Edited on Fri Jun-03-05 06:52 AM by Mark E. Smith
Amnesty International Report Upsetting Only Because It's True
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- We all know that George W. Bush suffers from impaired speaking, but in fact, he does not know what the Hell he's talking about. Or he does and he's a liar. Either way, he's an idiot.
There is no question that America, under the leadership of the Bush administration, has developed extensive systems of abuse and continues with outrageous illegal behavior, in the name of its brand of freedom.
Amnesty recently criticized the Bush administration's treatment of detainees at Guantanamo bay, calling the facility "the gulag of our times,' a reference to political prisoners held by the former Soviet Union.
Bush and his supporters quickly responded by calling the accusation absurd.
"I'm aware of the Amnesty International report, and it's absurd - it's an absurd allegation," Bush said.
It would appear the Bush Administration objects to the word "gulag." Often people automatically assume "gulag" refers to work camps, but a closer look reveals a more broad definition, including:
"A place or situation of great suffering and hardship,
likened to the atmosphere in a prison system or a
forced labor camp."
If that isn't a universally accepted description of the condition for the detainees at Guantanamo bay, then what is?
For the Bush administration to call Amnesty's assessment of America's pattern of abuse "Absurd" is to not understand the meaning of the word.
http://news.baou.com/main.php?action=recent&rid=20254I'd have used the term "concentration camp," but that's just me. What Rove seems to be attempting to do to counter the tidal wave of world revulsion over what is going on in Bush's torture camps is to seize upon a small detail and make it the focal point of the discussion. A couple of week's ago it was a detail in a small article in Newsweek. Now it is the use of the word "gulag." But is that what it really is about? Of course not.