Mind over Matter, No conscience, no matter.

This Washington Post story, written by genuine gulag survivor, Pavel Litvinov was highlighted at Instapundit a day of so ago. The damning words:

Several days ago I received a telephone call from an old friend who is a longtime Amnesty International staffer. He asked me whether I, as a former Soviet "prisoner of conscience" adopted by Amnesty, would support the statement by Amnesty's executive director, Irene Khan, that the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba is the "gulag of our time."
"Don't you think that there's an enormous difference?" I asked him.
"Sure," he said, "but after all, it attracts attention to the problem of Guantanamo detainees."

And this:

Amnesty International, with its fact-based, objective and balanced approach to the defense of human rights, has been a source of hope for dissidents everywhere. A central idea of Amnesty has been the concept of prisoner of conscience as a person who neither uses nor advocates political violence. Just to know that you have been adopted as a prisoner of conscience, that somewhere in the world there are people who know your name and are working for your release, gives a prisoner hope.

Would you call an Al Queda terrorist, captured in Afghanistan, a prisoner of conscience? I certainly will not. To be a prisoner of conscience, on must have a conscience.