted by: Mr. K at June 01, 2005 06:33 PM (clAy6)

6 I AM SHOCKED THAT A "HOLY WARRIOR" WOULD BE ABUSED BY HAVING A FEMALE IN THE ROOM! HAS THIS COUNTRY NO MORALS? DOESN'T ANYONE KNOW HOW PRECIOUS AND GENTLE THIER FEELINGS ARE? OH WELL, I GUESS IF YOU REALLY WANT TO GET INFO FROM A "HOLY WARRIOR" TO "COUGH(AHEM!)" UP ANY INFO TEASE THEM BY USING LUST.YES I SAID LUST! BY USING A GOAT OR A SHEEP I'M SURE THEY WON'T COMPLAIN TO AMI ABOUT THAT ONE. ONE QUESTION....DOES ANYONE IN A "NORMAL WORLD" HAVE USE FOR THESE PEOPLE OR CAN EXPLAIN THEIR WACKY ACTIONS AGANIST INNOCENT PEOPLE?

Posted by: Sir Mike of New Milford at June 01, 2005 10:07 PM (SvHRX)

7 Thank you. Next time a leftie flings the "G" word at me, I will send them here.

Posted by: West at June 01, 2005 10:36 PM (4kT2C)

8 Rusty: Excellent and very useful post! I have something of a problem with John Henke's presentation, both in the sense that he presents allegations as fact and also in the sense that he presumes an equivalence between homicide and murder. (Legally they're quite different, and they're probably different morally as well.) Someone who places a detainee under stress, resulting in the detainee's death has definitely committed homicide, but is not necessarily guilty of murder. Depending on the circumstances the homicide may or may not even be criminal. That isn't a cover-up, it's reality. In addition, I disagree with Henke that we can afford to pass up the opportunity to acquire information from prisoners. We're at war, for heaven sake. Whether we can afford to give the enemy such an advantage depends on nthe circumstances, and how critical the information happens to be... but one simply can't make such blanket statement that we can afford to just ignore the informational dimension of war. How utterly silly! It may constitute some sort of emotional release to adopt Henke's simple approach... but that doesn't mean it's moral or virtuous to do so. The fact is that we can't afford to treat these people either as Geneva-protected POWs or as common criminals. They're neither. Is there a rule against reality, or something? If, however, there are people practicing sadism and systematic cruelty we have to find a way to implement oversight in order to prevent that. There's no up side and considerable down side to such practices. But we have to insulate this oversight from public knowledge, somehow. Make the process totally transparent. To that extent I guess I agree with Henke, and it's similar to my general recommendations regarding intelligence. But we really need to keep the empirical details out of the public domain, and somehow have to rely upon the public to see the wisdom in this. I think it can be done.

Posted by: Demosophist at June 02, 2005 12:02 AM (d0CtA)

9 My great-grandfather died in the gulag for the crime of owning a bakery (legal before Stalin, not legal after). Amnesty just displays the opinions of people that have never known struggle or true terror, and never will. It's easy to criticize the US, they probably won't put out a fatwa and kill you.

Posted by: Karol at June 02, 2005 12:53 AM (hOQdY)

10 First off, you have to find a Lefty who'll admit the USSR even had Gulags before you can even debate Gitmo with them...Then if you find a Lefty who admits they existed, you'll have to debate him about whether the victims were innocent, guilty, or the price to be paid for the "Collective good of the Proletariat of the People." Once you get past that then the typical Lefty response to this post will be "Well...Haliburton!"

Posted by: MKL at June 02, 2005 02:25 AM (jWtaT)

11 Even if one were to compare the combined US War on Terror prisons to the gulag system one would be left with a drop of abuse next to a pool of horrors and mass murders. Such a comparison is unwarrented and immoraly minimizes the horrors of the gulags. Sure, but no one outside SNTL/CCCP/USSR knew about the gulags for a long time, no one dared object the Soviets for the way they treated their own people after knowing about 'em and gulags existed and operated freely for decades. You have the whole world keeping an eye on you, Amnesty can bitch about what you do as much as they want, everyone knows you are keeping them locked up and your War on Terror has only lasted about 4 years so you have plenty of time to grow the drop into a puddle => lake => ocean.

Posted by: A fatwad Finn at June 02, 2005 03:01 AM (cWMi4)

12 Finn carefully ignores our system of checks and balances, dutifully forgets that nearly half of those at Guantanamo have been released, deliberately continues to equate an impossibility with an abominable history and then has the gall to consciously announce one of the most ignorant statements I'll probably hear all week.

Posted by: Oyster at June 02, 2005 07:11 AM (YudAC)

13 Great work Rusty. I remember watching a made for tv movie about one of the gulags, when I was a child. Sadly, I cannot remember the name of it.

Posted by: Defense Guy at June 02, 2005 08:42 AM (jPCiN)

14 Yeah, I try to make things sound bad. However, if Russians would have as much pains in the ass demanding rights to prisoners, their human rights offenses would have been way, way lower.

Posted by: A fatwad Finn at June 02, 2005 09:01 AM (lGolT)

15 Even if one were to compare the combined US War on Terror prisons to the gulag system one would be left with a drop of abuse next to a pool of horrors and mass murders. Such a comparison is unwarrented and immoraly minimizes the horrors of the gulags. To make a rational scale comparison between the number of prisoners held in Camp X-Ray to the soviet gulags and their sister institutions in the state prisons of soviet satellite system in eastern Europe and the Baltic, compare the length of your thumb from the first joint to the tip, with the height of Mt. Everest (29,035 ft.).

Posted by: Demosophist at June 02, 2005 09:13 AM (d0CtA)

16 Finn: Yeah, good thing we "have the whole world keeping an eye" on us. If not, then Lord knows we'd probably put them in orange vests and make them pick up trash on the side of the road. Your comment didn't just "sound bad", it was totally uncalled for. And then you finish with "...if Russians would have as much pains in the ass demanding rights to prisoners, their human rights offenses would have been way, way lower." Hmmm ... Doesn't seem to be working with China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, most of Africa, etc. What makes you think it would have worked with Russia? Way, way lower? How obtuse. Better that it may have only been half a million, huh? Put the shovel down.

