The legal black hole otherwise known as Guantánamo Bay presents President Obama with many dilemmas, e.g., the prospect of indefinite preventive detention. But this--settlement of innocents in the U.S.--should not one of them.
Not only did we wrongfully detain 17 Uighurs, Chinese Muslims, for some seven years, but now we won't let them come to this country--even though it is not safe for them to return to their own country. To add hypocrisy to obnoxiousness, we are simultaneously trying to persuade other countries to accept them.
President Obama has caved on plans to allow Uighur detainees at Gitmo--scooped up in 2002 in Pakistan and Afghanistan, detained on Guantánamo Bay for seven years, and now cleared for release--to live in the U.S. Obama is echoing loud bipartisan Congressional opposition to admitting innocent detainees who have the taint of Guantánamo into the U.S.--even though we are the ones who tainted them.
Last year, a federal judge ordered the Uighurs (Chinese Muslims) released because they never counted America as an enemy. Four have been flown to Bermuda, a British territory, which has agreed to accept them as guest workers.
There has not been little, if any, talk of how to compensate people that we wrongfully imprisoned and mistreated at Gitmo. We still can't even figure out what to do with them, muchless how to make them whole.
Typically, the wrongfully incarcerated can sue for money damages. While I know that proposing paying reparations would really flip many Americans' lid, it shouldn't be controversial to at least grant detainees who have been cleared for release, but who cannot return to their home countries (even the Obama administration ruled out returning them to China because they would likely be tortured and executed), asylum in the U.S.
To add hypocrisy to obnoxiousness, we are trying to persuade our European allies to accept them. (Not surprisingly, Iraq took back one of its own and the administration is finalizing a deal with Saudi Arabia, a hotbed of terrorism, to accept nearly 100 Yemenis who are among the 232 detainees remaining at Guantanamo.)
Shame on President Obama. Shame on Congress. And shame on NIMBYs in this country.