Guantanamo Prisoners Released In El Salvador

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Guantanamo Prisoners Released In El Salvador
04/19/12 04:07 PM ET

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Two men from China who have been held without charge at the Guantanamo Bay prison for nearly a decade have been released in El Salvador.

The Pentagon and a lawyer for one of them men say the government of El Salvador agreed to allow them to settle in the Central American country. They are ethnic Uighurs from western China.

Uighurs have waged a separatist campaign in China, but the U.S. determined they pose no threat and should not be held at Guantanamo. Resettling them has been difficult because China pressured countries around the world not to accept them. The Pentagon said Thursday that the men's release brings the Guantanamo prison population to 169. Attorney Susan Baker Manning says both men are happy in their new home.


Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/19/guantanamo-prisoners-el-salvador_n_1438891.html

[gratuitous]

1. Isn't that sweet?

After a mere decade or so in captivity, they're released back into the wild. Hopefully they aren't ingrates who hold a grudge, and anything unspeakable that may have happened to them while they were our guests will just be bygones.

[Poll_Blind]

2. You should read the whole article. This is not only not a bad thing, it's mostly a good thing.

We've been quietly buying off allies for a while now to let us ship our Gitmo prisoners to their countries. Like little "favors" they do for us in return for whatever aid we're giving to them. These prisoners are innocent men. They've wrongly been held by the US for a decade or so. If we bring them back and drop them off to where we got them, they'll almost certainly be executed or tortured or both.

This way at least they have some kind of future after what's happened to them.

Is this perfect? No. The US should face crimes against humanity for individual and collective treatment of these prisoners. I'm not a big fan of the bullshit "pragmatism" of the Obama administration but in this case I don't know if there is a better option. What we should do is make them US citizens- if they wanted it- but it's almost a given our ignorant countrymen would kill them if they knew their backstory.

This way, they're being secreted in a part of the world where they can likely get some kind of life together.

I have no idea if we compensate them for this life-destroying incarceration, but we should.

I would have no problems if they later sue us but I think most of these people have been secretly set up for the rest of their lives with reasonable stipends for their troubles. I'm basing that on the very very few folks who've been released from Gitmo who've sued us. That's just based on my limited information. I've come to the conclusion there is some sort of quid pro quo in the same way we've have set up defecting Russian military officials in the past.

PB

[gratuitous]

3. I did read the article (not much more than was posted)

But we owe these people (and only God knows how many more who continue to exist in our little Guantanamo Gulag) a hell of a lot more than just being dropped off in El Salvador, no matter how happy their attorney says they are about it. You're right, we have committed a crime against humanity, and I don't know what the best solution is, either. But anything that smacks of "see what swell humanitarians we are" when we make a feeble attempt at doing the right thing at last just pisses me off all over again.