speaking Muslims from western China, currently held in the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba becomes more absurd and less humane by the day. The 17 were picked up in Afghanistan where US officials claimed they had gone for terrorist training at an Al-Qaeda camp, a charge that ultimately turned out to have little if any substance. The US military says the men have ties to a militant group that demands independence from China, which clearly is a moot point as far as their detention at Guantanamo goes, a point that has, indeed, been decided by the US judicial system. The bottom line is that they have been imprisoned without charge and for no discernible reason for years. Last October, a US judge ruled that since the men are not enemy combatants, they must be released to the United States. Now, an appeals court has said that releasing them to the US amounts to immigration, an activity that lies within the sphere of the executive branch's power, not that of the courts. The Uighurs would most likely prefer to go home but the US will not send them back to China because of the possibility that they will be tortured there. Meanwhile, Beijing has warned other countries not to take them, either. So the 17 sit at Guantanamo Bay, twiddling their thumbs. If no other country is willing to take these men, it is the consummate responsibility of the United States of America to allow them to resettle there if that is what they wish. They were whisked away from a neighboring Asian country and flown half way across the world in the Bush Administration's ill-thought-out war on terrorism. They are innocent victims of a government that has been far from innocent, far from judicious, far from fair and far from thoughtful in prosecuting a war right out of George Orwell's classic novel 1984. The ideal situation for them would be resettle in the US and sustained by the Bush family fortune for as long as they live. __
