The Brits Are Angry

[guido911]

Apparently no one consulted Britain before those Uighurs at Gitmo were shipped off to Bermuda:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article6480320.ece

Good job a-holes.

[USRufnex]

""Growing up under communism, we always dreamed of living in peace and working in free society like this one," Abdul Nasser, one of the four, said in a statement released through his lawyers. "Today you have let freedom ring."

It was reported yesterday that all 17 Guantanamo Uighurs were to be temporarily rehoused on the South Pacific island paradise of Palau as President Obama moves to close down the hated detention camp.

The 17 were part of a group of 22 Uighurs allegedly captured by Pakistani bounty hunters in Afghanistan after the US-led invasion in October 2001 and taken to Guantanamo Bay the following year.

US authorities ruled four years ago that they were not involved in extremism and had gone to Afghanistan to escape persecution in China. Five of them were resettled in Albania but attempts to rehouse the others in the United States ran foul of public opinion.

For the past four years, the Uighurs have been held at Camp Iguana, a low-security facility in Guantanamo Bay, with views of the Caribbean and pizza deliveries.

After news that Palau, a former US territory, had agreed to take in the Uighurs, China today demanded that they be sent back there to be tried as terrorists – but the United States refuses to do so.

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So who, exactly, are the "a-holes?"

British bureaucrats?  Or the Chinese?  Or the scaredy-cat NIMBY politicians in this country who won't even allow innocent freedom loving people to re-settle here?

Oh wait.  It's Guido's thread....yep, it's all Obama's fault... 

[guido911]

So who, exactly, are the "a-holes?"

You and whomever did not clue Britain in on the transfer of alleged terrorists onto its soil.

[USRufnex]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/11/officials-uighur-detainees-guantanamo-sent-bermuda/

The responsibilty was Bermuda's....

"The Bermudan government should have consulted us as to whether this falls into their competence. Foreign affairs and security issues would usually fall under U.K. government," one British official told FOX News, adding that they would pursue a security assessment. "It's unlikely any more (detainees) will go to any British overseas territories."

At the State Department, spokesman Ian Kelly said the transfer had been arranged through talks between U.S. and Bermudan officials. He said Britain was consulted at some point but would not say when. But he added that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had discussed the matter Thursday with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

"We dealt directly with the government of Bermuda to make this happen," he told reporters. Kelly added that U.S. officials were "confident that we can work these things through with the government of (Britain)."

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Yet you choose to drink the freeper koolaid and blame Obama.... these Chinese muslims were deemed INNOCENT FOUR YEARS AGO, when the Bush administration arranged for five of them to live in Albania....

Albania took Uighurs from U.S. when no one else would
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/16587.html

While the Bush visit—the first by an American president—is a gesture of thanks from the great, rich nation to this small, poor one, it's been a far from ideal new home for Akhdar Qasem Basit.

He was picked up in Pakistan, and the story he tells is one of government repression in his Chinese home province of Xinjiang, police harassment in central Asia, and physical abuse and mental anguish while imprisoned by the Americans in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But the past year of freedom in Albania was his worst.

He and four fellow Uighurs are housed in the Albanian national refugee camp, outside the country's modest capital, Tirana.

As he talked, Basit's dark eyes didn't leave the floor. His walk was a strained shuffle, his voice a combination of coughs and whispers. His family is far away, and he feels abandoned.

"Even in Guantanamo, I was strong," he said, sitting in a cafe not far from the dormitory where he lives. "Look up the records: I did not need doctors. But now, everything has changed. I am sick every day, I am in pain every day. It is no secret why. I have lost hope."

Basit, who's 32, tall and gangly, spent four years in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo, and was sent to Albania only days before a refugee status hearing in a U.S. court that his lawyer is convinced would have ended with his release to live in the United States.

Basit has no connection of any kind to Albania, no knowledge of the language and no desire to be here. No other country will admit him, other than China, where he fears being thrown into prison if he returns.

He said that during his incarceration at Guantanamo, from June 2002 until his arrival here in May 2006, he was treated harshly, though not tortured. He said he was beaten, slapped around and kicked. But he said he was kept going by the fact that he knew he was innocent, and that his captors were American.

"It's sad, isn't it?" he said. "We grow up believing America is the land of hope. And yet, that is who killed hope for me. It's very sad."

........and you have the nerve to call Obama an "idiot."   

[USRufnex]

They should be here, BTW.... but NIMBYs like Newt Gingrich are playing politics....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/19/uighurs-fire-back-at-ging_n_205261.html

you know, Reagan back in the 80s woulda called these people "freedom fighters"...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/executive/president/2008-11-20-uighurs-guantanamo_N.htm

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/02/18/us-resettle-guantanamo-uighurs-united-states

[Gaspar]

Boy aren't we just trompin round the world pissing people off.

In other news, N.Korea has decided to respond to the UN's strongly worded letter, and Hillary's stern remarks with. . . wait for it. . .wait for it. . .ANOTHER NUCLEAR TEST.

[guido911]

BBC reporting that Obama deliberately kept the Brits in the dark:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8098341.stm

[guido911]

Boy aren't we just trompin round the world pissing people off.

In other news, N.Korea has decided to respond to the UN's strongly worded letter, and Hillary's stern remarks with. . . wait for it. . .wait for it. . .ANOTHER NUCLEAR TEST.

Time for another strongly worded letter if NK weaponizes more nuke material:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090613/D98PO6T80.html