Posted by: Oyster at June 02, 2005 09:24 AM (fl6E1)

17 Thanks for taking on Finn. He means well, just lacks sense of a)proportion b) what the American soul is like.

Posted by: Rusty Shackleford at June 02, 2005 09:50 AM (JQjhA)

18 Yeah, I try to make things sound bad. However, if Russians would have as much pains in the ass demanding rights to prisoners, their human rights offenses would have been way, way lower. This is proved false by history. Anyone in the Soviet Union who objected to the Gulags got sent to the Gulags. Anyone not in the Soviet Union they simply ignored. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, author of The Gulag Archipelago, wrote it from personal experience. After writing a letter critical of Stalin in 1945, he was sent to the Gulags for eight years - until Stalin's death - followed by three more years of internal exile. It reminds me of the situation with Gandhi. Gandhi was successful only because he was opposing the British. If India had been ruled by the Russians or the French or the Germans - or just about any other nation - they would simply have shot him.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 02, 2005 11:07 AM (+S1Ft)

19 It reminds me of the situation with Gandhi. Gandhi was successful only because he was opposing the British. If India had been ruled by the Russians or the French or the Germans - or just about any other nation - they would simply have shot him. EXACTLY. Perfectly said. All my Russian friends think that America is waaaaay too good and friendly and open to be able to fight the war on terror. I've heard plenty of comments like 'why didn't you guys just drop 5 nukes on 9/12?' Like I said in my first comment, it's just so easy to criticize America. You know you won't get killed for it.

Posted by: Karol at June 02, 2005 11:34 AM (hOQdY)

20 Let me point out one hypocrisy AI exhibits without any awareness of doing so. They criticize us for deporting people back to their country of origin because they may be tortured and then criticize us for holding them because they say we are torturing them. Then it would stand to reason that if they equate our detention centers with the "gulags", what would it matter? Is Greg their Attorney General? Because this sounds frightfully like one of his ill thought out arguments.

Posted by: Oyster at June 02, 2005 11:35 AM (fl6E1)

21 Hmmm... lacks sense of proportion and "American soul"... Ok, I do think a few Arabs are much more valuable than millions of Russians, can't help it, Europeans actually have histories with pretty much every country in the world, and the histories effect the way of thinking. You've been isolated and fused into a strange people, new on this planet and with an unexperienced collective soul compared to most other peoples of Earth with thousands of years of history, so you haven't formed permanent ideas rooted deep in your mind about others than the Soviets, French and Canadians (counts as Americans, but there is that line keeping you separate). After few thousand years of fighting, I'm sure your people will begin seeing the point in just vaporising certain hostile nations. Fine, so you got a bad taste from doing so in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I'm sure you'll get over it. I bet the first time a machine gun was used on the field of battle people felt bad about the sudden increase in death counts, but as you can see it passed pretty quickly and now they're the most common weapons in combat.

Posted by: A fatwad Finn at June 02, 2005 01:39 PM (lGolT)

22 Finn: You just proved you know nothing about the American Soul. Have you ever actually been to Harlem, Chinatown, Gettyburgh. Have you ever met an American from Maylasia that can't seem to understand the ignorance and stupidity of his homeland. Ever met an American from Costa Rica who will never return there. Ever had an ancestor that left the Cherokee nation to marry a white man to stay off the trail of tears. We've got plenty of experience in our collective soul. We have the collective experience of our own history as well as all of Europe's, Asia's, Africa's, You name em they are here and for some reason they ain't all moving to Finland next week. Grrrrr.

Posted by: Howie at June 02, 2005 02:20 PM (D3+20)

23 Finn: So Russia doesn't have enough history in your book for its citizens to be worthy of your benevolence? Your smugness is your least endearing quality. No wait .... your sense of moral superiority is. No wait .... your lack of historical knowledge .... er ....

Posted by: Oyster at June 02, 2005 03:02 PM (fl6E1)

24 Oyster: I said my people have a history with Russians, and that history has created a very strong opinion to not value Russian lives over the less troublesome Arab ones. Howie: The people who moved to America gave up their former homelands thinking to become American, so the homelands thinking isn't a part of the American Souls experience, it's just what prejudice he would have towards certain people if he were living in his peoples homeland. Americans have a collective soul composed of Anglo-Americans history, Latin-Americans have their own. The general view of the people makes the collective soul, not persons moving there with ideas they have not yet switched for the collective ones.

Posted by: A fatwad Finn at June 02, 2005 03:18 PM (lGolT)

25 Even if large groups of different types of souls have been forced to merge, it's the strongest ones soul that makes the general soul, and individuals or small groups acting on a different soul are smuthered to join the strong one, or they isolate from the majority to form their own collective soul. These struggles may give experience, but just merging people from different peoples does nothing, just adds to the gene pool unless there is racial hygiene like in most European Souls. (honestly, how many almost-white black people have you seen in anything about Europe? It's always one type of whites, dark black people and others are in their own groups of similar looking people)

Posted by: A fatwad Finn at June 02, 2005 03:27 PM (lGolT)

26 Finn: No, the merging of other peoples and cultures is what makes the American soul. He homeland thinking is just the starting point not the result. Spend 10 years here and see what happens to your though process. The result is greater than the sum of the input.

Posted by: howie at June 02, 2005 03:29 PM (D3+20)

27 So Indian wars, slavery, Civil war and American Revolution added to your soul, as well as kicking Mexicans southward, but just big waves of movers coming to live the American Dream, the main point of the American Soul to which they switch when they decide to pursue the Dream, do absolutely nothing to the big Soul.

Posted by: A fatwad Finn at June 02, 2005 03:32 PM (lGolT)

28 No: the strongest is changed forever over time. Speaking of time you are a waste of mine.

Posted by: Howie at June 02, 2005 03:36 PM (D3+20)

29 Ya can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs. Yes all those things in the long run created us.

Posted by: Howie at June 02, 2005 03:38 PM (D3+20)

30 The strongest changes when it needs to struggle with the weaker ones to merge them or render them useless. It's the effort that makes the experience, not some stupid easy converts that keep their mouth shut and follow the strongest ones main goal blindly. And of course I am, and this commenting has gone to "I'm telling you, it's exactly how I say it and you better believe it or I'll repeat myself", so it's not useful anymore.

