The Rule of Law in Guantánamo

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/opinion/12sun2.html?ref=opinion

A federal judge in Washington has struck an important blow for the rule of law by ordering that 17 detainees be freed from Guantánamo Bay. But the Bush administration is fighting the ruling to avoid having the case become an open window into the outlaw world of President Bush’s detention camps.

The detainees are members of the Uighur Muslim minority of China, which is violently oppressed by the Beijing government. They were swept up in Pakistan after the American invasion of Afghanistan and thrown into indefinite detention as “illegal enemy combatants.”

(snip)
The Bush administration admitted long ago that the 17 Uighur detainees were not a threat to this country, but it would not allow them into the United States. Instead, Washington began asking other countries, mostly in Europe, to give the detainees asylum from China, which was demanding their return.

(snip)
The appellate court should affirm Judge Urbina’s ruling and allow the detainees into the United States. The government’s counterproposal — if the Uighurs cannot go somewhere else, they should stay at Guantánamo — is more absurd than its other arguments.

The administration is not afraid the Uighurs will take to the streets against the United States government. It is afraid they will take to the microphones.

[99th_Monkey]

1. Surprise, surprise. Bush defies the law to keep people locked up who might embarrass or expose him.

... people that he locked up and detained illegally for years. :puke: :grr: