I just sent the following letter to the folks at abcnews.com:

To Whom It May Concern,

Although I disagree with our country’s use of certain techniques referred to as torture in “CIA’s Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described”, I am deeply offended by the following line:

“While some media accounts have described the locations where these detainees are located as a string of secret CIA prisons — a gulag, as it were…”

While the gulag was indeed a chain of secret (or not so-secret in some cases) detention facilities, they were primarily forced labor camps where millions of civilians, many from the Soviet Union itself, were sent because of their political or religious beliefs. Of these, at least several million died from the harsh labor and living conditions and millions more suffered injuries and/or psychological damage.

To compare the treatment of a small number of people who are almost undoubtedly active enemies of this country in a time of war with the gulag system is not only ridiculous on its face, but similar references are already being used as anti-war propaganda by those who would wish that our enemies prevail. Don’t be surprised if Osama bin Laden sends you all a note of thanks.

As a Jewish-American it bothers me when terms like “holocaust” and “Nazi” are thrown around to represent much lesser evils. I’m not sure if Americans of Russian descent would look at your comparison and laugh or cry.

You might as well call public schools “concentration camps” since large groups of children are rounded up by the government every day to be taken away from their families, the youngest ones crying in desperation not to be separated. The similarities are striking. Not.