Sen. Durbin Almost Apologizes For Gitmo Statements

Recently Illinois Democratic senator Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat senator, made some comments comparing Guantanimo Bay (Gitmo) to Nazi concentration camps, Stalin's gulags, and Pol Pot's imprisionment methods. While he was refusing to apologize for those statements, even the usually supportive Chicago Tribune came out condemning him in an editorial for his Nazi comments.

So durbin issued an "apology" which can be seen on his website.


Said Durbin:

"I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support."

Well, Mr. Durbin, since you're not going to say what you said was wrong, how have we Americans misinterpreted your statements to mean that Gitmo's no better than a gulag or concentration camp? I'll admit, when I hear gulag or concentration camp, visuals come to mind. Maybe those visuals are skewing my interpretation. Were you saying Gitmo was like a concentration camp because both had guards? Or maybe because both had prison cells? Crazy that Americans would be so foolish as to interpret your statements as implying mass executions, torture, and the like were being performed at Gitmo.

Or it's even more silly to realize that it's the prinicple which is being contested, and not the actual numbers of deaths occuring in Gitmo. Matters not if 20,0000 million were killed or tortured, or if 3 were, the principle remains the same: they were detained without charge and held in custody without any basic human rights.

Deep

[edit on 20-6-2005 by ZeroDeep]

Originally posted by ZeroDeep
they were detained without charge and held in custody without any basic human rights.

What I gather from the comments is that there is a policy of torture set up there, and a policy of extermination. So far as I can tell, we haven't implemented those policies.

now he feel sorry eh? well next time he needs to be more careful on comparisons otherwise it will definitely backfire and Americans dont like being compared to Nazis, particularly to the men and women in uniform at Gitmo.

they were detained without charge and held in custody without any basic human rights.

What detained without charge? So where the POW's in WWII until the war was over, so war the POW's in The Gulf war until the war was over. So were the POW's in Vietnam until the war was over. That ahs always been the accepted polity but now all of sudden it changes?

Now, without basic human rights?
They get three good meals a day, they get to exercise and play soccer out side each day, they get to have their Koran and get prayer time. They get a good bed to sleep in, they get showers and they get even more than that. They don't get tortured but they are subject to interrogation techniques.

Originally posted by deltaboy
now he feel sorry eh? well next time he needs to be more careful on comparisons otherwise it will definitely backfire and Americans dont like being compared to Nazis, particularly to the men and women in uniform at Gitmo.

No, make no mistake. He pointed out right after making the apology that he is not sorry for the statements, only that fools such as you and I would take them to mean something worse than what they really ment in context. The context, just so my liberal friends don't get the chance to throw it up as though it explains everything (sorry, guys ), is as follows. He was describing what an FBI agent told him. He told them of the AC being turned down to the point of causing a detainee to shiver. He told of another detainee being in a prision cell where the air was off and it was over 100 degrees in there. He also told of a detainee who...somthin', it's not coming to mind, but I'm sure someone will point it out as it was the worst of the three things mentioned. Maybe a detainee who missed breakfast or something. Anyway, Durbin mentioned these three situations, then said that if he were to have told you that, you would assume he was talking about a Nazi concentration camp or a Soviet Gulag ('nother one involving Pol Pot, but I don't recall the exact word), but no, these atrocities are being done by America.

First off, in that context, how the heck am I to come to the conclusion that he only ment those statements because we are detaining them without due process? Also, last I heard, the last thing you worried about being in a Siberian Death Camp was the A/C being turned off.

He did not say he was sorry for those remarks, though. He said he was sorry people misinterpreted them as being harmful to our troops. At least, I think that's what he said, he has his foot so far down his throat it's getting hard to understand the words coming out of his mouth.

I might have had a bit more respect for that dirtbag Durbin if he'd had the cojones to say something like,

"I don't care what you think! Bush and his cronies are a bunch of f*****g Nazis!"

But of course he didn't, because in addition to being a liar, he's a coward as well.

And if his disgusting sleaze upsets me, I can't imagine how it'd make a Republican or a Bush supporter (neither of which I am) feel!