Posted by: A fatwad Finn at June 02, 2005 03:40 PM (lGolT)

31 Ahaa! No, the merging of other peoples and cultures is what makes the American soul. He homeland thinking is just the starting point not the result. Spend 10 years here and see what happens to your though process. The result is greater than the sum of the input. We were saying the same thing, you just didn't understand you were saying the homeland thinking is changed into American Soul-thinking, not the other way around.

Posted by: A fatwad Finn at June 02, 2005 03:43 PM (lGolT)

32 It's the country that makes and changes the people, lock, throw away key, not listening, yadayadayada, can't hear anymore.

Posted by: A fatwad Finn at June 02, 2005 03:45 PM (lGolT)

33 Ok, I do think a few Arabs are much more valuable than millions of Russians, can't help it, Europeans actually have histories with pretty much every country in the world, and the histories effect the way of thinking. In other words, you're a vile bigoted moron?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 02, 2005 06:02 PM (+S1Ft)

34 "Finn carefully ignores our system of checks and balances, dutifully forgets that nearly half of those at Guantanamo have been released, deliberately continues to equate an impossibility with an abominable history and then has the gall to consciously announce one of the most ignorant statements I'll probably hear all week." Posted by Oyster Amnesty has worked for 30+ years to bring to attention the abuse of human rights and the violation of basic human dignity. They have applied their mission equally to all nations they investigate and report on, and until now, have never been questioned by any of you. If you read the interview below the article mentioned in the original post between Mr. Shulz and Mr. Rivkin, you'll discover that it was not Amnesty International who made the gulag reference, but it was the UN Secretary General. Mr. Rivkin even goes so far as to praise Amnesty International for appplying criticism equally to all nations it investigates. Until this report came out, no one at the White House had questioned anything AI has done. This only proves, once again, the arrogance of Bush and Cheney, and the policy of the administration. Deny everything and refuse to admit to mistake, no matter how truthful the criticism is. Then cover your tracks by placing blame on someone else. What a bunch of pussy's!!! There were never any checks and balances involved, no oversight, and no training. It should be plainly obvious to everyone the abuse, imprisonment, and disappearance was not only overlooked, but in fact condoned and encouraged. The administration and DOD hired mercenaries to run the prisons in Iraq and Afganistan, then declared total amnesty for these people (see Paul Bremer).Why do you think only enlisted military personnel are going to prison for this? It is true some have been released. But if you read the AI report, you'll also discover that not one of the 500+ prisioners at Gitmo(70,000 world wide) has ever been charged with any crime, or allowed any contact with legal representation or members of their families. And most if not all of them were captured because other citizens were paid by us to turn them in. In many cases, $25,000 or more. It didn't matter whether or not they had actually done anything wrong. No one knows how many people have been disappeared, tortured, or killed by us. No one really knows either how many prisons are being operated. In some cases, people with no criminal backrounds have been captured and shipped to prisons in countries known to practice torture. Saudi Arabia is a perfect example of this. The administration to this day refuses to divluge the information. So much for transparency. They give no valid reason for doing so either. The administration is lying sack of arrogant, racist ingrates. Dick "head" Cheney, not only is a racist, but a really stupid one to boot. His past is obvious proof of this. During the late eighties, he was one of a very few to vote against abolishing aparteid, and actually had the gaul to call Nelson Mandella a terrorist. This is who Dick "head" Cheney really is. Is this really the kind of person you want representing you? Is it any wonder the people of Islam, as well as most of the world are pissed off at America. That we would vote such evil people into office? Personally, I think the reactions we get are excatly what the administration is hoping for. This way, they can avoid answering for their own incompetence, a failing economy and job market, and rampant corruption. Amnesty International did what they've done for 30 years. None of you have ever questioned anything they've reported on. Focusing on one phrase (even if it is a bit innacruate in the context of Gulags) is horribly shortsighted and misses the point of what they're trying to accomplish. It's not a bashing of America, it's telling the truth, plain and simple. No one is to blame for what they reported except for the idiots currently running the country who think they can do no wrong.

Posted by: deccles at June 02, 2005 06:47 PM (UCtX/)

35 Could whomever at the NSA is monitoring this thread please please please get a message over to the Bush Administration to 'disappear' diccless and fat finn? Please don't allow them any contact with an attorney. Oh, please, "lying sack of arrogant, racist ingrates," save my brain from this drivel.

Posted by: a4g at June 02, 2005 07:30 PM (zqGBg)

36 deccles: "even if it is a bit innacruate [sic] in the context of Gulags" Wow. Let me say that again: Wow.

Posted by: Josh at June 02, 2005 07:51 PM (bHhHU)

37 Amnesty has worked for 30+ years to bring to attention the abuse of human rights and the violation of basic human dignity. Had worked. Past tense. They have applied their mission equally to all nations they investigate and report on, and until now, have never been questioned by any of you. Actually, questions have been raised over Amnesty's anti-American bias for years. You just haven't been paying attention. It's not a bashing of America, it's telling the truth, plain and simple. It's utter bullshit, plain and simple. You didn't read anything Rusty just wrote, did you? Not a single word.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 02, 2005 08:21 PM (AIaDY)

38 Great work Rusty. I remember watching a made for tv movie about one of the gulags, when I was a child. Sadly, I cannot remember the name of it. This one? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089240/ Whenever I think about a gulag, this is the movie I think of. When HBO used to make decent movies...

Posted by: cheshirecat at June 02, 2005 09:08 PM (D33KZ)

39 Dick Cheney never voted against abolishing aparheid; he wasn't in a position to do so. What he voted against was a policy of hurting the economy of South Africa, and thus all of its residents, for the purpose of pressuring the government of that country to change its policies. Nelson Mandella matured into a statesman, but the fact is that he was a violent revolutionary in his younger days. His ex-wife continued to support the policy of putting gasoline-filled tires around the necks of political opponents and lighting the gas long after the purported goal of ending apartheid was achieved.

