To everyone taking the side of the US administation in the whole Amnesty/Gulag debacle: what the fuck are you smoking?
One organisation has spent the last 50 years opposing torture and brutality everywhere in the world, on an non-partisan basis and without exception. The other has spent most of the last 50 years *promoting* torture and brutality everywhere in the world.
One organisation has just published a report on how countries across the world are brutally torturing and abusing people. It decided to PR this report by pointing out that the most powerful (and therefore most interesting to media) country in the world is guilty of brutally torturing and abusing people without trial in secret prisons. The other organisation has just, err, brutally tortured and abused people without trial in secret prisons.
Really, how hard can it be to decide what fucking side you’re on? OK, so some of you have hard-ons for Yanqui dollars and think bombs and guns are cool. Fair play: they are. Even so, do you really want to be backing the torturers over the people protesting about torture?
If yes, I hope hell exists, purely so that you can go there. See also The Editors.
It’s not necessarily a matter of taking sides with the US Administration against Amnesty: it’s possible to oppose Amnesty’s ridiculosity while still condemning what’s going on at Guantanamo. And can you really not understand why a lot of people might be upset and insulted by such a gross misuse of the word "gulag"?
Nick Cohen put it all rather well, I thought. Rather than saying, as you do, "Well, they’ve been right for fifty years, so must be now," he complains, rightly, that the organisation is being changed into something other than what it used to be and is heading down a road where it will cease to be right. That’s something Amnesty’s supporters ought to be opposing.
From the linked Editors article, "a lot of techniques have been tried to make Republicans care that they, and their party, are supporting torture. Reporting facts has been tried, unsuccessfully. Releasing graphic photographs was also tried, to no avail. Asking nicely didn’t work, begging didn’t work, and guilt-tripping didn’t work either. But there was one thing that hadn’t been tried yet, not really, not until Amnesty tried it the other day: name-calling."
That, to me, is the whole point: raising awareness among Americans that their government is guilty of torture. It worked. And anyone *oh so terribly offended* by the gulag comparisons, frankly, is a nancy boy.
It’s not a matter of being soft. It’s a matter of respect for truth, something which Amnesty used to have. Amnesty used not to make a point of publicly insulting the memories of those tortured and killed by vile totalitarian regimes. They have now decided that it’s OK to belittle the suffering of the victims of the Gulag if they can score a cheap anti-American point out of it. So which group of people for whose rights Amnesty used to fight will they next start pissing on the graves of?
Hmm, maybe it could piss on the graves of people being tortured to death by the world’s largest superpower by not drawing public attention to their plight?
> being tortured to death
Er, where? Any evidence of that? Any realistic claims that the US is torturing people to death in Guantanamo? Are Amnesty claiming that? Oh, no; I see they aren’t. So that’s just bollocks, then.
Anyway, the point is that Amnesty used to be respected by all sides of political debate (apart, obviously, from the pro-torture side), and that was because of their integrity, honesty, trustworthiness, impartiality. I fail to see how becoming openly partisan and dishonest and thus squandering a lot of their support will make them better able to help anyone.
_Amnesty used to be respected by all sides of political debate (apart, obviously, from the pro-torture side)_
Trouble is, the pro-torture side is awfully close to mainstream public opinion now, including the US A-G. Obviously, gulag was a bit of hyperbole, I agree on that. But to imply they are veering towards ‘anti-Americanism’ would necessitate proving that Amnesty are guilty of expecting double standards for the US and for elsewhere, OR are ignoring torture in other countries and banging on about ChimpyBushitler all the time. Neither of which is true.
Hmm, maybe it could piss on the graves of people being tortured to death by the world’s largest superpower by not drawing public attention to their plight
On what planet is Amnesty not drawing attention to the plight of people being tortured? You’re setting up a false dichotomy between Amnesty either having to resort to increasingly ridiculous and paranoid propaganda, or giving up the whole business of human rights monitoring completely. Would a sensible middle ground not be more appropriate? You know, like they used to tread?
the pro-torture side is awfully close to mainstream public opinion now
Oh, come on. Detaining people indefinitely without trial is a horrific abuse of power, granted, and it should be condemned in the strongest reasonable language, but it’s a pretty fucking long way from torture. We aren’t strapping electrodes onto people’s genitals just yet.
