The Prize Shame of Guantanamo

One of the many great obscenities that make up the hysteria of nationalism is the fate of innocent people who are deemed somehow related to "the enemy" in times of war. Linda Greenhouse presents a concise piece on the fate of the Chinese Uighurs who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo without trial or even good reason. While the US admits they are not enemy and were wrongly imprisoned, it has found itself entangled in a mess of moral and legal problems trying to release them.

The Uighurs are members of a Turkic Muslim minority group from western China who fled oppression there and sought refuge in neighboring Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border. In the border-region chaos that followed Sept. 11, 2001, bounty hunters picked up 22 Uighur men and turned them over to the United States military for $5,000 a head.

[...]

The Bush administration eventually conceded that its Uighur prisoners were not only not enemy combatants, they were not enemies at all. It also concluded that the Uighurs had legitimate fears of torture or worse if returned to China. But finding alternative destinations was a challenge, because countries that had agreed to take other detainees did not want to risk offending China by welcoming Uighurs.

[...]

(The United States paid Palau $100,000 for each of the six Uighurs who were resettled there, which at the very least raises questions about the government’s investment strategy: we paid to get the Uighurs in the first place and then had to pay 20 times the original price to get rid of them.)

  Linda Greenhouse/NYT

Of the original number, there are now seven Uighurs at Guantanamo. Five have been offered residency by various countries, but refuse, and a deal has been struck to release two to Switzerland. Aside from the fact that innocent people were imprisoned for ten years simply for being Muslim to enrich bounty hunters, the idea that a foreign government can pick you up and force you to take up residency in another foreign country where you have no connections and nothing but the clothes on your back – good luck, pal – is beyond a legal question. Why doesn't our government pay these men at least the $5,000 they paid the bounty hunters from whom they were bought, if not the $100,000 being paid to the country they're wanting to take them?

"In statesmanship get the formalities right, never mind about the moralities." --Mark Twain

Read Ms. Greenhouse's article for better information about the legal trials surrounding these men.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.