Posted by: triticale at June 02, 2005 09:30 PM (xisJK)

40 "All my Russian friends think that America is waaaaay too good and friendly and open to be able to fight the war on terror. I've heard plenty of comments like 'why didn't you guys just drop 5 nukes on 9/12?' Like I said in my first comment, it's just so easy to criticize America. You know you won't get killed for it." This is going to come out rather melancholic. Bear with me. Yes, that's pretty much it exactly. The reason we didn't drop nukes after 9/11 is not that we were afraid of what the rest of the world would do. The reason we didn't drop nukes is we didn't want to have to kill anyone. It's as simple as that. If you been in the factories and warehouses of America on 9/11, as I was, you would have seen that the common people of America believed we would nuke someone. They were angry, and believed we had just cause. On 9/12, they saw three kinds of people. First, there were people who were scared and wringing thier hands and talking about how we deserved this and we needed to surrender. Second, there were people who were angry and talking about how we should just nuke the whole Arab world and be done with it. Lastly, there were a few people that reminded them how Americans act - people like Bush and Guilianni - and that assured them that the problem could be resolved - and would be resolved - without having to vaporize thousands of children. Bush reminded them that we were strong. The French might have nothing better to do than nuke thier enemies when they were attacked. The Iranians might hope to have that power. But Americans aren't like that. The real problem is the Bin Ladin's of the world - the evil people, the strongmen - look at America's response and behavior, and they cannot imagine that America is anything but weak and 'soft'. That we don't want to kill people not because we are afraid, but because we don't enjoy never occurs to them. Have you ever known a man that is really strong? I mean, really, really, really strong - like a bear? America is like that. Most of the time they are really gentle, because they fear to break things. Occassionally they get excited and forget thier own strength, and then somebody gets hurt or something gets broken. But they rarely ever get actually angry, because when a very strong man gets angry terrible things happen. When America gets angry, terrible things happen. The good thing about America has always been we hate ourselves for it afterwards, even we are perfectly justified in our anger. You must understand. America is not yet angry. A few of us are. Some parts of America are upset. But for the most part, America still wants to just forget about it. You haven't seen America angry yet. We haven't been angry since 1945. What you see in Iraq and Afghanistan is just America annoyed, and only a part of us at that. We don't yet really fear the enemy. We don't really yet hate the enemy. God help the innocents of this world if we ever do become angry. Foolish men that don't read thier histories do not think that accountants, engineers, and businessmen make good soldiers. They think that wars are something like brawls, and they fight like mobs. When we made war on Japan teams of accountants and engineers set down and worked out exactly how far apart to drop a scattering of high explosive bombs such that they would do just enough damage that when a larger force of bombers flew over carrying fire bombs, that those bombs would find the city of Toyko to be perfect kindling already stacked and ready to be burned. They performed these calculations professionally, with the same sort of emotion that one has when balancing a check book. They did not mean to be cruel. They merely meant to win by the most efficient means possible. Then they burned 100,000 people on a single night. Afterwords, when pilots whose mission it was to map the extent of the fire that they produced made their report, those men could not speak for minutes at the thought of what they had done. That they did not mean to be cruel made it no less terrible. What America does now it does solely to prevent us from having to do what we could do. We could have turned Baghdad into a meadow of glass and ashes. We could have killed every man, women, and child in Afghanistan and been done with it. We could make Damacus an inferno in an evening, and slay everyone who has ever raised thier fist for Hezbollah in week even without nukes. The world has to understand, we are in Iraq spending the blood of our own sons and brothers so that we won't have to kill our enemies hildren, and so that we won't have to kill even one more of our enemies than is necessary. That is what America is like. Those of us with who have had our eyes open since 9/11 live not with the terrible fear that we will be caught in a terrorist attack - even if another 9/11 happens the likelihood that we would be caught in it is remote - but with the terrible fear of the things we will do if there is another terrorist attack. You walk around America today and its just about impossible to tell that we are at war anywhere. This is not the country that built and fielded 170 aircraft carriers in about 3 years, firebombed cities, and dropped nukes. But it certainly could be. You ask General Musharraf what its like to speak to an angry America, and you'll understand why they've been so cooperative. I think anyone that risks making America angry is a total fool. It's as stupid as trying to conquer Russia. Everyone that's ever tried has regretted it, yet time and time again people lead armies into Russia in the winter, and give speaches about how the Americans are weak and will crumble like cowards. I'm happy our two countries have not had to fight. I hope things get better in Russia soon. If there is one things America could use, it's a peer. We are rather lonely without one. China is too much like Europe. Their heart isn't in the open country, but in thier palaces and cities. The Austrialians understand us, but its not quite the same thing. Anyway, this post had nothing to do with the topic. I just wanted you to understand that on 9/11 America did came close to nuking some places, and if Bush was who people like Chirac say he is, then we would have. The wine-sipping-chattering-cocktail-party-class Left never seems to understand that being called a Cowboy is not an insult. Their heart is also not in the open spaces.

Posted by: celebrim at June 02, 2005 11:32 PM (eK/oQ)

41 In other words, you're a vile bigoted moron? Pixy Misa Yes, when it comes to Russians, thank you for noticing. Can't see why it isn't obvious.

Posted by: A fatwad Finn at June 03, 2005 01:25 AM (cWMi4)

42 You see, European countries are cranky old people with fixed ideas about everything, and US is a 5-year old with sharp teeth and nasty tantrums.

Posted by: A fatwad Finn at June 03, 2005 01:28 AM (cWMi4)

43 And no, I don't get these ideas anywhere, since it seems like the media, the people nor the government have opinions about anything. Just about inland politics, since that's the one that actually effects things here. Kinda boring, foreign politics is just: - Didcha know that Al-Whatshisname, the terrorist guy in ... Iran? - no, Iraq - yeah, Iran. He's dead now. - so? - hmmm... How about that Bush? - What of him? - Bankrupting his country - Really? Good for us? - I dunno... guess it makes no difference - Have you been fishing this year? - Yeah just yesterday I caught... And that's already too much foreign politics for an hour or two of conversation and too little about fishing in 50 words...

Posted by: A fatwad Finn at June 03, 2005 01:47 AM (cWMi4)

44 You see, European countries are cranky old people with fixed ideas about everything, and US is a 5-year old with sharp teeth and nasty tantrums. Wrong once again. You just don't have a clue about America. If America was a 5-year-old with nasty tantrums, the Middle East would be a sea of radioactive glass by now.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 03, 2005 01:49 AM (AIaDY)

45 Celebrine - I think anyone that risks making America angry is a total fool. It's as stupid as trying to conquer Russia. Nah, nothing is as stupid as trying to conquer Russia. I mean, just think what would happen if you won. You'd have Russia. Then what?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 03, 2005 01:54 AM (AIaDY)

46 5-year-olds just bite, they don't know how to use advanced machinery. You've hit the right buttons a couple of times, but since it felt a bit ouchie you won't do it again before you turn 80 or something.

