Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

June 22, 2009 By Fausta

The continuing saga of the traveling Uighurs

amd_gitmo_guys

Well, the four in Bermuda are now officially celebrities: Al Sharpton set to meet Uighurs: Rev. heads for Bermuda to see ex-Guantanamo Bay prisoners

It will be a quick trip; Sharpton will fly out on Sunday and be back in the states by Monday, said his spokeswoman, Rachel Noerdlinger.

Considering the weather we’ve been having, I can see why Al wants to have a weekend getaway at a sunny resort.

Al’s also meeting with Bermuda’s premier Ewart Brown. Brown, the NYT tells us, Escapes Censure Over Uighurs after the Parliament rejected a vote of no confidence resolution in a 22-11 vote after 14 hours of debate, on his decision to accept the four Uighurs.

Five other Uighurs who were scheduled to head to Palau don’t want to go there, even when the Palau Muslims are “anxiously awaiting” them.

Maybe they’ll like Portugal better. Algarve is lovely and you’re right on the beach.

Join al Qaeda, enjoy the beaches.

UPDATE
Ed says,

Their lack of enthusiasm for a life of relative leisure on a tourist destination like Palau seems to indicate that they still have some of their previous ambitions in life.

Or perhaps they’d rather go someplace where the surfing’s better. You decide.

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Filed Under: al-Qaeda Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Uighurs

June 22, 2009 By Fausta

Moe, Uighurs, Iran, and the retiring IGs: today’s podcast

In today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern, Moe Lane of Red State talks about the traveling Uighus, those “retiring” Inspectors General, Iran, and American politics.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Democrats, Iran Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Gerald Walpin, Inspector General, Uighurs

June 17, 2009 By Fausta

Uighurs in paradise

Train with al-Qaeda, bask in Bermuda:

15uigherxlarge1

Here you have it: four guys enjoying a great day at the beach, on someone else’s dime. New clothes, a new lease on life,

In newly purchased polo shirts and chinos, the four husky men, members of a restive ethnic minority from western China, might blend in except for their scruffy beards. Smelling hibiscus flowers, luxuriating in the freedom to drift through scenic streets and harbors, they expressed wonder at their good fortune in landing here after a captivity that included more than a year in solitary confinement.

Makes you want to join them, doesn’t it?

And they’ll be getting Bermudan citizenship soon enough, too. Hmm….Bermuda has nicer tax laws that we have (even Vladimir Putin realizes that), but I digress.

Couldn’t happen to a bunch of nicer guys, couldn’t it?

I’ll be talking about this in today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern.

UPDATE
it don’t GITMO better than this

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Filed Under: al-Qaeda, Barack Obama, Caribbean, China, terrorism Tagged With: Bermuda, Fausta's blog, Gitmo, Uighurs

June 15, 2009 By Fausta

The third Monday in June Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. This week’s big stories: The Uighurs in Bermuda, the State Department spies for Cuba, and the aftermath of the Peruvian protests.

LATIN AMERICA
U.S. drug czar calls for end to “war on drugs”

Socialism wears poncho this time

ARGENTINA
Kirchner vs. The Press
Give government ‘crisis’ power and you won’t get it back.

Argentine glacier advances despite warming
Perito Moreno withstands climate change but scientists aren’t sure why

BERMUDA
Out of Guantánamo, Uighurs Bask in Bermuda

BRAZIL
Terrorist suspects were on doomed Air France plane
Two passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on board the Air France flight which crashed and killed 228, it emerged today.

More on Al Qaeda in Brazil

Pedagogy of the Oppressor
Another reason why U.S. ed schools are so awful: the ongoing influence of Brazilian Marxist Paulo Freire

The Amazon: The future of the forest
Brazil’s government hopes that land reform in the Amazon will slow deforestation. Greens doubt it

Brazil’s recovering economy: Ready to roll again
Among the last to fall into recession, Brazil may be among the first to grow out of it

Brazil stretching clout to Central America

CHILE
Valparaíso reviste sus Fachadas

COLOMBIA
Waste disposal in Colombia: Muck and brass plates
Entrepreneurs, not scavengers

CUBA
Former State Department Official and Wife Arrested for Serving as Illegal Agents of Cuba for Nearly 30 Years

Home, sweet, home

Euphemism of the day, &c.

