“in the tropical island of Cuba lies the detention camp that is seen by many around the world as America’s gulag”
Typical Matt Frei – light on facts, heavy on spin. Who are your “many around the world” Matt? Do you mean many BBC reporters around the world? Many Guardian readers around the world, many lefties around the world or what?
And what does it matter what these so-called ‘many’ think, when their alleged comparison is so fundamentally flawed? Unless of course you’re spinning us a line rather than giving us unvarnished facts in an impartial manner?
Do you Matt, have any idea what the Gulags were like? How many millions of people were detained in the Gulags? Over how many decades? How many died in the Gulags? Answers, for you Matt, according to Wikipedia, 18-20 million detained over four decades, with 1,606,748 deaths, not including “the more than 800,000 executions of ‘counterrevolutionaries’ during the period of the ‘Great Terror’, since they were mostly conducted outside the camp system” or the 390,000 plus peasants who died in labour camps.
Compare that with Guantanamo – a few hundred detainees, duration so far three to four years, health and welfare generally taken care of, with just a few deaths, none due to execution.
Do you know what you’re talking about Matt? It’s time for you to read some Solzhenitsyn before you go shooting your mouth off again. Sure, Guantanamo is an aberration in need of urgent resolution, but your unsubstantiated comparison of Guantanamo with the Soviet Gulags, based on nothing more than what you think ‘many people around the world’ (how conveniently anonymous) allegedly think is nothing but far-fetched, over the top, biased hyperbole. Plus ca change.
Guantanamo is a US naval base primarily
This is typical of the BBC’s “crude” and “clumsy” reporting.
I always thought the BBC was supposed to report the facts, and not make value judgments. Perhaps they are only so gracious to terrorists?
And nowt about the ‘gulags’ (Trademark quote marks copyright BBC – our lawyers are watching) in Cuba where 20 people are stuffed into 1 cell with no sanitation, where political prisoners fester for years and go blind as they never get outside into the light and also where 1 in 5 of the world’s jailed journalists languish in Cuban jails. How interesting that Frei feels unable to mention this sort of thing and support his colleagues in Cuba. Perhaps if he were to insult George Bush he would end up in Gitmo same as the poor Cuban journos. Oh wait, He’s still not been arrested? How very unlike the Russian and Cuban gulags! Damm those freedom loving Yanks (and thank God they’re on our side despite the activities of the BBC et al).
For links to the Cuban stories:
http://www.cabarfeidh.com/2005/01/schools-not-out-anymore.html
Lefties who love Cuba are shown up here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2179115,00.html
This bit of Castro government trivia floored me:
Food Ration in 1842 for slaves in Cuba:
meat, chicken, fish 8 oz.
rice 4 oz.
starch 16 oz.
beans 4 oz.
Castro Government food ration since 1962
Meat, chicken, fish 2 oz.
rice 3 oz.
starch 6.5 oz.
beans 1 oz.
Remember that the next time you are searching for a holiday getaway Messrs Sheridan and Galloway!
Sources close to Frei say he is unhinged. Many around the world think he has a fatal case of Spinnus Beeboiderus.
Question Time
Pretty awful wasn’t it?
Doesn’t Salmond think himself clever? Many around the world say he has a big mouth. And how many times last night did he try to smear Melanie Phillips by rubbishing the Daily Mail?
The conservative MP was a waste of space. Many around the world say we shouldn’t waste time talking about her.
And sometimes I think that apart from Melanie Phillips, B-BBC and Michael Gove, the world has gone mad.
Sorry wrong thread.
Matt Frei is on the losing side, and he knows it…all he has left are his own bitter barbs….just laugh at him like everyeone else does….lol.
Just another Socialist Fascist at the BBC…..
Nice one Andrew.
That is how BBBC ought to look and sound.
THE REALITY BASED COMMUNITY’S WAY OF PUTTING IT..
“just beyond the holiday Camp Gitmo lies the detention camp known as Cuba, seen many around the world as a left-wing gulag”
But not by the BBC, of course.
Analysts claim that experts have found that many correspondents around the world think that many in the community feel that critics allege that, in some quarters, many people are angry that the media’s use of unattributed sources is lazy or a sneaky way of passing off editorial comment as news.
Most products from government funded services are poor so it would be odd if BBC journalism was of high quality.
If you want good quality health care, education or housing you go private. The same applies to journalism.
Anonymous: “Just another Socialist Fascist at the BBC…..”
Spot on Mr. Nobody.
The “gulag” ignorance comes direct from Amnesty International, circa 2004 iirc.
Andrew – good post and pithy comments, everyone. Interesting, isn’t it, that several of the prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay have applied for Green Cards?
Perhaps they’re masochists and want more torture and hateful, in meagre servings, food.
Boy praises Guantanamo jailers
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3488175.stm
You might think he would be angry with the Americans. Actually he thinks they have done Naqibullah a favour.
“He has learnt to speak English. He has come back with an education. He knows about things,” Gul Mohammed said.
“He behaves better with his sisters and brothers, he shows me more respect, and he has been to big places like Kabul, and the rest of the world.”
I have little time for Mr. Frei. He always does this formualic and now very boring ‘correspondent’ type of emotive (delivered for the occidental mindset) flowery reporting.
It’s amazing what a sprig of garnish can do to a old and gone off, maggot ridden dish, and I half suspect Frei knowns this.