Posted by: A fatwad Finn at June 03, 2005 02:13 AM (cWMi4)

47 Hmmm... gotta start watering down comments about touchy subjects.

Posted by: A fatwad Finn at June 03, 2005 02:38 AM (cWMi4)

48 And lose the 'fatwad', since they retracted it after I sent them a few links to this site and my """blog""" (at a very pathetic phase of 2-color background, few articles and no logo).

Posted by: A Finn at June 03, 2005 02:42 AM (cWMi4)

49 5-year-olds just bite, they don't know how to use advanced machinery. You've hit the right buttons a couple of times, but since it felt a bit ouchie you won't do it again before you turn 80 or something. That made no sense whatsoever.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 03, 2005 04:49 AM (+S1Ft)

50 Saying that makes me think you just couldn't create an effective response. So please make one up and try to link certain parts of it to actual times you've used WMD:s.

Posted by: A Finn at June 03, 2005 06:28 AM (lGolT)

51 Or then I should keep my comments on a lower level of symbolism so everyone can understand and complain about it.

Posted by: A Finn at June 03, 2005 06:32 AM (lGolT)

52 So America's a great country because Gitmo isn't a bad as the gulag was? The war in Iraq is a good thing because America could shower nuclear fallout over the earth but chooses not to?? Wow, talk about low standards... I'd like to think there were better things you could say about a country than that. Apparently not....

Posted by: bunkerbuster at June 03, 2005 07:03 AM (0bO0Q)

53 deccles: Using as your source the very report that's been conclusively shown to be hysterical nonsense is probably not your best tactic here. Everyone who HAS been paying attention knows that rendering has been around since Clinton at least - and I can't help but wonder, given its diplomatic value, so to speak, whether it was an unofficial policy all along. I don't like rendering. But Oyster's comment a way up the thread is instructive on this point: if we're the new gulag-administration, the worst human rights offender in the world, why then is it bad for us to send prisoners back to their countries of origin? Surely they'll be better off there, won't they? Hmm... The pit into which you've fallen is the same one I'm running into everywhere: first, the assumption that a Gitmo prisoner is the same as a drug dealer in Philly, quickly followed by a belief that it's appropriate for AI to hold the US, and the US alone, to the highest possible standard because the US holds ITSELF to the highest possible standard but falls short of it - and therefore making the d*mn good the enemy of the perfect and measuring the distance between the two with a relativistic ruler of which Einstein would be proud. I can't help but sound patronizing on this one: it's like arguing with my eight-year-old. Nothing I say, no matter how eminently sensible and demonstrably true, can dent his supreme and inward-looking self-assurance.

Posted by: Jamie at June 03, 2005 08:24 AM (yoz8y)

54 I could say a few good things about your country not in any way related to "we could hurt em more, but we choose not to": 1. US offers many ways for smart people to get rich without work, i.e. being able to sue for pretty much anything, rollercoaster stock market, marrying rich old people who don't have any relatives left. 2. US also has loads of empty space, so if you have the money from the previous good thing, you can build your own palace in the middle of nowhere, make your own small lake there, and plant a forrest around your piece of prearie. Actually my future plan back in grade school... Sue some rich guy for driving over your foot with his limo and start playing in the stock markets, after which step 2.

Posted by: A Finn at June 03, 2005 08:25 AM (lGolT)

55 Finn, You're not in the least bothered by the deaths of tens of millions of people, because those people were Russians, and Russians have (indisputably) victimized Finns over the years. So I understand that you're angry at Russians. But it seems to me that you're really, really confused: it was the Russian leadership that did so much harm to Finland, AND it was the Russian leadership that killed millions of innocent Russians. In other words, the same boot that was on your face was on the faces of those in the Gulags, and you're cheering that the boot pressed harder on their faces. By your indifference to the deaths of innocent Russians, you're excusing the very same people who made you so angry at Russians in the first place. Please explain to me how I'm wrong here; but right now, this makes you look like one sick bastard.

Posted by: UML Guy at June 03, 2005 09:25 AM (EAky8)

56 Bunk: "So America's a great country because Gitmo isn't a bad as the gulag was?" No, pay closer attention: the point is that Amnesty International is lying. There are many, many reasons why America is a great country, but that's not the issue here today. The issue is that we can no longer trust Amnesty International as an impartial voice for human rights. Today, they're lying about America because their major donors don't like Republicans in office. Tomorrow, if they tell us that prisoners in WhoKnowsWhere are being forced into labor camps, we won't know if that's the truth, or if wealthy Democrats are simply mad at WhoKnowsWhere and are threatening Amnesty's funding. This was a hideously stupid waste of Amnesty's credibility. "The war in Iraq is a good thing because America could shower nuclear fallout over the earth but chooses not to??" Close: the war in Iraq is a good thing because it's an effort to solve problems before they escalate to the point where we're forced to shower nuclear fallout. A mature, responsible country acts when problems are small and manageable, rather than waiting until there's no choice but all-out war. "Wow, talk about low standards..." No, talk about how you completely misread the post and the comments. That means eaither you need to work on your reading comprehension, or you're deliberately trying to deflect attention from the fact that Amnesty knowingly lied for money.

Posted by: UML Guy at June 03, 2005 09:36 AM (EAky8)

57 Thank you, thank you, thank you, but please don't put people off reading Gulag Archipelago! I think everyone should read at least the first volume. Then the second. Too many people have looked away from this work. I did for too long. The First Circle was good but it really was more about the more elite prisoners after all.

Posted by: cassandra at June 03, 2005 10:16 AM (liP7i)

58 UML Guy, I don't cheer for killing Russians or any other people, I just couldn't care less about what Russians did to other Russians in Russia. And it's not only the Soviet government, the history stretches all the way to the day the Vikings founded the first Russia, Novgorod and started raiding from both sides of the country. Only for a few hundred years it has been governmently attacking us, but for over 1000 years the people of Novgorod/Russia have been raiding, and we've been raiding back at them.

