It's not easy, running a gulag

[Pindar]

gu·lag [goo-lahg]
–noun (sometimes initial capital letter)
1. the system of forced-labor camps in the Soviet Union.
2. a Soviet forced-labor camp.
3. any prison or detention camp, esp. for political prisoners.
[Origin: 1970–75; < Russ Gulág, acronym from Glávnoe upravlénie ispravítel?no-trudovýkh lageré? Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps]

My emphasis. The word is widely used in the context I presented, especially when lacking the capital letter.

You had no intention of suggesting any connection to the Soviet Gulag?

Note: a political prisoner is typically one held by the state because of his ideas. It turns on notions of free speech and authoritarianism. Is that the direction you want to go to attempt to justify your language?

I'm irresponsible for using a rhetorical device to highlight human rights abuses?

Reference to "using a rhetorical device" is telling.

As to human rights abuses: what human right are you referring to?

If you are more concerned with possible hyperbole in the Backroom than the appalling abuses of human rights going on in Guantanamo Bay, then I shall leave you to enjoy PanzerJager's outraged company.

I am concerned with uncritical assumptions and judgments, whether it be by ignorant authors of articles on law proceedings or others.

[HoreTore]

As to human rights abuses: what human right are you referring to?

I can't speak for him, but I'll name the obvious ones:

Article 5.

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6.

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7.

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8.

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10.

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11.

(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

[Pindar]

Not really the vector has certainly not reached the same magnitude but it is certainly on the go from Western to Eastern justice systems. It is a mini-me gulag not a diet coke evil one.

Direction is going towards:
Torture
Worse conditions for prisoners.
Length of time increasing between detention and trial
Less and less standard defendant means to address the crime they have been accused of.
etc

I don't understand your examples. It sounds like you are confusing criminal and martial legal codes. One thing I'll point out is there is no requirement under the law that trials be held. They are discretionary.

Also the occasional prat party thrown in. You know naked pyramids and dog bites.

Are you talking about Guantanamo Bay or something else?

No. A system that is degrading faster then normal is not in a good state of affairs. If it was a brand new car it would be referred to as a lemon.

If we assume system degradation that is faster than normal degradation (I'm not sure what you're referring to) that equals gulag?

Yes it is, and no the answer isn't.

I see. Those in Guantanamo were primarily captured in a theater of war as illegal combatants. The closest parallel would be POW Camps minus the legal designation as prisoners.

I must be ignorant but that post seems to refer to others (being posters) as being ignorant?

Did other posters write an article on the legal proceedings?

[Pindar]

I can't speak for him, but I'll name the obvious ones:

Article 5....

Hello,

Are you making a legal argument?

[HoreTore]

Hello,

Are you making a legal argument?

You asked which human rights Guantanamo Bay violated, I copied the relevant ones from the human rights charter...

[PanzerJaeger]

Thanks for clearing that up Don.

Pap's a good guy and moderator and definitely no Soly so you are probably right. It just seemed as though in that one instance he may have been blurring the line between his personal opinions and his moderator duties. No big deal, though.

[Papewaio]

Other things I issue warning points for... ignorance would be more of a challenge then so, however it would have to be taken within context of the whole. If it was something out of line it would start with a zero point private PM across the bow so we could sort out if it was a communication mismatch between sender and receiver. The context of this one is more of a challenge to bring more proof to the table, however it wasn't the most eloquent or polite of potential challenges I have seen.

Also I think that gulag is used more often to describe any sort of politcal prison not just Soviet ones... otherwise why describe them as Soviet Gulags as it would be superflous.

They do resemble the Boer War concentration camps... prior to starving all the women and children that is.

WWII Japanese internment camps would be going to lightly, although the Japanese had appalling conditions to say the least and all based purely on racial profiling...

[Pindar]

The article quoted would be the authour you refer to. The others is a blanket statement that may or may not include posters in this thread and may or may not refer to them as ignorant. I am asking for a clarification of the sentence before I pass my own.

Clarifying a sentence. This is the sentence in question:

"I am concerned with uncritical assumptions and judgments, whether it be by ignorant authors of articles on law proceedings or others."