Although if these Amnesty loons don’t keep their mouths shut…
S2 – sorry, you’re right. It’s only Abu Ghraib and Bagran where US interrogators have tortured people to death, not Gitmo. My mistake.
From the WaPo, the 2002 torture memo:
The disclosure that the Justice Department advised the White House in 2002 that the torture of al Qaeda terrorist suspects might be legally defensible has focused new attention on the role President Bush played in setting the rules for interrogations in the war on terrorism.
I wasn’t talking about Gitmo. Though apparently the White House only approved general guiudelines not specific techniques, so that’s OK then.
John: First of all, I have to say I am sure you would not use the same intemperate language if you were actually in the presence of other people and not hiding behind a screen of anonymity. Oh, well: welcome to the blogosphere, I guess, and it’s your choice, but still: it says a lot about you.
That said: about Amnesty and Bush/Gitmo/torture: I’m upset about all of them. Of course, any failure by the U.S. to observe its human rights obligations should be investigated completely. I think Gitmo and Abu Ghraib should be closed.
I also think AI has shot itself in the foot, and lost some of its very high credibility. Most of all, though, I feel sad thinking about the real victims of the real Gulag. This entire debate somehow cheapens their memory. It has been *established* that tens of millions of them died — people who were guilty or not, of all backgrounds and ages. Forgive me, but these included whole sealed cattle cars full of nursing mothers who died from willful neglect while slowly en route to the camps.
Mistreatment of prisoners is always unjust, always wrong. But, John, do you truly want to begin to be the one to compare degrees of agony? Can you tell me who suffers most? Are they only those who best suit your point of view?
John? John?
I wrote the abo0ve in a bit of a huff, but on looking back on it now I stand by it.
Except sorry for the awful punctuation adn diction, please don’t use that against me in lieu of an argument.
To be fair to John, whom I don’t know — don’t really care to either, expect the feeling’s mutual — I would just as soon pose the same questions to all who’ve concerned themselves with making hay by such comparisons, including both Irene Khan and George Bush. And an ever-lengthening list of journalists and bloggers. And simple migets like me. Maybe everyone should step back, stop preaching to the choirloft for a second, and try to approach these things like reasonable civilized people.
At the very least maybe we could all do with a bit of shamed silence. Thanks, John, at least for that. If it’s alll really so important to you, I hope you are actually doing something more about it than harrangue strangers on the internet. And give a thought to those who’ve become mistreated prisoners just because they speak their minds.
That’s it for me. I’m going to go play with my son.
Mmm.
I guess the underlying point is that I don’t really believe in the concept of cheapening others’ suffering in the way Greg and JD seem to.
They suffered. They died. We should do everything we can to avoid others suffering and dying in similar ways. The War on Terror and associated nonsense appears to feature others suffering and dying in similar ways. The moral onus on anyone in the West is to help stop this. If the most effective way to do so involves making Gulag survivors feel a bit sad, this is hardly a reason not to do it.
Or in SBBS-speak, "I’d be happy for someone to piss on my grave if it, however tangentially, led to anyone being less likely to die. And if you wouldn’t, you barely deserve to live."
That’s not the main point. The point is that Amnesty are successful because they’re popular. The less support they have, the less effective they become. And, by making claims which are obviously dishonest, they’re losing support.
Had the whole thing actually lost Amnesty support, rather than gaining them support, I might agree.
So a bit of America-bashing leads to a short-term spike in support from the Michael Moore gang. Good for them. I hope they enjoy preaching to the choir in future, rather than to someone who can actually do anything about these issues.
We’ll see. They’ve pulled a short-term publicity stunt and got some short-term gains. Big deal. If they keep down this road (and I suspect they will, since this isn’t the first step), they’ll become just another charity and they’ll be generally recognised as partisan. That’ll be a huge loss for them.
