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Uighurs Tell FNC: Better Human Rights at Guantanamo Than in China

Agent Ferris

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They are now living in a big house with a pool on the beach. **** getting sent to Gitmo should be the best day in their life. Where would you rather live there or in West China?

Talking to them through an interpreter at their new home, a pink bungalow with a swimming pool, Herridge reported how she “asked which was worse: Life at Gitmo versus China?” The interpreter relayed, over the voices of all of the men talking: “Of course it's China. There's no guarantee for human rights there.”

Uighurs: U.S. Let Chinese Abuse Us At Gitmo


Damn U.S. getting these guys a house and a pool on the Island paradise of Bermuda. They had a picture of it on the daily show it was pretty nice.
 
Yeah, well I think saying you have better human rights than China is a lot like saying a movie was better than Ultraviolet. I mean, sure it's true; but it doesn't really mean anything.
 
Yeah, well I think saying you have better human rights than China is a lot like saying a movie was better than Ultraviolet. I mean, sure it's true; but it doesn't really mean anything.

Wow. Gitmo is better than China? We've really exceeded expectations, haven't we?
 
Damn U.S. getting these guys a house and a pool on the Island paradise of Bermuda. They had a picture of it on the daily show it was pretty nice.

If they had a decent lawyer they could sue the US so bad they could live like Donald Trump.
 
Damn U.S. getting these guys a house and a pool on the Island paradise of Bermuda. They had a picture of it on the daily show it was pretty nice.

Maybe we shouldn't have catched them in the first place :mrgreen:
 
Wow. Gitmo is better than China? We've really exceeded expectations, haven't we?
Perversely enough, yes, we have.

After all, the lunatic left/Anti-Republican hypocrites have been bloviating ad nauseum about what a horrible place Gitmo is, how medieval it is, and how the poor defenseless baby bombers there are just suffering.

Now, out of the mouths of those same baby bombers, we are told that the reality is nothing of the sort.

Thus, all the lunatic left/Anti-Republican hypocrites have left is to be dismissive of the question.

I admit, it's kinda fun watching the lunatic left/Anti-Republican hypocrites flailing and bailing this way. Perhaps the experience will inspire them to attempt something novel....like coherent thought and a grasp of reality.
 
Maybe they shouldn't have been terrorists in the first place.

They aren't terrorists. They're Chinese Muslims and left China, afraid for their lives and were picked up in Afghanistan. The're horribly oppressed in China.

They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Once picked up, no one knew what to do with them. To send them back to China meant certain death and no one else wanted them because of pressure from China.

We not only allowed the Chinese to come in and torture them, but US forces were told to "soften them up" for the interogations.

Because of Chinese money, trade, business, the US knuckled under over the past 8 years and pretended in many many instances to be blind to the extensive human rights abuses.

Being Muslim does not automatically equate to being a terrorist. I know you're beyond such claims.
 
Being Muslim does not automatically equate to being a terrorist.
No, but being at an al-Quaeda/Taliban terrorist training camp does automatically equate to being a terrorist.
 
No, but being at an al-Quaeda/Taliban terrorist training camp does automatically equate to being a terrorist.

Do you have a reputable link please? The only thing I've seen are Chinese claims, hardly reputable.
 
Life at Gitmo versus China?” The interpreter relayed, over the voices of all of the men talking: “Of course it's China. There's no guarantee for human rights there.”

Not really something to be happy about. China is clearly worse
 
No, but being at an al-Quaeda/Taliban terrorist training camp does automatically equate to being a terrorist.

Here is what I've found about this claim. It looks like our former fearless leader knuckled under to China again and agreed to designate where they were at as a "terrorist camp" AFTER they'd been detained.

The Washington Monthly
While I'm on this subject: Senator Webb should know better than to say this:


"The situation with the Chinese Uighurs that you're talking about, on the one hand, it can be argued that they were simply conducting dissident activities against the government of China. On the other, they accepted training from al Qaeda and as a result they have taken part in terrorism. I don't believe they should come to the United States."


This post has a description of the village the Uighurs stayed in, and the training they received. It involved learning to assemble and disassemble a rifle, and firing a few rounds from it. I did as much in summer camp, and I'm not all that dangerous. This post covers the organization they were either staying with or members of. It was not designated as a terrorist organization while they were there; it had no affiliation with al Qaeda; and when it was designated as a terrorist organization later, that designation was widely regarded as a concession the Bush administration made to China in return for China's acquiescence in the UN's Iraq war resolution.

The Uighurs did not "accept al Qaeda training", and Sen. Webb should not say that they did.
 
Here is what I've found about this claim. It looks like our former fearless leader knuckled under to China again and agreed to designate where they were at as a "terrorist camp" AFTER they'd been detained.
Thank you for proving the point.