It is divided by a comma. The first clause makes a general statement. That statement is: the subject (me) is concerned (takes note of, worries about) uncritical assumptions and judgments. This is a categorical. What follows the comma then further qualifies the categorical. It says this concern applies to ignorant authors who write on law proceedings and others. The first qualifier is quite specific: ignorant authors writing about a specific topic. The second qualifier is actually redundant as the first clause has already stated a categorical: my concern whenever there are uncritical assumptions and judgments. "Others" therefore applies to all I encounter at anytime and anywhere in the universe who make uncritical assumptions and judgments. It is this phenomenon I am concerned with.

[Pindar]

No. The Backroom is the equivalent of a pub where friends go to discuss ideas. The word "gulag" is a common shorthand (at least where I reside) to denote an internment camp where human rights abuses are common. I could have used "concentration camp" which would have been accurate to the original meaning of the phrase, but that has acquired other popular connotations which may well have been overly hyperbolic.

I see. So where you reside gulag is not hyperbolic, merely noting a place were human rights abuses are common, but concentration camp is hyperbolic.

You didn't answer my earlier question: what human rights are you referring to that are being commonly abused?

For example, I have, in past posts, referred to the United States as a great beacon of liberty that I admire. I do not recall you objecting to my imprecise language that clearly inferred your country was an enormous bonfire upon which sundry freedoms were burning.

Does this mean you used gulag as a metaphor?

I'm not at all sure what else you think it was. I might venture that you defensiveness is also quite telling...The thread title was intended to be a slightly wry attack on the inadequacies of the Bush administration.

Of course there is the rub. I don't consider the use of gulag as slightly wry any more that I would consider the use of holocaust as slightly wry. For myself, when there are episodes is human history where literally millions die because of some evil I try not to dilute those events by using them for some other issue I disagree with unless of course I believe there is in fact a comparable evil.

Even if you dismiss the setback as a mere technicality (and there are many lawyers across the world that disagree, including one member here)...

Which lawyer(s) across the world and here believes the change in the accused status is not a technicality. This would be odd given the very language of the Court (dismiss without prejudice) implies it is a technicality as it has no baring on the case proper.

Since inmates are not being accorded rights under the Geneva Conventions, but on an intepretation of the law that is unique to the United States, they are clearly political prisoners.

I'm not sure I understand the above. It sounds like you believe those who do not meet the standards laid out in the Geneva Conventions are nonetheless to be afforded the standards of the Geneva Conventions. It also sounds like you have issue with the United States following United States law. The final judgment that 'they' are clearly political prisoners means justice is on their side and 'they' should be freed.

I understand your concerns, but there are quite a number of lawyers who disagree with your position, including the Colonel Sullivan quoted in the article. They are not all ignorant.

You cite the Defense Council as an example? Who are the other lawyers who constitute this "quite a number" who argue the judge's ruling "dismiss without prejudice" is not a technicality?

[Papewaio]

Did other posters write an article on the legal proceedings?

I am concerned with uncritical assumptions and judgments, whether it be by ignorant authors of articles on law proceedings or others.

The article quoted would be the authour you refer to. The others is a blanket statement that may or may not include posters in this thread and may or may not refer to them as ignorant. I am asking for a clarification of the sentence before I pass my own.

[PanzerJaeger]

Wow - I thought moderators were at least supposed to make an attempt at objectivity.

[Papewaio]

Yes, I only ever give warning points to lawyers, Jesus and the right, apart from when I'm giving warning points to hippies, satanists and the left that is.

So hard being a Kapo in the Gulag, everyone thinks you are against them...

[PanzerJaeger]

It may just be me, but it seems like quite a long stretch to come up with anything objectionable about that statement, and it seems like you're making that stretch(along with the vague threat that accompanied it) due to the position you've taken in this thread.

I dont know if he meant to question anyone's intelligence, but I do know that it is commonplace in the backroom and in all political debates, in far less refined ways. Your rather limited (to one patron) crackdown on the practice is telling.. or, like I said, it may just be me.