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
I might have had a bit more respect for that dirtbag Durbin if he'd had the cojones to say something like,

"I don't care what you think! Bush and his cronies are a bunch of f*****g Nazis!"

But of course he didn't, because in addition to being a liar, he's a coward as well.

And if his disgusting sleaze upsets me, I can't imagine how it'd make a Republican or a Bush supporter (neither of which I am) feel!

I guess there are two sides to every coin. I hadn't looked at it from that perspective, but I've felt the same way you do about several of those Republican "appologies".

.
If the NAZI shoe fits, wear it.

This nation was founded on Habeus Corpus and restricting unlawful searches and seizures.

The detainees at Gitmo were sold into it at $5000 dollars a head, in a desperately poor and lawless country.

A fool and his money both soon separate.
The US military are idiots, buying people like slaves for self agrandizement of supposedly 'catching those Al Qaeda people'.

Keep in mind Gitmo is what you see in the press, Remember the US has camps around the globe you NEVER hear about.
Wanna take a guess at what goes on in those places?

A police state rounds people up with no charges and detains and sometimes kills people and never answers to anyone.

do the math,

US + Gitmo + Other Secret internment camps = Police state.
.

yeah...

ridiculous claim - evidence = 0.

can you back that up?

proof or no proof, its rather naive to think theres no secrets. a whole new world of expirements become options behind closed doors. and we can back up claims of Nazi scientists being shuffled in the country after WW2.

we KNOW about MKULTRAs and PROJECT PAPERCLIPS and PHILIDELPHIA EXPIREMENTS, and those happened in the past. whats changed? why wouldnt they still be investigating the whole world of science? if anything has changed, its the moral climate. i would not be the slightest bit surpised to discover cloning an already certified science -hidden behind a black budget somewhere.

its not even thinking outside of the box, it should be common sense. there most certainly is a technological race, you can be sure our military industrial complex has its hands in it.

and there most certainly ARE evil people in positions to OK godknows what if they are veiled in secrecy. yes, EVIL scientists. what, just for comic books? think again.

have any of you actually seen what he said or do you just believe the right-wing propaganda mill? this is nothing but smoke and mirrors to try and divert attention from mounting criticism over the DSM. He did not attack the 'troops' or anything of the like. He is making the point that the practices at Guantanamo are unamerican and stand for values and practices that aren't considered american at all.

"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,"

This is the infamous quote. This remark was made while Durbin was looking at a photo and reading a FBI report of prisoners who had been laying for 24 hours with feces smeared all over their faces. He was saying that if they didnt know the FBI provided them, they think it'd be from something like a gulag or a concentration camp.

Here is the report by the guy from the FBI. Now you will know what Durbin was talkin bout :

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food, or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold... On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor."

And this is the Republican response that attacks Durbin and is what the American people are made to believe. Lies and rhetoric:

"... And, regrettably, I am refering to a Senate colleague who, this week, called Guantanamo a "death camp" - Bill Frist

Durbin did no such thing and is a flat out lie by Frist.

Can you see what's going on here???


[edit on 21-6-2005 by drfunk]

[edit on 21-6-2005 by drfunk]

Two words "extraordinary rendition"....

Those two words render all apologist nonsense bare. Gitmo is just a smoke screen. Its purpose isnt to hold prisoners its to distract from the larger issues. I have yet to see a serious thread here dealing with "extraordinary rendition" and that just goes to show the system works. All the important stories slip through the cracks and only what they want us to get riled up about makes the news. Taken on its own Gitmo isnt that bad its only when viewed in conjunction with the rest of our practices that the gulag comparison becomes apt. Problem is no one ever talks about the big picture. No one ever discusses Gitmo in the context of our practice of exporting prisoners to countries with a history of torture in search of information.

[edit on 21-6-2005 by boogyman]

This nation was founded on Habeus Corpus and restricting unlawful searches and seizures.

Yup, it sure was, that is for U.S. citizens who we don't find on the battlefield shooting at us.

To all the people that say “well the must be secret camps around the world, there must be, because I believe in it so there must be”.
And that’s all they need to be convinced that they are right and other people are wrong. Can you imagine if our judicial system was held to that standard of proof?

[edit on 21-6-2005 by WestPoint23]