March 5, 2002

4:07 PM

Guantanamo Bay: 'The American Auschwitz'"...We always see how human beings prey upon each other, how values are trampled, and how tragedies recur. This is exactly what happened, and is still happening, at the 'American Auschwitz' detention camp...excuse me, I meant the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay!! " more follows: any truth to what he is saying or is this total madness?
posted by Postroad (35 comments total)

"While Zola accused eight high-ranking generals in the French army...I direct my political and moral accusation at the president of the U.S.; his deputy Dick Cheney, that super-racist Jew...."

Way to make your case there, bro. Quacks like this dude undermine the cause for everyone. What a load of hogwash.
posted by donkeyschlong at 4:12 PM on March 5, 2002

Oh dear God in heaven. American Auschwitz?? The comparison of the tropical Camp X-ray, whose prisoners are receiving 3 generous meals, medical care, access to a Muslim Cleric, the Red Cross, etc, is horribly insulting to anyone who survived the Holocaust. The detainees at X-ray are combatants captured in a battlezone, not civilians rounded up by the Gestapo to be roasted for their ethnicity/sexuality/religion. We're following the Geneva protocols even though, technically, we don't have to. The comparison is, I must reiterate, extremely thick headed and insulting. Not madness, but stupidity is my vote.
posted by evanizer at 4:17 PM on March 5, 2002

Ah, another fine piece of journalism that reminds why I don't trust journalism.
posted by Darke at 4:17 PM on March 5, 2002

Umm...Yeah... Of course, why didn't I see this connection between the two sooner? Besides the fact that those held in Guantanamo Bay are terrorists compared to innocent Jews, and the minor detail that these men are not being burned in gas chambers, I'd say it's a good comparison. This man deserves a Pulitzer for his work.
posted by iceman at 4:21 PM on March 5, 2002

Hmm. It's complete nonsense of course. But that doesn't make Camp X-Ray good. The fact that some idiot opposes it makes no differences to the issue. There doesn't seem to be much point in posting articles which everyone will think are stupid. Roll on lots of appropriately sarcastic comments.

There may be some interest to be found in this. Like, why is the author anti-semitic? (Obvious, I suppose). But the relevant question is not: "do we agree?"
posted by Gaz at 4:30 PM on March 5, 2002

In the last few minutes the lead story changed to:

Since Egyptian Gays Have No Rights, Their Rights Need No Defense

containing, aside from that nifty kernel of reasoning, this wail of despair:

What moral debasement has this group [homosexuals] reached? What kind of people are they, with no religion, moral values, or honor? And yet there are people in the West who defend them – even hold a march in Paris in their honor, claiming human rights. What human? What rights?! I don't care what they say in the West… Where are human rights in all things regarding what is going on in Palestine?! Why aren't there demonstrations for the rights of the Palestinian child?!… Where are human rights in the Guantanamo detention camps?!…"

All of which, perhaps, shed some indirect light on the charge that Guantanamo=Auschwitz because "the American leadership does not trust the abilities of its impotent and homosexual fighters."
posted by argybarg at 4:30 PM on March 5, 2002

Does Godwin's Law count here?

Auschwitz my ass.
posted by eraserhed at 4:38 PM on March 5, 2002

Please don't anyone dignify this crap by posting here. Auschwitz was a place of systematic murder and torture. There is no comparison. If there are injustices being perpetrated in Guantanamo Bay, this is not the way to address them, by trivializing unspeakable horror. Let this thread wilt until it is mercifully deleted. Please.
posted by mattpfeff at 4:52 PM on March 5, 2002

Puhleeze.

The scary thing is that most of the Arab world believes this kind of crap! I read a statistic the other day that something like 13% of the Arab world believes that Arabs flew the planes into the towers and the Pentagon! Even with OBL acknowledging it himself! They mostly believe that it was the Mossad or American Jews. Riiiiiight. I know it's not PC to say, but what backwards, screwed up, ignorant, blind people.

I'd love to see the "detainment camps" that the Taliban would have set up. Except they just KILL all their prisioners!
posted by aacheson at 4:53 PM on March 5, 2002

"Where are human rights in all things regarding what is going on in Palestine?! Why aren't there demonstrations for the rights of the Palestinian child?!? Where are human rights in the Guantanamo detention camps?!"