Posted by: A Finn at June 03, 2005 10:49 AM (lGolT)

59 For one thing, Bush’s argument for war brings about a humanitarian disaster of unimaginable scale. It is quite remarkable that the apparent demise of "anti-Americanism" as a respectable means of stifling recognition of American imperialism leads our attention to the slaughter of thousands of children by Air Force cluster bombs. It is not heartening that the pro-Sharon neoconservative cabal provides a pretext for a McCarthyism which threatens everything we hold dear. So far, the influence of Leo Strauss can be regarded as the flagrant lies promulgated by the political donor class.

Posted by: STOP BUSH & FASCIST USA at June 03, 2005 11:22 AM (YAEN3)

60 That's satire right Stop Bush? It reads like something out of an old soviet propaganda rag.

Posted by: Defense Guy at June 03, 2005 11:37 AM (jPCiN)

61 As someone who has actually read Solzhenitsyn's "Archipelag Gulag", in Russian, let me add that the reason we have Camp X-Ray, the reason we hold on to Islamofascist killers instead of dispatching them in American flag underwear with their Korans to mine for gold with their hands (in exchange for food) in Alaska - to pay for our expansionist imperialism - is twofold. Inefficient interrogation, and a lack of progressive, proletariat sensibility and revolutionary communist zeal in our judicial system.

Posted by: electronicIDF at June 03, 2005 01:09 PM (MBd2J)

62 Why does STOP BUSH & FASCIST USA link to Democrats.org? Most Democrats supported the war early on, while most Democratic politicians have voted in support of the war on numerous occasions (except Kerry, who voted for it before he voted against it). Besides, I did not hear any complaints when Clinton was bombing Serbia, Iraq (remember Desert Fox, '9 or some asprin factory in Sudan. I guess this just goes to show who the Democratic base really are these days - Jihadist appeasing, Islamofascist supporting, liberal lunatic looneys.

Posted by: electronicIDF at June 03, 2005 01:19 PM (MBd2J)

63 You see, European countries are cranky old people with fixed ideas about everything, and US is a 5-year old with sharp teeth and nasty tantrums. Given that the typical attitude coming from many of the old European countries reduces in satire to "Hey you! Authority figure! Give me food, shelter, healthcare, and don't demand that I work too hard for the aquisition thereof," whereas the US has and continues to preach self-improvement through enabling infrastructure, I think it's obvious that you got the age spread a bit too wide and the identities reversed.

Posted by: anony-mouse at June 03, 2005 01:30 PM (3QtDU)

64 anony-mouse, these 2 concepts must not necessarily exist exclussive of one another. It could be that Europeans are cranky old people with fixed ideas about everything who think that they will get more for less by acting like 5 year olds with temper tantrums (case in point: French workers rejecting the EU constitution in favor of MORE socialism). Inversely, Americans can be compared to bright-eyed 5 year olds, who have had their fill of their mother's tit, and wish to be independent and entrepreneuring for the rest of their lives... well, some Americans, anyway. However, while the American economy is largely self-sufficient (oil is the only thing we cannot produce if pressed), as 2/3rds of our economy is driven on consumer spending, the European economic model is heavily dependent on exports... to the United States.

Posted by: electronicIDF at June 03, 2005 02:13 PM (MBd2J)

65 Saying that makes me think you just couldn't create an effective response. So please make one up and try to link certain parts of it to actual times you've used WMD:s. No, it means that what you are saying is complete and utter nonsense. The United States was reluctant to enter World War I. It only entered World War II when it was directly attacked by Japan. The decision was made to use nuclear weapons against Japan in light of the invasion of Okinawa, during which 12,000 U.S. soldiers, 100,000 Japanese soldiers, and 100,000 civilians died. It appeared that the only alternative to a full-scale invasion of Japan was to threaten a nuclear attack, and it was estimated that a full invasion would kill in excess of two million Japanese and 200,000 U.S. and allied troops. That's when America used WMDs. Along the lines of your drivel: America is a family man, late thirties, early forties, with three kids and a dog and a wife he's still in love with. He's slow to anger unless you threaten his family, but if you do that, we will make sure that you aren't in a position to threaten them ever again. (Of course, what you really, really don't want to do is make Mom angry. Fortunately, no-one's ever managed that. Make Mom angry and you won't live long enough to regret it.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 03, 2005 08:30 PM (+S1Ft)

66 Umm... If US is the family man, who is the Mom? Hmmm, (Grand)Mother Russia perhaps... She couldn't use the big guns on us the first 3 times we pissed her off, and she can't in the future, since she is fixated on readopting us intact. (what countries are those 3 kids, wife and dog you protect?)

Posted by: A Finn at June 04, 2005 09:02 AM (lGolT)

67 Well, the dog has to be Puerto Rico.

Posted by: A Finn at June 04, 2005 09:03 AM (lGolT)

68 If US is the family man, who is the Mom? Hmmm, (Grand)Mother Russia perhaps. Are you completely nuts? Dad is the American government. Mom is the collective will of the American people. The kids and the dog are the individual citizens. Dad is sworn to protect the people, and sees his duty to protect people all over the world, and help them win free from dictators. It's Dad who fought in the two World Wars, in Korea and Vietnam and now in Afghanistan and Iraq. But if you ever piss Mom off, your country will cease to exist.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 04, 2005 07:54 PM (+S1Ft)

69 I was stuck on countrylevel personalisation, so I was trying to switch persons to countries, when you switched to thinking of countries as families.

Posted by: A Finn at June 05, 2005 05:31 AM (lGolT)

70 You want to hear the real hypocrisy, here it goes when AI has pointed out in its reports abuses in other regimes such as Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Iraq itself, the U.S. government has not had any problems in quoting those findings. Furthermore, AI has been praised by this same U.S. government, which now is calling foul after they have been accused of committing horrible abuses against detainees. Now, please do not deny as the government has done that there have been continuous abuses committed in U.S. detention camps. But, if you want to deny such abuses, and before you start writing, read the Taguba Report first so you can have a better idea of where I am coming from. Probably Mrs. Khan made a mistake by calling Guantanamo a Gulag, but ask yourself a prison system that does not allow any type of judicial rights to detainees, which is obscure and abusive (the same as Guantanamo and other detention centers are); it makes you think that maybe the comparison to a Gulag is radical but, very close. Please, if you do not have respectful replies do not reply at all. Thank you!

