I'm confused. The left, in the personage of Amnesty International, is claiming that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp is as bad as the old Soviet Gulag camps. They called it "the gulag of our time." Notice that they artfully avoid using the words "Soviet" or "Russian" or "Siberian" before the word Gulag. Why even Al Jazeera quoted them saying that.

Didn't New York Times writer Walter Durranty win a Pulitzer Prize in the 1930s, despite covering up the intentional famine in Ukraine? Could it be that the New York Times misinformed its readers about the truth of conditions in the Soviet Union? Now, however,  the New York Times casually speaks about the Gulag as if "everyone knows of that evil." If we know of that evil, it is no thanks to the New York Times, but rather to Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Natan Sharansky.

I'm really disillusioned that the Times could have been covering up for the old Soviet Union all these years. Next thing you know, I'll find out that John Kerry isn't Irish. What? He isn't? Never mind. I'm guess I'm not "sophisticated" enough to believe a Gulag isn't worth reporting on when it's run by Stalin, but suddenly worth mentioning in comparison with a non—gulag run by the United States. Maybe if I start reading the New York Times every day, I could understand this propagan...err..logic.

Speaking of inhumane prison camps, do any of you remember John Kerry speaking at televised Amnesty International rallies in the 1970s about the mistreatment of American military prisoners in North Vietnam, such as the abuse suffered by Admiral Stockdale and Sen. John McCain at the "Hanoi Hilton?" Neither do I. How about Kerry testifying in Congress about abuses against American servicemen in North Vietnam? What? He didn't mention that? Why I am shocked. Shocked, but not surprised.

For those of you who have leftist acquaintances who think the Hanoi Hilton only refers to a new hotel Paris Hilton's family now owns there, I suggest you tell them to get hold of the VHS tape (no DVD) of the movie of that name. I also suggest you tell them to look up the Malmedy Massacre in the Battle of the Bulge and the Bataan Death March.

In fact, if you go to Amnesty International's own website's library and look up Afghanistan in the 1990s, before US involvement, you will see reports of appalling prison conditions for civilians and rebels. I quote from page 6 of the Amnesty International online Library on Afghanistan, Nov. 1, 1999 (the link is listed below):

Prison conditions have not improved in areas controlled by the Taleban. In most cases there has been no news about the whereabouts of the prisoners. It is feared that many of them may be subjected to beatings or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment while in custody.

The biggest prison run by the Taleban authorities is reportedly in Kandahar where the majority of political prisoners or military combatants are held. Prisoners are reportedly made to do forced labour on the building of a new storey to the prison. Some prisoners have reportedly died of exhaustion or from the beating by the prison guards. Many prisoners reportedly have burns on their hands from active lime. Food is reportedly inadequate — one piece of bread in the morning and one piece at night — and prisoners who cannot afford to buy additional food face starvation.

Sounds a lot more like a Gulag than what goes on or went on in Guantanamo Bay.

There is also a large collection of articles in Amnesty International's online Library section on human rights abuses in Iraq dating from before the US liberated (that's right:  liberated) the country in 2002.

Once again, I'm left confused. I thought all human rights violations stemmed from the US first denying Al Jazeera cable tv to terrorist held at Guantanamo Bay. How could there be anything worse than the few small scale incidents the left keeps harping on?

How is it possible that Amnesty International has a whole list abuses done by the very people/regimes irregular combatants we are holding at Guantanamo? Doesn't Amnesty International know that truly cruel abuses done by foreign regimes don't count and shouldn't be reported because we must respect their multicultural diversity; only accusations against the United States are worth reporting? You're slipping, Amnesty International.

I have an aunt in Israel who, in WWII, climbed up to the ventilation grate on a train going to the Treblinka death camp, jumped off the fast—moving train and suffered severe frostbite in the harsh Polish winter snows. When she finally reached a civilian doctor, he amputated all 10 of her toes. I have a different perspective on what great and cruel injustice is than a lot of Americans. My definition doesn't necessarily include people denying someone access to a religious book. If you're religious, you may already have memorized many prayers.

Jack Kemp is not the former Congressman and football player of the same name.