Wow. The tragic thing is that there's probably a very large overlap (in the West) between belief in gay rights and sympathy for Palestinians. Such a shame that he's so deluded...
posted by Gaz at 4:54 PM on March 5, 2002

See, I'm a pinko antiamerican peace loving reactionary, and this article pisses me off. It is almost like it is exagerating to specifically undermine our belief that what is going on in Guantanamo is bad. What amazes me is that, given how normal journalism is totally worthless, something like this, also totally worthless, could seem so different.

The problem here is that along with the intelligent people who are on the right side of a cause, there are innumerable total jackasses with them, making progress all the more dificult.
posted by Settle at 5:22 PM on March 5, 2002

See, I'm a pinko antiamerican peace loving reactionary, and this article pisses me off. It is almost like it is exagerating to specifically undermine our belief that what is going on in Guantanamo is bad. What amazes me is that, given how normal journalism is totally worthless, something like this, also totally worthless, could seem so different.

The problem here is that along with the intelligent people who are on the right side of a cause, there are innumerable total jackasses with them, making progress all the more dificult.
posted by Settle at 5:23 PM on March 5, 2002

This entire post is just a big, fat, giant troll. This guys views are simply not worth debating, only condemning, which I am sure is Postroad's only goal. Give me a break!
posted by chaz at 5:26 PM on March 5, 2002

the American leadership does not trust the abilities of its impotent and homosexual fighters

<sarcasm>Well, I'm certainly glad to see that the writer of this bit of humor certainly has no prejudices or preconceived notions which might interfere with his objectivity.</sarcasm>
posted by RevGreg at 7:10 PM on March 5, 2002

This is a Western, possibly Israeli Organizations which translates the Arab press. Don't blame the messenger.
posted by ParisParamus at 7:39 PM on March 5, 2002

Cheney's Jewish? *roll eyes*

Although it'd be a much more interesting world if most of the Republican Party was gay... ;)
posted by solistrato at 7:40 PM on March 5, 2002

More worthy of discussion, I think, is how people aquire nonsensical views like this. As worthless as you may think our media is, the real criminals are the state run ones like Voice of Palestine, China's and North Korea's (which NYT humorously ridiculed a few weeks ago) that inspire such rhetoric. State run media is as powerful a force as any behind the Middle East crisis, the Sept. 11 attacks, and any number of other hate-inspired acts. As awful journalism as this piece is, it seems that the author truly believes his words, while those that run the media in the above countries (among others) are in a position to know the real facts, but actively supress and manipulate them.
posted by gsteff at 8:12 PM on March 5, 2002

Y'know, you can call it "totally worthless" all you want, but if it weren't for the real journalism practiced by independent outlets like the NYT and the other usual suspects, about all we'd have left is crap like this article. What a well-informed world we'd live in then!
posted by diddlegnome at 8:51 PM on March 5, 2002

That's the world most of the world lives in.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:57 PM on March 5, 2002

It appears that the only claims that this "article" makes regarding inappropriate conditions are:

"placed in iron cages like animals"

and

"iron cages exposed [to the sun] from all directions"

Might I remind you that the detainees were captured in the Afghan desert? Besides, it's not like they don't have a roof over their head. It's also worth pointing out that something like 2,000,000 Americans are in iron cages, which I speculate is a considerably greater amount than the number of animals kept in iron cages. Perhaps the author meant "placed in iron cages like criminals?"
posted by waldo at 9:00 PM on March 5, 2002

True (and sad) enough.
posted by diddlegnome at 9:00 PM on March 5, 2002

What ParisParamus said, I mean.
posted by diddlegnome at 9:01 PM on March 5, 2002

Given that Holocaust-denial is standard in the Arab press, I don't know what to make of the Guantanamo camp being compared to Auschwitz. But...but... nothing happened at Auschwitz! Is the writer trying to say that the Americans aren't mistreating the Al Qaeda detainees the same way the Nazi's didn't mistreat the Jews?

I'm so confused.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 9:07 PM on March 5, 2002

this has to be the worst thread I have seen in a while.
posted by hotdoughnutsnow at 9:25 PM on March 5, 2002

I thought it was a good FPP because it highlights the difference between the propaganda that your average Arab is seeing and the propaganda we in the West are seeing. I can't tell if Al-Liwa is a government mouthpiece or not, so it's not clear whether this author is trying to shape opinions or is just commenting on stuff that "everybody knows". Certainly, Dr. Ahmad is educated in Western thought, (since I doubt Emile Zola's required reading at Cairo Univ.)