Jarndyce: Again, I’d say that supporting torture in other countries, or even using the ‘evidence’ garnered from it, is horrifically wrong, and should be condemned appropriately. But it’s still a pretty fucking long throw from actually strapping on the electrodes yourself. I’m aware that many people don’t see it this way. I do.
It has been *established* that tens of millions of them died — people who were guilty or not, of all backgrounds and ages.
This is a high number. Conquest estimates about 12 million deaths which is not "tens of millions". Sakharov claims as high as 20m, but on the basis of no very clear evidence; this is the figure given in the Black Book for total deaths attributable to Soviet Communism. The documented figure is just over 1 million; in general, 1970s and 80s Western estimates are being revised down over time. Since the context is the use of hyperbole, it’s important to get it right.
PS: I turned up one source on the Internet which claimed a figure of 66 million but a) he didn’t cite sources and b) he claimed that the gulag overlords were mainly Jewish so I assumed it wasn’t a serious historian.
tsk me and my italics tags. Interacting, of course with "old school" weblog design. I remember the days when a carefully crafted troll post could make Slashdot more or less unreadable (from a technical point of view rather than literary, obviously)
italicsoff?
Shit, Shot, You’re missing the point. Amnesty is in the middle of a disastrous rebranding exercise in which the old fashioned, white liberal stuff is going to be downplayed in favour of rights to clean water and food.
Fair enough, I hear you say clean water and a good lunch matter. So they do. But virtually every other pressure group in the world is fighting for them. Hardly any are fighting for human rights apart from Human Rights Watch. And in any case, as is somewhat notorious, regimes which don’t provide freedom of the press and fredom from torutre aren’t very good at providing food and water.
The Guantanamo is Gulag — no dear, it isn’t — argument fits into this sellout because it shows that Amnesty is abandoning being a rigorous and truthful organisation into some media-whoring, Michael Moore fan club which cares more about making a splash than getting on with the real work.
The Guantanamo is Gulag — no dear, it isn’t — argument fits into this sellout because it shows that Amnesty is abandoning being a rigorous and truthful organisation into some media-whoring, Michael Moore fan club which cares more about making a splash than getting on with the real work
D’you know, I remember exactly this pissy little speech being made time and again when it was the British picking up the Northern Irish and interning them without trial or habeas corpus and Amnesty were complaining about that. Except it was "Tony Benn" rather than Michael Moore, and you were arguing that the Paras’ use of sensory deprivation techniques did not constitute "torture" and that Amnesty were being sensationalist for claiming they did.
Btw, next time you choose to impersonate Nick Cohen, try using the word "liberal" without the prefix "white" because it is a bit of a giveaway.
Here I go beating the issue absolutely into the ground . . ..
I readily concede to dsquared on the exact number of deaths in the Soviet Gulag. I should have written that "it has been *stablished* that at very least 2.7 million died (the number that Anne Applebaum reluctantly cites as a baseline), and accepted estimates run into the tens of millions." It certainly is important to get it right.
Rather than pure sentimentality, I guess my point was that every violation of human rights must stand alone and any comparisons between them are absolutely meaningless from a perspective of any governments’ obligations. There’s not much comparitive language in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So, does AI’s comparison have anything to do with recognized international legal standards, or is it hyperbole, meant to play on an emotional level? If the answer is yes — and it does appear that even AI’s defenders , John B. particularly, agree that’s at least part of it — then doesn’t this represent a departure from the organization’s past strict reliance on legal standards? I think so.
Will it consequently be easier because of this for all governments to deflect AI’s criticism from now on? I think so here as well, though it’s a bit early to say. If Gitmo is in fact to be closed, though, I’d be willing to bet my next contribution to Human Rights Watch that it will be done in a way that could in no way be construed as a concession to AI.
While I’m up, I’m also sorry that I accused John B. of hiding behind anonymity when he has posted all his particulars right there on the site. Not sure what Howard Devoto would think of someone of John’s pedegree using one of his titles for his blog. As I understand it, Devoto’s mind ain’t so open . . .. But then again, whose around here is?