Hilda Molina: “Castros not bad people”

Groups Say U.N. Panel Shutting Them Out of Cuba Rights Review

Chinese cars are on their way to Cuba

Cubalse and General Motors

Things in common

ECUADOR
Ecuador, A Democracy in Name Only

Region silent amid attacks on the media

Chevron fights Ecuador pollution lawsuit

Correa Says Ecuador to Review Other Debt After Bonds

MEXICO
Mexico Corruption Elicits Drug War Apathy

A Mexican family drug business

A Mexican Cartel’s Swift and Grisly Climb
La Familia Defies Federal Efforts To Eliminate Its Influence

The Drug Lord Who Got Away
Mexican Capo Unleashes Mayhem on U.S. Border; The Making of a Legend

Mexican State Bans Cops From Carrying Cell Phones

PERU
Hugo Chávez contra Alan García

Peruminations

Peru silences radio station La Voz

Simon Romero has an excellent article on the protests: Protesters Gird for Long Fight Over Opening Peru’s Amazon

Oil and land rights in Peru: Blood in the jungle
Alan García’s high-handed government faces a violent protest

Alan Garcia Insinúa que Evo Morales influyó en protestas indígenas con sus “mensajes incandescentes”

‘Many missing’ after Peru riots

Narco-Terrorism in Peru: The Return of Shining Path

Peru: The Anti-Venezuela

UnoAmerica denounces plot to overthrow the Peruvian government

PUERTO RICO
At Parade, Puerto Rico Shares Stage With Politics

VENEZUELA
Media in Venezuela; nobody seems to get the reality

The revolution never ceases to amaze

PDVSA Takes Control of Exterran Offshore Platform

No es Zimbabwe, es Caracas

Special thanks to Ada, the Baron, Eneas and Maggie.

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Filed Under: Argentina, Brazil, Caribbean, Carnival of Latin America, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Latin America, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Venezuela Tagged With: Bermuda, Fausta's blog, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, Uighurs, Walter Kendall Myers

June 12, 2009 By Fausta

The Uighur wiggle

Via Ed, the Bermuda Parliament is hoppin’ mad over the Gitmo alumni reunion on their island:
Breaking News: UBP proposes motion of no confidence

The United Bermuda Party today moved for a motion of no confidence against the Government led by Premier Ewart Brown.

Opposition leader Kim Swan proposed the motion in the House of Assembly this morning.
…
“This is not just about Uighurs in Bermuda, though that issue typifies a style of leadership that is reckless, autocratic and conducted with no sense of accountability to the people or, indeed, to Bermuda’s Constitution.”

Britain‘s Foreign Office is also telling Ewart Brown that he had no right to agree to take Uighur inmates without consulting London.

The decision to move the Uighurs to Bermuda is the Obama administration’s blunder that appears to have PO’d the most people, at least so far:

  • The Chinese, who want them back
  • The Brits, who were not consulted even when Bermuda’s part of the Commonwealth and Britain is responsible for its security
  • The Governor of Bermuda, who was told on Thursday night – when they were on their way
  • The people of the Bermuda, and now the opposition’s upcoming vote of no confidence

Did I leave anyone out?

Where’s that overload button when you need it?

>overload-button

Pun on the post title? yes. You say Uighur, I say weegur.

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Filed Under: al-Qaeda, Barack Obama, Caribbean, China, terrorism Tagged With: Bermuda, Fausta's blog, Gitmo, Uighurs

June 12, 2009 By Fausta

Where will the Uighurs go? Not the USA

Obama Bows on Settling Detainees
Administration Gives Up on Bringing Cleared Inmates to U.S., Officials Say

The Obama administration has all but abandoned plans to allow Guantanamo Bay detainees who have been cleared for release to live in the United States, administration officials said yesterday, a decision that reflects bipartisan congressional opposition to admitting such prisoners but complicates efforts to persuade European allies to accept them.

