Mistaken Identity at Gitmo

All,

Here’s a another delightful little ditty from the non-existent detention center called Gitmo. To give you the highlights: apparently the US military has admitted that it accidentally captured a number of Chinese Uighurs. At least two of them protested their confinement in federal courts, as the military admits that they were not enemy combatants of any sort. (By the way, for those of you out of the loop, they are just a couple among many, certainly dozens and possibly hundreds, who have been formally or informally declared wrongfully detained. However, the military commonly says that they cannot now release these folks, for they would start fighting American troops in whatever capacity they could find. That’s right: they weren’t terrorists before, but we have pissed them off so terribly throughout their indefinite incarceration that we are certain if emancipated they would do everything in their power to pay us back. The most ironic part of all this remains unanswered: find me an American who would blame them, or who would respond differently given similar circumstances. Therefore, apparently we intend to hold those folks until they die…)

Back to the Chinese folks. A federal judge ruled that their detention is unlawful, but that only the Supreme Court could order their release. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case on technical grounds, however: the poor saps have another meeting with the federal judge next month, so their consideration apparently came too early. Meanwhile, the US has refused considering returning them to China, for fear that they “would face persecution there.” (The Chinese apparently consider Uighurs political dissidents.) Yet we can’t find any other nation that wants to give them asylum, and we sure as hell aren’t willing to do it.

Thus the irony compounds exponentially: we pull these hapless bastards from Pakistan without cause, detain them without rights or recourse for 5 years, yet we’re now afraid to repatriate them for fear of the consequences. So what do we do? We keep them illegally, wrongfully in a jail located in political limbo. I would like to have been present at the meeting wherein we decided that this was our best option for ensuring that they not “face persecution.”

I think Gitmo has become quite outdated. I would like to start a petition requesting the DoD formally to rename the installation. “Rabbit-hole” or Looking Glass” would do just fine.

-W.