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After announcing in his
first week in office that he was closing
down the prison at Guantanamo Bay,
president Obama was faced with the
reality of not having a plan for the
inmates once he fulfilled his promise.
He hinted that he might bring the
terrorists to the United States and
house them in US prisons or perhaps try
them in American criminal courts
alongside common criminals, thieves and
liquor store stick-up artists. This
brought such a public outcry that he
shelved that idea and went looking for
other places to put them. It was
announced a few days ago that he had
found new homes for several Chinese
Uighurs in Bermuda, a self-governing
British overseas territory. Obama said
that these men were no longer considered
a threat and the island of Bermuda had
agreed to take 4 of them. That’s
because US lawmakers cut off funds to
resettle them in the United States,
saying they could pose a risk.
The four men, who were
captured on the Afghanistan-Pakistan
border in 2001 claimed that they were
all innocent itinerant workers who were
wrongly turned in by bounty hunters.
That is the official line that the Obama
administration is taking. However, it
was reported in The Weekly Standard,
that the men weren’t quite what they
claim. Thomas Joscelyn wrote on June
11:
“All four of them are
members or associates of the Eastern
Turkistan Islamic Movement (otherwise
known as the Turkistan Islamic Party).
The ETIM/TIP is a U.S. and UN designated
terrorist organization affiliated with
al Qaeda and has attacked civilians in
China, as well as reportedly plotted
against other targets elsewhere,
including the U.S. embassy in
Kyrgyzstan. According to the State
Department, ETIM/TIP members have also
fought alongside the Taliban and al
Qaeda in Afghanistan. And last year the
organization threatened to attack the
Olympic Games in China.
The four Uighurs
attempted to deny any relationship with
the ETIM/TIP, the Taliban, and al Qaeda
during their CSRTs. But their denials
are not credible. In the context of
their denials they made important
admissions. For example, all four of
the Uighurs admitted during their
Combatant Status Review Tribunals
(CSRTs) at Gitmo that they received
training in the Taliban’s Afghanistan.
And all four of them received this
training at an ETIM/TIP terrorist
training facility in Tora Bora, a key
area once controlled by the Taliban and
al Qaeda.
Three of the four Uighurs
transferred to Bermuda also admitted
that they had firsthand ties to senior
terrorists such as Hassan Mahsum and
Abdul Haq – the leaders of the ETIM/TIP.
Haq was recently designated an al Qaeda
terrorist by the Obama administration’s
Treasury Department, which noted that he
is also a member of al Qaeda’s elite
Shura council. Mahsum was killed in a
Taliban and al Qaeda stronghold in
northern Pakistan in 2003.”
Oh well, if the Bermuda Prime
Minister had known the truth, he might
not have agreed to take the men while
keeping the now furious British
government in the dark about the
negotiations.
Presently the men are
staying in a first class holiday resort
hotel and the American taxpayers are
picking up the tab. I’m wondering if I
could get such a deal. I’ve always
wanted to visit Bermuda. Maybe if I grew
a bushy chin beard and wore a turban…
Other Uighurs have been
sent to the Pacific island of Palau.
It’s located about one thousand miles SE
of Manila and 800 miles SW of Guam. It’s
been reported that the tiny island
nation will be getting $200 million from
the US government as part of the deal.
Isn’t it nice to have unlimited funds
with which to solve pesky problems?
The U.S. would not send
the Uighurs back to China, where they
came from, for fear they will be
tortured or executed. Beijing says
Uighur insurgents are leading an Islamic
separatist movement in China's far west
and wants those held at Guantanamo to be
returned to China. I don’t suppose China
is buying their claims of being merely
innocents who were arrested while just
walking along minding their own
business.
Italy
has agreed to accept three detainees
from Guantanamo Bay, President Barack
Obama said Monday, following a visit by
Italian Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi. I suppose that’s some sort
of progress, but it seems a little slow.
How many presidents, prime ministers and
friendly dictators will Obama have to
meet with before he finds countries that
will take the rest of them? There are
still over 200 to go and he hasn’t even
started trying to fob off the really bad
ones.
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