A Shrill Review for a Summer Blockbuster

In its annual report on human rights worldwide, Amnesty International said the detention facility had become "the gulag of our times," equating it to the vast, brutal Soviet system of forced labor camps in which millions of prisoners died.

"I think that's a shrill assessment. They probably exaggerated for emphasis. I don't want to speak for them, but I do not share that at all. I think that's an uninformed view," Craddock said.

The United States holds about 520 detainees at Guantanamo, most caught in Afghanistan, and has classified them as "enemy combatants" not entitled to rights accorded to prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.

Amnesty's perception on the point is one of pure human rights, disinterested from political motivations. While they may have a "different" view from Craddock and crew, it is likely not uninformed. It is, rather a synthesis of information that they have gotten that points to abuses and perceptions of abuse that are unacceptable. Craddock can call it uninformed, but what he really is saying is "opposing." "They believe we're harboring torture and abuse; and we think they're idiots."

So what's the real story with Guantanamo Bay? Seems to me that Amnesty has done what it can to get clarification, but the stories just keep radiating out of Camp X-Ray.