They were learning small arms handling and tactics, and somehow I doubt it was for hunting anything except Chinese. And who in Afghanistan offers such training? Why, the Taliban and their baby bombing buddies al-Qaeda!

When you get trained by terrorists you get terrorist training. When you get caught getting terrorist training by the US military, you get thrown in Gitmo--a reasonable consequence for the action.

All China did was remind the US that they have terrorist issues too. Imputing immorality to their request or US accommodation of that request is neither a serious nor realistic position to take.
 
Bush and the FBI determined early in 2003 they weren't a threat, but at that point couldn't return them to China or they'd be killed.

The short version is: the Uighurs are refugees from China who wound up in a village in Afghanistan affiliated with a group called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. Some wanted to resist Chinese rule; some were just trying to get away from Chinese oppression; one was trying to go to Turkey and couldn't get a visa. They were not trained by al Qaeda. There is no evidence that any of them had anything against the US, or ever acted against us. The village was bombed, and they fled and were turned in by bounty hunters.


Even the Bush administration's Combatant Status Review Commissions, which were heavily slanted towards the government, found them not to be enemy combatants. (The government had decided that some of them were not enemy combatants even before their CSRT hearings.) Despite that fact, we have kept them in prison for over seven years. (After they were cleared in 2003, they could not be released back to China, since they would be tortured or killed.) That's a very long time to be locked away without having done anything. Some of them have children they have never met. Their wives and families did not know that they were alive for several years.


Even if you don't think that we owe them a home, at least we owe them honesty. Using them to score political points is obscene.


This brief (pdf) contains some background about the Uighurs. Here's a description of the village they stayed in (the "terrorist training camp"):
"There were no Afghans or Arabs in the village. The village itself was no more than a handful of houses bisected by dirt tracks. Each Petitioner, as well as five Uighurs who would later be determined non-combatants, lived in this village in October, 2001. In return for food and shelter, the Uighur men did odd jobs and manual labor. They helped build houses and a mosque.


In the village there was a single AK-47 Kalashnikov rifle and a pistol. Sixteen of the eighteen Uighurs (including all Petitioners and all five of the Uighurs later determined to be noncombatants) freely admit that they were shown the Kalashnikov, and how to assemble and disassemble the weapon. Some engaged in target practice. (Akhtar Qassim, later determined not to be an enemy combatant, shot three or four rounds.)"

Think of it: they shot several rounds from a gun, and helped build houses. I believe some of them might also have dug latrines. That sounds pretty dangerous. Thank heavens we don't have any people who have shot guns and built houses in our neighborhoods!


Here's a description (pdf, see pp. 211-212) of the Uighurs from an FBI report filed in 2004, and describing a visit in 2002. It follows what seems to be an account of abuse of one of the Uighurs:
"The Uighurs are moderate Muslims who occupied East Turkestan, which was taken over by the Chinese and renamed the Xinjiang province of China. The Uighurs were offered land in Afghanistan in order to gather personnel opposing Chinese oppression. They were often inspired by Radio Free Asia, which [redacted] was often a broadcaster for. The Uighurs considered themselves to be fighting for democracy, and they idolized the United States. Although the Uighurs are Muslim their agenda did not appear to include Islamic radicalism. They claimed to have no political connection to Islamic terrorists or the Taliban. However, their camp in Afghanistan was bombed, and they fled to Pakistan. The Uighurs were captured by the Pakistanis, with half being transferred to US custody, and half being remanded directly to Chinese officials. It was alleged that the Uighurs who were transferred directly to the Chinese were immediately executed. At the time of my TDY, US officials were considering whether to return the Uighurs to the Chinese, possibly to gain support for anticipated US action in the Middle East. The Uighur detainees at GTMO were convinced that they would be immediately executed if they were returned to China."

That's not a defense lawyer speaking; it's an FBI agent, interviewing them about a year after their detention. These are not terrorists. These are people we picked up by mistake.

Obsidian Wings: The Uighurs: 1

You can read the FBI pdf report from that link.
 
If they were terrorists, then they'd be in jail.

If they were just ordinary people minding their own business they wouldn't have been detained in the first place. Conspiracy is one of the hardest things to prove this in no way means these people are innocent. What the hell were they doing in Afghanistan under Taliban rule?
 
Yeah, well I think saying you have better human rights than China is a lot like saying a movie was better than Ultraviolet. I mean, sure it's true; but it doesn't really mean anything.

Yeah, the only thing missing at Gitmo which they have in China is some form of Capitalism.
Too bad Obama is hacking away at it here like he hacks at golf.

.
 
If they were just ordinary people minding their own business they wouldn't have been detained in the first place. Conspiracy is one of the hardest things to prove this in no way means these people are innocent. What the hell were they doing in Afghanistan under Taliban rule?

Ummm.... see post #17. The FBI report part.
 
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