What do you mean by "strict reliance on legal standards" in this context? I’m not aware of any policy of Amnesty’s that could be described in this way and I’ve been a member for seventeen years (on and off). "Prisoner of conscience" isn’t a legal term, and Amnesty certainly has used dramatic language in the past. As I say, the last time I remember a similar row is when Amnesty referred to the British government’s dirty war in Northern Ireland in terms which accurately described it and offended the amour propre of people who didn’t believe that the UK should be described in such terms.
Right again, dsquared!
AI’s statute only relates its activities to its "vision … of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards." No explicit obligation to rely on these standards in their work, and nothing limiting means used to "mobilize public pressure on governments and others to stop the abuses."
By any means necessary, it appears. The door does seem to be wide open for AI to argue moral equivalents. I guess it was only my impression that it was an organization that assiduously supports its work with international law.
. . . and, bringing it back to John B.’s original question about taking sides (in the most likely vain hope of ending this thread), if I had to chose between standing over on that side of the room with G.W. Bush or standing over on this side with Irene Khan, then I’m on Irene Khan’s side. It’s just for some reason I’m not too comfortable standing next to her any more.
Greg and Dsquared,
On the subject of numbers of Stalin’s victims, it’s true that estimates for the number of victims in total range from 20 million (Conquest) to 10 million (Alec Nove), the number of deaths in the Gulag forms only a small portion of this number; the majority of Stalin’s victims died in the famine of 1932-3, outside the camps. Mike Haynes writes:
‘in the years 1928-53 there were possibly one million camp deaths (most in the war years) to which must be added . . . 86’582 prison deaths between 1928 and 1951’ (A Century of State Murder?, p. 69)
This also does not include victims shot before the reached the camps, as were all the Old Bolsheviks and others such as the Polish officers in Katyn. Andrew Wheatcroft suggests a overall figure of 1 million purposive deaths in the 30s, and 9 million preventable (Ibid, p. 70). The point is to assert that ’20 million died in the Gulag, therefore Guantanamo is not a Gulag’ is based on a claim which is historically untenable.
On the wider use of the word Gulag by AI, it appears that to use such language by supporters of the US/UK – how often was Stalin described as analogous to Hitler or Stalin, or the Iraqi resistance as fascists? – is legitimate but when critics of the coalition start to use similar language it becomes impermissable.
But Stalin was analogous to Stalin.
My point was that comparisons of this kind are made all the time; accusations of Hitler, Stalin and fascism are thrown around all the time to make political points, and are common currency among the pro-war liberals. To suddenly become concerned with historical accuracy when these terms are used to criticise the US rather than support it reeks of hyporcrisy.
Nick Cohen, whom has been quoted already on this thread, is a prime example of the pro-war left’s use of these terms: the Iraqi resistance are ‘fascists’, those opposed to the occupation ‘support fascism’ and RESPECT are like the BNP.
http://www.socialistunitynetwork.co.uk/voices/nickcohen2.htm
. . . and it’s always just name calling, no matter who does it, how often it’s been done in the past, and whether or not you agree with their goals.
Gitmo isn’t a new Gulag: it’s Gitmo. Why call it something else? Object to it for what it is, and examine it according to America’s obligations under international law.
Otherwise, do we get to look forward to an annual "Gulag of the Year" award? I can only ask again: can you compare degrees of suffering? I can’t.
My final point, and the most important one: what good is any amount of narcissistic debate among politicians, NGOs, and bloggers (hey, I obviously indulge myself here as much as anyone, if not more) going to do about it?
Ah, well. It’s very late, the world hasn’t changed, and I’m going to bed. I resolve to start spending my time more usefully tomorrow.
James O,
It is absurd to suggest that I was trying to make a cheap political point there. It’s a cheap point, sure, but it ain’t political.
"The moral onus on anyone in the West is to help stop this."
Why is the moral onus on the West? I don’t recall any decapitations east of, say, Darfur recently. Are you implying that the Arabs are incapable of bearing the moral onus of their own actions? Isn’t that a bit racist?
To everyone taking the side of the US administation in the whole Amnesty/Gulag debacle: what the fuck are you smoking?
<I> Well said.
