Seventeen innocent Chinese Muslims - Uighurs - who have been held in Guantanamo since approximately 2002 and who were cleared of being "enemy combatants" over four years ago look to be getting some measure of justice - finally.
According to the Chicago Tribune President Obama is planning to release these innocent men into the United States because they cannot be sent back to China and no third nation has been identified which would take these men. These men cannot go back to China because they would likely face severe persecution by the Communist Chinese government. They were cleared of being enemy combatants long ago, and as such, their continued incarceration is a gross injustice.
Not surprisingly some "lock'em up" types are upset. Andy McCarthy of the National Review does not like this idea one bit. Even though these men are innocent of any wrong doing, have been detained unlawfully for all these years, have been subjected to very harsh detention conditions and have absolutely no where to go after the ordeal our government has subjected them to, these men are, after all, Muslims and since their beliefs don't gel with Mr. McCarthy's it is, in his view, a bad idea to let them live in America.
According to McCarthy, these men smashed a television during the latter part of their detention (apparently their quarters were upgraded from deplorable hell holes to standard issue port-o-prison cells with, oh my gosh thank you, tv) and this strikes Mr. McCarthy as evidence that these men cannot be assimilated into American society or that they are a threat to our way of life.
Hmmm? Don't you think the crazy detention conditions and the torture might make some folks more than a little unsettled and erratic? I'm not a psychologist but I'm guessing the conditions at GITMO can have a very bad effect on a detainee's mental health.
And what exactly is the alternative? Since these men are not guilty of anything and since they have no place else to go thanks to us, are we to just keep them locked up for life? I'd like to hear the alternatives for these 17 Chinese Muslims from Mr. McCarthy's point of view.
Is the alternative just killing them as Glenn Beck suggested:
Comments