The Uighurs: 3

by hilzoy

I'm trying to track down the truth behind the various claims that are being made about the Uighur detainees at Guantanamo. (Previous posts: 1, 2.) One that keeps coming up is this:

"At Guantanamo Bay, the Uighurs are known for picking up television sets on which women with bared arms appear and hurling them across the room."

Jonah Goldberg:

"While watching a televised soccer game, the camera showed women with exposed arms, and the Uighurs went ballistic, picking up the TV and smashing it." [UPDATE: I originally had the Gingrich quote twice. I have no idea how that happened. Sorry. END UPDATE]

As far as I can tell, the source for this story is this paragraph from the LA Times:

"But the TV privileges underscored potential difficulties to come, according to one current and one former U.S. official. Not long after being granted access to TV, some of the Uighurs were watching a soccer game. When a woman with bare arms was shown on the screen, one of the group grabbed the television and threw it to the ground, according to the officials."

I was thinking about this while I was waiting for Obama's Notre Dame speech to start: about the way the story had metamorphosed from one incident into Gingrich's "known for picking up television sets" (apparently not just once, but often enough to acquire a reputation), and Jonah Goldberg's "going ballistic". Suddenly the phone rang; I ran to get it, and realized: if some official with an axe to grind had been in my house, s/he could easily have told the LA Times that I fled the room as soon as the President got up to speak. It would have been true. But it would have been awfully misleading.

So I decided to find out what actually happened. I wrote to the Uighurs' lawyer, Sabin Willett. I have corresponded with him occasionally in the past, he has always been completely trustworthy, and I was hoping that he would be able to tell me the story behind this episode. But guess what? He has no idea what those officials are talking about. From his email (quoted with permission):

"I have seen this reference. I have no idea where it comes from.

from my own observation, our clients are neither violent nor badly disposed to women.   our translator is a woman, and some of the attorneys are women, and in our meetings the lawyers do not cover -- ie -- wear a headscarf.  The men are extremely courteous toward women, actually.

the idea that the clients are religious extremists is silly.  five of their companions have been living in Europe, peaceably, for three years now, in cultures that are primarily western."

If anyone reading this actually knows anything about this episode, please feel free to contact me. Until then, I'm left wondering how an allegation by unnamed officials in one article, concerning an episode that might never have happened, or that might be described very differently, ends up being cited by so many people as though it were gospel.

While I'm on this subject: Senator Webb should know better than to say this:

"The situation with the Chinese Uighurs that you're talking about, on the one hand, it can be argued that they were simply conducting dissident activities against the government of China. On the other, they accepted training from al Qaeda and as a result they have taken part in terrorism. I don't believe they should come to the United States."

This post has a description of the village the Uighurs stayed in, and the training they received. It involved learning to assemble and disassemble a rifle, and firing a few rounds from it. I did as much in summer camp, and I'm not all that dangerous. This post covers the organization they were either staying with or members of. It was not designated as a terrorist organization while they were there; it had no affiliation with al Qaeda; and when it was designated as a terrorist organization later, that designation was widely regarded as a concession the Bush administration made to China in return for China's acquiescence in the UN's Iraq war resolution.

The Uighurs did not "accept al Qaeda training", and Sen. Webb should not say that they did.

Comments

[John]

You've attributed Gingrich's remark to both Gingrich and Goldberg. What Goldberg said was

While watching a televised soccer game, the camera showed women with exposed arms, and the Uighurs went ballistic, picking up the TV and smashing it.

[John Thullen]

As a teenager, I went to a party at which a drunken teenager (parents not home) threw a television set out of the bedroom window to smash on the sidewalk below.

Visit any sports bar on any American Saturday, and witness the calumny directed at the screen when any kind of ball is misthrown, dropped, etc.

I have a friend who was once dissatisfied with the degree with which his bread was toasted, so he took the toaster by the chord into the backyard and swung it like a lasso, letting it go to smash against the fence.

A misguided young woman by the name of Janet Jackson once bared a booby during the half-time of a major sporting event, and a fusillade (fusillage)of universal remotes were thrown against TV screens across the little town of Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Outraged Christian men stormed from the dens of millions of homes and visited the bathroom to masturbate as they made angry phone calls to the FCC.

Terror.

[John Thullen]

.... against the smaller appliances.

[Nell]

I guess that's what that rough tough leatherneck Jim Webb is afraid of -- Uighurs wreaking havoc in the sports bars of Arlington, Virginia, with their "al Qaeda-trained" teevee-hurling skillz.

[hilzoy]

John: Eek! Thanks! I have no idea how that happened.

[Woody]

I think the USer military and the Politicos are all just hoping against hope that the end of Cuba where Gitmo is get hit by a Cat 7 hurricane/tidal-wave, and just washes all those poor bastards into the sea for the sharks to clean up...

They gotta be 'disposed of,' and I guess "we" have suspended the program of drugging 'em, loading 'em in choppers, flying out over deep water, and pushing 'em out... (the way we did with uncomfortable prisoners in Nam...)

[Kris]

Woody: Can you cite your claim about "uncomfortable prisoners in Nam", please? I knew that our government had done a lot of nasty things there, but this sounds more like what South American dictatorships were doing in the '70s.

[Point]

Here's the Uighur situation, as I see it:

US screwed up big time, imprisoning and torturing not just innocent people, but patently innocent people, and refusing to release them for years on end.

They can't go home (will be tortured and killed), but they could move to US. Thus, US has opportunity to make up for its crime in some small way, as a refuge for its victims. This small act could also go some way in repairing America's image.

So, naturally, since so small and safe an act can carry so much symbolic weight in America's favor, Newt Gingrich and the National Review are against it.

And somehow, that's now normal. Wow...

[KCinDC]

... if some official with an axe to grind had been in my house, s/he could easily have told the LA Times that I fled the room as soon as the President got up to speak

And then Gingrich could have said that some group you belong to -- say, liberal bloggers, or philosophy professors -- are "known for" fleeing the room when Obama comes on TV.

[hilzoy]

KCinDC: more apt than you might think. Stay tuned.

[B]

A post to be praised.