70,000 prisoners of war on terror

Talkleft charts the archipelago:

Here are Amnesty International's latest numbers.

USA’s “war on terror” detainees, April 2005 (approximate totals/estimates)(11)
USA: Naval Brig, Charleston, South Carolina	2 “enemy combatants”
Cuba: Guantánamo Bay naval base	520 (234 releases/transfers)
Afghanistan: Bagram air base	300
Afghanistan: Kandahar air base	250
Afghanistan: other US facilities (forward operating bases)	Unknown: estimated at scores of detainees
Iraq: Camp Bucca	6,300
Iraq: Abu Ghraib prison	3,500
Iraq: Camp Cropper	110
Iraq: Other US facilities	1,300
Worldwide: CIA facilities, undisclosed locations	Unknown: estimated at 40 detainees
Worldwide: In custody of other governments at behest of USA	Unknown: estimated at several thousand detainees
Worldwide: Secret transfers of detainees to third countries	Unknown: estimated at 100 to 150 detainees
Foreign nationals held outside the USA and charged for trial	4
Trials of foreign nationals held in US custody outside the USA	0
Total number of detainees held outside the USA by the US during “war on terror”	70,000

Comments

[Flint]

This is not a complete list. The International Red Cross found that the US was not giving each detainee an international number as required by treaty, creating "ghost" detainees that don't appeat in the records.

[Luka Yovetich]

Yeah, how do we get from those numbers to 70,000? I wonder where they got the total number. Maybe I should just click on the link and read...

[Vaughn Hopkins]

It makes no difference whether we are holding 70,000, 7,000 or 700 prisoners illegally. And, they are all illegally detained since they are denied both their Geneva Convention rights and our Constitutional rights. Under this obscene administration we have become very close to what we have found reprehensible in other regimes from Nazi Germany to Imperial Japan to Stalinist Russia, etc. The excuse, "I only killed one person" doesn't wash.

[Flint]

We have indeed become what we claim to dispise. We have met the enemy and it is us.

[James Chen]

Time for a reality check. Read Anne Applebaum's "Gulag", and then take a math class. Learn about "significant figures" and "orders of magnitude". Then tell me how you can rationalize no differences between the 100,000,000 deaths attributed to communism and the 50,000,000 deaths caused by Germany/Japan to 70,000/unknown being held in jails.

Or check out this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_toll

Not even close.

[almostinfamous]

2 words: Abu Ghraib.

the very idea that we hold ANYONE illegally for years on end with no case filed against them is a cause for concern. i agree that numbers matter but beyond a certain point numbers become utterly meaningless and the sense of sorrow and outrage we tend to feel becomes independent of the scale because of the limits of human imagination and our(general) inability to comprehend the depths to which people can and do sink.

also, aren't we supposed to be better than the communists, the nazis and the imperialist japanese? are you seriously saying that holding 70K people blindly is not a serious moral and ethical lapse even though it may not be in the same range as the others?

oh godwin, wherefore art thou?

[mudkitty]

One hundred million deaths under Stalinism? What ignorance. Even the best rightwing estimates of twenty million deaths under Stalin includes everyone who died of natural causes.

Regardless of any comparison, seventy thousand prisoners of war is obsene.

[R. Mildred]

But surely the innocent have nothing to fear from uncle sam.

Everyone being held is evil, subhuman and plotting to put ticking time bombs all over the place and intentially mis-count ballots through the power of being mildly swathy.

And there were elections held in Iraq, so it must be working right?

And if it isn't working it's only because Iraqis are subhuman scum who are all guilty of something.

Nuke Mecca and show those north koreans who's boss.

I'm sure Jesus would approve, my car magnets certainly do.

[mudkitty]

The above (minus the satire) was exactly what the Nazis said about the Jews.

[James Chen]

100,000,000 deaths. Communism (1917-present). Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, Kim Il Sung/Kim Jong Il, Tito, Ceausescu, Lenin. The list goes on. Denying or downplaying ("only 20 million deaths!") doesn't help your argument. All documented in "The Black Book of Communism" (Stéphane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek, et. al.) and "Gulag" (Applebaum).

Your bias is showing ("only 20 million deaths!"). Is starvation by man-made famine a "natural cause"?

Only 20 million deaths, many by "natural causes"! A lack of calories, perhaps? That's enough to change my mind about Communism...NOT!

[Flint]

To sanction torture of even one individual by torture is to show that you don't have a moral compass at all.

You make it sound like numbers either make it moral or immoral. Would you like to enlighten us as to where that threshold is when torture becomes morally acceptable.

There have been 130 detainees who have died in US custody to date, and that is the ones that we know of. Two of them in Afghanistan froze to death in their cells. Is that a natural cause?

James... you need to do a little sould searching and also realize that this stuff is only getting strted now. Who knows... your guy Bush may go for the record.

[Flint]

"To sanction the death of even one individual by torture is to show that you don't have a moral compass at all."

Sorry about the typo...

[James Chen]

First of all, this topic is about numbers: the 70k allegedly in detention. Many of you then compared the numbers to Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan. Not only do I dispute the numbers (Flint - "Yeah, how do we get from those numbers to 70,000? I wonder where they got the total number."), I dispute the comparisons themselves.

The relevant comparision points should be the Japanese Internment (Korematsu vs. US, 1943) and the Nazi Sabeteur (1942) cases, not the gulags, the Bataan Death March, or Treblinka. You guys have your not mentioned these much more valid comparisons (in terms of numbers AND treatment) in favor of off-the-wall "Bush-is-Hitler" speeches. You're all smarter than "Bush-is-Hitler", but you not showing it.

Secondly, what torture are you talking about? The Abu Ghaib case, where the perpetrators have been convicted or sent to jail, or the alleged torture at Guantanamo Bay? What are the tortures that are being talked about here (bamboo under fingernails, water torture, etc.? Have you given any thought to the fact that perhaps the prisoners may be lying? It was, after all, a tactic described in a captured Al-Q'aeda training manual. Where are the 130 dead detainees?

Once you guys get your facts straight with appropriate references--and stop making ridiculous analogies like "Fallujah-is-Stalingrad"--then let's talk. I have a topic on my blog (the one with the cute kiddies) that's waiting to be commented upon: http://jameschen.blogspot.com/2005/05/shall-we-send-them-to-your-house-mr.html

[Flint]

James...

First of all go read this and then we'll begin to talk:

http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0403a.asp

Do take the time to study the provisions of the Patriot act.

Then visit arch clinton nemesis Bob Barrs website and read about the conservatives who oppose the dismantling of checks and balances:

http://www.checksbalances.org/

Then for the torture information these articles on human rights watch are a good start:

http://hrw.org/doc/?t=usai_torture

And if you think that these are "people who hate America" as Bush maintains... here is an article that gives quotes from the FBI agents at Guantanamo:

http://www.masnet.org/news.asp?id=2043

Then if you're really interested in the truth and not just spouting wingnut rhetoric...

On outsourcing torture to Uzbekistan:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/01/MNGE5CI9MO1.DTL

Read and learn... quite spouting bullshit and pretending to be in the know... you aren't.

[James Chen]

Flint, I'll check them out tonight. Thanks for the link.

[James Chen]

Flint, will you read some material on the Japanese-American internment and the Nazi saboteur (I spelled it wrong earlier!) cases as well? Let me know if you need links!

By the way, Fred Korematsu was born and grew up 2 minutes from my house (1942 internment case). A very interesting case...

Thanks for listening.

James C.

[Flint]

I will when I have time but post them and I'll take a look. I will tell you that I do know quite a bit about the internment of Japanese Americans and also the Nazi saboteurs.

I'm an FBI brat and my dad was the interrogator of the Nazi saboteurs who came ashore off of New York. In fact that's where he met my mother, lacking the audio equipment of the day the used steographers and my mother was one of the fastest speed script writers in the country at the time.

There wer a lot of things that were done right in their efforts to prevent terroist attacks here at the time and a lot of excesses that were terrible as well. I lived in San Francisco for a lot of years and have many Japanese friends and have heard both sides of the story. I also worked in Japan and China (PRC and Taiwan), about three months out of every year for 15 years. I have a lot of respect for both cultures.

I should also tell you something else upfront... I'm a Reagan/Goldwater conservative and I don't like the Neocons at all. Smaller less intrusive government, get out of people's personal lives, fiscal resposibility, states rights... sign me up, but the Neocons have abandoned all of that. Reagan who they hold up like the patron saint... couldn't even get in the party these days... poor guys spinning in his grave over what is going on right now.

I don't agree with lots of folks on this site but a lot of them I do, and even the ones who I disagree with have good minds and pretty good hearts and I respect them... so please argue intelligently and don't use epithets and I won't either. Sorry about the "wingnut reference" I'm in a bad mood today.

PS. Your kids are cute... nice lookin family.

[mudkitty]

Chen, if you can't tell the difference between communism and Stalinism, then you're not qualified to be having this discussion.

I never said "only" 20 million people died. Don't put words in my mouth or project your own wishes onto me.

The 20 million number is the accepted number for deaths under Stalinism...and as for natural causes, have you ever heard of old age and disease? Those deaths are included in all the stats.

Finally, why in the world would I want to change your mind about communisim? It's not something I endorse, it's not something liberals or progressives, or leftists endorse...that is another rightwing fantacy. Communism, just like all utopian psudo-systems can never work...you know why? Because it only takes one person to fuck up all of utopia! Did you ever consider that? Communism has never been tried -- it's unachievable. What you call communisim is really totalitarianism. But you rightwingers just love to blur the lines...

[Flint]

PPS. James I should have warned you about mudkitty... If I ever meet her, and I would welcome the opportunity, I'm sure that she's gonna be wearing a T-shirt with the old Patrick Moynihan quote,

"You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts."

Beware the mudkitty... she bites!

[James]

Thanks for the update. Time to feed the baby and then clean the house. Will check on the links tonight. I appreciate the renewed civility. Hope you will check up on those cases I mentioned.

[James]

Still checking them out. Need to sleep now. I will take this offline with Flint. And Mudkitty, unless she objects.

[Alon Levy]

Chen, if you can't tell the difference between communism and Stalinism, then you're not qualified to be having this discussion.

Lenin's agricultural collectivization killed 5 million people. In his defense, he didn't deliberately try to use this as a genocide weapon the way Stalin did (8 million dead Ukrainians in 9 months), but it doesn't excuse his actions.

[mudkitty]

Excuse their actions? Whose doing that?

[Alon Levy]

No one - I was just explaining that Lenin's man-made starvation was the result of wanton incompetence and negligence rather than of deliberate genocide. As that could be construed as an extenuating circumstance, I felt the need to add, "but it doesn't excuse his actions."

[mudkitty]

In my book, allowing people to starve to death is murder, if not akin to murder.