Posted by: Jovy at June 06, 2005 01:51 PM (HXBPA)

71 Of course it's not a gulag - gulags are for your own people. It's a concentration camp.

Posted by: Jack at June 10, 2005 07:26 AM (siNr7)

72 I've detailed the ridiculous "moral equivalency" that hyper-liberal organizations like AI endorse in a three part series on the 'Gulag' flap. I also covered exactly why the Guantanamo detainees are not POWs. Take a look: http://granddaddylonglegs.blogspot.com/2005/06/amnestys-insanity-part-i.html

Posted by: Granddaddy at June 10, 2005 12:39 PM (v3hgS)

73 I hate to admit this but with all the comparisons of gitmo being a modern day gulag....im actually beginning to hope we start setting up some gulags. When i catch hell for something i did'nt do it kinda makes me wish I did it ya know. Hope this does'nt become an American trend. You really don't want America to be this way right? So, accuse them of having gulags so they won't?

Posted by: SOTT at June 16, 2005 07:22 AM (FY9h/)

74 Finn, unable to stop eating his foot, declared between bites: "Ok, I do think a few Arabs are much more valuable than millions of Russians, can't help it, Europeans actually have histories with pretty much every country in the world, and the histories effect the way of thinking." Still stinging from the way they used you like women eh? "You've been isolated and fused into a strange people, new on this planet and with an unexperienced collective soul compared to most other peoples of Earth with thousands of years of history, so you haven't formed permanent ideas rooted deep in your mind about others than the Soviets, French and Canadians (counts as Americans, but there is that line keeping you separate)." Ah, the old "cultureless American" argument. You forget, our ancestors were once your neighbors, but they had the good sense to go someplace where they could make a new start, and their family name made little difference. And Canadians DO NOT count as Americans; our paths diverged in 1776. TO most Americans, Canadians are no more or less foreign than Mexicans, they're just harder to spot in most places. "After few thousand years of fighting, I'm sure your people will begin seeing the point in just vaporising certain hostile nations." Oh we see the point, we're just too damned civilized to do it more than once. "Fine, so you got a bad taste from doing so in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I'm sure you'll get over it." The world should pray we don't. "I bet the first time a machine gun was used on the field of battle people felt bad about the sudden increase in death counts, but as you can see it passed pretty quickly and now they're the most common weapons in combat." Yeah, but they don't bring Biblical scale destruction.

Posted by: Improbulus Maximus at June 19, 2005 07:04 PM (0yYS2)

75 Deccles, who has chosen a most humorous, and, I suspect, appropo handle, said: "Amnesty has worked for 30+ years to bring to attention the abuse of human rights and the violation of basic human dignity. They have applied their mission equally to all nations they investigate and report on, and until now, have never been questioned by any of you." Yeah, we were fine with them until they went off the deep end of the reality pool. "If you read the interview below the article mentioned in the original post between Mr. Shulz and Mr. Rivkin, you'll discover that it was not Amnesty International who made the gulag reference, but it was the UN Secretary General." No, it was the Director General of AI, a certain Ms. Khan, I believe. "Mr. Rivkin even goes so far as to praise Amnesty International for appplying criticism equally to all nations it investigates." Yeah, sure. So, a million starving people in North Korea, who are being reduced to cannibalism, get the same sympathy as war criminals. Right. "Until this report came out, no one at the White House had questioned anything AI has done. This only proves, once again, the arrogance of Bush and Cheney, and the policy of the administration. Deny everything and refuse to admit to mistake, no matter how truthful the criticism is. Then cover your tracks by placing blame on someone else. What a bunch of pussy's!!!" You used the possessive form of "pussy" dumbass. The plural has no apostrophe. The rest are typical leftard lies and unfuonded allegations. prove one thing you say with actual, citable evidence. "There were never any checks and balances involved, no oversight, and no training." Yeah, we sent a bunch of guys we found hanging out at the bus station. Idiot. "It should be plainly obvious to everyone the abuse, imprisonment, and disappearance was not only overlooked, but in fact condoned and encouraged." I should hope so, being the best methods of dealing with vile scum like them. They want to kill you too, you know, which makes me slightly more favorably inclined toward them. "The administration and DOD hired mercenaries to run the prisons in Iraq and Afganistan, then declared total amnesty for these people (see Paul Bremer)." Yeah, aint it great? Americans serving their country on a contract basis. "Why do you think only enlisted military personnel are going to prison for this?" Because they're the ones doing it? Duh. "It is true some have been released." Yeah, hundreds, and most of them have gained about 20 pounds in captivity. "But if you read the AI report, you'll also discover that not one of the 500+ prisioners at Gitmo(70,000 world wide) has ever been charged with any crime, or allowed any contact with legal representation or members of their families." Yeah, war detainees are usually held for the duration, and not necessarily charged with crimes. You see, moron, this isn't a civil proceeding, it's military, with military rules. "And most if not all of them were captured because other citizens were paid by us to turn them in. In many cases, $25,000 or more. It didn't matter whether or not they had actually done anything wrong." Yeah, our military is paying people $25,000.00 a head to lock up Akbar the baker, when they could just round him up themselves for free. Do you idiots even read the crap you write? "No one knows how many people have been disappeared, tortured, or killed by us." No, but we know how many they've killed, tortured, beheaded, and disappeared you piece of shit sympathizing scum. "No one really knows either how many prisons are being operated." And no one really cares, as long as they're holding bad guys. "In some cases, people with no criminal backrounds have been captured and shipped to prisons in countries known to practice torture." Yeah, I guess terrorism doesn't count as criminal activity. It's more of an extracurricular assignment from the medrassa. "Saudi Arabia is a perfect example of this. The administration to this day refuses to divluge the information. So much for transparency." Did you apply under the Freedom of Information Act? Oh, wait, it's a war, and the military has the right to keep secrets. Silly me. "They give no valid reason for doing so either." Other than the whole war thing. "The administration is lying sack of arrogant, racist ingrates." And you are a typical leftard moron who is wasting space on the planet. Every day you are alive, the global average IQ drops. You are not just stupid, you're anti-smart. "Dick "head" Cheney, not only is a racist, but a really stupid one to boot." He is, really? Prove it you stupid piece of lying shit. "His past is obvious proof of this. During the late eighties, he was one of a very few to vote against abolishing aparteid, and actually had the gaul to call Nelson Mandella a terrorist." Gee, maybe that's because he was a terrorist. If you knew anything about history, you'd know he was trained in communist terrorist training camps. Dipshit. "This is who Dick "head" Cheney really is. Is this really the kind of person you want representing you?" If you don't like him, then I like him twice as much as before I read your retarded drivel. "Is it any wonder the people of Islam, as well as most of the world are pissed off at America. That we would vote such evil people into office?" Or maybe they're pissed because they're inbred savages who like to kill innocent people. And you're a moronic liberal idiot. "Personally, I think the reactions we get are excatly what the administration is hoping for. This way, they can avoid answering for their own incompetence, a failing economy and job market, and rampant corruption." Personally, you're an idiot. This way, you can avoid reality, getting a job, and being a man. "Amnesty International did what they've done for 30 years." Funny, they never mentioned anything about the Russian gulags. "None of you have ever questioned anything they've reported on." Because they never report on anything substantial. "Focusing on one phrase (even if it is a bit innacruate in the context of Gulags) is horribly shortsighted and misses the point of what they're trying to accomplish." A bit inaccurate? you really are a Kool-Aid drinking moron aren't you? Why don't you kill yourself before someone has to do it for you. "It's not a bashing of America, it's telling the truth, plain and simple." Yes, you are a stupid, traitorous, piece of shit. "No one is to blame for what they reported except for the idiots currently running the country who think they can do no wrong." How about the idiots who parrot every lie they're told by the leftard propaganda machine, like you, for instance? You are typical of what's wrong with America; we tolerate scum like you to live. You'd better pray to God that the things you believe about America never come true, because if they do, your sorry ass will disappear without a trace and become a lampshade and so much soap and dog food. I only wish.

