The United States is not a "Mad Regime"

With the recent statements by Democrats about Guantanamo Bay's "Camp X-Ray," a whole lot of commotion has been stirred up. The most notable would be that of the Minority Whip, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL). In his speech to the Senate on Tuesday, 14 June, Senator Durbin made connections between Gitmo and the regimes of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot. He is quoted as saying,

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

According to the Senator, detainees were subjugated to extreme temperatures both hot or cold caused by the use or non-use of an air-conditioner, loud music, and are bound in awkward positions. This was all used to cause discomfort and sleep deprivation: not warentless torture. There is one major difference between the United States treatment of detainees and the treatment given by Hitler, Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin. That is the de-huminizing of those in custody.

The "Mad Regimes" that were mentioned in Senator Durbin's speech are among the most heinous that humanity has seen. The Nazi relied on their belief that all those not Aryan, were inferior therefore not entirely human. By doing this they justified the scores of consitration camps, random mass executionss, ghettos and the acts of the Waffen SS and their Einsatzgruppen. Pol Pot killed indiscriminately. The killing fields were filled with young and old and male and female. Stalin seemed to like the mantra "out of sight, out of mind" because he would send his political prisoners to Siberia never to be seen again. Not one would give even a seconds hesitation in taking life. The United States resembles nothing of any of these regimes.


A mass grave at Bergen-Belsen consentration camp.



Pile of bones of victims of Pol Pot.

In the recent Time Magazine article entitled "Inside the Wire at Gitmo," the interrogation techniques used by the US are described in a similar way as what Senator Durbin stated. Yet in the Time article they actually mention that "the detainees physical condition is frequently checked by medical corpsmen--sometimes as often as three times a day." This demonstrates that we are concerned with the physical state of the detainees. Coalition forces in Iraq gave medical treatment to combatants during Operation Iraqi Freedom as well as in subsequent operations. We recognize that despite their attempts to kill our soldiers and civilians in Iraq, we hold concern for their well being. No person in US custody, from camp X-ray or Abu Ghraib, has died.

The United States is not a regime bent on mental and physical domination such as Nazi Germany, the USSR or the Khmer Rouge. All life is valuable, even that of our enemies. I am appalled by the allegation that Camp X-Ray is anything like these "Mad Regimes."