(no subject)

[theweaselking]

Between this and Auschwitz, something is apparently deeply fucking *wrong* with Poland.

Of course, unlike the USA, the Poles are at least pursuing criminal charges.

That second one is the Wall Street Journal. I believe the correct phrase for the comments is "memetic prophylactic recommended".

Comments

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

This may be too generous, but Poland didn't start the Holocaust or the CIA secret prisons. One thing that's "wrong with Poland" might simply be that it isn't a world power.

This isn't intended to excuse complicity, but a lot of the responsibility came from outside the country.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Poland was a conquered nation when they hosted the worst of the extermination camps last time, but they still hosted them. This time around, it was apparently voluntary, at least to the extent that they found enough people to make it work for most of a decade before charges were laid.

[xengar.livejournal.com]

To be fair to theweaselking, he didn't say that there was anything wrong with the people of Poland. I think he meant "What makes people look at the polish countryside and say 'What this area needs is a prison camp!'"

I probably shouldn't be answering for him, I'm sure he can answer for himself.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

That's not a bad way of putting it.

But I was, at least in part, blaming "the Polish people" for accepting the American death camps the way they accepted the German ones, with the concomitant acceptance that most civilians didn't know about it and the aggravating factor that the responsible Americans *weren't* standing over the knowledgable and complicit Poles with guns the way the responsible Germans were.

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

Considering that one-fifth of the population of Poland died in the Holocaust, it's a bit of a stretch to say that most civilians in Poland didn't know about the camps. They 'accepted' the German camps at the barrel of a gun, which is to say that they didn't accept them at all.

[publius1.livejournal.com]

Saying that Poland "accepted" the death camps is deeply unfair. They really didn't have a choice in the matter.

Now, accepting the American prison camp, that was alllll their government.

[darquis.livejournal.com]

"The Polish people" had been a good deal more aware of German death camps located in Poland than of then-alleged American torture camps, becasue the latter came pre-discredited. The idea that terrorists are coming to Poland was first voiced by a not entirely credible leader of a populist party (Andrzej Lepper from Samoobrona, or Self-Defense[1]): on Nov 29th 2001, he claimed to have been notified[2] of Taliban members buying Anthrax in Klewki (http://g.co/maps/zgfvc).

The first logged arrival of a secret CIA plane was Dec 5th 2002 in Szymany (http://g.co/maps/py9mf). However, any claims that our *cough* beloved ally, the US, is torturing terrorists in our country were met with "lol yeah Taliban in Klewki gtfo whackjob" until a few years ago.

[1] he committed suicide last year, if it's not conspiracy theorish enough for you yet
[2] the informant was later convicted of multiple counts of fraud, converted to Islam and keeps throwing random accusations at former friends

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Put another way: A lot of responsibility came from outside the country last time this happened, too, but in both cases abdication of responsibility came apparently easy.

[pappy-legba.livejournal.com]

This other way is also wrong. As long as you're drawing a false equivalence between "voluntarily placed a prison inside their borders under some pressure from an ally" and "had a death camp located inside their borders by an external power after said power conquered and subjugated them," you'll continue to be wrong.

Hint: they are much more culpable this time around. Also, as vile as this prison is, comparing to Auschwitz is a classic Godwin loss.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

You know Godwin's Law is a statement of inevitability, and contains no win/loss metrics at all, right?

(Also: No, no, the American internment and torture camps really are very much like the German ones. They're just still in the 1930s stages, so far. I'll accept that I may be being unfair to WW2 Poland, here, but the modern USA is creepy.)

[glenn-3.livejournal.com]

See, yeah, I was reading that article thinking that there's something deeply wrong with the US on display here. It's in the sanitized language throughout the article--"harsh questioning", "corporal punishment", "harsh interrogation tactics that human rights advocates consider torture"--as if our ability to avoid calling it torture makes it less evil.

[pappy-legba.livejournal.com]

Ah, nitpicking. You are at the stage of a Godwin's corollary loss.

You continue to be wrong, since the early German death camps were in Germany. Those built in Poland-- you know, the nation we're discussing here-- were several orders of magnitudes more lethal.

I'm not disputing that the USA camps are vile; I am stating that the only way you could trivialize their crimes against humanity is to make overblown Godwin-corollary statements.