After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made

by Ben Rhodes

Several Uighurs were held in the prison at Guantanamo Bay. None of them were found to pose a serious danger to the United States. Instead, they were among many people detained after 9/11 in Afghanistan largely for the crime of being there. After Obama took office, as he tried to close Gitmo, there was a plan to release a few Uighurs within the United States. It was necessary to show that we would do our part, as we were also urging many countries around the world to repatriate detainees who had been cleared for release, people who could not be convicted of any crime. It was also not safe for them to be sent home to China. The proposal was met with political and media hysteria. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman led this charge from the Senate, declaring jointly that the Uighurs “have radical religious views which make it difficult for them to assimilate into our population.” The uproar led to legislation prohibiting the transfer of any Guantanamo detainees to the United States, even to supermax American prisons from which no human being has ever escaped. This made it impossible for Obama to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Today, the Chinese government uses essentially the same argument as Graham and Lieberman to justify genocide against the Uighurs. They have radical religious views which make it difficult for them to assimilate into our population.