So much to think about
Jan. 17th, 2006 08:33 pmI heard about the Uighurs at Guantanamo Bay today and it made me really angry. What I heard was that these 12 Uighurs, Chinese muslims from Xinjiang province, were caught fleeing from the bombing in Afghanistan, have been detained at Gitmo for 5 years. They were declared non-combatants ages ago and are still being held there because China won't take them. They're separatists. Bush refuses to allow them into the US... Okay, that got my blood boiling.
So I set out to find out more than what I heard on the radio. I found this report in the Asia Times Online that sums it all up nicely. The situation is far more complex than what was described. Something is fishy about the Uighurs being in Aghanistan in the first place. The US and China are doing a delicate diplomatic dance over them, because China considers them terrorists. It isn't clear whether the US might be using them in the same way it used the Kurds in Iraq against Saddam.
The article concludes that the Uighurs will probably be moved to a different US-run facility until we can convince a third country to take them.
Things are not always what they seem.
So I set out to find out more than what I heard on the radio. I found this report in the Asia Times Online that sums it all up nicely. The situation is far more complex than what was described. Something is fishy about the Uighurs being in Aghanistan in the first place. The US and China are doing a delicate diplomatic dance over them, because China considers them terrorists. It isn't clear whether the US might be using them in the same way it used the Kurds in Iraq against Saddam.
The article concludes that the Uighurs will probably be moved to a different US-run facility until we can convince a third country to take them.
Things are not always what they seem.