Posted by: Improbulus Maximus at June 19, 2005 07:29 PM (0yYS2)

76 Do we want racist people like Bush and Cheney representing us? Let's assume everything negative said about the current administration was true! Tell me.....if John Kerry would have been elected, what would he have done so differently? Would we still be locking up terrorists? Still putting bounties on their head? Would the U.S still have stayed in Iraq? Would the global war on terror have just came to a screeching halt? If you think things would be completely different regarding these issues.....your living in a dream world. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, it was a military target where a number of civilians paid the price. We were attacked then by uniformed military officers at a military base. They did'nt declare War...they just carried it out. War was then declared. War was declared on the U.S on 9/11 by men out of uniform, and struck a purely civilian target, intentionally. I am told that we deserved it...the civilians all deserve to be killed. If that be true...at least I know we...the American people are not alone. Death awaits us all. Does it not? Life and Death are in the power of the tongue, those who love it shall eat of it's fruit!

Posted by: SION at June 20, 2005 12:25 AM (FY9h/)

77 Python is much better than PHP. Even in the web-programming.

Posted by: j.k. at June 22, 2005 07:52 AM (UwVBT)

78 I am Polish and grew up in Poland under communist regime. From 1980 until 1983 I was involved in Solidarity movement for which I spent some time in jail without ever being charged with anything. The official reason was that I pose the danger to a socialist state. That is on the documment issued by the communist militia commandant. I read the post by Dr. Rusty Shackleford above and I find it completely accurate account of what Gulags were in the Soviet evil empire. The communist regimes are guilty of massive crimes against humanity and communist ideology is responsible for it. This should be sufficient reason for the US Congress to pass the law banning the communist party and their affiliates and agents, including communist media operations. Since communism is guilty of crimes and the criminal organisation involved in terrorism in the past and in the present, it should be part of war on terror. It is obvious that they are at least sympathetic and supportive of Al-Qaeda by organizing the opposition to war on terror.

Posted by: Edward at June 23, 2005 06:23 PM (6krEN)

79 From Powerline, 1. powerlineblog.com/archives/010812.php): and, 2. powerlineblog.com/archives/010806.php) Lt. Peter Hegseth, recently returned from a year at GTMO, writes: "Not only are the detainees treated humanely (top-notch medical care, hearty meals, recreational facilities, full access to religious observance, etc..) but I personally witnessed instances when detainees DID NOT WANT TO LEAVE[my emphasis]. It was not uncommon for my platoon to guard an airfield for hours in preparation for sending a detainee home, only to turn around and bring him back to the detention facility – because he refused to leave! These detainees are not stupid—they know that real torture and inhumane treatment await them at home. And while I know they’re not happy to be in GTMO, they rest assured that they will be treated well because Americans play by the rules." The quizling wannabe's, like Dean, Durbin, Kennedy and Kerry, Pelosi, etc., etc., as well as their 'fellow travellers' in the GOP, some of whom helped engineer our 'defeat' in Viet Nam, now dare to condemn our outstanding and moral treatment of detainees. These fifth columnists compare our finest with the murderous scum (like the Khmer Rouge) who tortured and murdered tens of thousands of our Asian allies who were abandoned to their fate because of the "high moral standards" of some of these same "honorable senators." The conclusion is obvious. There does indeed exist a national disgrace of moral decay. However, it is not to be found at GTMO, but in Washington D.C. And how did these "morally superior" individuals gain positions of power in the first place? Perhaps the following links can at least partially explain the discrepency between the American values most of us still hold, and the moral bankruptcy of our "elected" leaders. 1. michellemalkin.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi?__mode=view&entry_id=1262 2. www.gop.com/media/voterfraudarticles.pdf I do hope we SOON develop approprioate legal strategies to deal with this danger, or it could ultimately be our undoing.

Posted by: yonason at June 23, 2005 11:34 PM (lin9B)

80 Nice day

Posted by: Max at June 25, 2005 06:50 AM (Bm3k1)

81 Thanks for proving that conservatism results either from a mental disorder or just from lack of education. According to the official internal secret statistics, little more than 1.6 million inmates died in GULAG from 1930 to 1956. So much for your wild fantasy figures. And yes, Conquest's Kolyma figure is also bogus - so many people were never even deported to Kolyma. According to historian Wheatcroft, "In the late 1930s on average one-quarter to one-third of all prisoners in Dalstroi died. For the entire period 175 000 to 250 000 died of a population of 700 000 to 750 000."

Posted by: Corrector at August 18, 2005 08:42 AM (1pxaO)

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