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The main concern about Guantanamo isn't the treatment of prisoners. It's the fact that people are being held without trial—making the comparison to the Gulags r
by natrius 14y ago
The main concern about Guantanamo isn't the treatment of prisoners. It's the fact that people are being held without trial—making the comparison to the Gulags rather apt.
Also, you're correct that people usually care less when injustices are meted out to non-Americans, but isn't that repugnant?
- rayiner 14y agoThe Gulags were jails for Russians. Guantanamo is a military prison for non-American military prisoners. As for justice--justice is relative. I don't think there is anything particularly unjust about the idea that Americans have a lot more protections from the American government than non-Americans. In any case, the distinction is one quite deeply embedded in our law, and a lot of the handwaving you see about infringements of liberties, etc, completely ignores the fact that the U.S. government has always been allowed to do certain things to non-Americans that it can't do to Americans. Indeed, the protections that non-American detainees enjoy today have never been stronger.
- natrius 14y agoThis seems like a "might makes right" sort of argument. Since the American government is much more powerful than the Afghan government, we can mistreat Afghans. If we did the same thing to British citizens, there'd be quite an uproar. I think we should aim to treat everyone the way we'd want to be treated.
- rayiner 14y agoIt's not so much a "might makes right" argument, but a "people in my community are more important to me than people in other communities." One of the fundamental purposes of the U.S. government is to protect us from them. That's why we have different rules governing the relationship between us and the government and them and the government.
- Evbn 14y agoI don't have the same definition of 'them' that Halliburton's DoD has, though.