[Xiahou]

One thing I'll point out is there is no requirement under the law that trials be held. They are discretionary.

And I, for one, am not sure why some trials are being sought. We don't typically try prisoners of war for crimes (unless they've committed a specfic crime), do we? Some of the charges are puzzling to me. Killing a US soldier- isn't that the combatants "job"? I realize that unlawful combatant is a lesser status than POW, but still I don't understand some of the charges.

But, that's not an argument for release either.

[Don Corleone]

And I, for one, am not sure why some trials are being sought. We don't typically try prisoners of war for crimes (unless they've committed a specfic crime), do we? Some of the charges are puzzling to me. Killing a US soldier- isn't that the combatants "job"? I realize that unlawful combatant is a lesser status than POW, but still I don't understand some of the charges.

But, that's not an argument for release either.

They're not POW's. If they were, they'd have Geneva convention protections.

They're basically in that limbo that happens when you suspend Habeus Corpus. In other words, they're detained at the whim of the president, no viable reason given.

[Xiahou]

They're not POW's. If they were, they'd have Geneva convention protections.

Yes, I know- but it's the closest parallel. They're similar to POWs, except they don't enjoy all the rights and privileges given to those who conduct warfare according to the Conventions.

Again, if we think they committed a warcrime or espionage ect, by all means, try them for it. But charging them for killing a soldier seems pretty stupid to me. You don't need criminal charges to hold a combatant.

[Don Corleone]

There's a fundamental principal in Western law. It dates back over 1000 years. It's called Habeus Corpus, Latin meaning "Show the body". Contrary to proper folklore, it doesn't mean that if you properly dispose of a corpse you cannot be tried for murder. It means that no sovereign, even the king, could detain somebody for 'no reason given'. If somebody was a murderer, you had to say they were, that you were holding them for the murder and who the victim was.

We suspended habeus corpus for those being held in Guantonomo. We claim that we can do this, because we are under no compulsion to recognize their right to Habeus Corpus (the right to be charged with something) because they're not American citizens. I'm not a legal scholar, I can only speak to the Fairness doctrine, and this one fails the smell test. It may be perfectly legal to hold somebody without listing any charges against them, which means that you can effectively hold them until the end of time, but that doesn't make it right.

I see the whole legal justification for holding the detainees as the latest varient on the whole 'can we versus should we' argument. I cannot speak to the 'can'. But I can speak to the should. Unless we have very good reasons for doing it, the credibility hit we suffer seems to make it a poor bargain. What's more, it just seems morally unjustifiable. We were told that in this particular case, we had to be allowed to make this Faustian bargain, because these men were all, every last one, proven to be so absolutely dangerous.

Now, it's come to light that once again, the White House may not have given us the whole story on that last assessment either. They released a large batch of these prisoners without a word to explain why they were detained in the first place. Of the ones they've continued to hold, they simply say "it's too dangerous to the country to tell you why we're holding them. We can't even tell a judge at a tribunal sworn to secrecy, even if it were run by the JAG corps".

So whether they're unlawful alien enemy combatants or they're enemy unlawful alien combatants, or they're blue and green mice from Mars, we should either charge them as criminals for whatever crimes we suspect them of or we should release them. How the very act of charging them, when the court documents could in fact be sealed, violates our security in an unacceptable fashion, 5 years after their original detention, is beyond me. I will say, it doesn't speak very well of the Bush administration's regard for the American citizens who have taken oaths to the court that they cannot trust them to respect sealed indictments.

In other words: If Al Capone and Herman Goerring weren't too dangerous to arraign, how can these guys be?

[HoreTore]

They're still subject to the human rights, as those rights can never, ever be removed, under any circumstances whatsoever.

[KafirChobee]

Argueing the finer points of whether Gitmo's concentration camp facilities qualify as a gulag is a mute point. The fact that it is an illegal detention facility is a reality, a clever circumvention of our laws and a justification for our fears. Argueing it is the size that matters (heard that one before in a different context) on how one defines a facility, as opposed to the actions being conducted within it - is bogus at best. Criminal justification at worst.

