(March 12, 2016 at 6:58 am)abaris Wrote:(March 12, 2016 at 6:43 am)Aractus Wrote: As I said. You want to compare Gutmo to multiple NAZI camps. But it's a singular camp. That's like comparing if the NAZIs had one camp and the USA had multiple Gutmo's.
A war crime is a war crime, isn't it?
It's at least on the brink of being a war crime. Does that make it similar or comparable to a Nazi concentration camp? No, it doesn't. It doesn't make it similar to the Soviet Gullags either. It has to be judged on it's own.
The problem is the same as with comparing an unlikeable political figure to Hitler. A killer argument, not only wrong, but it also diverts attention from what makes it bad. From what lies at the bottom of the whole issue.
The most striking difference between Gitmo and Nazi concentration camps would be intent. In the case of Gitmo, it's to detain people for an indefinite time. In the case of the concentration camps, the plan was to eliminate undesirable elements from society. Accordingly, every inmate was confronted with the constant threat of imminent death. A guard could kill an inmate without having to face any consequence. On the contrary, the system Theodor Eicke introduced incentivised killing of inmates. Guards got extraordinary leave and monetary rewards on the side. Apart from that, even if it wasn't a death camp, inmates had to do hard labor, and later on got exposed to brutal medical expirement. Look up Sigmund Rascher, who mainly operated at Dachau, which wasn't a death camp.
Gitmo's main issue is to operate outside of the usual checks and balances that are applied to every other prison facility. It's outside every checkable legislation. That's a problem, but it's quite a different problem than with the concentration camps.
The oldest living guy today was a Nazi concentration camp inmate. It did him some obvious good.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news...worlds-old
