Enemy combatants at Gitmo win in court

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/01/america/gitmo.php

The fairly conservative District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled against the Pentagon in the case of the first "enemy combatant", a Chinese national Huzaifa Parhat (ethnic Uighur Muslim) held at Gitmo for 6 years without charge or a shred of evidence against him. He is only guilty of attending a "terrorist training camp" in Central Asia run by the anti-Beijing East Turkistan Islamic Movement, which is supposedly "associated" with the Taleban/Qaeda, like Saddam I guess. We didn't even consider that group a terrorist organization until 2002, when we added them to the list at China's behest, in order to get some favors from them in the War on Terror. Considering how China has systematically mistreated Muslims and minorities in its border provinces, who is the real terrorist?

But even the White House concedes that Parhat attended the camp in order to fight the Chinese government, not the US. So when he was apprehended in Pakistan, why was he turned over to us and not China? He was never granted access to a lawyer or Chinese diplomats (not that they would want him back, but treaties say he should). He was never allowed to call a witness on his behalf or see the evidence against him. Though in his case, there was no evidence, but only unverifiable hearsay from Beijing (they told us he was a terrorist, so amidst post-9/11 hysteria, of course we took them at their word). It seems we've been conned into being China's jailor, and Gitmo has been nothing but a political tumor for us. We're also holding 16 other anti-Beijing Uighurs besides Parhat, all who claim to have no fight with America.

Now the problem is what to do next. China and other countries don't want Parhat. Many of the 200+ detainees at Gitmo share similar situations with equally shady "evidence" against them.

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Also, Seymour Hirsch on the covert ops sanctioned by the Bushies against Iran that look a lot like war preparation:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh

Maybe we can discuss next time?