Chosun Ilbo Compares Army Barracks to “Concentration Camps”

The contagion of morally and historically moronic “concentration camp” analogies has spread to Korea.

This time, shouts the Chosun Ilbo, Army barracks are concentration camps. Consider the trajectory of this discussion: from the tragic actions of a lone nut, we have arrived directly at this bewildering hyperbole. I’d be the last to dispute that the treatment of Korean soldiers deserves some sober inquiry and intelligent public debate. Comparing conditions there to places that were specifically designed to kill millions (rather than to condition them physically and mentally through spartan conditions, thus making them healthier, it is hoped) is another gratuitous blow at the precision of a term that we still need. Korea still has real concentration camps.

It is possible, of course, to say that one snapshot of a Korean barracks, or of Gitmo, might be comparable to the best day one could experience at pre-war Dachau, if you can strip the claim of all historical, physical, legal, military, and moral context, much as Dick Durbin tried and failed to do last week. Here is just a partial list of things you may not consider if the analogy is to work on any level whatsoever: the reason for the confinement, the ultimate designs of the jailers and the jailed, the likely long-term physical effects on those confined, the object’s legitimate fear of what else he can expect, the scale of the entire enterprise, and the whether the harsh conditions are needed to prevent some greater harm that the discussion conveniently overlooks.

Other than that, Gitmo is a gulag, the Korean army is a concentration camp, and my ordering my todder to “time out” in his room is a lot like sending him to Belsen.