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Sorry For the Detainment, Here's a Laptop
A select group of 17 Uighur Muslims held in Guantánamo, and waiting for a nation to grant them asylum are getting laptops and web training from the US military. Their web training will take place in a virtual computer lab the military has set up. The lessons will be limited to DVD language training as well as a basic users skill — set to help in any future employment options. Nury Turkel, an Uighur rights activist, said the training would help the men "be reintroduced into a modern society," adding that it "also would give hope to the men that their freedom is nearing." This special group already gets to order fast food and use a phone booth for weekly calls. I think the government is on to something here. Nothing keeps a man pacified like an occasional phone call, a cheeseburger, and surfing for a little porn.
So Castro's like an abusive, jealous spouse? Cool.
Per your question, RTFA or google a bit. If TL;DR, then the take away is that they're from western China and are already members of a persecuted minority. They'll all but certainly be killed if we send them back to China. No one else wants them, or if you read into it a bit, perhaps other countries enjoy leaving us between a rock and a hard place ethically.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
"Coalition military intelligence officials estimated that 70% to 90% of prisoners detained in Iraq since the war began last year 'had been arrested by mistake,' according to a confidential Red Cross report given to the Bush administration earlier this year." http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0511-04.htm "In February, an American military official disclosed that the Afghan guerrilla commander whose men had arrested Mr. Dilawar and his passengers had himself been detained. The commander, Jan Baz Khan, was suspected of attacking Camp Salerno himself and then turning over innocent "suspects" to the Americans in a ploy to win their trust, the military official said. The three passengers in Mr. Dilawar's taxi were sent home from Guantánamo in March 2004, 15 months after their capture, with letters saying they posed 'no threat' to American forces." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html?ei=5088&en=4579c146cb14cfd6&ex=1274241600&pagewanted=all
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Give a terrorist the tools and knowledge to conspire against us with people around the globe, instantly. What could possibly go wrong?
And herein lies the problem with my dumbass countrymen. So obnoxiously opinionated with an inversely proportional knowledge of the subject at hand. Guess you hadn't heard that we've already released hundreds of innocent "terrorists" from Gitmo?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
What about the countries they originally came from? Do they not want them back? Why? Or is it that they don't want to go back? If so why?
Oh, most of their countries of origin would love to take them back. Then throw them into jail and torture them. In the specific case of the 17 Uighurs, the country of origin is China. We all know how much China likes members of ethnic minorities, especially if said members were in Afghanistan and could have been subject to terrorist training. The Wikipedia article got a bit of background information on the topic.
The Guananamo Uighurs are also a subject of discussion in e.g. Germany. While the possible threat of terrorism is generally assessed as non-existant, the German government tries hard to avoid any quarrels with China. Granting asylum to these detainees would certainly stress the diplomatic relationship between the two countries.
RTFA. They are Uighurs (an ethnicity). Chinese government policy (China is their home country) is to execute them on sight.
It only makes you wonder why we won't send them there if you're an idiot.
They fled China to escape persecution, and were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so wound up at Gitmo.
China has no problem with us sending them back, we have a problem with handing them over for summary execution.
Nice non sequiter there. Of the "70% to 90%" who were picked up, almost all of them were cleared and released immediately. Those detentions have nothing at all to do with Gitmo.
The article you are replying to said: "...were sent home from Guantanamo in March 2004, 15 months after their capture, with letters saying they posed 'no threat' to American forces." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html?ei=5088&en=4579c146cb14cfd6&ex=1274241600&pagewanted=all "
Did you not actually read the article you're responding to????
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Spot the Cuban expat shill, how about some evidence of your claim, and not from the many falsified anti cuba sites in the US.
Simple shooters were either shot or imprisoned locally.
To persist in your dream world you have to explain why only A FEW were sent half way around the world.
Talk to someone who has served in country. If you can refrain from insulting them long enough to actually listen to what they tell you.
These were not shop keepers. Get over yourself.
Served in country, lead ground patrols, cleared buildings, and called in aerial strikes in and around Fallujah as part of the 1st MEF portion of Operation Vigilant Resolve. Our platoon commander filed numerous reports and we have combat video documentation of almost all combatants that we captured. I doubt anyone that we captured was sent to Gitmo. Most were scrawny, under trained kids defending what they thought of as their home.
It's pretty fucking simple. Either you have evidence to prosecute those in Gitmo or you do not. I believe in our Constitution, have fought and bleed to protect it. It says all men are created equal, not all men except those we call terrorists. If we can't produce a report, a video, a witness, a letter, or anything that shows those men in Gitmo are terrorists, then why the fuck are we still holding them? Just because they hate us? I missed the part of the Constitution that lays out the principle of jailing people just because they hate you. And I'm pretty sure that actions such as those we are taking in Gitmo are some of the very same actions (Re: British imprisonment of dissenters) that led to our founding fathers forming a more perfect union.
We have become that which our founding fathers despised.
That's only if you use an obsolete form of the Geneva Convention. The post-WWII GC RTPOWs (which pretty much all countries recognise; to which the US is also a signatory, though not a subscribing party - it wasn't ratified by the US senate) afford POW status to irregular combatants, who take up arms against an occupying power.
These protections were brought in precisely to cover people like resistance fighters, as the grand-parent says.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.