The Public Interest

17 Uighurs who have spent the last several years in Guantanamo are being moved to the Pacific island of Palau as part of an agreement with the Obama administration.

They can’t go back to their home, China, because they face certain torture and/or death.

Many on the right are not pleased:

“Of course, with a recidivism rate for released Gitmo detainees of around 14%, odds are that a couple of the Uighurs might not be quite as cuddly as Obama promises.  Hopefully it will work out all right for Palau and its tourists, but if I were making decisions on expensive South Pacific vacations, I’d start looking elsewhere.”

But as is often the case when you delve a little deeper into the details, you learn that these 17 detainees shouldn’t have been there in the first place, a fact determined by none other than the Bush administration.

Anonymous Liberal:

“That the plight of these men elicits precisely zero sympathy (indeed, it provokes laughter) from most supposedly freedom-loving conservatives in this country underscores the extent to which many conservatives have managed to dehumanize in their own minds the many foreigners whose lives are impacted by our policies.”

Agree.

And finally, an historical note regarding Uighurs that happened in China on this day in 758 A.D., per Wikipedia:

“Abbasid Arabs and Uyghur Turks arrive simultaneously at Chang’an, the Tang Chinese capital, in order to offer tribute to the imperial court. They quarrel over diplomatic prominence at the gate and a settlement is reached when both are allowed to enter at the same time, but through two different gates to the palace.”

SEE ALSO: Glenn Greenwald

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