Although the leap from Hitler burned Jews in gas chambers to those whose skin burns in the Cuban sun makes me think he's being intellectually dishonest, and knows the difference.

Slithy_Tove: Here's the relevant passage: Although I do not believe this exaggerated Jewish yarn, the detention camp [at Auschwitz] did indeed exist, and there was a Nazi crime against all of humanity (not only against the Jews, as they claim)... Which seems fairly consistant with Western holocaust deniers, who mostly seem to believe that either there wasn't a disproportionate number of Jews in the camps, or that the camps were for some other purpose besides genocide. I haven't heard any that claim the camps didn't exist.
posted by swell at 9:53 PM on March 5, 2002

Slithy, good call: Charles Johnson noted the Holocaust denial in the article, immediately following an attempt at Holocaust equivalence. He called it a logical moebius strip, which I reckon is about right. Even odder is that an article written for Arab consumption would use a Holocaust-equivalence argument. He also, correctly, noted that the writer of this piece is of the misapprehension that the Dreyfus affair really was a Zionist plot of some sort, which is exactly the opposite of how the West generally perceives it today -- as a German-French spy scandal that found a scapegoat in an innocent Jewish officer.

In other words, the argument of the article is not really important; it's unsurprising that a Lebanese writer doesn't like the Guantanamo detentions. But the way he makes his argument should be positively blood-chilling. Fits right in with the Egyptian TV production of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a 30-part miniseries.
posted by dhartung at 10:05 PM on March 5, 2002

Thanks for that link, dh. Unbelievable.
posted by ParisParamus at 10:14 PM on March 5, 2002

So they have there Jerry Falwells.
posted by onegoodmove at 10:15 PM on March 5, 2002

their
posted by onegoodmove at 10:15 PM on March 5, 2002

Guantanamo Bay: 'The American Auschwitz'

Yes ... currently detaining The Taliban: 'The Afghani (um) Taliban'?
posted by MidasMulligan at 10:24 PM on March 5, 2002

So they have Jerry Falwells.

When a majority of the population thinks, amongst other things, that Israelis and/or no Arabs were involved in 9/11. Those aren't Jerry Falwells. Wake up.
posted by ParisParamus at 4:23 AM on March 6, 2002

Prove conclusively it wasn't all an evil Zionist/Jewish/Masonic/Stonecutter conspiracy - given a bit of time and effort, it wouldn't have been that hard to set up, and its clear how someone could easily benefit from the situation. The people in the East (well, US/Europe = the West, right?) are naturally disinclined to believe what they hear from the US as proof - hey, if the US can stage a fake moon landing or two, they can stick a beard on a guy, whip out adobe premiere/photoshop, and stick together any video in a coupla hundred hours.. Some proof aside from videos of him 'admitting' it mass-circulated would go someway to making more than 13% who believed it.. Hmm..

I think calling it camp X-Ray probably wasn't the best of ideas, Camp Guantanamo wouldn't sound as nasty.. Did the Taleban kill captured Northern Alliance fighters anyone know? Under shariah law, they're not allowed to do that, and need to feed them etc, but the Taleban interpretation of it seems to have been a bit funny at times..

Back to the article.. That was one angry writer - btw, whats the current status of the meaning of an 'Islamist' as this guy is said to be (first line)? Wasn't this term made to distinguish the majority muslims from the hardliners in the Zionist type way?
posted by Mossy at 4:56 AM on March 6, 2002

dhartung: Concerning the Dreyfus affair as Zionist plot, it's certainly true that the affair was pivotal in the evolution of Zionism, and that early Zionists used it to argue that anti-Semitism made it impossible for Jews to assimilate in Europe. It's not clear whether Dreyfus agreed with Herzl or objected to what he said (as claimed in the article). But it is certainly arguable that Herzl had little interest in defending Dreyfus - see here (note that the author of this piece is a famous Jewish anti-Zionist and Trotskyist, so he would be expected to present things differently from the Zionists - not that he's necessarily wrong on this point).

Sorry if that's somewhat off-topic, but it's better to understand where this (obviously bonkers) article is coming from than to dismiss everything in it out of hand.
posted by Gaz at 5:38 AM on March 6, 2002

GODWIN. GODWIN. GODWIN. GODWIN. GODWIN.
posted by matteo at 8:09 AM on March 6, 2002

Earlier Osama was referenced as OBL. Is that like ODB (Ol' Dirty Bastard)? Ol' Big Lizard?
posted by Stretch at 9:35 AM on March 6, 2002