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The G-Word
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 8, 2005; 8:24 AM
Was the "gulag" charge a mistake?
When Amnesty International's secretary general, Irene Khan, described Guantanamo as "the gulag of our times," her group got plenty of attention, including a strong response from President Bush. "Absurd," he said, dismissing the group's report as relying on charges from "people who hate America."
The substantive debate over the conditions at Gitmo and elsewhere, the treatment of the Koran and the use of interrogations techniques that approach torture is an important one to have, for it shows that Americans are willing to confront flaws in our system. But now the argument seems to be about an inflammatory word that conjures up a very different political system.
In short, if you're going to toss a loaded grenade of a word like gulag, you'd better be able to back it up.
Which is why the "Fox News Sunday" interview of Amnesty's U.S. chief, William Schulz, was quite revealing.
CHRIS WALLACE: Mr. Schulz, the Soviet gulag was a system of slave labor camps that went on for more than 30 years. More than 1.6 million deaths were documented. Whatever has happened at Guantanamo, do you stand by the comparison to the Soviet gulag?
SCHULZ: Well, Chris, clearly this is not an exact or a literal analogy. And the secretary general has acknowledged that. There's no question. . . . In size and in duration, there are not similarities between U.S. detention facilities and the gulag. People are not being starved in those facilities. They're not being subjected to forced labor. But there are some similarities. The United States is maintaining an archipelago of prisons around the world, many of them secret prisons into which people are being literally disappeared -- held in indefinite incommunicado detention without access to lawyers or a judicial system or to their families. And in some cases, at least, we know that they are being mistreated, abused, tortured and even killed. . . .
WALLACE: Is it possible, sir, that by excessive rhetoric or by your political links, that you have hurt, not helped, your cause?
SCHULZ: Chris, I don't think I'd be on this station, on this program today with you if Amnesty hadn't said what it said and President Bush and his colleagues haven't responded as they did. If I had come to you two weeks ago and said, "Chris, I'd like to go on FOX with you just to talk about U.S. detention policies at Guantanamo and elsewhere," I suspect you wouldn't have given me an invitation.
WALLACE: So you're saying if you make irresponsible charges, that's good for the cause?
SCHULZ: I don't believe that they're irresponsible.
Excuse me, but did Schulz say that it's okay to unleash words like "gulag," even if it's not an "exact or literal analogy," because it gets him booked on Fox News? Is that the new standard? Yes, Chris, I called the president a war criminal because it was the only way I could get on Hardball?
The has produced a rare moment of editorial-page agreement between D.C.'s two top papers. The Washington Post : "Turning a report on prisoner detention into another excuse for Bush-bashing or America-bashing undermines Amnesty's legitimate criticisms of U.S. policies and weakens the force of its investigations of prison systems in closed societies."
The Washington Times : "There are no defensible comparisons between Guantanamo, or any other U.S. detention center, and the gulag, and the sooner that Amnesty apologizes the better. . . . The tragedy here is that the world needs credible organizations ready to hold governments accountable for human rights abuses. Amnesty International used to be just such an organization. But how will it be able to denounce the real monsters of the world, if now they can just point to the United States as the ultimate abuser of human rights? By waving the bloody shirt, it will be a long time before Amnesty can be trusted again."...
-=d=- said:sometimes i fear for the world in which we live. When i see the blatant love of lies and refusal to accept the truth, I'm reminded of the biblical accounts of the world in the time of Noah. I'm wondering just how long before God says 'Enough!'.
Kathianne said:I agree, then I see something like the MSM jumping on AI and hope is restored. I don't think this would necessarily be their first reaction, but the months of MSM scandals and the unmasking of bias are beginning to have an effect. I'm not saying I expect day-to-day change, I don't; but when there is something this blatant I think some different perspectives may be noted.
Kathianne said:I agree, then I see something like the MSM jumping on AI and hope is restored. I don't think this would necessarily be their first reaction, but the months of MSM scandals and the unmasking of bias are beginning to have an effect. I'm not saying I expect day-to-day change, I don't; but when there is something this blatant I think some different perspectives may be noted.