Four Uighur detainees, Chinese Muslims who were incarcerated at the U.S. military prison in Cuba for more than seven years, arrived early yesterday in Bermuda, where they will become foreign guest workers. An administration official said the United States is engaged in negotiations with other countries, including Palau, an island nation in the western Pacific, to find places for the remaining 13 Uighurs held at Guantanamo.

As I posted yesterday, the Brits are going through the roof over the Bermuda relocation since they were not consulted. The people of Palau are angry and fear for their safety, too.

China considers the Uighurs “terrorist suspects” and wants them back, but the administration refuses to return them to China.

The 17 Uighurs, who acuse the US of being twice as bad as the Nazis,

were picked up in the training camps in Afghanistan where they were preparing for Jihad against China. They were cleared for release, in part, because their supporters claim the United States is not their direct enemy.

Thomas Joscelyn has more details on the background of the four Uighurs relocated to Bermuda:

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.

Joscelyn’s post has a lot more details on their testimony.

One thing is clear, these men who were released admitted ties to senior al Qaeda terrorists.

For their efforts, some of them get to relocate to choice travel spots, at American taxpayers’ expense. In Palau’s case, it comes to $11.7 million per detainee.

ramirez_palau

John Hinderaker comments,

Bermuda may or may not be Heaven on earth, but it’s my nominee. If you haven’t been there, you should go. But, if I’m not mistaken, you can only buy a round-trip ticket. Bermuda doesn’t allow riffraff to hang around. You have to apply to get in if you want to stay for more than a week or two. Except, I guess, if you’re an Islamic terrorist who has become an embarrassment to Barack Obama. It is a very weird world in which we live.

If I believed in alternate universes, I’d say that somewhere in an alternate universe, a huge crowd in a movie theater must be having a big laugh at us.

UPDATE
A friend who lives in a tropical vacation spot reminds me that the Uighurs were these guys:

Not long after being granted access to TV, some of the Uighurs were watching a soccer game. When a woman with bare arms was shown on the screen, one of the group grabbed the television and threw it to the ground, according to the officials.

It’ll be interesting to see what they do when they see women in string bikinis, or going topless.

————————

Please note there will be no podcast this morning since I have laryngitis.

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Filed Under: al-Qaeda, Barack Obama, Caribbean, China, terrorism Tagged With: Bermuda, Fausta's blog, Gitmo, Uighurs

May 30, 2009 By Fausta

The Uighurs

Andy McCarthy, the prosecutor for the first World Trade Center (1993) bombing, writes, Uighurs: Sometimes, the Obama Friday Night Bad News Dump Is Bad for the Left

The Obama Justice Department told the Supreme Court this evening that the Uighurs have no right to be released into the United States.

The Uighurs, Chinese Muslim detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, received terrorist training at al Qaeda affiliated camps (from an organization formally designated as a foreign terrorist organization under U.S. law) and were captured after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. They are the Left’s combatant cause célèbre. The military took the incoherent position that they were trained al Qaeda terrorists but that their real beef was with China, not us. Thus, the federal courts have held that they are not enemy combatants. The government has been trying to relocate them for years but no country will take the remaining 17 — other than China, where our treaty obligations arguably forbid us from sending them because there is reason to believe they’d be persecuted.

Of course, it’s one thing to say that they are not enemy combatants and should therefore be released. It is quite another thing, though, to say that they should be released into the United States (which, because of their terrorist affiliations, would violate federal immigration law).

Federal judge Richard Urbina tried to order their release into the US; the DC Court of Appeals overruled Urbina,

The Uighurs appealed, and today the Justice Department filed its responsive brief. Solicitor General Elena Kagan argued — consistent with the Bush administration position — that the Uighurs have no right to be released into the U.S.

This is an important decision not only for domestic security, but also because as Michael Goldfarb points out,

European nations are clamoring for the U.S. to accept some of the Uighur detainees in return for accepting some themselves.

Bottom line: the Uighurs have no right to be released into the US.

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Filed Under: al-Qaeda, Barack Obama, terrorism Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Gitmo, Guantánamo, Uighurs, World Trade Center

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