Where Will the Uighurs Go?
Andy McCarthy writes at National Review:
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…
Cutting a long story short: a court ruled they did have the right to be released into the United States. A higher judge then ruled they did not.
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.
The Uighurs and the US department are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They have and will be released, but you do not want these extremists in your own country. And logically so. On the other hand, sending them back to China is not an option either, simply because there is great reason to believe they will be persecuted there.
So what to do?
I really have no idea. You’d say that the US should speak to its nominal allies in the Middle East, hoping that at least some will take care of the Uighurs. Since Uighurs are ethnically Turkic, perhaps there are some Turkic countries – Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkemenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan – willing to take them. Probably not, but it is worth a try, I’d say.
Lastly, it’s fascinating to see that Obama follows in Bush’s national security footsteps. What will the far-left think about that?
No need to worry. With the new “preventative detention” system the administration is planning, they’ll probably have a jail cell to stay in for the rest of their lives.
What is the alternative for people who are probably terrorists but for whom we do not have the exacting and pristine chain of evidence available to prove it in a civilian criminal proceeding?
The criticisms of the left and many libertarians towards the system of detentions are understandable (U.S. history has examples of serious abuse of such methods), but I think in the end fundamentally non-responsive towards the unique practical problems of trying to mix a military and civilian approach to the problem of terrorism. We can’t just let people go, yet that seems exactly the alternative that the critics don’t want to talk about while screaming bloody murder about anything the government actually does try to do.
The bottom line is that the conflict against al-Qaeda falls into an intermediate zone between what was foreseen by international human rights treaties, domestic criminal law, and military operating procedures. While bloggers enjoy the luxury of operating in a world where their purist theories can be indulged without consequence, government officials have to deal with the ambiguities of real threats and unclear options. Unlike many of those on the other side, I have no impulse to demonize those that I am disagreeing with, but I do think they need to be called out on the fundamental dishonesty of their approach to the issue.