That even Amnesty International has raised questions about Gitmo, and has joined forces with other humanitarian organizations to expose it for what it is and shut it down, demonstrates how far we (the USofA) have fallen away from our principles of "do no evil". Now we (some of us) are in the belief of "see no evil", ergo it doesnot exist; and if someone in our government says there is smoke - there must be fire (even when the only smoke is coming from the smoke screen for their justifications for maintaining and sponsoring such an evil place).

Personally, Don Corleon's summation on page one was well thought out and presented in a noncompassionate, thorough manner. As he put it (loosely), it is a more a matter of the Bushys saving face on the matter, than anything else. We all know how much they hate admitting to making an error in judgement - or ineptness.

[Banquo's Ghost]

You had no intention of suggesting any connection to the Soviet Gulag?

No. The Backroom is the equivalent of a pub where friends go to discuss ideas. The word "gulag" is a common shorthand (at least where I reside) to denote an internment camp where human rights abuses are common. I could have used "concentration camp" which would have been accurate to the original meaning of the phrase, but that has acquired other popular connotations which may well have been overly hyperbolic.

Reference to "using a rhetorical device" is telling.

I'm not at all sure what else you think it was. I might venture that you defensiveness is also quite telling.

I am a writer, and use words to express ideas, provoke responses and elicit emotions. Metaphor and simile are tools of my trade. The practise of law may well require much more precision, but we are not in a court of law here. Of course, I would never suggest that a lawyer may have used language to sway judgments towards their point of view.

For example, I have, in past posts, referred to the United States as a great beacon of liberty that I admire. I do not recall you objecting to my imprecise language that clearly inferred your country was an enormous bonfire upon which sundry freedoms were burning.

The thread title was intended to be a slightly wry attack on the inadequacies of the Bush administration. Even if you dismiss the setback as a mere technicality (and there are many lawyers across the world that disagree, including one member here) it demonstrates the woolly thinking of the administration you admire so much, insofar as they cannot get their own terminologies accurate enough to pass a judge. The lack of precision of which you accuse me is surely more properly challenged in your political officers, even if you believe Guantanamo is a good thing.

Note: a political prisoner is typically one held by the state because of his ideas. It turns on notions of free speech and authoritarianism. Is that the direction you want to go to attempt to justify your language?

Since inmates are not being accorded rights under the Geneva Conventions, but on an intepretation of the law that is unique to the United States, they are clearly political prisoners.

I don't intend to "justify" my language to you beyond the explanation given above. Swallowing camels whilst straining at gnats is not (if I may mix metaphors shamelessly but in the fine tradition of cartoons) my cup of tea.

I am concerned with uncritical assumptions and judgments, whether it be by ignorant authors of articles on law proceedings or others.

I understand your concerns, but there are quite a number of lawyers who disagree with your position, including the Colonel Sullivan quoted in the article. They are not all ignorant.

********************

@PJ:

Wow - I thought moderators were at least supposed to make an attempt at objectivity.

Then you would be wrong. I am as entitled to post my opinions as anyone else.

Objectivity applies when exercising our job in enforcing the forum rules. We are still human, and thus err occasionally, but it is possible to separate our personal views from our actions as moderators.

You of all people should be aware of how even-handedly the staff behave.

If anyone has a problem with the way staff moderate the forum, the Backroom Watchtower or PMs are there to help resolve the issue.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Here's a different lawyer's view. No doubt his language is imprecise too, uncritically equating the camp to a metaphorical inferno where billions of souls are condemned to eternal agony by a just and loving God, but at least he's had the advantage of actually having been to Guantanamo.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Zachary Katznelson: In Guantanamo, men shadow-box for their lives

Have your hopes dashed enough and you start to question if there is ever a way out
Published: 07 June 2007

Imagine that this is your world: a 6 ft by 8 ft cell where everything is steel - the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the toilet, the sink, the bed. Walk two steps in any direction and you hit a wall. There are no windows. The lights are on 24 hours a day. You are allowed out of your cell two hours a day, sometimes at 6am, sometimes at midnight. For those two hours, you are placed in a 6.5ft by 16.5ft outdoor cage with a deflated football. You can go weeks without seeing the sun.

Imagine five and a half years away from your family, your wife, your children. You can't call them. They can't visit. Mail takes months to get through. When it does, it is heavily censored. Imagine being beaten, stripped naked, humiliated, again and again and again. This is the life of my clients in Guantanamo Bay.

Since 2005, my colleagues and I at Reprieve, a legal charity based in London, have been representing 37 prisoners in Guantanamo. Two of us have passed through the United States military's screening process and have been to the base. We are the only people in Britain who can actually go and talk to these men.

Every time I visit them, the prisoners ask for just one thing: a fair trial. "I know mistakes are made," Jamil El Banna, a British refugee from Jordan, told me when we met last month. "I'm not upset about that. But why has it taken this long to correct them? I've been here for years and I've never seen a judge. Put me on trial. Just give me a chance. Doesn't anyone care that I'm an innocent man?"

No prisoner in Guantanamo will see a judge any time soon. On Monday, military judges threw out the charges against the only two prisoners actually charged with crimes. As a result, their trials are on hold and no one else's will start.

Sadly, there is no question that trials in Guantanamo will be unfair. The judges can hear evidence gained from torture. They can sentence someone to death based on hearsay evidence - second, third or even fourth-hand information. The prisoner is not allowed to see the evidence against him. It's like shadow-boxing for your life.

But despite the patent illegality of the trials, in the bizarre universe of Guantanamo, many of the men actually want to appear before a military commission. The prisoners look at David Hicks, an Australian citizen who pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism and was sent home to Australia to serve a nine-month sentence. They see this result, and they see hope. Maybe they too could cut a deal, whether they are guilty or not. They too could go home. The hell of Guantanamo would end. Then they learn of a ruling like the one on Monday. They are happy, because the process masquerading as justice has been exposed. But at the same time, it means yet another door has slammed shut. And as it does, it crushes that kernel of hope.

Have your hopes dashed enough and you start to question if there is ever a way out. Three men apparently took their own lives last year. Days ago, another man was found dead in his cell; the cause of death is unknown, though he had been on hunger strike for an extended period. Virtually all my clients have told me they have thought about killing themselves.

Despite the fact that they desperately want to be home with their families, despite the fact that Islam prohibits suicide, many have tried. I am a lawyer, but far too often, my role when I visit Guantanamo is social worker and psychologist. I am a poor tool in this regard, but I am all the men have.

Ahmed Belbacha seems to shrink a bit every time I see him. We meet alone in a claustrophobic, windowless room, monitored constantly by a video camera. You can hear the camera shift to track us if we change position. As he sits across from me, shackled to the floor, Ahmed is despondent. "My cell is like a grave," he said to me four weeks ago. He tells me how everything echoes off those steel cell walls. Doors slam constantly as guards come and go. Large fans drone and screech. Even footsteps seem cacophonous. There is no such thing as quiet in Camp 6. There is no peace. "If I could just sleep..."

Ahmed has never been charged with a crime. He has never been before one of those military judges. Yet, finally, after five and a half years, Ahmed has been cleared to be released. He should be celebrating. But his nightmare may just be beginning. Ahmed is originally from Algeria. He fled there to the UK, seeking asylum after he was threatened repeatedly by Islamic extremists because he worked for a government-owned oil company. But now, the UK is washing their hands of him, refusing to help because Ahmed was a resident, not a citizen. As a result, the United States wants to send him back to Algeria.

The Algerian intelligence services have told Reprieve that if Ahmed returns, they cannot ensure that he will be safe - from their own personnel. And so Ahmed sits in that steel box, freezing in the constant flow of air-conditioning. The only things in his cell are a Koran and an inch-thick mattress. He is denied even a pen. He has nothing to do but contemplate his fate. Does he resign himself to the likelihood that he will go back to abuse and torture in Algeria? Or does he let himself believe the British government might change its mind, that Gordon Brown will have the courage to act where Tony Blair has not? Can he allow himself to hope?

The writer is senior counsel for Reprieve

[Don Corleone]

Woah, everyone calm down and take a deep breath. Let me work this in reverse order here....

@BG: Panzer was referring to Pape's cheeky 'allow me to review the judgement before I pass my own'. I don't think he was in any way stating that you weren't entitled to open a thread to take a stance and then defend said stance.

@PJ: You're really reaching to imply that Pape was being threatening. If he wanted to pull a Soly, the clever witticisms would come out after he issued the warning point.

Now, as to the topic, calling it a technicality is inaccurate by means of oversimplification. Being no serious student of the law, I'm sure my interpretation will be legally inaccurate. But that doesn't really matter, because even more than a legal question, Guantanomo poses some pretty serious political questions. Yes, Bush is 'election-proof', and one could assume he is above petty politics, vying for votes. But 'poltics' means something larger than just dodgy behavior to gain votes.

Some of the questions I see raised:

-President Bush, after being ordered by the Supreme Court to release the prisoners at Gitmo or charge them, managed to coeerce the Congress into passing a law effectively stating that when it comes to enemy combatants, red is blue, if he says so. Even with such broad sweeping powers, he managed to screw up the designations on prisoners at Gitmo. Regardless of your views on the legality or morality of Gitmo, it doesn't speak highly of the White House. Frankly, I think it confirms my own personal suspicion that the White House is so arrogant in their assumption of unchecked power, they are grossly inept and bumbling, because they believe themselves to be beyond reproach.
In other words, when you have the power to declare somebody an unlawful enemy combantant handed to you on a silver platter, how do you still manage to screw this up?

-Now, let's not just gloss over that whole ethical/moral question. Gitmo goes a long towards telling the world what kind of people we ourselves are. Suspending Habeus Corpus, for whatever you want to call the planefuls of people getting shipped over from Afghanistan and Pakistan, was dicey at best. But the one caveat that made it even vaguely palatable was the assurance from the top that these represented 'the worst of the worst', men so dangerous that normal POW camps would just become a platform from which they may launch more mayhem. Now, 5 years down the road, we're starting to hear things like "Abdul's cousin's friend's hairdresser's gardener once heard that Abdul might have attended a training camp once (after we gave him a $10K reward)". Hmmm, not exactly what I had in mind for the 'worst of the worst'. In fact, as time goes on, and one after another, EVERY prisoner at Gitmo is being shown to be of questionable detention-worthiness. The so-called 'worst of the worst', and I do agree they exist, never came to Gitmo. They're at prisons we're not even aware of. With the benefit of 5 years of hindsight, I'm left to draw one conclusion about Gitmo: It was a PR move that blew up in the Administration's face. They wanted to show the American people just how tough they could be. When we reacted with "Wait, aren't you going overboard", they immediately responded with a defensive lie about the dangers posed by those interred. Now they're stuck: They cannot release the prisoners without admitting the lie.

I'm sorry, I'm willing to tolerate a lot in the name of safety for the US. I have no problems with special rendition WHEN IT HAS BEEN SHOWN TO MAKE SENSE. But so many of these practices, especially Gitmo, come down to one statement made by the White House "Trust Us". In light of the gross mishandling, the bungling, the deliberate misrepresentations... I don't. I don't trust any of them as far as I can throw them any more. For all we know, the 500 down in Gitmo were randomly selected off the streets of Kabul. And frankly, based on the way the White House has acted, and continues to act towards the detainees, its more likely that they actually were.

We like to tell ourselves that life in Gitmo isn't that bad anyways? What has that got to do with the price of tea in China? I don't care if Hef and the Playmates swing by once a month for mojitos. Every day we continue to hold people in that state of 'no defined status but indefinite detention and we cannot say why' is another victory we hand the terrorists around the globe. We are destroying our own good name far better than they ever could and for what? So that the White House doesn't have to admit it made a mistake in the first place as far as I can tell.

Stop the ride, I want to get off.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Thank you Don, for pointing out my mistake.

I'm sorry PJ, for misunderstanding your post.



Don, your summary was well constructed and whilst I can't agree that Guantanamo and special rendition were ever necessary, your analysis bears a lot of reflection.