Peace life and ideas

Was there ever a gulag....

I read with interest this article.

Mastermind of USS Cole Attack Confesses

I can't decide whether I was naive then or whether "we" in the west have just swung from leading the good fight for what was right to a right wing hawkish society ready to act regardless of the bill of rights.

When I was a boy we were led to believe that the Soviet union was evil. That the people were good but they were repressed by the government. That Pravda (means truth) the news agency was controlled by the state and did not allow free speech. That the KGB would investigate honest dissent and for punishment if you complained you would end up in a gulag where they would work you to death and "reprogram" you. The police would lock you up and throw away the key without a trial. That once you got a trial that it was a sham. It was so bad they couldn't let the citizens travel because they would defect in a heartbeat..

was that true?

The problem I have is that when I read the article on the guy who confessed to terrorist acts after five years of captivity, is that you get the feeling that the confession was forced from him. He does not get a trial in open court. He spends five years behind bars being questioned in Guantanamo bay. He does not have the protection of the American constitution or the bill or rights. On the surface it sounds a lot like life in the gulag. Have we lost the moral high ground? If this is how we in the west act was the soviet system so bad? I am sure there is a kid reading about this somewhere in the world who believes that his country has the moral high ground and that the US is an evil empire with a neutered media and an out of control department of justice.

I would have never thought this possible. That we in the west would lose the high ground; That John Wayne truly is dead; That we would question whether what is written is really true.

I am sure that this guy is an evil person, that he is guilty -but in our zeal to prove his guilt have we lost the superiority over the gulags of our youth?

Was I incredibly naive back then or have we changed?

posted by hockeyman @ 9:19 PM