Amnesty International didn’t invent “gulag” as a metaphor for the US detention scheme. Excerpts from two articles which use the term synonymously, and pre-date the Amnesty statement, appear below. (Use the links to access the full texts.)
Google gulag + guantanamo to find more such instances.
December 5, 2004
TORONTO SUN
By Eric Margolis—Contributing Foreign Editor
Uncle Sam Has His Own Gulag
The Lubyanka Prison’s heavy oak main door swung open. I went in, the first western journalist to enter the KGB’s notorious Moscow headquarters—a place so dreaded Russians dared not utter its name….I explored the fascinating museum of Soviet intelligence and was briefed on special poisons and assassination weapons that left no traces. I sat transfixed at the desk used by all the directors of Stalin’s secret police, on which the orders were signed to murder 30 million people…
I saw some of the KGB’s execution and torture cellars, and special “cold rooms” where naked prisoners were beaten, then doused with ice water and slowly frozen…Other favoured Lubyanka tortures: Psychological terror, psychotropic drugs, prolonged sleep deprivation, dazzling lights, intense noise, days in pitch blackness, isolation, humiliation, constant threats, savage beatings, attacks by guard dogs, near drowning.
Nightmares from the past—but the past has returned.
According to a report leaked to the New York Times, the … International Red Cross has accused the Bush administration for a second time of employing systematic, medically supervised torture against suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay, and at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The second Red Cross report was delivered to the White House last summer while it was trying to dismiss the Abu Ghraib prison torture horrors as the crimes of a few rogue jailers. According to the report’s allegations, many tortures perfected by the Cheka (Soviet secret police)—notably beating, freezing, sensory disorientation, and sleep deprivation—are now routinely being used by U.S. interrogators.
[…]
All of these practices flagrantly violate the Geneva Conventions, international, and American law. The Pentagon and CIA gulags in Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan have become a sort of Enron-style, off-the-books operation, immune from American law or Congressional oversight.
Suspects reportedly disappear into a black hole, recalling Latin America’s torture camps and “disappearings” of the 1970s and ‘80s, or the Arab world’s sinister secret police prisons.
The U.S. has been sending high-level anti-American suspects to Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and, reportedly, Pakistan, where it’s alleged they are brutally tortured with violent electric shocks, savage beatings, drowning, acid baths, and blowtorching—the same tortures, ironically, ascribed to Saddam Hussein.
Protests over this by members of Congress, respected human rights groups, and the public have been ignored. President George W. Bush just named Alberto Gonzales to be attorney general, his nation’s highest law officer. As White House counsel, Gonzales wrote briefs justifying torture and advised the White House on ways to evade or ignore the Geneva Conventions.
Grossly violating the Geneva Conventions undermines international law and endangers U.S. troops abroad. Anyone who has served in the U.S. armed forces, as I have, should be outraged that this painfully won tenet of international law and civilized behaviour is being trashed by members of the Bush administration.
Un-American behaviour
If, as Bush asserts, terrorism suspects, Taliban, and Muslim mujahedeen fighters not in uniform deserve no protection under the laws of war and may be jailed and tortured at presidential whim, then what law protects from abuse or torture all the un-uniformed U.S. Special Forces, CIA field teams, and those 40,000 or more U.S. and British mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan euphemistically called “civilian contractors”?
Behaving like the 1930s Soviet secret police will not make America safer. Such illegal, immoral and totally un-American behaviour corrupts democracy and makes them no better than the criminals they detest.
The 20th century has shown repeatedly that when security forces use torture abroad, they soon begin using it at home, first on suspected “terrorists,” then dissidents, then on ordinary suspects.
It’s time for Congress and the courts to wake up and end this shameful and dangerous episode in America’s history.
January 3, 2005
THE PROGRESSIVE
Matthew Rothschild
The Bush Gulag
Welcome to the Bush Gulag.
Unconstrained by a Supreme Court decision last June that required at least some semblance of due process for detainees, the Bush Administration is now contemplating lifetime detentions for suspected terrorists without granting them access to any courts, according to an article by Dana Priest in The Washington Post. So Bush will be sending detainees to some modern-day Siberia to rot for the rest of their lives.
