I have to admit, I lost quite a bit of respect for amnesty international when they made the gulag comparison. It is quite insulting not only to people who have actually spent time in a gulag and their relatives who have seen first hand the death and suffering exacted on millions of innocent people on a horrific scale. Hundreds of thousands died in the gulag, either from brutalisation, overworking, starvation or freezing to death, most experienced a combination of the above. I know of relatives who died in the guleg, entire communities were shattered, in the climate of fear in Stalinist Russia you couldn't trust anyone, you always lived in the fear that the KGB will simply take you from your house at night and send you to siberia, no questions asked, no trial, no nothing. The last bit stays true for Guantanamo somewhat, but the purpose of Guantanamo is not to work millions of people to death in order to create an atmosphere of fear and oppression. I am pretty sure that most of the inmates do have connections and involvements with Al-Quaeda, but there are a few who were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time and are not a threat to anybody.
I do object to Guantanamo bay though, I think it does more harm than good to the US. I doubt gathering intelligence from loose affiliates of Al-Quaeda using borderline torture techniques is the most productive way of going about it, but the most damage caused by Guantanamo is that it gives the US an aura of hypocracy and is a magnet for anti-american sentiment. I am not saying the US is not hypocritical, far from it, the war on terror in my opinion is simply about reducing/eliminating the influence of extremists in the middle east in order to promote stability in the region as the US economy has a crack-cocaine like addiction/dependence on oil. It just so happens that the best way of going about this business is to promote democracy and freedom of speech, and so the US use the 'war on terror' as a propaganda tool. I am fully in favour of this, the fact is that even though the US is acting out of self interest rather than the common good, the fact is that millions of people living under corrupt, tyranical regimes will have a chance to enjoy the freedom and prosperity that we do, eventually that is if this war on terror malarki actually works. Of course Africa is going to go down the pan, North Korea is going to starve and brainwash its people to the point where not a single iota of personal expression is left in the country, and the massacre in Uzbekistan will simply be regarded by US diplomats as an awkward issue that has to be avoided. The harsh fact about politics is that idealism is only used as a propaganda tool to further the interests of the nation, its simple common sense.
I guess I've gone on a bit of a ramble here, but I simply think the whole debate on the war on terror is extremely skewed and distorted. Both sides talk absolute rubbish which has absolutely no relevance to the truth, and it saddens me that amnesty international have dipped their toes in this dumbing down. Rather than listing rationally the abuses at Guantanamo and putting them in the context of human rights abuses that happen today and have happened in history, amnesty have made a ridiculous exaguration which is insulting to those who actually have suffered at the Gulag, first and second hand (ie the relatives of those who died), and also to the people who are undergoing propper torture throughout the world in Africa, the Middle East, and most of all North Korea. I seriously suggest Amnesty should withdraws their statement, it is seriously going to damage their image as a non-biased third party concerned about the human rights and welfare of the worlds citizens.
-------------------- 'Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted' - Albert Einstein
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