It's the lawyer versus the sociologist on the question of what were the Soviet Gulags and why do they matter today? See particularly the comments by Dan Simon for an attempt at historical specificity and clarity that actually sparks a pretty decent historical discussion, even if it doesn't really answer the question of whether the US is reconstituting something worthy of the name Gulag or just garden-varietymoraloutrage [via]. (The last link is to a fascinating history of modern interrogation technique, by the way)

elendil rummy - 11/9/2005

Hello Jonathan. I'm glad that you found my blog of some use. elendil

Jonathan Dresner - 11/8/2005

Were the Gulags primarily prisons that used labor as a form of control and punishment, or were they primarily labor camps that were "staffed" by political prisoners? Or is this a chicken-egg question that doesn't really help much?

Oscar Chamberlain - 11/8/2005

I think it is the "archipelago" half of Solzhenitsyn's phrase that makes it resonate with the opponents of American torture. The scattered CIA sites do have a resemblance to the scattered labor camps.

Of course the CIA sites are not labor camps. They are not as extensive; they are not sites of slave labor.

But it is an archipelago, and if reports are close to correct, its existence has made us more like the Soviets than we were before.