Bahtiyar Mahnut, a detainee at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, learned a few weeks ago that the Pacific island nation of Palau had invited him to settle there.
It should have been cause for celebration, especially for a man who desperately wants to be free. But, to the surprise of his attorneys, Bahtiyar has turned down the offer. He wishes to remain a prisoner, they say, so he can look after his older brother, a fellow detainee.
[...]
The brothers are Uighurs, residents of China who are considered separatists by Beijing but are not enemies of the United States. The brothers were picked up separately in Afghanistan and Pakistan soon after the United States launched attacks against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in retaliation for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Since at least 2003, the U.S. government has tried to find homes for the brothers and 20 other captured Uighurs. Five went to Albania in 2006; four were sent to Bermuda in June. At one point, U.S. officials were considering the possibility of resettling Uighurs in the D.C. region, but that plan was scuttled under political pressure. Most countries have been reluctant to accept Uighurs and risk angering China.
In recent weeks, however, Palau has agreed to accept 12 of the 13 remaining Uighurs, according to the Justice Department.
The only detainee not invited by Palau was Bahtiyar's older brother, Arkin Mahmud, 45, who has developed mental health problems that are apparently too serious to be treated in the sparsely populated country, said his attorney, Elizabeth Gilson.
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To make matters worse, according to Gilson and military records, Arkin is a prisoner only because he went searching for Bahtiyar after the younger brother left their homeland eight years ago.
"This is just very difficult and sad," said Abubakkir Qasim, 40, a Uighur freed from Guantanamo Bay in 2006 who considers himself a friend of both brothers.
Look at what we have put this family through. Lives have been ruined and futures have been irrevocably damaged. The Bush administration post-9/11 foreign policy, in this case the unlawful extradition, imprisonment without trial, torture of other human beings, much less the same to innocent men. Many American-held detainees have died while in Guantanamo, or Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, or Iraqi prisons, or the many CIA "black sites" all over the world. Others have been shamed and embarrassed for all the world to see, such as from Abu Ghraib. How are we supposed to lecture anyone on human rights abuses? How do we constantly claim the moral high ground with any conflict, perceived or real, throughout the world? We've left nothing for our close allies to do but begrudgingly grin and take it, because we seem to rarely care what they really think.
Anyway, it's actually a little shocking, even for a cynic like me, to see that the torture advocates are still treated as reasonable and sufficiently credible in the national security debate. I mean, read that story at the brothers at Gitmo ... have you so soul? What would like to say about this ... oh, I don't, how about you Liz Cheney? Ye of a New York Times write-up that could be called Liz Cheney: Rising Star of Republican Torture Squad (from today). If you're so sure torture works -- and the overwhelming evidence that it does not is all over the place -- how would you explain to these brothers' families why they were taken under custody, held for 8 years even after being found innocent and now getting shopped around to the rest of the world since we won't let them come here.
The Times on Cheney:
Ms. Cheney’s resolute national security positions seem to differ not at all from those of her favorite vice president. “I think you’d be hard-pressed to find any daylight at all between Liz’s and my father’s views,” said her younger sister, Mary Cheney. “It’s not because she’s been indoctrinated. It’s because he’s right.” Mary Cheney was prominent in her father’s vice-presidential campaigns but has drawn fire from some conservatives for having a child as part of a same-sex couple.
[...]
She argues her father’s positions with a cable-ready ferocity reminiscent of her mother, Lynne (a former regular on CNN’s “Crossfire”).
Mr. Obama is “an American president who seems to be afraid to defend America,” she told Larry King on his CNN program in an appearance that drew notice when Ms. Cheney appeared not to contest a suggestion that the president had not been born in the United States.
Clips of Ms. Cheney’s on-air smack-downs with liberal adversaries have become viral sensations among conservative bloggers — most recently, an interruption-fest with Sam Donaldson over the C.I.A.’s interrogation methods on ABC’s “This Week.”
When Mr. Donaldson said that everyone he knows thinks torture and waterboarding are wrong, Ms. Cheney shot back: “Waterboarding isn’t torture, and we can go down that path. The lack of seriousness here is important.”
What a crazy family. They're all on the same page, the page of grizzled, fearful, animalistic militarism. And that Mary Cheney mention, wow, there's another layer of self-loathing going on in that family.
Here's Adam Serwer of TAPPED on the Cheney family values:
Reality, it seems, is a nemesis not only for the former vice president but for the entire Cheney family. But because torture is now a "values" issue for the right, it is, like abstinence-only sex education, unmoored from the necessities of proving its usefulness in the real world, which is why someone like Liz Cheney is finding herself where she is. Unfortunately, the consequences of one of the two major parties in America embracing torture will affect us all in the long run.
How sad. Like a family of ruthless, nationalistic Attila the Huns.
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