[…]
AL GORE USED THE “G” WORD A YEAR AGO IN A MAJOR SPEECH
I call the speech major “because” its superb. If it was covered, I didn’t hear about it. Obviously, no controversy about Gulags ensued.
“President Bush…continues to place the blame for the horrific consequences of his morally obtuse policies on the young privates and corporals and sergeants who may well be culpable as individuals for their actions, but who were certainly not responsible for the policies which set up the Bush Gulag and led to America’s strategic catastrophe in Iraq.
“I call on the administration to disclose all its interrogation policies, including those used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan and those employed by the CIA at its secret detention centers outside the U.S., as well as all the analyses related to the adoption of those policies.”
This is from a speech that former Vice-President Gore gave at Georgetown Law Center on June 26, 2004.
(Source: Old Hickory’s Weblog, Torture in the Bush Gulag: How prissy should we be in talking about it?June 5, 2005.
The full text of Mr. Gore’s address is at Common Dreams .)
Exerpts from Gore’s speech:
“[T]here has been no more bizarre or troubling manifestation of how seriously off track this President’s policies have taken America than the two profound shocks to our nation’s conscience during the last month. First came the extremely disturbing pictures that document strange forms of physical and sexual abuse – and even torture and murder – by some of our soldiers against people they captured as prisoners in Iraq. And then, the second shock came just last week, with strange and perverted legal memoranda from inside the administration, which actually sought to justify torture and to somehow provide a legal rationale for bizarre and sadistic activities conducted in the name of the American people, which, according to any reasonable person, would be recognized as war crimes.
“In making their analysis, the administration lawyers concluded that the President, whenever he is acting in his role as commander in chief, is above and immune from the "rule of law." At least we don’t have to guess what our founders would have to say about this bizarre and un-American theory.
“By the middle of this week, the uproar caused by the disclosure of this legal analysis had forced the administration to claim they were throwing the memo out and it was, "irrelevant and overbroad." But no one in the administration has said that the reasoning was wrong. And in fact, a DOJ spokesman says they stand by the tortured definition of torture. In addition the broad analysis regarding the commander-in-chief powers has not been disavowed. And the view of the memo – that it was within commander-in-chief power to order any interrogation techniques necessary to extract information – most certainly contributed to the atmosphere that led to the atrocities committed against the Iraqis at Abu Ghraib. We also know that President Bush rewarded the principle author of this legal monstrosity with a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals.”
[…]
“War is lawful violence, but even in its midst we acknowledge the need for rules. We know that in our wars there have been descents from these standards, often the result of spontaneous anger arising out of the passion of battle. But we have never before, to my knowledge, had a situation in which the framework for this kind of violence has been created by the President, nor have we had a situation where these things were mandated by directives signed by the Secretary of Defense, as it is alleged, and supported by the National Security Advisor.
“Always before, we could look to the Chief Executive as the point from which redress would come and law be upheld. That was one of the great prides of our country: humane leadership, faithful to the law. What we have now, however, is the result of decisions taken by a President and an administration for whom the best law is NO law, so long as law threatens to constrain their political will. And where the constraints of law cannot be prevented or eliminated, then they maneuver it to be weakened by evasion, by delay, by hair-splitting, by obstruction, and by failure to enforce on the part of those sworn to uphold the law.”
“In these circumstances, we need investigation of the facts under oath, and in the face of penalties for evasion and perjury. We need investigation by an aroused congress whose bipartisan members know they stand before the judgment of history. We cannot depend up on a debased department of Justice given over to the hands of zealots. "Congressional oversight" and "special prosecution" are words that should hang in the air.”
If our honor as a nation is to be restored, it is not by allowing the mighty to shield themselves by bringing the law to bear against their pawns: it is by bringing the law to bear against the mighty themselves. Our dignity and honor as a nation never came from our perfection as a society or as a people: it came from the belief that in the end, this was a country which would pursue justice as the compass pursues the pole: that although we might deviate, we would return and find our path. This is what we must now do.
That’s a relief. I was beginning to worry that my comments were too large.