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Not arguing for gitmo’s continued existence, but I would point out that the gulag system was a primary tool of oppression in the Soviet Union, and an estimated

Not arguing for gitmo’s continued existence, but I would point out that the gulag system was a primary tool of oppression in the Soviet Union, and an estimated 18M soviet citizens were sent there. Over the course of Guantanamo’s existence under 1000 men and boys have been extrajudicially detained and tortured there. Expanding this well known data by an order of magnitude (plus a little) gives a conservative estimate of 50000 individuals extrajudicially detained under post 9/11 foreign policy (just a guess at totals based on roughly how many of these prisons were built in the bush era).

AlecSchueler 4y ago
The amount of people affected doesn't change the abstract nature of the thing, which is what the comparison tests on.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > The amount of people affected doesn't change the abstract nature of the thing, which is what the comparison tests on. Actually it kind of does, a pretty important quality of a "gulag" is the scale, and another was its domestic focus. Also, the comparison also fails because (I understand) a major goal of the gulag system was the acquisition of slave labor. So on the one hand, you have a massive prison system used for domestic oppression, imprisoning citizens in physically lethal conditions and exploited for slave labor. On the other hand you have a much smaller prison, exclusively housing foreigners, used for no profitable labor of any kind. If you don't pay attention to the details, you can make any comparison you want, but they'll be worthless comparisons.
  - AlecSchueler 4y ago
    Yes, I see what you're saying, but I think it depends which details are being highlighted. In this case the metaphor was based on the commonality of detention without trial. Of course it's not a perfect one for one; they're not literally gulags, but there are elements which are shared and I think those are what the person was trying to highlight.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > In this case the metaphor was based on the commonality of detention without trial. Of course it's not a perfect one for one; they're not literally gulags, but there are elements which are shared and I think those are what the person was trying to highlight. The problem is that this particular analogy isn't helpful because it's more misleading than elucidating and there are better analogies that could be made. The only thing going for this analogy was its tendentiousness. Also, IIRC, people who were sent to the gulags did have trials, they were just unfair.
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  Murdering one person is murder; murdering a substantial number of people in a region is genocide. Scale can definitely change the fundamental nature of something.
  - avgcorrection 4y ago
    Not really. Genocide is about intent, about who you target. Killing all Sami people in Sweden would be a genocide. Dropping a nuke on Washington D.C. would not be a genocide.
    - hgsgm 4y ago
      Killing nearly all Sami in Sweden is a genocide. Killing one Sami because they are Sami is a hate crime, not a genocide.
      - avgcorrection 4y ago
        Yes?
      - avgcorrection 4y ago
        Seems that you misread...
Ozzie_osman 4y ago
Depending on how you define "detained under post 9/11 foreign policy", it could include people the US imprisoned in countries where there were wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, countries where the US worked with local authoritarian governments to lock up "religious fundamentalists", etc, and my guess is it's a lot higher than 50K. And that doesn't count people killed or otherwise uprooted.
- coeneedell 4y ago
  I was mainly trying to highlight the difference in scale and focus between these two programs of detaining people. Even if we add another order of magnitude of people for your upper bound it’s still smaller in scale than the gulags, and it’s focused on foreign nationals instead of the government’s own citizens.
  - cies 4y ago
    Small scale gulags. But still gulags.

AlecSchueler 4y ago

The amount of people affected doesn't change the abstract nature of the thing, which is what the comparison tests on.

tablespoon 4y ago
> The amount of people affected doesn't change the abstract nature of the thing, which is what the comparison tests on. Actually it kind of does, a pretty important quality of a "gulag" is the scale, and another was its domestic focus. Also, the comparison also fails because (I understand) a major goal of the gulag system was the acquisition of slave labor. So on the one hand, you have a massive prison system used for domestic oppression, imprisoning citizens in physically lethal conditions and exploited for slave labor. On the other hand you have a much smaller prison, exclusively housing foreigners, used for no profitable labor of any kind. If you don't pay attention to the details, you can make any comparison you want, but they'll be worthless comparisons.
- AlecSchueler 4y ago
  Yes, I see what you're saying, but I think it depends which details are being highlighted. In this case the metaphor was based on the commonality of detention without trial. Of course it's not a perfect one for one; they're not literally gulags, but there are elements which are shared and I think those are what the person was trying to highlight.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > In this case the metaphor was based on the commonality of detention without trial. Of course it's not a perfect one for one; they're not literally gulags, but there are elements which are shared and I think those are what the person was trying to highlight. The problem is that this particular analogy isn't helpful because it's more misleading than elucidating and there are better analogies that could be made. The only thing going for this analogy was its tendentiousness. Also, IIRC, people who were sent to the gulags did have trials, they were just unfair.
Beltalowda 4y ago
Murdering one person is murder; murdering a substantial number of people in a region is genocide. Scale can definitely change the fundamental nature of something.
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  Not really. Genocide is about intent, about who you target. Killing all Sami people in Sweden would be a genocide. Dropping a nuke on Washington D.C. would not be a genocide.
  - hgsgm 4y ago
    Killing nearly all Sami in Sweden is a genocide. Killing one Sami because they are Sami is a hate crime, not a genocide.
    - avgcorrection 4y ago
      Yes?
    - avgcorrection 4y ago
      Seems that you misread...

Ozzie_osman 4y ago

Depending on how you define "detained under post 9/11 foreign policy", it could include people the US imprisoned in countries where there were wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, countries where the US worked with local authoritarian governments to lock up "religious fundamentalists", etc, and my guess is it's a lot higher than 50K. And that doesn't count people killed or otherwise uprooted.

coeneedell 4y ago
I was mainly trying to highlight the difference in scale and focus between these two programs of detaining people. Even if we add another order of magnitude of people for your upper bound it’s still smaller in scale than the gulags, and it’s focused on foreign nationals instead of the government’s own citizens.
- cies 4y ago
  Small scale gulags. But still gulags.