Posted on 02/21/2006 6:08:28 PM PST by blam
Straw risks US fury over 'gulag' Guantanamo
By George Jones
(Filed: 22/02/2006)
The confusion within the Government over Britain's attitude to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp deepened yesterday when Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, compared it to a Soviet-style "gulag".
It was the most critical description yet by a member of the Cabinet of the camp where terrorist suspects are held indefinitely by the United States authorities.
Jack Straw: comments are likely to anger the US
Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, called last week for its closure, but Tony Blair said only that it was an "anomaly" which would at some point have to be dealt with, while John Reid, the Defence Secretary, said it was a matter for the US to decide.
Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, has also criticised privately the holding of suspects without charge or trial.
Mr Straw, interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme during a visit to Baghdad, said that it was a decision for Washington whether and when the detention camp at a US military base in Cuba should be closed down.
"I am absolutely clear that the US has no intention of maintaining a gulag in Guantanamo Bay.
"They want to see the situation resolved and they would like it other than it is. However, that is the situation that they have," he said.
His reference to it being a "gulag" - a forced labour camp in the former Soviet Union - is likely to anger the Americans. It comes a week after a United Nations report called for the closure of the camp, saying the treatment of detainees, some of whom have been held for more than four years, violated their rights to physical and mental health.
The UN expressed concern at the use of excessive force during transportation and force-feeding through nasal tubes during hunger strikes, which it says amounts to torture.
Downing Street refused to endorse Mr Straw's comments or say whether the Prime Minister agreed that the camp was a gulag. Downing Street said Mr Blair's position that Guantanamo Bay was an "anomaly" had not changed.
Foreign Office officials said Mr Straw stood by his "gulag" comment. In the interview he acknowledged that a large number of people had already been released or taken to trial. "The problem is what to do with those that are left, and that is a matter which the US administration are going to have to take their own decisions on, and frankly I'm not going to second-guess the decisions they make."
Jack Straw is to international diplomacy what Jack Kevorkian is to life saving measures for the terminally ill.
Somebdy get his address and I will sent him one of those Camp Gitmo T-shirts. ha ha
Who cares what this Straw man thinks? Gitmo serves our purposes because it is outside of virtually all legal wrangling, manuvering, etc. It can't be a "gulag" anyway cause the prisoners don't "work". They are basically pampered if they behave.
I'll bet Srtaw has no idea as to what goes on in a Soviet-style gulag.
Jack Straw from Wichita?
Again, boo hoo.
NEXT COMPLAINT.
I'm constantly amazed at the selfrighteousness of people who undermine the Genenva conventions by presuming to assign its protections to people who systematically reject all of its obligations.The upshot of their moral preening is to heap obloquy on the victims of systematic violation of the conventions.
Just having some fun tonight.
Sorry you missed the Dead reference.
;)
"good on ya, mate!" excellent comment. it's mind-boggling how these wankers make comments about gitmo like they've been there and get away with it.
That could be done, of course.
I would imagine they thought themselves morally superior to the French who sent their prisoners to Devil's Island!
Perhaps Mr Straw should ask Mr Solzhenitsyn if he thinks they are comparable.
Correction: it should be "Jack Ass" not "Jack Straw".
How is he risking American fury when we don't care one bit what he thinks about Guantanamo?
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